gimp/plug-ins/gflare

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GFlare plug-in ver 0.25

Eiichi Takamori

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GFlare is a plug-in for the GIMP. The name "GFlare" is short for
"Gradient Flare". It renders lense flare effect using custom
gradients. The basic idea is suggested by Marcelo Malheiros,
originally based on a 3DStudio MAX plug-in called LenZFX:
http://www.digimation.com/techsupp/lzfxfeat.htm

INSTALL:

1) Edit Makefile, if needed.

2) Type "make install".

3) Type "make install-data" if needed. (It copies sample gradients and
gflares under ~/.gimp)

3) Add new entry to ~/.gimp/gimprc as
(gflare-path "${gimp_dir}/gflares:${gimp_data_dir}/gflares")

3) Run the GIMP. The menu path is /Filters/Effects/GFlare.


HOW TO USE IT:

The document is not yet done. Try and see.

Main Dialog:
- Preview
click on it changes the position of GFlare
- Settings page
- Center, Radius (pixel), Rotation (degree), Hue Rotation (degree)
- Vector Angle (degree) and Vector Length (percentage to Radius)
- adaptive supersampling ... same as "Blend tool"
- Selector page
- ListBox
- New, Edit, Copy, Delete buttons. Edit button invokes GFlare Editor.

GFlare Editor:
- General page:
- Glow page:
- Rays page:
- Second Flares page:

WARNING: This plug-in is in development stage, and the code is very
alpha. The GFlare datafile format may be changed in future version.

Suggestions and ideas for user interface, flare algorithm, etc. are
very welcome.


KNOWN BUGS:

There are still lots of bugs, of course. ;-)
They seem related to GTK, and I don't know exactly how I can fix them.

* It warns at startup as:
** WARNING **: file gdkwindow.c: line 422 (gdk_window_move_resize): "window != NULL"
If you are annoyed, accompanying "gtkviewport.c.patch" will shut up
the warning.
* Edit button remains prelighted when GFlare Editor dialog is done.
* Dialogs are not shown quickly at startup.
* Sometimes note tab labels are disappeared.
* Sometimes it crashes, but I don't know yet why it happens.

TODO:
* Random hue scattering for Second Flares.
* Improve internal gradients.
* Currently number of Second Flares is fixed(30).
* Change opacity for one second flare dynamically, in inverse
proportion to the size of it.
* Reduce dialog size
* Add tweak ability "How to combine Glow, Rays, Second Flares in
what order"


CREDITS:

Marcelo Marheiros and Federico Mena Quintero suggested a lot of
ideas. Very Thanks!!

Marcelo made gradients whose names end with _1, _2, etc. The
gradients whose names end with _101, _102 etc. are mine.

Quartic did awful Gradient Editor, and gradients PDB procedures.

A fair proportion of this code was taken from:

The GIMP -- an image manipulation program
Copyright (C) 1995 Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis

Gradient editor module copyight (C) 1996-1997 Federico Mena Quintero
federico@nuclecu.unam.mx