| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ CREATION GRAPHIQUE ★ AMXART ★ |
| AMXART (Tilt) | AMX Mouse and AMX Art from AMS (Amstrad Computer User) |
The AMX Mouse is easily connected to your computer via the joystick port, drawing its power from the monitor, and can be left in place while the machine is used for other purposes. You'll need a flat surface on which to operate the mouse - if your desk doesn't run to sufficient space (and mine doesn't!) a small board on your knee will do. Once AMX Control is loaded you are asked if you wish to load AMX Art, and pressing Y automatically puts you in drawing mode.
Layout of the art screen is quite complex - four pull-down menus are listed on a bar across the top of the screen and a scrollable window on the right shows icons to determine modes and spray sizes. A similar window on the left displays at any one time seven of the 32 black and white patterns available, with the current pattern in a box at the foot. These windows are not removable, so the drawing area is considerably smaller than the total screen size. The background colour is always white, and the pattern file can be used only in black ink, but a Pattern Designer is provided to allow the user to design and use new patterns. Operating the mouse is simplicity itself - just three buttons, Execute, Move and Cancel - and once you've sussed out the fact that the illustration in the manual is of AMX "through the looking glass", you're on your way. Apart from one other small error in the circle-drawing instructions, the manual is clearly written and easily understood. It takes you through explanations of each of the functions on the file, options, text and lines pull-down menus, and the purposes of the mode icons. The cursor changes form according to the icon selected and may appear as a pencil, a spray gun, a block, a paint roller or a cross hair, which serves as a reminder of your current mode. Freehand drawing, single pixel plot and rubber-banded line drawing are handled in Pencil mode. Any of the 32 patterns may be sprayed with the spray gun, in 12 sizes (spots, blocks, mist and so on). The small-dot size can be used for freehand sketching. Rubber enables erasure in any of the spray sizes. The paint roller may be used to roll-on a pattern, as in painting. With the Fill option any of the patterns can be used to fill an area almost instantaneously, and pressing the Cancel button will remove it just as quickly. Boxes, solid boxes and circles of variable size can be drawn and text can be added in a variety of styles and sizes. Using a rubber-banded box, any area of the screen can be picked out and copied to a new position. Gridlock gives the user the option to move the cursor in 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 pixel steps. Operating only in screen Mode 1, a further two colours from a palette of 27 may be added to the drawing. Lines and boxes may be drawn in either Pen 2 or Pen 3, inverted, or in white. In Fill mode you may select a Paint option whereby the pattern window will change to show a selection of hatches, some using all four colours, which may be chosen to fill an area of the screen in the same way as the patterns, but there is no option to redesign them. If criticism was to be made of the artistic potential of this program, it would be that it is primarily designed to execute drawings in black on a white background, and to have colour added as an optional extra, rather than as a multicolour painting tool. However, to a great extent this is counteracted by the excellent Zoom which magnifies the area within a box to eight times its size while still allowing you to see the magnified area on the original drawing. Any of the pixels within the box may be altered to another colour, and the box itself can be scrolled across the screen. If you have used another art program you may find that you have to adopt a different approach to creating a picture, but, once you have mastered the use of this very nice feature, you are limited only by the fact that two of the colours on your palette must be black and white. The program is not, however, without its minor irritations. Once Save is selected you must go ahead as there is no way of cancelling this option, and I managed to lock up several hours work by accidentally trying to save to a write-protected disc. Pictures may be dumped to an Epson printer, and I believe they may be used in your own programs. Of course they will not fill the whole screen but will appear with a white border. Conclusion Not the perfect utility, since it would have been nice to have the whole screen area available for drawing. Anyone looking for ellipses, triangles, filled circles, polygons, and any other special features could be disappointed, but - excepting those little hassles I have mentioned - a very nice, sophisticated drawing package which is easy to use and well presented. You get an Icon Designer program too, and the manual contains much information on other uses for the Mouse. ACU |
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