8/18/2003 DRAWING COMICS BY PROGRAMMING COMIX.PS PROGRAM FEATURES book 1 Introduction COMIX.PS is a computer program that draws comic book and comic strip art, from scripts written by users in the PostScript computer graphics language. About this BOOK: This book is a catalog of current COMIX.PS program parts, showing examples of features that may be useful in making comics. This book itself was made by a script written for COMIX.PS. CONTENTS: 3. Document + Page 4. Panels 8. Text 9. Balloons 11. Scenes 13. Figures 14. Faces 15. Objects 16. Shapes This book was created as a demonstration of program features. It does not explain how to use the program or write scripts for the program. Nor is the current version of COMIX.PS being offered herein for sale. Program ORIGIN: About the PROGRAM: Early versions of the program combined random sentences with random figures and scenes, to make nonsense comic strips. COMIX.PS is written in the PostScript language, and is divided into artist and script parts. INPUT: Using any text editor, the user writes a script, as a certain form of PostScript plain text file. When I decided to write some stories myself, and have them drawn by computer, I developed this program into a tool for drawing comics from scripts. OUTPUT: from the script, COMIX.PS then draws pages onscreen in a PostScript screen interpreter (useful for debugging the script), or on paper in a PostScript printer. COMIX.PS Program Features book (c) 2003 John Pound. PO Box 6174, Eureka, CA 95502 email: jpound@poundart.com 2 Document & Page ORIENTATION on paper may be or landscape May specify any PAPER SIZE, trimmed PAGE SIZE, ART SIZE. portrait May output any specified pages in sequential PAGE ORDER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 or in any PAGE ORDER. One document may have up to about 400 pages. 16 1 15 2 14 3 13 4 May show reduced THUMBNAILS of specified pages in any size divisions: 1 = full page size 2 = 1/2 size 2 1 2 3 = 1/3 size 3 2 2 3 4 = 1/4 size 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 May specify halftone SCREEN SIZE (dots per inch) if display device permits 60 45 30 20 15 10 8 PAGE BORDER PARTS: BLEED area beyond trimmed page may extend any distance optional PAGE NUMBERS 3 optional CROP MARKS 6 Panel Groups A panel may be divided into a GRID of subpanels, any units wide and high. A panel may be divided into 2 ROWS of subpanels. specify height of 1st panel specify height of 1st panel and 2nd panel uses remainder and 2nd panel uses remainder A panel may be divided into 2 COLUMNS of subpanels. specify width of 1st panel and 2nd panel uses remainder specify width of 1st panel and 2nd panel uses remainder GUTTER SPACE between panels may be any size. (Examples in inches) 0 0 .06 .06 .125 .125 .25 .25 .5 .5 0 0 .06 .06 .125 .125 .25 .25 .5 .5 4 PANEL TYPES This is a TEXT panel. This is a BIGTEXT panel and a TITLE panel! This is a TALK panel! and a SOUND FX panel... X F D N OU S This is a CUSTOM panel -- it uses a custom PostScript procedure. (Here it draws random lines). This empty space is a NOPANEL. This is another TEXT panel. After this TEXT PANEL is an invisible ENDPAGE panel -- it’s the last panel on a page! This is a FULL PAGE BLEED panel -- it too uses a custom PostScript procedure. (Here it draws some gray circles off the edges of the page.) 5 Panel Parts Panel ORIGIN not offset Panel ORIGIN offset up Panel ORIGIN offset up + over Panel inherits SIZE from page & panel grid Panel SIZE specified (= 55, 85) Panel SIZE specified (= 120, 90) Panels may be tilted any ANGLE 360 30 30 15 22 0 12 0 90 0 60 0 180 Panel ART may ROTATE at right angles, (to align with panel borders) 90 270 (or -90) 0 180 Panel background may be any color, or none not opaque, = clear opaque, color = 1 color = .75 color = 0 r sub Panels can have any number of subpanels overlapping color = .6 he anot Panels can have a caption at the top color = .88 el -pan an wit othe r h a sub-panel with spe offs subcif et ied & pane offset & specified el l siz -pan b size high u eh s igahnother 6 Panel Borders 5 built-in shapes box roundbox tvbox ellipse scallops custom panel borders may be any shape, using PostScript code. Border line is optional, and clipping art to borders is optional. no border no clip no border, and no clip Panel border may be any width... .2 .5 1 2 4 6 8 or any color... or any line pattern. .5 dotted .75 .88 7 dotted dotted Text CAPTION TEXT is in a box at the top of panel, like this. BALLOON TEXT is centered in balloon. And regular TEXT is like this. Both are flush left. You can go from plain text to bold text, and back again. You can change text size, or change font or color. text margins The regular text margin is like this. About the size of an average character. One-humongous-word-l can exceed the right margin. A smaller text margin is like this, a little closer to the border. No text margin (= 0) is like this. Touches the border. A bigger text margin is like this. BIGTEXT BIGTEXT BIGTEXT BOLD PLAIN BIGTEXT with lots of lines of text is not so big anymore TITLES with space without space 8 Balloons POSITION, relative to panel width center (= .5) left (= 0) right (= 1) begin 3 lines lower WIDTH, relative to panel width full panel width text in balloon (= 1) half panel width text in balloon (= .5) a thin width balloon (= 0) MARGINS, relative to TYPESIZE regular (.67) small (.3) none (0) BIG (2.2) panel clipping panel not clipped; (= .85) PanelIsClipped,OneLon panel not clipped; (= .15) 9 PanelNotClipped,OneLongWord Balloon Tails angle 0 -30 -60 -90 -120 tail size, numbers relative to typesize regular tail (1) bigger tail (3) smaller tail (.33) typesize = 22 length, relative to tailsize regular longer (6) smaller (.33) tip-offset, relative to tailsize (= curve) regular = 0 offset = 1 offset = -3 10 offset = 4, length = 4 Scenes -- Backgrounds Sky (also: custom (eg. bullseye, astrosky)) none white xltgray ltgray black topgradat fullgradati Horizon (also: custom; & can vary horizon heights) none line box boxshade Background (also: custom, (eg. BgdBallyFaces)) none road tree fence wall room arches city trees stuff 11 Scenes -- Foregrounds, Figures view xlongdistance longdistance fullfigure closeup view = 2 figurescene wide panel narrow FIGURES (also: Bally2 with poses) Bally Sticko Bunny Spook NoFigure Bally Poses: read draw 12 drive Figure Poses, Sizing FIGURE POSES (Bally2): specific angles, sizes, instead of random Bally2 default pose bodyangle: 180 left leg angle: 90 left arm angle: 90 neck angle: 90 head angle: 90 head size: .666 x figsize head size: .15 x figsize body size: .666 x figsize legs: .666 x figsize eyes: .666 x headsize big head! 13 Faces FEELINGS: (also: half-sleepy (not built-in yet) ) glad mad sad fear numb cry sleep none FACE PARTS: (shapes, eyes, mouths, sweat) head shapes eye shapes, poses mouth shapes 14 Objects BUILT-IN OBJECTS: shadow, KirbyRays, soundfxword, wordbox, sweatbeads, BullsEye, car (with Bally), skateboard, desk, pencil, television, computer, tree, branch-tree, grid- boxes, grid- things, RandHill soundfx Word Box 15 Shapes BUILT-IN SHAPES 12 closed shapes, drawn from bottom center or bottom left: rbox00, cbox, DreamPanelBorder, tube, htube, tear, tear2, tear3, roundbox, tvbox, heart, zap 6 open shapes, drawn from bottom: rcurve0, Scallops, sidecurve, upcurve, supertit, arrow 10 radial shapes, drawn from center: circle, Ellipse, EllipseArc, Ring, Burst, bowtie, star, nburst, ncloud, KirbyRays2 (Also have Balloon shape.) 16