Grid Making

Dec. 20, 1999 update:
The easiest way by far to create grids is through a spark developed by Method Studios. It is free and can be found at: http://www.methodstudios.com. We highly recommend this because it makes things so easy — you can define line widths, make checkerboards, and more.

Dec. 21, 1999 update:
Andreas Hylander adds: If you have access to Sapphire-sparks, just enter S_Wipe with a BLACK and a WHITE frame. Select WIPE-checker with a percentage of about 0.9, angle zero degrees and a frequency of about 10 (depending of what you want).

 

 

Making a Grid Using Paint and the unix screen capture Snapshot Utility

 

First, hit Alt-F3 to bring all your shells into view (as shown to the right). In a shell, type snapshot.

 

A small snapshot window will appear floating above the other windows. Once this is done, put the shell windows (not the floating snapshot window) into the background by hitting Alt-F3 as you put your cursor over each shell.

 

 

 

Process a frame of black and take it into Paint. Once in Paint, go to [Setup] and Grid [Enabled]. You now can adjust the color and spacing of your grid interactively.

 

 

When you have the grid you like, take a snapshot of it.
The most basic operation of the program is as follows

  • The screen capture will be saved in the directory from which you launched snapshot
  • Right Mouse Button: Clicking the snapshot icon with the right mouse button will pop up a menu that allows you to enter the name of your file. Position the cursor over the box, enter a new name, and press return. If you choose not to enter a name, it will default to snap.rgb.
  • Left Mouse Button: Used to draw and modify the snapshot window.

Since you want to create an sgi file that is the size of your framestore (it is difficult to do this exactly), the best procedure to follow is:

  • Position the cursor over the snapshot button, press and hold down the left mouse button. Drag the lower right corner to the lower right corner of the flame image window. A red rectangle will be drawn, which will be the screen capture region. Release the button.
  • Move the cursor to the upper left corner of the red square. You’ll notice that the cursor changes to a right angle icon. Press the left mouse button and drag the upper left corner to align with the upper left corner of the image window. If you make a mistake, you can always start over by clicking over the snapshot icon.
  • Move the cursor to the snapshot icon. Press the right mouse button to make the screen grab and save the image (select. “save”).
  • Import the sgi image into flame.

Alternative method using bicubics and wireframe mode.
DOES NOT WORK WITH 3.0/6.0 RELEASES AND HIGHER

 

Start with a frame of white in a bicubic,
switch to wireframe mode,
play with resolution setting to change grid size.

When you have the desired grid, render it.

 

 

As noted above this tip does not work as of Inferno 3.0 / Flame 6.0.

 

 

Submitter: flame-news, Nicholas Gervay