[IAEP] Reflections on Cartoon Builder - Was Re: Any ideas how to make an image with a transparent background inSugar?

[Caroline Meeks]

TaDa! http://screencast.com/t/PUoBSbJn09M0

I have a small caterpillar!  Thank you so much Alan and Bert!  I really
enjoyed getting my feet wet in eToys.

So I started this journey because it looked like Cartoon Builder might be a
nice easy start to the world of creating stories.  Clearly eToys and Scratch
are more powerful but I had hoped Cartoon Builder would be less
overwhelming.

I've put a ticket in to not resize the characters unless they are too small
in Cartoon Builder, that might help a bit. I don't know if anyone is
maintaining Cartoon Builder but maybe it'll be an easy thing for someone
just getting started to do.

Overall, I haven't decided about Cartoon Builder yet.  Just using what it
has in it for images is not very interesting. I think the difficulty in
creating characters really raises the floor to using it creatively.

I also have thoughts on Paint and Browse but I think I'll write them in
different emails so that people who just skim the lists will know if they
are interested.

These are wonderful tutorials and point out the need for a wiki that links
to the activity pages of all the activities where people can put these sorts
of things.  eToys may be a special case, as its such a rich world and there
is already so much written.

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>wrote:

> It appears as if MaMaMedia Cartoon Builder always scales an image to fill
> the stage. I don't know if it is possible to tell it otherwise, or to resize
> it after importing. Presumably this is done to simplify. In case you don't
> want to switch to Etoys completely for your animation needs ;-) here is a
> workaround:
>
> You need to supply "padding" around the character, that is, some empty
> space. When Cartoon Builder then scales this up, the actual character will
> appear smaller.
>
> When you draw something in Etoys, it is cropped to the actual drawing
> extent:
>
>
> To add padding, you need to embed the drawing into a larger, transparent
> object. The simplest for this is a "Playfield" you can find in the
> "Supplies" flap:
>
>
> Get this and resize to a square of the size you need using its yellow halo
> handle. Drop the Sketch into it.
>
>
> Then make the Playfield transparent, both the fill and the border, using
> its halo menu (click white halo handle):
>
>
> (alternatively, shift-click the pink color halo handle to change fill and
> border at the same time). Finally, copy the (now invisible) Playfield with
> the embedded Sketch:
>
>
> Note that Etoys by default uses a virtual display matching the XO screen
> size that is scaled to Sugar's actual screen size. So depending on your
> physical screen size, objects copied from Etoys and pasted elsewhere may
> appear larger or smaller. This can of course be turned off [*] but normally
> it's sufficient if you just draw everything a bit smaller or larger than
> intended.
>
> Have fun!
>
> - Bert -
> [*] if your Etoys version shows the full-screen button , hold down on it.
> Otherwise, choose "display mode ..." from the world's halo menu. Either way,
> you get the "display mode" menu. Choose "no scaling":
>
>
> On 03.10.2009, at 04:19, Caroline Meeks wrote:
>
> Thanks Alan and Bert!
> I have made progress. My next problem is that my caterpillar is too big!
> Even when I resize cartoon builder still wants to make it full sized.
>
> http://screencast.com/t/MH1XZmd27s
>
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 3:26 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de>wrote:
>
>> About how to get the drawing out of Etoys:
>>
>> Drag-and-drop it into the Sugar Frame's clipboard, or just press Ctrl-C
>> when its halo is showing.
>>
>> Then either insert into the activity you want directly by drag-and-drop or
>> Ctrl-V (if the activity supports that), or store the clipping in the Journal
>> via its Frame clipboard icon menu.
>>
>> - Bert -
>> On 02.10.2009, at 04:30, Alan Kay wrote:
>>
>>  Hi Caroline
>>
>> I think what you want to do is to take that picture of the caterpillar and
>> erase all but the caterpillar?
>>
>> To do that you want to "repaint" the picture (it is already an image).
>>
>> First get the "halos" (which every object in Etoys will show) by right
>> clicking on the picture.
>>
>>                  There is balloon help on most things in Etoys, and each
>> halo handle will say what it does.
>>
>>                        For example, to duplicate your picture, drag on the
>> green button in the upper right corner. A duplicate copy will drag off.
>>
>>                        To put something in the trash, click on the "move
>> to trash" handle in the upper left corner.
>>
>> --> To repaint, click on the "repaint" handle on the right side, mid
>> height.
>>
>>                   There is help about most things in Etoys under the "?"
>> on the Sugar menu bar.
>>
>> For doing your task, I like to choose "no color" in the paint palette
>> (it's the bar over the color rainbow). Then I will choose various sizes of
>> the circular brushes to do the work of removing the background. The "Undo"
>> in the paint box will undo one whole stroke.
>>
>> When done, click on "Keep" in the paint box. If you want to start over,
>> click on "Toss".
>>
>> You now have a picture of the caterpillar with transparent fill around it.
>>
>>
>> The PNG format (a standard open source format) will allow the picture to
>> be filed with the transparent fill preserved.
>>
>> I'm presuming that the reverse of the process you used to get the image
>> into Etoys will get it back to where you want to use it.
>>
>> For a nice way to animate a wriggling caterpillar, you can also look at
>> the example in Sdenka Salas' recent book of the XO in Peru.
>>
>> Don't hesitate to ask more questions.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Alan
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Caroline Meeks <caroline at solutiongrove.com>
>> *To:* Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
>> *Cc:* iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, October 1, 2009 6:41:26 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [IAEP] Any ideas how to make an image with a transparent
>> background inSugar?
>>
>> Thanks Alan,
>> Where should I look to figure out Etoys paint. I'm stuck and there is no
>> kid here to teach me!
>>
>> http://screencast.com/t/4lvde8qWV2pD
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 9:32 PM, Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  Paint it in Etoys, save as a .PNG picture
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Alan
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> *From:* Caroline Meeks <caroline at solutiongrove.com>
>>> *To:* iaep <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
>>> *Sent:* Thursday, October 1, 2009 6:28:22 PM
>>> *Subject:* [IAEP] Any ideas how to make an image with a transparent
>>> background inSugar?
>>>
>>> http://screencast.com/t/K0lH5L7tsBU
>>> I am trying to make a new character for cartoon builder. The video
>>> explains my goals.
>>> Basically I want to take a picture and cut out just the caterpillar and
>>> have it be cropped/transparent background.
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> Caroline
>>>
>>> --
>>> Caroline Meeks
>>> Solution Grove
>>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>>
>>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Caroline Meeks
>> Solution Grove
>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>
>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0001.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 13618 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0007.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 18240 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0008.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 3186 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0009.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 9441 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0010.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 3979 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0011.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 4529 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0012.png 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 7762 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/attachments/20091004/2ccddc1b/attachment-0013.png