This is an introduction to the basic features of the Photo Clip Art user interface.
1. Loading a Scene
Before you can create an image, you must first load a background image (a.k.a. "scene") onto which to insert objects. The easiest and fastest way to load a scene is to choose a scene from the server's database. Select "File" and then "Load Scene from Database" in the menu bar. This brings up a window that contains a list of the server's scenes. To choose a scene, select a scene name and click the "Ok" button at the bottom of the window. Now you should see a scene image in your screen.
If you want to load another scene, you can, but the applet allows at most one scene to exist at any one time. So loading a second scene will make the first scene disappear. However, you can still go back to a previously loaded scene if you wish--see Loading Previous Scenes.
You can also load your own image as a scene; see Uploading Your Own Scene.
2. Choosing a Horizon Line
Now that you have loaded a scene, you need to tell the applet where the scene's horizon line is. You should see a horizontal line following your mouse cursor when your mouse cursor is over the scene--this is your horizon line selection cursor. Clicking anywhere on the scene image will fix the horizon line at the location of the mouse.
For some background images, the location of the horizon may not be obvious. Here are some tips for choosing a good horizon line:
- Look where parallel lines seem to intersect.
- When there are no lines, the eye level of existing persons is typically good.
If you want to change the location of the horizon line, select "Edit" and "Horizon" from the menu bar. The horizon selection cursor will appear again so that you can set a new horizon line location.
3. Choosing an Object
The menus in the applet allow you to choose an object from the object database. You can do this any time, even when before you load a scene image. I placed this section of the tutorial here because you can't do anything with selected objects until you have a scene image with a specified horizon location (see steps 1 and 2).
First, click on one of the category icon images in the applet. Each category icon brings up a different group of objects to select. For example, the icon that looks like a person will display images of people as object icons. More icons should appear when you select a category: directly below the category icons are subcategory icons, and the bottommost icons are objects to select. Now you can click on an object icon to select an object. Note: you can only select one object at a time.
To select a different object, simply click on a different object icon. Selecting a different category works the same way, but with category icons.
Subcategories
You can narrow your search for a specific kind of object by clicking on an object subcategory icon. First select a top-level category, such as "person", then select one of the icons in the second row. This will bring up a list of object icons that all look vaguely like the sub-category icon.
Pages of objects
Some categories are so large that they are divided into pages. If there is more than one page, then you can use the page buttons above the object icons to see other pages of objects. Between the page buttons, you can see the current page number and the total number of pages. The outer page buttons jump to the first/last page, and the inner page buttons go forward/backward one page.
Object-Sorting Checkboxes
The checkboxes located above the page buttons are for retrieving object icons in a different order so that the "best" objects show up first. The section on sorting objects explains how these checkboxes work.
4. Pasting an Object
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So you selected an object, and now you want to insert that object into your scene image. All you need to do is move your mouse over the scene image and click somewhere below the horizon. The question is where in the scene should you paste the object?
Watch the Mouse Cursor's Shape
As you move your mouse over the scene image, the cursor gives you some useful information that may at first seem cryptic. If the cursor is above the horizon line, all you get is the horizon in red--you can't paste an object above the horizon. When your cursor is below the horizon line, the shape of your selected object appears and follows your mouse. Normally, the cursor is a blue outline of your selected object. However, if your cursor becomes a filled-in red shape, then you can still paste the object, but the results will probably be very blurry.
Watch the Mouse Cursor's Size
Once you have decided where to paste the object, simply click and wait until the object appears. It usually takes a few seconds. To find out what you can do with pasted objects, see Undo and Redo and Rendering with Depth.
5. Saving a Scene
After pasting some objects into your scene, you might want to save a personal copy of the modified scene image. Select "File" and then "Save Scene as Image" from the menu bar. This will bring up a "Save as" dialogue box, where you can select the destination and filename for the scene.
Note: this only works if you choose to trust the applet's certificate.