TCS - Review of Wright Texture

Review of Wright Texture

by Paula Sanders
Tulsa Computer Society
From the December 1996 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

Wright Technologies is an Australian company with their North American distribution office in Canada. They can be reached at: 1-888-261-2261, ext. 214. Their web address is: www.wright.com.au. The North American web site is: www.wrightna.com. I have found their North American distribution office easy to access and knowledgeable. Texture sells for a list price of $77.00 and is part of their line of prepress and image editing packages.

Texture is as its name implies a texture creation or generator package. It was written for win 95 or NT. The system requitements are minimal. The company recommends a system with a math coprocessor, a 24-bit true video card, a 486 PC, and 8 megs of ram. I, personally, do not recommend having only 8 megs of ram if running win 95 or NT. These are recommended requirements. Its mandatory requirements are: win 95, NT 3.51, or NT 4.0 (runs on Alpha PCs running windows NT), a 386 PC with 8 megs of ram, and an 8 to 16 bit video card.

Textures can add life and interest to a graphic whether this graphic is generated for the web, as a skin to wrap around a 3D object, or as background for another image.

In Wright Texture one can use a preset texture and manipulate it, or one can create a texture from scratch. There are 89 presets on the same CD that loads the program. These are further illustrated by a colored card entitled "Texture Set-Ups". Image files can be created in the background for speed and efficiency. Files can be saved in the following formats: TIFF, EPS, Wright Design Native, and Windows Bitmap.

Wright Texture comes with an easy to follow and extremely good manual. This programs, also, comes with a built in tutorial.

The preview window is large enough to see repeats. Some of the variable settings are: Scaling, fading, vertical and horizontal modulation, embossing,and granularity.

The program has excellent built in controls to give the user a variety of options both as to content and method of working. For example, one can check the preview "auto" box and each time a change is made it will register. If this box is not checked, then the changes will only occur when redraw is selected. The program, also, allows for magnification and panning within the preview box.

The following illustrations of textures have of necessity been created using a grey scale. Thus, I chose a simple preset called "Ticks" and modified it for different effects. In illustration #1, I used the preset Ticks without making any changes. In illustration #2, I changed the type setting to Diamonds. I, then, took illustration #2 and added embossed with a value of 9 to create illustration #3. To create texture illustration #4, I changed the fade option, granularity, and modulation options.

While presets can be modified in an unlimited fashion, one can create a texture from scratch. To do this, the user can choose the type of texture to generate. There are 17 listed in the "types" window from clouds to diamonds. I chose for illustration #5 horizontal waves with a repeat of 10 and various settings without emboss. Illustration #6 shows an emboss of 4 while illustration #7 shows an emboss of 9. These are merely used to illustrate a very few of the possible effects.

I highly recommend this program. I feel that it can be used by people having many levels of knowledge. This is especially true because of the excellent manual.



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