wizard

Hmmm, I dove into the way the Render method works, and finally grasped the idea Took a while... Although it's excellently thought out for effects that alter the existing image, or those effects that draw a new image based on some translation of X and Y coordinates, it seems that the current method can't be used (efficiently) for the stuff I'm trying with my Orb Generator. My calculations are not based on X or Y coordinates, just on the size of the surface or users selection. Anyway, I did find a way to fix this, although I'm not sure if this is how it should be done. I've created a static Bitmap variable, so I only draw the bitmap once onto that. After that, during each Render call, it only copies the correct part to the target surface. That works like a charm. Now I only have to find out how to determine the size of the complete user selection (since it still uses the size of the TargetSurface, and not the bounding rectangle of the users selection). Is that possible? (I found some requests on this topic, but couldn't find a good answer).

Thanks BoltBait, I'll look into that deeper when I have some spare time Here's a general question to other plugin developers: My OrbGenerator works like this now: I create a completely new bitmap, with the same size as the source Surface, derive Graphics from it, paint on it to create the orb, and then copy each pixel from my own Bitmap to the target Surface within the "for" loops shown in all the examples (and the Effect Template). This is not really quick (as someone mentioned). I would like to be able to draw directly on the target surface. Is that possible? Does that have any side effects, like totally ignoring any existing selections?

Strange...I tried the download myself yesterday night, and that worked fine. But, good to see that you all found a workaround. Yeah, it's not great yet, but it's my first attempt on paint.net plugins and generating orbs. Does anyone have an example of doing a blur? Is that easy to apply for just the highlight? I'll try to see if I can make some like CJ's tutorial. I like those even more, but there a bit more work.

Hi all. I'm quite new to the Paint.NET plugins business, but do development for a living. The first plugin I've tried to make is a generator for the glass orbs you see a lot nowadays, like this one: You can find a tutorial about how to make them by hand here. Well, I won't keep you waiting, here's the download...Enjoy...