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 Painter's Kaleidoscope
Dynamic Layers provide a simple means to create unique web backgrounds.
Every kaleidoscope created is a seamless tile (a square that connects with
itself). A lot of experimentation can be tried and results are often
different than what was expected. For instance the background for this
page is based on the tile at right (a kaleidoscope from hair in a photo).
The center of attention in the tile is the cross in the center. When
tiled, the triangles at the corners wound up creating squares that
dominate the background. The halo circling the cross is almost lost in the
noise of the final tiled image. |
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 Any
image can have a tile pulled from it. Most of the sample pages at the
bottom of this tutorial were based on the drawing at right (click to
enlarge). The image was made from Kai's Power Tools 5 Fraxplorer.
Generally, images with a lot of contrasts make the most interesting
kaleidoscopes, but not necessarily the best web backgrounds. Too many
contrasts in a web background make it hard to find a text color that can
be read in front of the background. |
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| To create a kaleidoscope seamless tile, go to the Dynamic Layers section of the Objects Palette (which can be brought up from the Windows menu if not already visible). Click on either the drawer triangle or the white descriptive bar underneath to bring up the Kaleidoscope plug-in. Click Apply to start it. |
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| This will bring up the following dialog box and a size for the kaleidoscope can be chosen. This will be the size of the seamless tile and it's a matter of choice how big to make the tile. This will determine how often the tile features repeat. An increased size will also take longer to download, so 100x100 to 200x200 pixels is about all that should be used for a web background. |  |
If the default size is
chosen, a 100x100 pixel square will appear in the drawing. It can either
be moved around with the arrow keys (which dynamically changes the
kaleidoscope to what's underneath it) or can be moved with the Adjuster
Tool  ,
which will not show any differences to the kaleidoscope until it is
released. It's best to use both tools. Gross moves can be made with the
Adjuster Tool and then it's worth moving the kaleidoscope around with the
arrow keys to find the best image. |
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| To capture the kaleidoscope image as a pattern, go to the Art Materials Palette, the Pattern section and click on the Pattern section menu (the triangle at the far right of the section). Click on Capture Pattern. |  |
  Capturing
the kaleidoscope will bring up the Commit dialog. This turns the
kaleidoscope plug-in to a standard layer. The Kaleidoscope layer icon will
change from a plug to a standard layer icon. |
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 The
Capture Pattern dialog will come up and the pattern can be named. For the
first time, the pattern can be seen as a whole. It can be named and, after
OK is clicked, will be in the pattern section for use in drawings. To save
it as a tile for use in a web creation program, go to the section menu and
click Define Pattern. This will create a new file that can be saved in the
GIF format for a web background. The above tile, as a background, can be
seen here: BG5.
Below are some of the other backgrounds created from the original Fraxplorer image. |
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 BG1 |
 BG2 |
 BG3 |
 BG4 |
 BG6 |
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The following backgrounds were created from the below illustration. It was painted with a variety of Impasto brushes. A text layer was placed on top and dropped. Surface texture was added to create a little more drama. Text creates some very hard lines for strongly contrasting tiles. |
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 |BG8 |
 BG9 |
 BG10 |
 BG11 |
