		- Glow Filter v0.99 Beta -

What is it?

	The Glow filter is a filter designed to work with trueSpace 2.0
        that adds a "glow" effect to pixels which fall within certain
        threshold parameters.  It is a 16 bit filter that has been tested
        with trueSpace 2.0 only, but might work with any paint program
        that supports 16bit Photoshop 2.5+ filters.

How much does it cost?
	
	Free for now, but you are always willing to donate to my
        continuing effort of improvement.  I only ask that if you are
        able to create something really cool by using it, you let me know
        what you did and how you did it.

How do you use it?

	I have not had much time to truely test just what this filter can
        do.  Conceptually what it does, is it takes pixels that are within
        a certain range of RGB values and distributes their intensities to
        surrounding pixels.

        To install it, copy "glow.8bf" to your "plugins" directory under
        trueSpace and make sure that the plug-in path is set to that
        directory.  (Right click on the plug-ins icon).

	To get to the options dialog for the plugin, left click on the
        plug-ins icon and use the drop down box to select the "Glow" filter.  If you have the materials preview window open, the options dialog will appear at this time, if you do not have the materials preview window open, the options dialog will appear the first time you render the sceene.

	I recommend using the materials preview screen when tweaking the
        options, just to see if the effect is going to work on the
        colors/options you have selected.  It will not show exacally what
        the effect will look like, but will give you an indication that it
        is working.

	One way I have found to use this filter is to pick a very bright
        source, or object in your rendering and select upper and lower
        thresholds that are close to the values of that very bright source.
        This will apply the filter to only pixel values that fall within
        that threshold.

	A good way to create a bright source is to paint it with a color
        that if set up for "flat shading".  This creates a flat 2D, but
        solid color object.

What are the options for this filter?

	Threshold (Upper):  This controls the RGB value where the filter
        will cutoff any intensity distribution.

	Threshold (Lower):  This controls the selection of pixels from the
        image.

	Scale:  This controls the scale of the effect.  Larger values
        produce a more pronounced effect, but if you set the value too high
        you can send the filter into a feedback loop that can really look
        strange, and take quite a while to render.
 
Notes:

	- Another thing you can do with this filter is to set the upper
        threshold way up in either the Red, Green or Blue component and
        cause the filter to generate a glow that is a different color than
        the orignal object.


Where can you contact the author?

        You can contact me at <stevey@jps.net>



	
