Quick Dungeon Tutorial in Xara

[Gamerprinter]

You may have noticed that once you close a shape you created with the Freehand drawing tool that the shape smooths out and probably lost some intended detail in your object.

Any tool you use from the leftside tool menu, activates a Tool InfoBar, located just beneath the Main Menu, there you have tools to adjust with options to that tool.

With the Freehand Drawing Tool selected, the InfoBar has a slider on the far left side. This is for smoothing. The default setting is 50% which in most cases is too much. Slide it to the left to 5 to 7% for best results - it follows your intended shape closely, yet lowers the level of jaggies.

Edit: you can raise or lower your smoothing level, only immediately after you drawn it with the tool and object still selected. If you do something else or use a different tool, the smoothing of that object is set, only Edit > Undo > Undo (until you get there) gets you out of that problem...

GP

[yu gnomi]

I have been experimenting with making transparent .png objects so far I have made a barrel -which I admit, wasn't high on my needs list. But I now understand the process and will make more objects for use in my maps.

Another question: does Xara do mirror? I have some wood grain and other textures I would like to mirror if possible.

[Gamerprinter]

Yes, it mirrors.

See those little purple and white triangles facing each other on the menu bar, beneath the Main Menu, towards the right side. There are two, one on its side. One mirrors horizontally, the other vertically, even works with photos.

Also, when you click on the Fill Tool on a selected object, an "L" shaped vertice appears. You can grab the end of either vertice and rotate the fill any direction you want. If you pull the vertice outward, you enlarge the fill, inward to reduce.

Up in the InfoBar, with Fill Tool selected, you can choose Single Tile, Tile Repeat, or Tile Repeat Inverted - try the Tile Repeat or Repeat Inverted, with a seamless texture you have more control over fill resolution, scale and detail.

GP