Layers Introduction

What is a Layer?

Layers are critical to working with Mandala Painter. A layer is simply one image stacked on top of another. Imagine You have a piece of paper and paint it blue. Then take a piece of clear celophaine and paint a red rectangle, and lay it over the paper. Now take another piece of cellophane and paint a white circle onto it and laythat on top of the red rectangle. You now have 3 layers (blue paper, red rectangle and white circle). The Layers Palette is looking at those layers from the side, like the layers of a sandwich.

You can reorder the layers eg. move the circle under the red rectangle or hide a layer or change the opacity.

Every layer has the following properties:

• Visibility
  The little eye on the layers palette controls if the layer visible or invisible.
  Simply click on it to hide or show the layer.
• Opacity
  Adjusts how transparent each layer is. 0 is completely transparent, 100 is completely opaque.
  Drag the trackbar to change the Opacity.
• Blending mode
  Changes the way the layers interact with each other. Experiment with the different modes.
  Here's an online document about blending modes: http://pegtop.net/delphi/articles/blendmodes/
• Order position
  To reorder the layer stacking order, simply click and drag any layer in the Layers Palette to a different location (up or down)
• Division settings
  Every layer has it own division setting. Division settings controls the multiplication of the layer.
  If you set it to 1 then you'll see the original layer. Setting to 12 will show the original layer plus 11 clones.
• Center
  Every layer has it own center which used at the rotation.
• Position
  If you are in painting mode you can move the layer around on the canvas by dragging it with the right mouse button.
• Layer Area Size
  By default the layers has the same size as the Mandala size. You can grow it or reduce. When you paste a layer from clipboard
• Painting Area
  The currently used area of the Layer.

Mandala Painter concept and workflow

Mandala Painter was designed to create repeated and symmetric graphics. If you look at the program interface and other elements  you will notice the similarity to other painting programs. The main difference is that Mandala Painter can multiply everything you paint with a single click. To understand how the program works we swill describe the following concepts:

• Original (layer)
  Refers to the original image element that the user created
                           
• Rendered (layer)    
  Refers to the muliplied image element that the program creates from the Original element.
  
  
  
  Mandala Painter stores this two element in one layer. By default you can see both on the layers palette. At painting, scale, move, filtering, etc. you always work on the Original layer element. At every modification Mandala Painter calculates the Rendered layer.
  
  

• Division
  Refers to the method how the program calculates the clones from Original to Rendered. By default Division only a number that specifies the number of rotations around the center. Using custom Division options you can create other stunning effects like tile, spirals, etc.
• Center
  In the default division mode you can specify the center of the rotation.

Layers video

Layers in Mandala Painter 3