Creating cels with the Anti-Alias CelWriterx

# Creating cels with the Anti-Alias CelWriter

The Anti-Alias CelWriter lets you create smooth anti-aliased cels and animations for the 3DO Station. When you export source art with this plug-in, it saves one file that contains two cels: a source cel and a mask cel. The mask is partly translucent, averaging the background with the source cel.

The program that displays the cel on the 3DO system has to display both the cel and the mask.

This section discusses:

- How to create an anti-aliased cel
- How to display an anti-aliased cel

## How to create an anti-aliased cel

To convert the source art to a cel and to create the mask cel, follow these steps:

1. Open the picture you want to convert in Adobe Photoshop.

2. Select the background with the Magic Wand tool.

3. From the Select menu, choose Inverse to invert the selection, then choose Save Selection to save it.

   Adobe Photoshop creates a new channel in which it places the selection.

4. From the File menu, choose Export, then 3DO Anti-Alias CelWriter from the submenu.

   The plug-in writes a file containing two cels:

   - A 16-bit packed uncoded cel containing the source art

   - A 4-bit packed coded cel containing the mask with an edge that's averaged from black to white over 16 levels; this will show up as 16 levels of translucency on the 3DO Station.

   Note: You can use the Anti-Alias Cel Writer as a plug-in to the DeBabelizer tool to batch process all files in an animation.

## How to display an anti-aliased cel

After you have converted the cel, the program that renders it has to display first the mask and then the cel on top. An example using animation that consists of several anti-aliased cels is included in the aaPlayer folder on the release CD.

Note: You can't preview an anti-aliased cel on the Macintosh, since there is no Anti-Alias CelReader.