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2 Attachment(s)
Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I did as Mike W wisely suggested and, closed both versions 9 and 10 requests I'd started a new thread on "Dear Xara."
I believe that if we keep things reasonable—IOW without requesting that all the engineers tear up the core engine so one person can import PSG layer with Adobe's Layer Styles in place and editable—we might actually get as widely requested feature or two in the nest version.
I suggest if we keep this thread terse and focused without a bitchy tone, the Xara folks who read this might be more inclined to seriously ponder a "good request." And to do them one suggestion/plea per post and possibly put your request in the subject line, which requires toy go to Advanced mode.
Do anything you ca to make your request polite in tone and reasonable and popular as a request. Don't suggest something( ie. "when is a Mac version coming out?") when you post something you know benefits only one or two people.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Me first: CorelDRAW has featured a dynamic Polygon tool since the mid-190s and I'd like to see this in Xara.
• You can set the number of sides even after you've significantly altered the polygon, the alterations including adding control points, deleting them, and turning smooth lines to curves, vice-versa, as well as changing the type of control point, which all told, lets you do stuff like this:
Attachment 102966
• I'd like to see a utility box where you can create your own strokes and pressure profiles. Xara is doing great sat providing is with presets, but what if we need a custom profile?
Attachment 102967
I think this would be do-able. I'd imagine do to this with existing code's not as hard as inventing a brush tool for the program.
By Best,
Gary
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
OG - I would like to make a suggestion:
Have the wish list open for 30 days.
At the end of this period, compile four lists, Vector Drawing Features, Website Design Features, Photo Editing Features, and Text and Layout Design Features.
Then let everybody review the lists and vote for their top 3 or top 5 features in each category.
This way there will be actual numbers to prioritize the features.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
no thank you
I can tell from line number two of your post that I would be wasting my time
I have already ported over 50% of my workflow elsewhere, and in a year's time it will, I am fairly sure, be just too late
I believe in asking for what I want - I respect being told that it is not possible - I am extremely disappointed, but I understand the position Xara is in; hopefully they understand mine
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Text & Layout Design Features:
Master Pages. Master Pages. Master Pages. Did I say Master Pages? Master Pages.
Support for Glyphs and Extended Characters
Discretionary Page Numbering (so page 1 does not automatically appear on page 1 only)
Support for Spot Color in bitmaps and in PDFs
True Grayscale Support
Hyphenation Dictionery
More control for paragraph text, e.g. widow and orphan control.
Master Pages
Website Design Features:
Parallax Scrolling
More control over how sub menus are displayed, for example, centered text.
Photo Editing
Grayscale support and creation (Import and Export a bitmap that is recognized as Grayscale and not RGB)
Update the bitmap tracer or lose it.
General Features
Ctrl R (repeat last step - ala CorelDRAW)
Arrays (repeat a series of steps)
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Steve - Don't participate if you don't want to. But consider that as we speak, plans are probably being made for version 11. The sooner we come up with a representative list the better our chances of getting these suggestions in early enough that they can be explored and added to the next versions.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
There's no rule that says any everyone is not welcome to make their own post in "Dear Xara". I didn't even realize until my posts grew into a thread with version 9 that several people were tacking on their own requests to my personal ones. I don't mind discussions as long as they are civil ad constructive, right here.
Amoore is the Moderator for this area; perhaps someone should ask here about the structure of future requests before it becomes unwieldy and chaotic?
Well-presented requests invite Programmers and other PTB to read and consider the requests. Bitching and in-fighting would msake a reasonasble person blow this thread off.
And I agree with Og, that the sooner we start mutually cobbling a do-able list, the sooner TPTB might consider the merits, especialy in the light of the "what did we do wrong?" pall cast over this version.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
please define 'doable' I have no idea what is and isn't - do you? - can you tell us? - or we just going to have to guess, those of us [most of us] who know nothing about the coding and the modularity of the program...
xara is supposed to be a program for designing things - I design things top down, line art and then as many layers below as are necessary, I am sick and fed up with new layers being at the top of the stack and having to drag them down time after time after time after time after time - so an option to put new layers above/below the current, to me that's doable, easy, a programmer should be able to do it with eyes closed and one arm behind their back - but I bet it's not, or it would have been done by now
and nested layers - there is a reason most every other program has them, for example when you design alternatives that need to be switched in and out with one click - xara groups are no good, cannot edit within a group and see the rest of the drawing in situ at the same time as you edit, dumb, so setting them up is making a rod for the back when trying to match colour changes and anything else that needs to be in sync inside/outside of the group
I am not trying to be negative; I am resisting the cynic in me that hears "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"; I know Xara cannot please everyone and would be silly to try..
but a definition of 'doable' please - do you have one?
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
One thing for the web design side that would provide good solid feature would be to bundle XT-CMS with the WDpremium and Designer Pro versions. TG member Xtom created this system to work with Xara software and I've been working with it on a site that hopefully should be nearing completion soon. It's easy to install and set up but if there were some way it could be bundled so that after you set up your page templates in Xara you would have an option to publish to CMS you would do this the first time and the CMS files would be uploaded to your webspace, the template (html page files) would be uploaded to the themes folder using the filename from your .web file and Xara would provide you with a link like it already does but this link would take you to the admin login of your CMS, where you set up your configurations (not difficult to do) Then after that when you publish changes to this site from xara the profile would be set to publish the files into the themes folder, and again xara would present you with the link to log in to the CMS
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gwpriester
Steve - Don't participate if you don't want to. But consider that as we speak, plans are probably being made for version 11. The sooner we come up with a representative list the better our chances of getting these suggestions in early enough that they can be explored and added to the next versions.
Sorry Gary P; for you I have great respect and admiration - what you say is true, especially 'versions', in that it is likely too late already for version 11
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Quote:
IOW without requesting that all the engineers tear up the core engine so one person can import PSG layer with Adobe's Layer Styles in place and editable—we might actually get as widely requested feature or two in the nest version.
This just really annoyed me, and I was pretty upset to begin with
Kate said that Camelot was being overhauled [in so many words]
It's possible Gare means PSG, but I'm thinking he meant PSD which means the likes of me were wise to start going elsewhere; we no longer count, if indeed we ever did.. just unhired, unpaid help
I have possibly derailed this thread, for which I am sorry also...
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I had a play with the trial version and there are actually many ways the vector drawing tools could be improved by adding some CAD like features. Those would also go well with the designer part of the name.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I use Xara as a drawing programme and that's it! OK I might take an odd bitmap in a do a few corrections to them but those things only take a few minutes. I took time to learn PS ages back so that's is my main bitmap editor and it's an old copy going back to CS2. Also through my job I had to learn Adobe Illustrator but I still want to use Xara as my main drawing tool but lately I find myself using Illy more than Xara because it is light on the tools that I want.
If I can ask Gary B on what he means by "create your own strokes and pressure profiles". Does that mean we could create a brush with a fixed angle, roundness, or diameter with tilt as well which could mean just about a real Calligraphic brush or do you mean something else because I would think that would be a big step forward. It beggars belief that on an iPad I can sketch away to my hearts content using a variety of free drawing apps which I then can import into Illy through the cloud which are all vector with custom profiles but I can't do the same on a Pro version of Xara through my desktop programme.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Hi Albacore—
No, I was thinking of something more ambitious when I mentioned making your own pressure profiles & strokes. Remember Creature House Expressions from back more than 10 years ago? It went beyond making and saving your own presets: It was actually a tool that let you build your own tools. Here's one of the more interesting presets from Strokes & Pressure profiles:
Attachment 103000
Now, all you really can do is change the size of the stroke and recolor it...you can't change the design of the stroke, for example, if you needed a wider triangular shape.
Here's what you can still do with Expressions free open beta version 3 circa 1994. First you make a drawing, then click the Define stroke button and you get a bounding box around the drawing that you fine tune, and then tell Expressions that you want the stroke ro repeat:
Attachment 103001
Okay, this was hasty work s my design isn't flawless. But you see that this IS the Pressure and Stroke Style feature, except there's a box to make your own? This would make maps and fancy borders a snap.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I'd like to see a B-Spline tool in addition to the rest of the drawing tools in Xara.
A B-Spline tool creates a perfect arc between control points with an additional "hull" point by which you can steer the curve. B-Spline tools produce perfectly smooth curves segments, ideal for design and typography work. Our Shape tool currently supports smooth curves, I think everyone is asking too much of a single tool, to be able to make straight lines, smooth curves, and so on, at the price of time and a learning curve.
CorelDRAW and Expression have had a B-Spline tool for years, as have modeling programs where smoothness is a necessity.
It's not a Bezier tool:
Attachment 103002
My Best,
Gart
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I wonder if the reason that some of these suggestions have not been implemented previously has to do with the basic program itself and what is easy and/or possible to do and what is not easy or even impossible to do with the current code?
It would be interesting to get some feedback on this from some of the programmers.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gwpriester
I wonder if the reason that some of these suggestions have not been implemented previously has to do with the basic program itself and what is easy and/or possible to do and what is not easy or even impossible to do with the current code?
It would be interesting to get some feedback on this from some of the programmers.
Most of the features can be programmed in, well, just about any language, much less fixing issues already present. I think the real issue is allocated resources, vision, drive—despite Charles's statement to the contrary...
Quote:
Take on the world
So what next? It's simple: we intend to offer our customers the best web and graphic design products in the world, all over the world!
Charles Moir
CEO and founder
Xara Group Ltd
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
someone, back in the last decade I think [quite possibly Xhris] said that the core engine of the program was written in machine code, hence the speed of execution at the time
so it may be a victim of early success, since that aint so easy to interface with, especially if the programmers that did it are no longer with the company
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Illustrator has had this feature for a couple of versions now, and I’d love to see something like this implemented in Xara.
Whenever you draw a path that has an outline width, you can change the width at a control point by using the Width tool, the connecting paths taper off, and what you can do with a path is turn it into true calligraphy, or whatever you like.
Attachment 103005
-g
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
expression 3.3 you mentioned will do that [though by mapping a profile rather than directly but still dead easy to use], and you can save the profiles and draw with them
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Hi everyone,
Camelot is mainly written in C++. The graphics primitives, and various other subsystems that need strong performance, are written in assembler. Other modules are written in various languages including Javascript.
There are several million lines of C++ source code and the earliest comment is dated 18th of March 1993.
Because the program is so large, so complex and so old, there are knock-on consequences to even the smallest change. Features that would appear to be easy can become complex very quickly but conversely, because there's so much useful code to leverage, sometimes features that appear incredibly difficult turn out to be easy.
The oldest and most fundamental data structures used by the program would now take huge amounts of time and effort to change. Nothing is impossible but cost/benefit considerations means that basic systems are unlikely to change unless there's an overwhelming reason to do so. An example of this is the coordinate system, which remains signed 32bit even in the 64bit version of the program and this, combined with the maximum zoom of 25601%, limits the maximum allowed page size. (Yes, there is a good technical reason for the maximum page size but we could increase it within the limitations of the 32bit coordinate system by dynamically reducing the maximum zoom...)
The V11 Pro feature set has not yet been finalised.
Phil
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
cheers for that Phil, always good to know these things, thanks
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Yeah, Gary B, have used this frequently in cartoons but it is a bit of a fiddle when your working in small areas like eyes & mouths. You have to double click the tool and open the dialogue box and give the end points a value and then the sides to make it idiot proof for me but of course you then can save it to your library. No I just want plain old brushes that you can do 1 to 5 here in Vectortuts: http://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials...el--vector-301
Forget the rest the borders, scatter, maybe don't with the art brush it's handy!
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Hi,
I am fairly certain any of these suggestions would benefit illustrators.
I don't know which are easier to implement so here's a basket.
(many have been suggested already) :
Functions:
-Line width editor
-Skeletal bitmap / vector Strokes - Deformation along a Path
-Flood fill - Join tool
-Bspline tool
-Point deformation / warp tool with falloff
-Path driven gradients.
Attachment 103008
Improvements on existing tools:
-Mould tool beefed up.
-Icons bar for simple alignment
-Node transformation as objects. (scale, rotate and align with blobs, etc)
-Possibility to see rest of drawing when editing group
Ergonomy Details :
-Temp Shortkey for colorpicker
-Right-click in color picker set line color
Bug fixes :
Line profiles when exporting SVG
Marc
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
How 'bout a way to save our work-space(s).... If you upgrade a computer and re-install the program, you have to reconfigure your workspace from scratch. Hate that!
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handrawn
.... so an option to put new layers above/below the current, to me that's doable, easy, a programmer should be able to do it with eyes closed and one arm behind their back - but I bet it's not, or it would have been done by now
a kindly Xara employee has pointed out to me that you can already do this :o - and whatever else may or may not be said about version releases, Xara remain the most helpful of companies for my money - the trick is to right click on a layer and select new layer from there and it will be placed immediately above
so I am mortified that I did not know this, but at least pleased to know I was right to think it could be done - Granny told me never to gamble, I lost the bet :)
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Here's one:
Let's say that I delete an object, then as I continue to work, I realize that I need to use that deleted object. If I were using any other program that I know of, I could "Ctrl Z" back to the point before I deleted the object, copy it, "Ctrl Y" back to where my work had previously progressed, execute a "Ctrl V" (paste) and continue my work from there. With Xara, when I backup to when I deleted the object and copy it, "Ctrl Y" isn't available because Xara handles that "Ctrl C" (copy) as an edit to the file and "forgets" my other edits and I would have to repeat all of that other work again.
I asked someone from Xara about this and they thought, for various reasons, that Xara was handling this condition correctly and "as expected". Considering what that person said, I checked to see if what I was saying was true. I checked it with Coreldraw and PhotoPaint (ver.12 and x5), Word and Photoshop and they all handled it as I said. That was even true here, posting to this thread! So, two questions:
Have any of you employed (tried to employ) this little "trick" and, if so, is it important enough for us to ask the Xara folks to remedy it?
...if you're one of those Xara folks, might you look into this as a matter of curiosity?
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I often do it the other way round - realise I've edited a vector and not kept the original, so copy the edited object then ctrl+Z back to the original and paste in the edited version - tends to happen when I am converting line to shape and combining shapes
have to say, although I am used to it in xara, that I don't think ctrl+c is an edit but xara does use it's own clipboard system so that is possibly a factor - drawplus will do what you suggest
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gare
Here's what you can still do with Expressions free open beta version 3 circa 1994. First you make a drawing, then click the Define stroke button and you get a bounding box around the drawing that you fine tune, and then tell Expressions that you want the stroke ro repeat:
Attachment 103001
Gary
Can't you already do this? Draw your shape, click on "Brush tool", click on "Create Brush" in the toolbar, then "Edit Brush" to change the spacing, rotation, pressure profile etc. About the only thing this doesn't achieve is bending ones shapes around curves.
Attachment 103182
If this isn't what you meant, please elucidate.
I participate in a forum for another software where the developers will ask for clarification of good or interesting ideas and will try to explain why certain ideas are not feasible. Their release schedule is every two years though since they are only a four man team. I realise it is not fair to compare developers responses between different companies and products but it might appease some of us if there were a bit more informed input into these sort of threads.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Hi Sadler—
To open this discussion to better understand what I'm begging for, is yes: I do indeed need the stroke along a path to follow the path along curves, because after all, if you're making a vector path which is flexible, and coating it with a vector repeating design, why can'tr the design element distort just like we can distort the underlying path?
One of the almost late, great, and almost Dead Creature House Expression is that to a certain extent, you build your own tools and then use them. They either have or had a patent on something called Skeletal Stokes; these are underlying vector paths you use to draw/paint, and then reshape or redefine, or refine a brush. Xara's Custom Brushes do not operate as Expressions' do because Expressions distorts—curves and fits and just enhances the path, while can see in your example that the individual vectors don't match up. I'm trying to clarify here, and not be antagonistic, because you and I are talking apples and oranges at the moment.
Here's a different example:
Attachment 103186
Fool disclosure: it took me about an hour to draw all three shapes, but then saving them as a strokes took about 30 seconds. I drew these three path, they can be edited any time to change the overall design, they can have different drawings assigned to to the existing skeletons (paths) they can be scaled and the program knows when to and when not to repeat a segment and to round off corners.
This is a pipe dream of course, and Phil, thank you for stepping in with the best reply. I don't think any of us want one line of code broken to introduce someone's dream feature, but perhaps compromise might move the drawing tools forward— some of use use Xara as the best illustration tool, and not necessarily for image editing or website creation.
I cut my teeth on CorelDRAW, and when CorelXara was introduced I stopped using DRAW almost completely because I fell in love with the anti-aliasing and the speed of CorelXara.
I would settle for a calligraphic pen, not the Shape Painter tool that immediately produces a "dead", non- refineable path, but some facility for building your own pressure profile, make it repeat, make the brush stoke editable, let us change the path with the Shape tool, and let the paint stroke update until you want it simplified into individual shapes.
I'd also like to see the Smart Shape Polygon tool created dynamically editable shapes: you can add control points after the object is created AND you can set a property for both the control points and the curves that are bound by two control points. IOW, you could add a few control points to a polygon shape with 22 sides and looks like a circle, make these segments straight path segments, and then pull them out of the general polygon shape with the Shape tool so you have a drawing of a gear, which presently requires several Boolean steps to get the outer path looking right, plus a couple of moves with the Blend tool.
More intuitive new tools would add weight to the claim that Xara is the world's fastest drawing program, not just because tight code, but because you have the tools people have been asking for, for years.
Me? If something is not do-able, I'd appreciate a comment addressing my request just as you did by a programmer, that says, "No can do" and I'll shut up about the request in the future.
Thanks!
Gary
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Since Hsu coined the term in 1993, perhaps the patent on Skeletal Strokes expired last year.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Could be good news for anyone who likes this feature!
Thanks for the heads-up Sadler!
-g
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
That's not to say that Xara Designer is a total loss for custom brushes...
Attachment 103190
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
That's quite an impression, Sadler. Perhaps this request has reached the point where we can walk away from it. I've stated my wish, and we'll see something like it, or not. I do wish we could build our own Pressure Profiles, a matter entirely unrelated to skeletal strokes.
Something else I'd request is that when you bring a bitmap in,quite frequently Xara does no read the resolution of certain file types because their structure doesn't have the capability. And you being a 12MP picture in and it's 72 dpi by 45 feet by 90 feet, you know?
And then one is obliged to go to the Infobar and type in more realistic values.
Wouldn't it be nice if the status line had a filed rather than a readout of what the current resolution of the selected image is? Then if you need, for example, a 300 dpi (pixels per inch, technically) you open the field that states the current resolution, and type in your desired one and then hit Enter.
It is SO hard to set the resolution of an image if you don't know the pixel count, the readout of dimensions on the Infobar.
Attachment 103194
Please consider, dear programmers?
TIA,
Gary
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Any chance of colour management? The CMYK screen colours in P&LD10 are WAAY out...simulate print colours doesn't help much either...
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
The program is beginning to feel "loose"; not quite as responsive as say version 5 or 6, which naturally have fewer features.
The new features are causing the code to run more sluggishly?
-g
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gare
The program is beginning to feel "loose"; not quite as responsive as say version 5 or 6, which naturally have fewer features.
The new features are causing the code to run more sluggishly?
-g
I have noticed that also, and I fear it will only get woese as more and more new features are added. So what's the answer, a total re-wite, in which case it would no longer be the program we love. I have seen other softsware become "bloted" and as for me I do not want to see that hppen here, but then my needs are simple and I do not need those extra features.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I have a simple proposal to keep Xasra Designer focused and lean:
Let Web Designer be its own thing. Keep the current features in Designer Pro, but stop cramming more web stuff into it in the future.
Also, this is a line of products, right? And they're al a subset of Xara Designer? This, too, is a cause of "bloat", as Larry remarked.
The Xara Group has yet to offer a paint program for retouching photos. Instead, we're getting masks, and third party plug-ins that don't work for me as an artist because they all execute in proxy boxes instead of directly in the document.
Buy a paint program and then code the heck out of it so now you have a suite of products,like Microsoft, like Adobe, and Xarsa Designer, the crown jewel of the creators, doesn't get a hernia doing 100% of the coding heavy lifting.
-g
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Would the cut down version be called "Design Pro" it certainly sounds like it for me. Just vectors, ooh can't stop just thinking about that, that sounds the business!
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
I think that there is the need for bitmap capabilities in the pro version. Just not the web stuff. One of the most off read compliants on the AI forum is not being able to do xyz with bitmaps. As well, if XDP is ever going to have flashed out document features, there will always need to be some basic bitmap manipulation.
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Re: Bouton's Wish List for Group Participation on v 11
Mike,
I think Designer Pro already has the basic photo manipulation tools. The program is not a bitmap editor on a pixel level because it has no true brushes. Which is odd because I read an article back in the Win 95 daze that explained how a "Get Brush" call from Windows' DLL library wasn't hard to code. And I probably just said something that is stellar-class stupid so the engineers lurking here...feel free to chortle.
You can resize, change hue, adjust levels, blur and sharpen, use masking tools to specify and area to be changed, but you're limited to the Photo Enhance tools and cannot use 3rd party filters on your selected ("region") area, not even using MAGIX's filters which I'd think MAGIX might toss a couple of programmers in Xara's direction because they sort of have a stake in the evolution of a money-maker, to be totally pedestrian.
A Suite, in my mind, would be:
• Designer Pro, as is for the moment, with development continuing on drawing tools and neat stuff like the advanced calligraphy features Illustrator has, mesh gradients, editable polygons, choice of color spaces in Xara and for export (everything is sRGB and you can't change this right now for RGB mode), and full control over pressure profiles (make your own, IOW), and make something that works a little more like Expression when you paint a shape of a shape, so to speak. I feel as though I'm using a clone tool when I pepper the page with novelty strokes—it's a workaround to begin with. You need dynamic strokes, editable ones after you've created them, completely unlike the Paint tool.
• Xara Print: A desktop publishing program, no more graphics tools development, but you already have a good DTP program, leave it as that.
• Xara Pixel-Pusher: An honest-to-gosh pixel editing program, a paint program.
No extra weight on load-bearing members, no more retro-fitting, seems t be the way other graphics Goliaths are going.
I really, really want to see Xara/MAGIX kick Adobe's butt in the forthcoming months or even years. Smarmy bastards with the Creativer Clod which is mostly smoke.
-g