Posted by doener 9/5/2025
(I see the article now credits her on the image subscript?)
Also, the article mentions the colour-cycling animations of Mark Ferrari, but you might also like a big collection of specifically Amiga colour-cycling animations: https://www.amiga.lychesis.net/specials/ColorCycling.html
If it was there since the start... maybe I just misread?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjIQO1MjV2w
Also, looks like the source code for DPaint1 has been made available:
https://computerhistory.org/blog/electronic-arts-deluxepaint...
I always thought it was written in ASM.
There's a neat modern DPaint clone called PyDPainter (https://github.com/mriale/PyDPainter). It has various advantages, such as support for modern graphics formats like PNG.
1. That was also true on original hardware (when I owned the system in my younger days). I distinctly remember having to slow down certain movements to let the system keep pace, depending on speed and complexity of motion. 2. The effect is drastically improved (and I note so in the article) by choosing a faster virtual CPU.
It runs in DOSBox, making it a bit easier (imo) to get running on most computers (and Android devices) than old Amiga software (even if I have FS-UAE and Amiga Forever installed as well on my desktop computer).
edit: you can even "Preview in DPaint" which has an embedded emulator!
Not having layers is frustrating, but also in some way fun. I have not used Deluxe Paint much, but in Animator there is a second Clip screen, it is possible to save and load the clipboard (i.e. "CELs") as well as the current image using keyboard short-cuts, and then there are some other nifty features like "copy everything that changed in this frame since I came here"... The more I play with it the more workarounds I find for things that otherwise would have been easy to do if there were layers.
Also have that set up on my phone, with a lot of on-screen buttons configured in DOSBox. Works well and doesn't come with any of the annoying in-app-purchases and/or ads that all the app painting programs seem to be full of. I even bought a stylus to use with Animator on my phone.
https://github.com/AnimatorPro/Animator-Pro/tree/f5ed3/bin/d...
I am sure it is possible to find the Pro version somewhere, but I have not seen a build yet based on the published source code. Pro supported SVGA graphics and had a built-in scripting language, so should be more useful in practice, especially with access to the source code for modifying it (if/when someone figures out how to build it). There have been some attempts to port it to modern platforms, but not sure how that went.
Deluxe Paint IV on my Amiga 500 was fantastic. I had so much fun making dumb animations with my friends.
I think I still have the diskettes, I just need to fire up Greasweazle to dump those.
It's not so simple[0].
I'm a Commodore guy, always was, but god were these Ataris beautiful.
Reminded me of this: deep dive into an early artwork done in Deluxe Paint
I get that the point of the exercise was to re-create the process by hand using original(esque) tools rather than by using power tools. Another, valid, aim would be to attempt to re-create the image as closely as possible.
Still, impressive result!