Brilliance is a
bitmap graphics editor
A raster graphics editor (also called bitmap graphics editor) is a computer program that allows users to Computer graphics, create and image editing, edit images interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many raster graphics I ...
for the
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...
computer, published by Digital Creations in 1993.
Although marketed as a single package, Brilliance in reality consisted of two separate (but near identical-looking) applications. One was a
palette-based package also named Brilliance. The other was a
true-color package called TrueBrilliance.
The Brilliance package was one of the major rivals to
Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint, often referred to as ''DPaint'', is a bitmap graphics editor created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts and published for the then-new Amiga 1000 in November 1985. A series of updated versions followed, some of which were ported ...
, the established "
killer app
A killer application (often shortened to killer app) is any software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as its host computer hardware, video game console, software platform, or operati ...
" in Amiga bitmap graphics editing.
At its launch, Brilliance attracted generally favorable reviews. One commonly noted point was TrueBrilliance
's performance on
Hold-and-Modify and true-color images, which was significantly faster than that of Deluxe Paint IV. However, despite being faster and easier to use than Deluxe Paint, Brilliance never achieved the same level of popularity. It may be significant that (in contrast to Deluxe Paint) by the time of Brilliance
's launch, the Amiga market was already in serious decline.
TrueBrilliance was notable for its ability to edit true 15 and
24-bit
Notable 24-bit machines include the CDC 924 – a 24-bit version of the CDC 1604, CDC lower 3000 series, SDS 930 and SDS 940, the ICT 1900 series, the Elliott 4100 series, and the Datacraft minicomputers/ Harris H series.
The term SWORD ...
color images, even on older Amigas which could only display
HAM-6 (pseudo-12-bit color) graphics.
In such cases, the image was rendered as a HAM display, but all modifications were performed on the underlying true color image buffer.
Even when the final image was intended for HAM display, this had the advantage that successive operations did not accumulate HAM
artifacts on top of each other. Loss of quality could be restricted to a single HAM conversion at the end of the process.
Releases
Brilliance/TrueBrilliance was released in 1993, and came with a
dongle
A dongle is a small piece of computer hardware that connects to a port on another device to provide it with additional functionality, or enable a pass-through to such a device that adds functionality.
In computing, the term was initially synony ...
.
Brilliance/TrueBrilliance 2 came out the following year, in 1994 and dropped the requirement for the dongle. Some reviewers considered the changes in functionality overall to be minor, given the new major release number.
However, the significant drop in price of the new version was positively received.
See also
*
Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint, often referred to as ''DPaint'', is a bitmap graphics editor created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts and published for the then-new Amiga 1000 in November 1985. A series of updated versions followed, some of which were ported ...
*
Photon Paint
*
GrafX2
References
External links
Archived Usenet review of a.o., Brilliance
Raster graphics editors
Amiga software
1993 software
Proprietary software
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