(Glass / Gel), (Wax / Lipstick / Laque) or (Silk) - mode

[ddTech]

As You may have noticed in my previous post, I've also started to play with different appearances. This is still experimental but promising.

This is Bars and Columns in SilkMode

This is Bars and Columns in WaxMode (Lipstick or Laque if You prefer)

And this is GlassMode

SilkMode can be achieved with the default class if the GradientPosition is shifted completely to one side.
I've added a third value -1 to GradientType which selects neither SigmaBell nor Triangular.
Besides that I've added a bunch of properties starting lCustom... or nCustom... which allow to play with these three appearances.
Colors are being calculated using my own ColorMath functions which internally use HSL instead of RGB. This way I can directly manipulate the Light which in some cases is superior to dealiing with RGB. In most cases however the result is the same as with the stock method .ChangeColor().

I'm still having trouble with true transparency. Not that I couldn't use it, but it's not behaving the way I'm expecting it. The following screenshot is taken from one of my GDIPlusX test forms.
Opacity changes from 85 to 90%. The bars appear translucent and at the same time brilliant.

The same settings (actually the same brush definitions) in FoxCharts lead to a somewhat blurry appearance.

Here I need to use a gradient from 95 to 99% in order to get a similar result, but it's still not showing the same brilliance

There's definitely something I don't see (yet). But with a little distance I'm sure this can be solved as well.

Another thing I played with is a tip radius. I've not yet implemented this in FoxCharts. Might be an interesting addition.

Finally a few impressions of somewhat interesting results of fooling around:

Regards

Frank