CYBER STUDIO ANIMATOR
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The CYBER STUDIO ANIMATOR is a software "movie projector" designed to
show the unedited animations you have created using the CYBERMATE
Record function in CAD-3D 2.0. The ANIMATOR is specifically designed
to easily display those animations created from in CAD-3D 2.0 before
they have been edited with CYBERMATE.
Use the ANIMATOR as follows:
1. Create a CYBERMATE Recording from CAD-3D 2.0. This will generate
two files -- FILENAME.PI1 and FILENAME.DLT.
2. Run ANIMATOR.PRG.
3. A GEM file-selector box will appear. Adjust the drive path to
point to whichever drive contains your Recording files, and select the
Recording file with the .PI1 extender. (The ANIMATOR will
automatically load both the .PI1 and the .DLT file into memory.)
4. After the Recording data has been loaded, an alert box will ask if
you wish to load any more .DLT files. In most cases, you would answer
NO to this, unless you have a chained sequence of DLT files.
NOTE: Chained .DLT files will share the same .PI1 file. Unless your
original recordings are designed to take advantage of this, you may see
some unusual results.
5. A message screen will appear asking you to press one of the
Function keys to begin the display. Press any Function key to begin.
Once the animation begins, you may control it with the following keys:
[F1] thru [F10] controls speed. ([F1] = 10fps, [F10] = 60fps)
[F] switches to Forward looping (default).
[R] switches to forward/Reverse (ping-pong) looping.
[B] switches on double screen buffering.
(Buffering smoothes (and slows) animation.)
[Space] pauses the animation.
[Undo] exits to desktop.
[Control]-[*] disables keyboard.
[Help] brings up a text help screen.
NOTE: The asterisk in [Control]-[*] must be the one on the numeric
ten-key pad. The [Help] key will search whichever path the .PI1 file
was loaded from for a file named HELP.TXT (provided on your disk). If
this file is not on that disk, a message will appear informing you of
the problem. If you have room, the simplest drive configuration for The
ANIMATOR is to place both animation data files (.PI1 and .DLT) on the
same disk with ANIMATOR.PRG and HELP.TXT.
BATCH FILE
If you wish to create a stand-alone animation disk for others to use,
you may create a batch file (command instruction file), and install the
ANIMATOR.PRG program in such a way that it will load the display data,
and automatically begin the animation at the control settings you wish.
Here's how to do it:
1. On the same disk, place ANIMATOR.PRG, HELP.TXT, and both animation
data files (.PI1 and .DLT).
2. Create a standard ASCII text file (using 1ST Word, or some such
editor) which contains the following format of commands:
FILENAME.PI1 b f r k 7 x
where FILENAME.PI1 is the name of your .PI1 data file,
b = Screen buffering ON,
f = Forward looping,
r = Reverse (ping-pong) looping,
k = Kill keyboard input,
0-9 = Function-key speed (0 = [F10],
x = Signifies end of batch file.
Select the commands you wish, create your text file, and save it to
disk with and extender of: .RUN.
As an example: Your disk contains ANIMATOR.PRG, HELP.TXT, CARTOON.PI1,
CARTOON.DLT, and a batch file called CARTOON.RUN, containing:
CARTOON.PI1 b f k 7 x
which means: Load data files CARTOON.PI1 and CARTOON.DLT, display the
animation with the buffers on, in a forward loop, kill the keyboard (so
no one can accidentally stop the display), and show it at a fairly fast
rate ([F7]), end of file (x).
Now that you have everything in place, set your system for
medium-resolution, click once on ANIMATOR.PRG to highlight it, then
select Install Application... from the Options drop-down menu. From
within the dialog box, type RUN in the Document Type slot, make sure
that GEM is highlighted as Application Type, and click on OK.
Next, adjust the directory display window to show only CARTOON.RUN and
(if possible) HELP.TXT.
Finally, select Save Desktop from the Options menu.
That's it! Now, reboot your ST with the disk in drive A:,the window
will appear in medium-resolution, showing the two files: CARTOON.RUN,
and HELP.TXT. A user can click on HELP.TXT to see instructions, or
click on CARTOON.RUN to load and run your animation.
STEREO ANIMATOR
If you are animating stereo images, use the ANIMATST.PRG instead of
ANIMATOR.PRG, and make sure that all your stereo files are on the same
disk. ANIMATST.PRG works the same as ANIMATOR.PRG, with the three
exceptions:
1. No Help file is available.
2. Screen buffering is not available.
3. Exit the program by pressing [Q] instead of [Undo].