CU Amiga Super CD-ROM 6/CU Amiga Magazine's Super CD-ROM 06 (1996)(EMAP Images)(GB)(Track 1 of 4)[!][issue 1997-01].iso/imagine/docs/manual.txt

Text File | 1995-11-01 | 50KB | 870 lines

                        Imagine Manual Documentation
                        ============================
                            Imagine 4.0 Features

                          Rev 1.0 10-15-95 S.Kirvan
                 Copyright 1995 Impulse Inc., Mpls, MN 55444



Features Added or Improved Since the Manual was Printed
=======================================================

*New in Version 3.1*
        1.      About box.  Every version of Imagine will has a
version number associated with it.  If you are unsure about the
version that you are using, you can pull down the About option from
the Project Editor in the first menu.  This about box will tell you
the version that you have.  If you have any problems, please have
this information handy when you call for tech support.

        2.      States.. Prior to version 3.1 of Imagine, you were
not able to morph certain aspects of each state, now you can morph
almost everything.

        3.      DXF... In Imagine 3.0 our DXF handler was, to be
blunt, not very robust.  We have improved it in several ways.  It is
much smarter as to what it does with this file format standard.  A word
of caution, we may not have it right for all the different formats that are
out there.  DXF is not a standard that even Autodesk follows.  There
are several forms of DXF or extensions that other vendors add to the
file format so that it will make it easier for you to use.   There are
several new additions to loading and saving objects, if you are
unfamiliar with these options please take the time to read about these
options.  The short answer is that almost any kind of DXF file will now
load.

        4.      Backdrop Images.  This feature is especially useful
for those who want to make logos and the like in the Spline editor.
However you will also find that the backdrop image will be very
useful in the creation of animations that have a moving backdrop
image, or for the more adventurous will use the backdrop image as a
way of doing rotoscoping.
        The simplest form of Backdrop images is when you simply
have Imagine load a, IFF, TIF, TGA or RGBN image into any editor
that has a work surface.  (This feature does not work in the Project or
Action editor or the Preferences Editor.)
        When you find the image that you want in the backdrop from
the file requester that comes up when you use this menu option,
Imagine will process down the image to a single bit plane.  It has a
tolerance so that colors that are very dark will be eliminated from the
image.  The color that is used will be the same color as the grid color,
in most cases this is gray.  You can adjust this color in the Preferences
editor, the variable know as GRID can be set to whatever color you
want.  Each person using this feature will find a perfect match for their
eyes.  It seems that everyone in the office sets the GRID color to a
different color, most of them however are rather stark in comparison
to the surrounding colors.
        If you use a scanner to collect different images of various
clients logos, it would be to your best interest to reduce the colors of
the logo to a matter of white on a black background.
        If you are in the QUAD view, the image that you load will be
placed in the Front view and it will be size reduced to fit into that
window.  If you want to see a larger backdrop image, simply go to a
full screen view and then load in a backdrop image.  If you are done
with the image you can clear the image with the Clear Backdrop menu
item in the Display menu just below the Load Backdrop menu item.
        NOTE:  IF you go from full view to Quad view or from Quad
to full after you have loaded an image as a backdrop, Imagine will
erase that image from view, and you will have to load it again.  Also if
you perform a Redraw command the backdrop image will go away
and you will have to reload it, as well causing the image to Scroll will
make the backdrop image to go away.
        Because Imagine will now read Anims for the Amiga ad Flc
files for the PC, you can load any frame of an animation as a backdrop
image, this is how you can do rotoscoping.  Once you find the FLC or
ANIM file that you want to load, Imagine will prompt you with a small
requester that asks for a frame number that you want to use as the
image backdrop.  It will default to the last frame of the animation, so it is
a good idea to know what frame you want to work on.  When you
have typed the number of the frame that you want, just hit the return
key and the image will appear in either the front view or whatever full
view you are working on.

        5. FLC and ANIM brushes.... In the past you had to make a
series of images that you used as a brush for an object, while this
method is till supported, you can now map to any object a FLC or
ANIM. You can establish the last frame of the anim or flc as the last
frame for reference purposes on your rendering or you can type in
any number that is smaller than the last frame.  In this way you can use
a smaller part of an animation or flc.
        Flc and Anim files can be tacked as all other brushes.  The
only drawback at the moment is that these files, FLC and ANIMs are
generally not made in 24 bit, so if you are doing something where
image quality is paramount, you may still want to use the serialized
separate images instead of an Anim or Flc file.
        Another very cool thing is that you can use Anim or Flc files
as BACKDROP images or Global Brush in the stage.  If you have a
video digitizer and can get motion video into your computer in the
right format you can make some amazing special effects.  Consider
that you can could make a huge monstrous robot that is walking down
wall street, smashing cars and knocking down buildings as it goes.
This might take a while but it is a feature that will make you animations
look very upscale.  We have been using the Indeo video digitizing
card and converting AVI files to Flic files.  These files are then
imported into the Background Picture requester in the Action editor
in the Globals actor bar.  We know that once you have this technique
down you will be able to do things that you either could not do in the
past or just did not have the time to try.

        6. SHOW PIC and SHOW FLC/ANIM...  Over the years we have always
wanted to be able to see a picture that we were going to use as a
brush, now with the simple click of a mouse button you can have
Imagine show you any image in the formats that it reads.  The same is
true of Anim files as well as FLC files.  Note that you will have to use
the ESCAPE key to get out of the shown image or animation.  The
Show Pic and Show Flic/Anim function is found in the First menu in
any work surface editor.   Note that once you leave and image or
animation with the Escape key, you will be presented with the file
requester once more.  This is because one of the tech guys said,
"HEY I WANT TO LOOK AT MORE THAN ONE PIC",  so when
you are done looking at pics or anims, hit the cancel button on the file
requester and you will be returned to the work surface.

        7. Field Rendering... For many this feature will do nothing,
except make you feel good that once you really need it you now have
it.  Field rendering is only worth something if you are going to a single
frame recorder, of digital animation system like the Personal
Animation Recorder from DPS, in Florence, Kentucky.   You simply
click on the Field Render button in the subproject requester for the
project that you are working on.  Notice also that there is a flip fields
button.  You should make a test render of say 30 frames, if the image is
not stable or seems to be blurred or jagged, then simple click on the
Flip Field button.  Now re-render the animation and everything should
be just perfect.  Remember that this is the case for your system so that
when you set up a render you will always have to click on this button
if you needed to do so for this test.  We have set  this feature to work
out of the box with the PAR card, so as you test this feature please let
us know what you had to do to make it work with your system so that
we can let everyone else know what works best.

        8. Stage Attributes....  If you have been putting special lighting
in your scenes with various lighting textures applied to them you
already know that making changes to these lights is a real pain if you
have to go back to the Detail editor every time you want to make a
change.  Well no problem now, in fact there is no problem making
changes to any attribute of a single object.  In the Stage editor you can
find the new attributes menu item in the Object main menu bar item.
Note that once you change the objects attributes you will have to save
the object after you accept the new changes that you made in the
attributes requester.  If you want the new attributes to take effect make
sure that you keep the same name for the object, if on the other hand
you want to keep the old object around, make sure that you give the
object a new name.  Remember that you will have to change the object
in the Action editor if you have saved the object under a new name.

        9. Light Source and Object Views.... Several people have
asked for us to give Imagine the ability to view what other objects or
lights would be seeing if they were the camera.  This new feature
works as requested.  From the objects Y axis or the Lights Y axis a
view is shown so that you can visualize what the object or light is
going to effect when the scene is rendered.
        You choose this function from the Display menu.   You have
two choices, Light source view and Object view.   When you choose
one of these menu items you will see a requester will all of the objects
and lights that are in the scene.  Click on the object or light name for
the new view that you want to see.  Note that the Spherical light that
you add in the Stage is not  for the purposes of this feature considered
a light it is considered an object.  When you are done with this view
click on the camera view and you will be back looking at what the
camera is going to see.
        A nifty idea for those who want to see what things might look
like, keep an axis around that you can use as a fake camera.  Place it
where you might position the camera, choose its view and now you
have a way of seeing things from many different view.  If you like the
new view from the fake camera, simply move the camera to the
position of the axis either with the mouse or the Transformation
requester.

        10. The last new feature is called SMART BONES...
Undoubtedly you like the new bones feature, but if you are like us at
all, you get real tired making the bones subgroups and then going
back to object mode, assigning the subgroups to the bone and then
starting all over.  While we would like to make it actually figure out
what to do with each bone automatically, we have come up with
something that will take away much of the tedium that you might have
already experienced.

        SO, here is how you will use this new feature.  Make your
object, and add the bones to it as you would have done before.
However when you would have gone to face mode to set some
subgroups, simply pick the small group of faces for any bone and then
under the Functions menu in the Make sub-menu choose the MK. Sm.
Bone Subgroup item.  Then click on the axis that you want to assign
that set of triangles as the Small Bone Subgroup,  Now pick the Large
group of triangles that you will use for that bone and use the MK. Big
Bone Subgroup.  Keep doing this for all of the bones that you have
associated to the object that you have made.  Now when you go back
and check out the small and big subgroup names that are associated to
the various bone axis, you will see that Imagine has picked up the
name of the axes and added the big and small suffix to the name so that
all you had to do what pick the triangles and click on the axis that it is
associated to.  In this way you can bone an entire object in a very
short time.

        We have noticed that it might be a good idea to move the axis
(bones) of the object of center until all things are set.  This is because
the axis lines can become confused with other lines when doing this.


*New in Version 3.2*

        11. Hi-Res graphics workspace: Over the years people have wanted a way to increase the size of
the workspace or to take more advantage of the higher resolutions that the
computer can display.  If you are using a PC and have a vesa compliant
card, or an AGA compatible Amiga,  you can now set Imagine to run in several different modes, and as an
added bonus you can now run Imagine in 256 color mode.  There is one
drawback, however, unless your computer is a speedy one, you will find
that the new modes slow things down a bit.  This is understandable due to
the increase in memory usage and the shear fact that there is much more to
keep track of.



        12. 256 Color Graphics Workspace

        Imagine now supports Higher screen resolutions and 256 color
displays.  This works with both VESA compliant display modes on the PC
and with AA chipset and Retina compatible displays on the Amiga.  All the
settings for enabling these display modes can be found in the preferences
editor (see USAA, S256, and SMOD).

        MONITORS AND HIGHER RESOLUTIONS

        If you like you can now make Imagine work in a higher
resolution.  One BIG caution, the increase in resolution will in most cases
slow your machines redraw don't by at least 50%.  There is also an
aberration in certain preview methods where the bottom of the animation
window will look as though it is tearing or going on the fritz.  These
problems are related to the manner in which Imagine works with the Vesa
standard, and most video cards.  If you have Pentium computer you will
most likely not see any major slowdown, you will notice it is slower, but,
its just not that bad.

        To set things differently you must make some changes in the
Preferences Editor.

        SMOD    0       # imagine screen width: 0=640,1=800,2=1024,3=1280

        Setting the SMOD variable to a value of 0 which is the default of
640, if you use the value of 1 it will set the Horizontal res to 800 pixels, a
value of 2 makes it 1024 and  a value of 3 will make the screen 1280 pixels
wide.  The vertical res of these different settings are as follows,  800 by
600, 1024 by 768 and 1280 by 960 or 1024 depending on what your video
card is capable of.

        The ( S256      F       # run 640x480 Imagine in a 256 color
display (if possible)) function in the preferences editor will tell Imagine
that you want to use the 256 color mode of the display card, if the card is
capable of doing 256 SVGA colors.  By default this value is set to F (false),
if you change it to TRUE (T) then you will be running your video card and
the Imagine interface in 256 color mode.  You won't notice much of a
change because Imagine still only uses 16 colors for the interface, the
biggest change will come when you view an image as a backdrop picture,
you will see the picture in 32 levels of gray, much better to look at than the
single color of Imagine 3.1.


        13. QUICK ATTRIBUTES

        Over the years of Imagine and previously Turbo Silver, we have
been asked to add "PRESETS" for the attributes files.  The process of
adding some function that would make things like glass, or chrome or gold
or any other attribute seemed like a waste of time.  From the attributes
requester, you can save the attribute only, using the save button, simple
give the attribute that you have created a name that means something to
you and then when you wanted that exact attribute again all you had to do
was click on the load button in the attribute requester, like magic there you
had the attribute that you were looking for. Well it all sounds simple
enough but it does require that you must go through several different
requesters, and of course this takes more time that you wanted to spend
finding things.  OK, so after all this time we have implemented Quick
Attributes, you will find this new function under the functions menu.
Click on it and you will be presented with 25 pre-set attributes.  To use it,
simply select an object, then choose the Quick Attributes menu item, click
on one of the buttons that describes what you are looking for in an
attribute, i.e. glass, or chrome etc.  Once the attribute is loaded, the object
has all of the properties that you were looking for.
        In the event that you want to make your own attribute presets we
considered this as a viable alternative to the 25 that we have made as
presets.

        You will note that once you have installed Imagine 3.2 there is a
new directory named, Attribs.  In this directory are the 25 presets that we
made.  They are named, 01.atr through 25.atr.  These correspond to the
boxes reading from left to right and from top to bottom just like the words
on this page.  So if you want GOLD to be in Attribute place holder 5, it
would be named 05.atr and would be saved under that name.
        The easiest way to do this is to add an axis to the work surface,
change the attributes as they would need to be changed to meet the needs
that you have set forth.  Now save the axis in the attribs drawer under the
corresponding button number.  Its that simple.  Finally you should go to
the preset settings in the preferences editor, find the 05.atr placeholder and
edit that holder so that the text of that holder reads GOLD. or what ever
you made.  You are limited to 8 characters so your descriptions must be
short and to the point.  As you can see from the presets, this should not
limit you all that much.
        A final note, you can set the quickattributes to include brushes as
well as textures, we have omitted these due to the fact that during
installation we do not create a new textures or brush drawer,.  Once you get
the hang of this feature, you will be able to set your own powerfull presets.
Share them with your friends, and most of all enjoy.


        14. SET EDGE LINE, FILL EDGE LINE...This new menu item
under the Functions menu will save you lots of time and help you do
something that has been very time consuming in the past.  Consider  that
you have two objects, or even a open seam in a single object.  In the past
you had to add faces to the two objects after joining them or you had to add
the triangles by hand to the open seam in a single object.

        This just takes too much time and if you are real proficient you
can make facing mistakes that leave holes in the object or cause the
triangles to lap over each other, creating a Phong shading problem.

        In order to use this new feature, we suggest that you add to planes
to the work surface, move them apart a bit so that they are sitting side by
side.  Now join the two objects together, select them both in multi mode,
use the Right A/J hot key and they are now one object.  The area between
the two planes could be filled with the add face command and you would
click on the various trios of triangles to add those faces.  Not any more.
Now all you have to do is, while in Pick Edge mode, select one complete
set of edges along the side that is closest to the other plane, use the Set
Edge Line command after you have multi picked the edge set that you want
to fill in with triangles, now click anywhere to de-select the picked edges,
now multi pick the corresponding set of edges from the other plane.  Use
the Fill To Edge Line command,  the area between the two sets of picked
edges will automatically be filled with triangles.  This function works on
open or closed sets of edges, so if you cause a tube to cut from a sphere, you
could join the two objects, set the Set Edge line and then the Fill Edge Line
function, the area between these two closed areas would be filled with
triangles.

        Another caveat is to do this function first when joining two
objects.  Consider that we want to join an arm to a chest object.  We first
pick all of the faces of the arm in Face mode, make this a subgroup and
call it ARM.  Now go back to object mode and select the chest object, select
all of its faces in face mode and name that subgroup chest.

        Now Join the two objects to make one using the Join command.
Now use the hide points command, enter the Hide points function and also
choose the hide command.  Now select the pick subgroup function,  when
the requester comes up, choose the Hide Interior points from the requester.
All of the points on the inside of the object are hidden and all that is left is
the area that could be called the perimeter of the object.  You would do this
hide function until, in this example all you would have left is the perimeter
of the chest and arm object, you could then finally hide all of the other
points that you don't need, and be left with only the area at the end of the
arm that meets with the chest object.  Now enter Pick Edge mode, notice
that the points still stay hidden, now choose one or the other of the final
edge are form either the arm or the chest and use the Set Edge Line
command, now use the Fill To Edge Line tool to define the other set of
edges,  in the blinking of n eye, the two objects will be joined together to
make a new "SEAMLESS" object.

        Using this command will make creating Contiguous objects from
several object very easy and will aid in the creation of some great objects
that will lend themselves to being given bones.


        15. PICK MORE... As you create more and more elaborate objects,
you will become very aware that selecting a series of triangles that share
the same basic areas, can be much harder than it  appears to be.  With the
PICK MORE command you can select the next row of faces directly connected
to the area that you are working on.  Remember this however, if you were
working on a tube and wanted to use the PICK MORE command, that the command
selects more faces from both directions, so as you pick some in one
direction they will be picked on the other end of the tube.

        16. Pick More, Hide Unpicked, Unhide All, Unhide Subgroup.  Just
what it sounds like, when you are heavy into editing and have hidden
several points of an object, in order to get back the points you had to exit to
Object mode and then start all over.  This made us just as mad as it made
you so now we have fixed it.  From point, edge or face mode you can after
hiding some points, simply invoke the Unhide All command, all the points
that were hidden will now be reshown without ever leaving the mode that
you were in.  The same is true of the other command, Unhide Subgoup,
except that it works only on subgroups of faces, edges and points.

        Conversely, you may find that you want to hide the unpicked sets
of points and faces or edges that you are working on, not to worry,  Just use
the Hide unpicked menu item, then all of the points, edges or faces that are
not currently picked will be hidden from view.

        17. SMOOTH EDGE LINE... No matter how hard you try, you will
most likely never make a st of points perfectly smooth in an arc.  Making
points adhere to a more rectangular situation is easy when you are adding
points under the snap to grid function.  If you use the Spline editor you will
notice that it makes perfect curves, this is due to two things mostly
however it is due to the fact that the lines that have points on them are
splines instead of just raw points connected by  a line.

        If you select a line of points that looks to be irregular or after
making the outline of a lightbulb that you are going to spin, you would use
the Smooth Edge line function to make sure that the arc of the line that you
have created is as smooth as it can get.  When you do invoke this function
you will see small requester that has the number 3 in it. Above the  number
3 is says in the requester Complexity, actually the programmer used to
have the name Polynomial Value.  To those of us in the office that have no
idea what a polynomial is, we cried our eyes out and they changed the
name.  The function of Line smoothing is much easier to use than the
name implies.

        If you have a line of points connected by edges, you multi pick the
edges, then you invoke the Smooth Line command and hit return when the
small requester comes up just hit the return key.  The value of 3 will cause
the line of points to be smoothed.  If you don't like the results, simply use
the UNDO command and try a different figure.  From our experience the
lower the number the more sever the arc that is created, the higher the
number the lower the effect on the line.

        There are a few things to know, first, the number can be no lower
than the amount of edges that you are trying to smooth.  The larger the
number can at some point eliminate the effect to the line smoothing.  The
edges must be contiguous, they must connect one to the other,  and as of
yet it only works in edge mode, possibly in the future, we will have a object
smoother, we worked on it this time but the problem was very difficult to
make reliable.


        18. BACKDROP Images can now be loaded independently into each
of the quad view windows, this will allow for up to four images at a time in
the quad view.  All you need do is click in the window where you want the
image to show, then choose the load backdrop image function.

        19. Fracture has been changed so that you can now put in an amount
to fracture that is smaller than the number one.  If you choose fracture and
then input the number .5  (point 5) the triangles will be decreased in size to
one half their initial value and the object will maintain the general size
with the separated triangles.

        20. "Scrub" slider in anim previewer.
        Classic hand drawn animators use a technique
called page flipping, this is where as they draw the animation they keep
several pages of the animation secured between each finger of the hand
that they don't draw with.  This allows them to flip back and forth to see
the flow of the animation as well as the timing of the animation.  While we
don't have real pages to put in-between your fingers, we have added a
slider at the bottom of the animation requester that comes up in the detail
and stage editor,  after you have made an animation and want to preview
the animation before you commit to rendering it.  If you grab the small
black box and move it left to right you will see that it moves the animation
backwards and forwards.  This should make your timing work much
smoother and the animation process in general much easier.

*New in Version 3.3*

        21. Smooth fracture.

        Smooth fracture works very similar to Smooth Edge Line as it is
explained above only this function does the smoothing at the same time
it fractures up a line of edges.  Try this function by picking a string
of edges, on a 10x10 primative plane, that form a "V" shape.  This
function should fracture the edges and turn the original "V" shape into
more of a "U" shape.

        22. Variable Brightness.

        Imagine's Brightness attribute has been expanded.  It used to be
only used as bright or not bright.  Now the brightness of an object can be
set to something more like halfway bright.  This can be used to morph
objects to bright and not bright, bring up the color of distant ground
objects, or to simulate the ambient lighting of an object that is rendered
with only a single light source, etc.

        23. Randomize Colors.

        Randomize Face colors has been moved from the attributes requester
to the Functions Menu.  It still works the same.  Rand Colors has always
been a one pass, function oriented operation.  Moving it to the functions
menu puts it in a more appropriate place.

        24. Mix/Morph control for intensity on ALL textures and brushes.

        Historically, any intensity control for textures has been up
to each individual texture to control.  Now in Version 3.3 this option has
been taken over by Imagine.  This greatly expands the usefullness of the
textures that didn't offer intensity control and now also allows blending
of brushmaps onto objects.  To see how this works, Randomize the face colors
of an object, and then apply a texture, like Checks, with it's Mix/Morph
Value set to .5.  You will see the Texture is blended onto the object at
50% of it's original intensity.  Remeber that textures and brushes are
applied one at a time, in the order that they are on the object.  So to
get a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 blend, you need to apply the first brush at Mix=1.0,
the second at Mix=.5, and the third at Mix=.333.

        25-32. Specular Mapping, Hardness Mapping, Shininess Mapping,
Brightness Mapping, Fog Length Mapping, Index Of Refraction Mapping, Ambient
Light Mapping, Roughness Mapping.

        These 8 new brush mapping type have been added to the attributes
that are controllable with Imagine's texturing controls.  With these
new brush types the variablilty of "looks" for object surfaces in nearly
unlimited.
        Specular mapping changes the colors of the specular spot
depending upon where the specular spot is relative to the brush.
        Hardness mapping changes the size and shape of the specular spot
depending upon where the specular spot is relative to the brush.
        Shininess mapping changes the object's Shininess attribute
depending upon the brush is applied to the object.  To easily see the
results of a Shininess brush, Set the objects filter value to full red,
it's index of refraction to 3.55 and apply a brush as a Shininess Map.
You will see that where the brush is affecting the object, the object will
have a reddish, waxy appearance.  Remember that Shininess always uses the
object's filter and Index of Refraction values.
        Brightness mapping changes the object's Brightness attribute
based upon how the brush is applied to the object.  This map type used
the Red component in the brush map to set the objects brightness.  Using
A brightness map will make areas on the object appear to glow.
        Fog Length mapping allows you to control the Fog Length of a fog
object with a brush map.  You have to set a high and low fog value and
the brush controls where these values are tweened onto the object.  To
use this map type, you MUST have the object's base attributes set with a
fog value.
        Index of refraction mapping allows you to control the index of
refraction on a transparent object with a brush map.  This can give an
effect that looks like ice.  To see the effect that index of refraction
has on looking at other objects in the scene, you have to Trace the
image.
        Ambient Light Mapping is a new attribute effect that has never
before been available in Imagine.  This mapping applies light to the
object as if it had come from a light source, but the light is added
only to the object on which the brush is applied.  The colors in the
brush are interpreted as lighting values that are added to the object
as if they had come from colored lights.  Use this very subtly by setting
the Mix/Morph value to a very small number.  Careful use of ambient
maps can fake the same effects that radiosity images have.  Note:
Ambient maps are additive - multiple maps will add up rather than
cancel each other out.
        Roughness mapping was added just because we could.  Roughness,
if used, should be used very sparingly if not avoided altogether.  The
effect that roughness has can be simulated with textures, like bump
noise, and where as roughness will not animate properly, the texture
bumping will.

        33. Previous/Next buttons in the texture and brush requesters.

        These buttons were added to speed up the editing and viewing of
texture and brush data.  They will be un-ghosted if available for use.
These are here to save the older steps of highlighting a texture, clicking
info, clicking ok, highlighting the next texture, clicking info, etc.

        34. Browse buttons in the texture and brush requesters.

        Browse buttons have been added to the texture and brush requesters
to aid in renaming textures (or resetting the correct path), finding
Lock states and finding subgroups.

        35. 256 Color real-time texture/brush/attributes preview.

        The texture, brush, and attributes requesters now all have
256 color previews of the object's attributes.  The preview in the
attributes requester will show all the textures and brushes currently
applied, but in the texture or brush requester you only see the texture
or brush you are currently working with.  The preview has several buttons
around it so that you can change the preview object, add a backdrop, add
something for reflective objects to see, and control the scaling of the
object.
        The most confusing part of the preview is the directional controls
along the bottom the the rendered image.  Textures and brushes have their
own alignment axes that is independant of the alignment of the object.
The three buttons, front, top, and right, are used to view the texture or
brush along it's own axes.  The "obj" button lets you view the texture
or brush aligned as it is applied to the object.  With the "obj" button
selected, the other three buttons control which angle you are looking
at the object from.  These buttons will start up aligned to the texture's
top (X,Y) alignment because a large number of the texture have a default
alignment that lets them be put on a ground.  The default object alignment,
however is from the front because objects are usually render from something
near the front view.
        This preview is only available if you are running Imagine in
an available 256 color display mode and have enough extra memory to
allocate all the extra data required.

        36. 256 color color pickers in texture requester.

        Many people have asked for sliders to use when picking colors in
the texture requester.  For several reasons, we didn't add these. What
we did add is a new color picker.  This is not a slider, but while you are
working with a color, the area to the right of the color value displays all
the current color options available by changing this particular value.  You
can click into this color bar to change the value of the current color
parameter.  As you pick or change colors, all the color boxes are updated
to the available colors.  We have found this to be a very good way to do
color matching and a great way to find usually hard to find colors like
flesh tones.  Play with it, you'll get it.

        37. View Brush in brush requester.

        View Brush has been added to the brush requester to display the
currently selected brush.  This way you don't have to go to "Show Pic" to
see if you have the right brush.

        38. QRender - QuickRender directly from all attrib/txtr requesters.

        Ok, so you're working on the textures, brushes, and attributes of
your object.  You've got a preview of all the texture and color data, but
you don't know what it looks like on you object.  No problem.  Select
"QRender" from any of these requesters and you can see how the current
data looks on you object.  All camera settings come from the current
settings of the perspective window.

        39. User defined Texture/brush labels.

        A new text field has been added to the texture and brush
requesters.  With textures (if the texture was built following all the
rules) this field will show the internal name of the texture.  With
brushes it will contain the file name of the brush.  This new text field
is the label that is displayed in the texture/brush list on the attributes
requester.  This way you can re-name textures and brushes to give you a
better idea of what each item is doing.

        40-42. Dup, Drop, Disable/Enable in attribs requester

        These new buttons have been added to the attributes requester and
are used to quickly modify the texture/brush list on the object.
        "Dup" is used to duplicate (or copy) any item in the texture/brush
list.  This is of particular use when you want to use the same brush
repeatedly to control differnt object attributes but you want to brushes
size/position/alignment to stay exactly the same.
        "Drop" allows you to quickly drop (or delete) items out of the
object's texture/brush list without having to edit the texture or brush to
get at the drop button.
        "Disable/Enable" allow you to quickly "turn off" a texture or brush
in the object's texture/brush list without having to drop the item or set
the item's Mix/Morph value to 0.  A disabled item's text will be drawn in
gray (the editor background color), but can still be edited.  Enabling an
item will turn it back on so that it will be rendered onto the object at
render time.  These Disabled/Enabled textures/brushes can be smoothly
morphed.

        43. Interactive texture/brush list.

        The texture/brush list displayed in the attributes requester now
works directly with the mouse.  Clicking on an item in the list will
highlight it.  Clicking on a highlighted item will pull up that item's
data requester.  Clicking on "<New>" will call up a load texture/brush
requester.  Highlighting an item and then selecting "<New>" will load the
new texture/brush before the highlighted item.  If nothing is highlighted
and "<New>" is clicked, the new item will be added at the end of the list.

        44. Real time previewing of renders on 256 col displays.

        QuickRenders and project renders can now be viewed as they happen.
The render is displayed on the screen in grayscale because there is no
palette information available until the render is done.  This option is
turned on in the preferences editor by setting the RTGS option to True.
        This preview is only available if you are running Imagine in an
available 256 color display mode.

        45. Support for unfinished FLC's

        Prior to Version 3.3, Imagine would not display improperly made
FLC files that did not have the finished bit set.  Imagine now plays them,
but may also try to play corrupted FLC's that may not work properly.

        47. Default object attributes.

        Imagine's object have historically always loaded in new as fully
white, with 0 in all the other attributes.  Now you can set the defaults
for new object attributes by setting the attributes values in the
preferences editor.  The preferences items that affect object attributes
are DCLR, DREF, DFIL, DSPC, DHRD, DRGH, DSHI, DBRI, DIOR, and DFOG.

        48. Shaded View Edge drawing. (PC only)

        In Imagine's 256 color shaded perspective view, you can get a real
good idea about object shape and contours, but sometimes the brightness of
the edges of an object will drown out the shading on the faces.  This
option in the preferences editor (SPED) can be set to False to turn off
the edges and help in clarifying the image in the perspective view.  This
was a very quick and simple change to make in the PC version - that is the
only reason it was done.  On the Amiga the change would be considerably
more difficult so it was not.

        49. Replaced "Reflection Mapping" with "Environment Mapping."

        This was just a matter of changing the text on the brush requester.
The difference between "reflectivity" and "reflection" maps was confusing
so "reflection" was changed to "environment."  The environment map is what
is seen by rays off a reflective object.  The environment map's alignment
is locked to the world coordinate system and therefore is not modified by
editing it's axes.

        50. startup editor.

        In Imagine's preferences editor, you can now select the editor you
would like Imagine to start up in.  For example you can start Imagine
directly into the detail editor instead of first starting the project
editor and then going to the detail editor.  The preferences item that must
be changed is STRT.

        51. set number of points in scanline CSG sphere.

        Imagine's perfect (constructive Solid Geometry) sphere has always
been very simple and quick to use in trace mode, but in scanline, the
sphere is oftentimes too chunky to be used.  This is because the perfect
mathmatical sphere that can be used in trace mode has to be converted to
faces for scanline mode.  Now with this preferences option, you can set
the number of points in the csg sphere.  This number is actually the number
of verticle slices in a primative sphere.  The number of circle sections is
set to twice this number.  This value defaults to 8 points which is what
Imagine has used historically.  Setting it to anything less than 8 will
result in Imagine using it's default of 8.  A value of 24 gives real good
spheres, but be warned, these spheres take up a lot more memory than the
original 8 point CSG spheres do.  The preferences item that must be set is
SPHP.

*New in Version 4.0*

        52. Soft Shadows added to detail editor shadow light sources.

        Soft Shadows.  In the object's light attributes, there is a Soft
shadows flag now.  You have to be using a shadow casting lightsource.  The
size of the light is determined by the light's X axis.  The number of
lighting elements used to represent the Light is set in the preferences
editor (SSLE).  For best results, keep the penumbra small in your images.
The more light elements you use, the better the final image will look, but
large numbers greatly slow down the rendering.  It is probably best to use
the soft shadows as a subtlety in your images rather than the point of the
image.  Use lighting textures to help hide the artifacting that can occur
with shaped light sources and use of colored/textured objects will also
help to disguise any artifacting that can occur.  These should animate fine
without ever shimmering like you may see from some renderers that use more
stochastic ray casting methods.

        53. Motion Blur in Project Images.

        Motion Blur - this is set in the sub-project requester.
The number of frames is the number of extra frames to make the
blur with.  The shutter speed sets the duty cycle of the blurring
(I think that typically, a film motion picture camera has a duty
cycle of about 50%).

        54. Blob Modelling with both faceted and animatable soft object output.

        All of the menu items pertaining directly to blobs are found under the
object menu, in the detail editor, in the blobs sub-menu.

        In a nutshell, to use Imagine's blobs, add several spheres, group
them, and tell Imagine that you want this group treated as a blob. Now when
the group is rendered or explicitly meshed, the object will be converted into
a blob object.

        To create a blob object, add several CSG spheres in the detail editor
(use "Add Sphere" not "Add Primitive"), and group them.  Tell Imagine that
you want this group treated as a sphere by picking any of the spheres and
selecting "Blob Attributes" from the blob menu. For starters, just accept the
default value(s).  Once Imagine knows you are working with a blob object, the
group will automatically mesh (look like the blob object) in the prespective
view and when you go to render it.  Depending on the speed of your computer
and the complexity of the blob object, it may take a few seconds to see the
blob in the perspective view.  If you want to shut off the automatic mesh
generation in the perspective view, set the perspective mesh density (in the
objects/blobs menu) to zero.  This may be useful if the meshing process gets
to be too slow.  Each blob group has its own blob mesh density that is used
when the object is explicitly meshed or when the blob is rendered.  The mesh
density can be set and adjusted by setting the blob attributes on the parent
sphere.  With the mesh densities, higher numbers create finer meshes that look
good rendered, but they take a while to generate and can exceed Imagine's
maximun edge count.  If the max edge count is exceeded, the blob object will
be split into multple objects and the seam between the objects will render as
a hard, jagged, edge.  The Blobs/Create Mesh menu item generates a standard,
faced, Imagine object that can then have textures tacked to it and be animated
with tools like bones or states.

        The "Strength" value of the blobs is set with "Blob Attribs", and can
be thought of as representing the hardness or squishiness of the components of
the blob group.  The strength can be set independantly on each component of
the blob group.  A good range for the Strength is from about three to negative
three.  Posative values will add to the blob object, and negative values will
subtract or push the surface of the blob away.  A component with a value
between 0 and about .65 will not show up on it's own, but will still add to
the overall blob surface.  High strength values, like three, will make the
components more or less maintain their spherical shape when near other
components as opposed to looking like the components have melted together.

        A note on the missing threshold value:  If you are familiar with other
blobs editors, you may notice that there is no threshold parameter, here's
why:  The spheres you see in the orthogonal views of the detail editor are
representative of the isosurface of each element.  By looking at the blob this
way, the threshold/strength parameters just become a ratio - therefore, in
Imagine, the "Strength" just represents the magnitude of the strength relative
to the threshold.  Also, in imagine, there is no way to see the absolute
sphere of influence of each blob component as you can in other blob modellers,
but since the process of modelling with imagine's blobs is so interactive, it
is easier to just experiment and get a feel for the blobs rather than having
all the extraneous data cluttering the editing screens.  If you don't get what
this last paragraph has been about, don't worry, none of it really matters to
how Imagine's blobs works.

        Also notice about the blobs:  In the perspective view, if the
perspective mesh density is set to be very fine, and Imagine's maximum edge
count is exceeded, rather than splitting into a new object, the object meshing
will just stop - This is to give you some clue about the number of edges your
meshed object will have and to give you some guidance when setting the blob
object's final mesh density.

        55. Cascade Object Heirarchy Grouping.

        Under the "States" menu in the detail editor, a new grouping function
has been added.  Whereas the "Group" function that you are familiar with
groups all the picked objects to the first object picked, "Cascade Group"
groups them, one to the next, in the order that they were picked.  For
example, if you group several objects, A to D, using the old group function,
the objects are grouped A to B, A to C, and A to D.  If you use the cascade
grouping, they are grouped A to B, B to C, and C to D.

        56. Delete File in the Detail Editor for deleting temporary work files.

        Delete File is found under the Projects menu in the Detail Editor.
While working in the detail editor it is typical to accumulate a lot of
temporary, progressive, object files as you edit and manipulate an object.
This function is here so you don't have to exit Imagine in order to get rid
of all those extra files.  WARNING: this is a real file delete - it will
delete anything on your drive that you tell it to and the deleted file can not
be retrieved.

        57. Stage Effects in Detail Editor.

        You can now use Imagine's stage FX in the Detail editor.  This
funciton lets you load an FX module and apply it to an object in the detail
editor.  The idea behind this is to begin to open up Imagine's interface to
procedural modelling.  Now you can use FX like Spike as a tool in the detail
editor and you don't have to create a project, load the object, apply an FX in
the Action editor and than do a snapshot from the stage.  This feature may
also make it easier to set up and experiment with some of the more complex FX
modules.

        58. Smoothing Tool for smoothing objects.

        Alfonso Hermida (of the Blob Sculptor team), along with advice and
help with Imagine's blob editing, sent Impulse some smoothing code that has
been implemented as a smoothing tool in the Functions menu of the Detail
Editor.  The Smoothing parameters allow you to set the number of smoothing
iterations (the more iterations, the smoother the result) and to lock
perimeter points so that the outside edges of smoothed objects don't distort.
The smoothing tool will work in Group, Object, and Point mode.

        59. Auto-Load Backdrop Images in Stage (for rotoscoping).

        This function, in the Stage Editor's Display menu, will automatically
load backdrop images (as set in the Action Editor's globals bar) into the
perspective view as you change frames.

        60. Automatic Picking of Pasted Objects in Detail Editor.

        The behavior of Copy/Paste in the Detail Editor has been changed so
that the pasted object is automatically picked. (it used to be selected).
This was added because it seems more logical to want to imediately modify the
pasted object rather the the object you were already working with.

        61. Improved Imagine's Starfield.

        Imagine's Starfield has been changed so that the stars have variable
brightnesses.  This means that in a palettted image the stars may not be the
correct color, but it does generate much more convincing 24 bit starfield
images.

-end-