THE THIRD DIMENSION DISKMAG

Ultra fast animations of 3D kit datafiles.

If you receive the Amiga version of the diskmag,you may have 
noticed that we use a small animation created by Mieke for the 
intro when disk space allows.An even larger animation of spinning 
Third Dimension letters was also sent in by Antony Quinn.If disk 
space allows,we will use this in the future too.These anims got 
me thinking about creating one myself but using a 3D world.

     At first i thought it impossible as it would have to be a 
datafile that was created in kit 2 and used the kit video 
sequence function.Then it would have to be saved off as a 
standalone file and used in a disk intro sequence.This would be 
undesirable as it would take up a large amount of disk space and 
the final result would be a large sized file that you would not 
be able to move around in any given direction as you can do 
with the kits,but just to watch as you do with an animation.I 
want the anim just to be watchable and i am not bothered about 
the fact that the user cannot move where they want to because 
it is just meant to be a watchable anim.The only trouble is 
with the large size of the datafile and its slow movement.

     There must be another way,I thought,and indeed there is!
I have found that i can move around in the 3D kits and save my 
movements as an ultra fast animation.I already have a 3D datafile 
of my house and street so i thought that i would use it to move 
around and also to record the sequence.While doing it,it did seem 
a little slow and i wasn't sure that it would work,but i was 
pleasantly surprised and couldn't believe the very fast speed 
of my animation and the relatively small size of the animation 
when compared to a kit video sequence saved off as a stand alone 
game with all relevant files.
     
     The best thing was being able to play the anim from the 
desktop,as an intro to the diskmag or even to alter it and add 
other graphics to it.It even loads into my art package so that i 
can rework it!Too good to be true? Well it is true and here is 
how it is done.

     What you have to do is to first load a decent screen 
grabber that can save off your view screen as a picture file.
Mine saves pictures in IFF/LBM format.The Third Dimension PD 
library has a screen grabber available on disk for Amiga and 
Atari users.Next you then load one of the 3D kit programs up
as normal then load into it your datafile that you want to use 
in your animation.Then all you have to do is to set the 3D view 
up as your first frame/picture then take a screen grab of this.
Then move forward one step into your 3D world and then take another 
screengrab.Keep doing this by taking a screen grab of the view 
window everytime you move one step.You can use the right mouse 
button (large movement steps) when you are moving forward or the 
left button if you are panning around on the axis(looking 
left/right).Eventually you should end up with a large amount of 
screen grabs saved off into your ram disk ( preferably ) or hard 
disk or even onto floppy.A good screen grabber will save these 
grabs off with the same name and ascending numbers.E.g-
Picture.000    Picture.001    Picture.002 etc.

You then load these pictures into an art package.I used 
DeluxePaint4.In Dpaint,you select load picture,click on the
first screengrab (Picture001) and change the frame number in the 
same menu to the number of grabs that you have taken.Dpaint will 
then load in all of the pictures ( memory permitting ) in 
order.You can then view this sequence of pictures ( press 4 on 
your keyboard on the Amiga ).If you are happy with it,save it as 
an ANIM ( compressed ).You then end up with a fast anim of your 
3D world that uses up a relatively small file size.Most anim 
viewers can play the anim back at various fast/slow speeds.

Lack of RAM memory can be a problem for some users but there are 
ways around this.You can get programs that can splice small anims 
together to make one large one.If your floppy disk can only saves 30 
pictures onto it,you could save the position that you are at in 
your 3D world as an entrance,quit the program,start with another 
empty disk in the drive after having loaded the grabber and 3D 
program and files again and then carry on.You can then change the 
grab numbers on the second disk and load all of them into your 
art program as normal.
     
After having tried this form of animation,I thought about 
creating a gut churning 3D animation of a flight between 
buildings animation.I also realised that you could press the 
F1 screen between grabs so that you don't get the kit icons on 
screen.Expect a demo on disk soon and an anim on the new kit 
video coming out this year.
 
If anyone tries this routine then send in your anim in exchange 
for some free PD disks.

Tony ( nothing better to do than create anims all day ) Hartley.