AWESOME ANIMATED MONSTER MAKER: ULTRA EDITION Copyright © 1997 by ImaginEngine Corp. Published by Houghton Mifflin Interactive. All rights reserved. PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE FILE *BEFORE* USING AWESOME ANIMATED MONSTER MAKER: ULTRA EDITION To read this document, please select Word Wrap from the Edit menu. Thank you for choosing AWESOME ANIMATED MONSTER MAKER ULTRA EDITION (Monster Maker). In no time at all, you will be creating your own wacky animated creatures, printing and saving them, changing their personalities, even singing and dancing with them. Before you put on your Dr. Frankenstein costume, please read all of these notes. TABLE OF CONTENTS =================== Recommended System Requirements Installation Awesome Animated Monster Mover Ver. 2 Utility Troubleshooting Tips: >Performance Problems >Printing Problems >Video Problems >Contacting Technical Support RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS =================================== Windows: 486/100 MHz or higher IBM-compatible PC 8MB RAM (12 recommended if running Windows 95) Windows 3.1 or higher (including Windows 95) SVGA display (256 color) MPC2-compatible sound card (22 KHz, 16-bit) Double-speed CD-ROM drive Mouse 8MB hard disk drive space Macintosh: PowerPC System 7.1 or higher 12MB RAM Double-speed CD-ROM drive Mouse 8MB hard disk drive space INSTALLATION ============== Windows 95: 1) Insert the Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Edition disc in your CD-ROM drive. 2) If the Autoplay feature is activated, click OK when prompted to install. Please be sure to wait until Autoplay takes effect. > If the Autoplay feature is not activated, double-click on the MY COMPUTER icon. > Use the right mouse button to click the MMULTRAPC icon, and select OPEN. > Double-click the SETUP.EXE. 3) Follow the on-screen instructions to install all necessary files. 4) To run the product, double-click on the Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Ed icon in the HMI program group. Once Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Edition has been installed on your system, you will be given the start-up screen whenever you insert the CD-ROM. To launch the program, select "OK" from the start-up screen. Windows 3.1: 1) Insert the Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Edition disc into your CD-ROM drive. 2) From the Windows Program Manager, choose FILE then RUN. 3) At the command line, type D:\SETUP (where d is the label of your CD-ROM drive. If your CD-ROM drive has another label, please enter that instead). 4) To run the software, double-click on the Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Ed icon in the HMI Program Group. DON'T FORGET TO CHECK THE SECRETS OF MONSTER MAKING MANUAL FOR SPECIAL INSIGHTS, SECRET RECIPES, AND MORE!! Power Macintosh: 1) Insert the Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Edition disc into your CD-ROM drive. 2) Double-click on the Monster Maker Ultra Installer icon, and follow the on-screen prompts. 3) To run the software, double-click on the Monster Maker Ultra icon from the Monster Maker Ultra folder on your hard disk. DO NOT run Monster Maker directly from your CD-ROM, as performance will suffer! DON'T FORGET TO CHECK THE SECRETS OF MONSTER MAKING MANUAL FOR SPECIAL INSIGHTS, SECRET RECIPES, AND MORE!! AWESOME ANIMATED MONSTER MOVER VER.2 ===================================== Monster Mover is a simple utility that allows you export pictures of your monsters from Awesome Animated Monster Maker Ultra Edition, so you can paste them into word processing documents, spreadsheets or other documents, send them in emails, paste them into art programs, and so much more. Launch Monster Mover by double-clicking on the Monster Mover Ver. 2 icon (in the HMI Program Group in Windows, or in the Monster Maker Ultra folder on a Mac). This version of Monster Mover has two parts: the Gallery and the Export Room. THE GALLERY lets you view the monsters you've saved in Monster Maker. The Build option has been disabled, because you already have the coolest place to make monsters (Monster Maker!). > Click on the arrows below the viewing window to see pictures of your saved monsters. > Choose a monster by clicking Load, or get rid of a monster you no longer want with Delete. > The monster you chose will appear on a pedestal on the right of the screen. > Now click Export. (If no monster has been selected, choosing Export will load the monster that is currently being viewed.) In THE EXPORT ROOM, you can find a pose for your monster and export it (move it) in a number of different formats. > The picture you choose to move can be in Color or Black & White. Choose the Color button to see your monster in all its glory, or select the B/W button to print an outline of your monster that you can color yourself. > Now pick an emotion or trick button (Idle, Happy, Sad, Angry, Goofy or Tricks 1, 2 or 3) from above the viewing window. > Then chose a pose by using the control buttons under the display window. Press the Play arrow to see what your monster does for the emotion or trick you picked. > When you see the perfect pose, press the Pause button, or click on the bar below the screen. Now you're ready to move your monster. When you press the Export button, you'll be given the following options: > To Printer: Send your monster to the printer to, well, print it! > To Clipboard: Pick this to send your monster to your Clipboard. From there, you can paste it into many different kinds of documents -- word processing, spreadsheet, or whatever! In Windows 95, you'll find the Clipboard Viewer under the Accessories menu, in Windows 3.1, look for the ClipBook Viewer in the Main Program Group, and on a Mac, look under Edit on your main screen's menu bar (Finder), and select "Show Clipboard". > To Palace: Use this option to transfer your monster picture to the clipboard in the special format used by the 2D multi-user chat software. The free client software can be downloaded at www.thepalace.com. > To File: Save your monster as a bitmapped (BMP, for Windows) or PICT (for Mac) graphic file. You can attach your monster files to emails or put them on disks to share with friends. TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS ======================= Awesome Animated Monster Maker should provide hours of trouble-free fun. If you are having problems, refer to the following before calling technical support. Performance Problems ----------------------------- (Such as slow animation or sound breakup) * Monster Maker is running out of memory. You can help this by making a smaller monster. * Other applications are running. Exit other applications before running Monster Maker. * Win95 users should make sure that the CD-ROM cache is set up correctly. If you know the speed of your CD-ROM drive (2x, 4x, etc.), open the "System" control panel and choose the "Performance" tab. Click the "File System" button and go to the CD-ROM tab. Make sure the "Optimize Access Pattern for..." combo box is set correctly. Printing Problems ------------------------ SPECIAL NOTE for Power Macintosh users: If you have Background Printing turned ON, your monster will not print out UNTIL you exit Monster Maker. To print out while still in the software, turn Background Printing OFF. * Try leaving the Photo Studio and returning. * Try printing from the Monster Mover utility instead. Memory Settings ---------------- For Power Macintosh users: This CD-ROM will perform best with Virtual Memory turned OFF. To turn your Virtual Memory off: 1) Select Memory from your Control Panel menu. 2) Turn Virtual Memory OFF. 3) You will be prompted to restart your computer for the change to take effect. Certain memory management, software acceleration or disk caching software packages (such as RAM Doubler) may cause problems with Monster Maker. For best performance, you should disable these applications before running Monster Maker. Video Problems --------------------- To run this software, your display must be set to 256 colors. If you need to reset your display, follow these steps: Power Macintosh 1) Open your Monitor Control Panel from your Apple menu. 2) Click the 256 color setting. Windows 3.1 Some IBM-compatible monitors supply a custom video setup control panel (either in your Main Program Group or in a separate program group) which will enable you to change your video mode. If your system does not have such a control panel, you may change your video mode by following these steps: 1) In the Windows Program Manager, double-click on the "Windows Setup" icon in the "Main" program group. 2) Select "Change System Settings..." from the Options menu. 3) From the "Display" drop-down menu, select a setting with 256 colors (e.g., Super VGA (SVGA) 800 x 600 256, or 640 x 480 256). 4) You may be prompted to insert your original Windows diskettes to install the relevant driver. 5) You will be prompted to re-start Windows to activate the new display driver setting. Please note: These instructions assume that you have a Super VGA (SVGA) compatible display adapter. If you are not sure, please refer to the documentation that came with your system. Windows 95 1) Open the Control Panel from the Settings selection in the Start menu. 2) Double-click on the Display icon and select the Settings tab. 3) Switch the Color Palette setting to "256 color". 4) You may be prompted to restart your computer for the change to take effect. If the program launches, but you are seeing incorrect color palettes or "garbage" being left on the screen, follow these steps: Windows: * Confirm that you have the latest video drivers installed on your machine. If you are not sure what kind of video driver you need, consult your dealer. If you have access to the internet, visit the HMI Technical Support Site on the World Wide Web at http://www.hminet.com for video driver support information. * Windows 95: If problems persist, try turning off video acceleration. Open the "System" control panel and choose the "Performance" tab. Click the "Graphics" button. Move the slider there down one step at a time until the problem goes away. CONTACTING TECHNICAL SUPPORT =============================== If you have questions about this CD-ROM and have access to the Internet, visit the HMI Customer Service and Technical Support Site on the World Wide Web at: http://www.hminet.com/ If you don't have access to the Internet, or if you're still experiencing difficulty, gather the following information: 1) The product name (Awesome Animated Monster Maker: Ultra Edition) 2) Amount of RAM in your system, and video card and system information 3) A description of your problem including any error messages 4) A list of the steps that lead to the problem Contact Technical Support at 1(800) 210-0241. Our hours are 7:00 am - 1:00 am Monday - Friday and 8:00 am - 8:00 pm Saturday - Sunday (Eastern Standard Time). You may send correspondence to: HMI Technical Support 120 Beacon Street Somerville, MA 02143 Fax: (617) 503-4900 Email: HMI_Tech@hmco.com