Saving

Saving

Tabs

Sounds Tab

Geometries Tab

Object Motion Tab

Vertex Motion Tab

The Save Dialog

The main purpose of the Designers save dialog is to optimize the creation of your internet files by associating different encoding algorithms with the objects contained in your simulation.

The save dialog has been split into four different topics through a tab control. These are:

Object motions.

Vertex motions.

Sounds.

Geometries.

All of those sections comes with a common interface. Since the Cult3D technology is continuosly growing, new codecs are added as time passes. A 'codec' is a particular algorithm used to encode/decode a certain family of objects. As an example, we have sound codecs, geometry codecs and so on... As stated before, codec selection is performed through a common interface, but each codec may have a extra set of controls in order to be fine-tuned. Some codecs doesn't have such extra controls, because their internal parameters gets automatically tuned.

Sounds Tab

The Save Dialog

A - The selection list. Available objects belonging to the currently selected topic are enlisted here. The "Select All" button is a shortcut to perform a immediate selection of the whole list.

B - 'Compression type' combo. Available codecs for the selected objects are presented here.

C - 'Compatible codecs' filter: when active (default), the codecs combo is filtered in such a way that only those codecs which are compatible with all of the selected objects are presented.

D - 'Assign' button: pressing this button will result in assigning the currently selected codec to all of the currently selected objects.

E - Codec description. A brief description of the currently selected codec will be displayed here.

F - extra controls area. When the selected objects are has all been assigned to a codec (it has to be the same codec) which supports extra controls, those will appear here.

G - Topic tab: click on the different topics to bring their page up.

H - Save button: press this button to create the internet file.

How to assign codecs

Figure 1: Multiple objects are selected. The Compression type combo is displaying the available codecs which are compatible with all of the selected items.

On the left side of the save dialog there is a list box containing the names of the objects available in the currently selected topic. The user may select a set of those objects using the windows standard extended selection controls, or he may select all of them by pressing the button "Select All", which is just on the top of such list box. On the right side of the dialog, a combo box is displaying all the available codecs for the selected objects (Figure 1 and Figure 2). The check box "Show compatible codecs only" will force the combo box to filter the codec selection in order to display only those codecs which are compatible with all of the selected objects only. Anyway, it is possible to switch off such a feature and get the complete list of the available codecs for the selected topic (Figure 3). When such a filter is deactivated, it is possible to try to assign a object to a codec which is not able to handle it: in this case, a error dialog box will appear, explaining why the operation has failed (Figure 4). Once a codec has been selected in the combo, it is possible to assign it to the selected objects by pressing the "Assign" button. In figure 5, we are assigning the "Mesh Level 2" geometry compression codec to the selected objects. Since such a codec does support some extra parameters, we get them on the bottom of the save dialog.

Figure 2: A item is selected. The Compression type combo is displaying the available codecs which are compatible with the selected item.

Figure 3: The "Show compatible codecs only" filter has been deactivated. As a result, the Compression type combo is displaying all the availbale codecs for the' Sounds' topic, even those which are not compatible with the selected item.

Figure 4: We tried to connect a object to a codec which has been designed to handle a different class of objects.

Geometries Tab

Figure 5: Assigning the 'Mesh Level 2' codec to a set of selected objects.

Object Motion Tab - Setting the extra codec parameters for a set of objects

Figure 6

When the user selectes a set of objects, the codec's extra parameter controls will appear on the bottom of the save dialog. Those controls won't appear if: - The user has performed a non homogeneus selection - The codec assigned to the selected object does not support any extra control A non homogeneus selection occurs when objects who has been connected to different codecs are being selected together. In Figure 1, the selection of the object 'MOON' together with the object '13-body', will cause a non homogeneus selection, and the bottom part of the save dialog will be empty (the extra controls for the codec "Mesh Level 2" assigned to 'MOON' won't be shown). However, there is a special case where this mechanism is slightly different: the Wavelet codec for the Object motions does not allow to change its parameters for a subset of objects. As a result, touching the extra controls for such a codec will result in applying the changes to all the objects, even those which are not selected (Figure 6).

Vertex Motion Tab

Figure 7

Those objects that contain vertex motion information are shown in this tab. Here you can select between 2 'codecs'. The first one is our wavelet compression. And the other one is what we call 'Optimization'. This last one can remove "unwanted" keyframes in a vertex animation.

For instance.If you have created a linear morph between two object, which goes between frame 1 to 100. Instead of using the action "Animation Play" in the Designer, you can choose the "Animation Jump To" and select your own play duration and to which frame you want to "morph" to.

So, if you have used the "Animation Jump To" action, then you have 98 unwanted frames loaded with vertex animation data which are not needed. Then our 'Optimization' compression type comes in handy. It cuts off those frames which are not in use in the "Animation Jump To" actions.

To get in depth information about the different Designer Codecs, select "Designer Codecs" in the Main Menu.