Welcome to Ulead COOL 3D 2.5

ReadMe FIRST!

March, 1999

This ReadMe document provides basic information about Ulead COOL 3D 2.5. Please read this file before you start using Ulead COOL 3D.

Table of Contents

1. Overview

2. What’s new in Version 2.5?

3. Before you start

4. Troubleshooting

5. Contacting Ulead

1. Overview

Ulead COOL 3D is 3D titling software that lets anyone create impressive animated 3D text with special effects.

Real-time drag-and-drop editing makes it simple to produce eye-popping 3D titles, logos and animated graphics for Web pages, digital video, multimedia titles, presentations and more.

Ulead COOL 3D uses Microsoft DirectX to create and render 3D titles. It offers users all the essential elements and functions of a standard 3D program, including bevel, color, lighting, texture, motion, and camera perspective controls, providing the ultimate in versatility and creativity. You can even import 2D graphics. In addition, Ulead COOL 3D 2.5 supports high resolution output, field-based AVI and image sequence file formats; Direct 3D Hardware Acceleration; and brand new plug-ins to let your creative fly.

Creating 3D text has never been easier and never this cool!

2. What’s new in version 2.5?

Supports Direct 3D Hardware Accelerators

Create Documents Larger than the Screen Resolution

Field-Based Interlacing of BMP, JPG, and TGA Image Sequences

Independent Motion Key Frames for Position, Rotation, and Size

Improved Texture Quality

Right-click Drag-and-Drop application of Individual EasyPalette Attributes

Document Zoom In and Out

Playback Speed Control

Hundreds of instant EasyPalette™ Thumbnail Animations

12 outrageous new plug-in effects

3. Before you start

For Windows NT 4.0 users, make sure that you are logged on as an Administrator before you install or uninstall Ulead COOL 3D 2.0.

Before you start, please make sure you have registered.

Please make sure that Microsoft DirectX is correctly installed on your system. For Windows 95, please use DirectX 5.0 or higher. For Windows NT, use DirectX 3.0 or higher. For Windows 98, DirectX will already have been installed on your system. DirectX 6.1 drivers are included on this CD, or you can download the latest version from Microsoft's web site.

You can import 2D graphics (WMF/EMF files) in Ulead COOL 3D and adjust the extrusion to create 3D titles. Enhanced Meta Files (EMF) are recommended for best results. This version of Ulead COOL 3D does not support WMF files that do not include vector data. For example, WMF files created in Ulead PhotoImpact can not be imported. In addition, only closed vectors are supported. Please make sure the vectors on your imported files meet this criterion.

You can add any animation preset to the EasyPalette™ while playing an animation, but the Template-Composition folder (which records templates you may want to re-use again) will only store the current frame. You can drag & drop this frame into an open document or create a new window.

You can insert Ulead COOL 3D objects from within the FrontPage Editor. When you want to use this function, please make sure you have installed FrontPage before installing Ulead COOL 3D. This function is not available in FrontPage Express.

If you want to use the presets from Ulead COOL 3D version 1, and version 2 and integrate them with version 2.5, import them by right-clicking on a thumbnail in the EasyPalette™, and select the Import command.

The order of applying plug-in effects may cause different results because of the plug-in execution order.

When you work with large or high resolution documents, you may zoom out to get a faster display in the working window.

4. Troubleshooting

On some machines, DirectX 5.0/5.2 may cause conflicts when using Optimize display mode in Ulead COOL 3D. Please download and install the latest version of DirectX (6.1 as of this writing) if you experience this problem.

On some machines, your display card driver may cause conflicts with Direct X. Please download and install the latest version of your display card's driver if you experience any problems.

On Windows 95 and NT, the total amount of plug-ins applied (include multiple documents) at any one time must be less than 18.

If you encounter any difficulties with EMF (WMF) files, try to reduce the complexity of the object in a vector editor.

If your Display Card supports Direct 3D (or DirectX) but Use HAL Rendering is unavailable on the View menu, change your display to 16-bit or 32-bit color.

Some display cards may have problems with Direct X which may cause your display or computer to behave strangely. This is only a problem when using HAL Rendering and can be solved by turning this feature off.

On Windows NT, when working on large or high resolution documents, if you get strange results when you print it out or do print preview, try to reduce the document size or resolution.

5. Contacting Ulead

Your comments and suggestions to improve our software are most welcome. Please send them to support@ulead.com.tw. Thank you very much.

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Copyright 1997-1999, Ulead Systems, Inc.

All rights reserved. Ulead is a registered trademark and Ulead COOL 3D is a trademark of Ulead Systems, Inc. Some of the product names used in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are used for identification purposes only.