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Visualiser 4-00D Readme ======================= Welcome to the Superscape Visualiser, an application that lets you move around and interact with virtual worlds on a desktop computer. This Readme contains detailed information on the following: 1. Loading a world 2. Moving around a world 3. Adjusting the sensitivity of the keyboard 4. Changing screen resolution 5. Saving screens 6. Printing screens 7. Setting up a device 8. Troubleshooting ==================== 1. Loading a world ==================== 1. Choose Open from the File Menu. The Open VRT File dialogue box is displayed. The scroll box on the left shows the directories and files in the current directory. Superscape worlds have a .VRT file extension. 2. Go to the drive where your worlds are stored. For example, if you are loading a world from a drive which is using the letter D, click on D: in the drive list. 3. Go to the directory where your worlds are stored. Click on the .. in the file list or the Parent button to go up the directory tree one level. 4. Select a world, and choose OK. The world is loaded and displayed. ========================== 2. Moving around a world ========================== There are two ways of moving around a virtual world: 1. Using the mouse. 2. Using the keyboard. You can use either of these methods or a combination of both. When you first enter a world you are positioned at the default viewpoint and position. As you move around the world, you may find yourself disorientated; press the F12 key to return to the initial position and reset the world. 2.1 Using the mouse in Movement Mode ==================================== When you start Visualiser, the mouse is set to selection mode which lets you select items by clicking on them. To switch to movement mode, position the mouse pointer in the centre of the screen and press the space bar once. A small square (known as the home position) is displayed on the screen at the tip of the pointer, indicating that you are in movement mode. Now when you move the mouse, you move your position within the virtual world or change the viewpoint. The direction that you move and any change of viewpoint depends on whether you are moving just the mouse, or holding down the left or right mouse button at the same time. Check the following table: | Mouse only | +Left But | +Right But ______|______________|___________|___________ | | | Up | Move forwards| Rot up | Move up Down | Move back | Rot down | Move down Left | Rot left | Rot left | Move left Right | Rot right | Rot right | Move right The further you move the mouse pointer from the home position, the faster you move in the world. When the mouse pointer is over the home position, any movement stops. To switch back to selection mode, press the space bar. The home position disappears and you can use the mouse to select items again. 2.2 Using the Keyboard ====================== You can use the keyboard to navigate around a world. Pressing the keys changes the viewpoint and direction that you move as follows: O Move forwards Q Rotate left K Move backwards W Rotate right H Move left P Rotate up J Move right L Rotate down R Move up N Tilt left F Move down M Tilt right < or , zooms out of the world > or . zooms into the world Each world may have several set viewpoints onto the world, which you can go to by pressing F1 - F10. Press F11 to go to back to the last viewpoint that you selected. Press F12 to reset the world. ============================================== 3. Adjusting the sensitivity of the keyboard ============================================== You can adjust the distance that you move each time you press a key. 1. Choose Setup from the Settings menu. The Setup dialogue box is displayed. 2. Drag the Movement Step slider (or click on the slider scale) to adjust the amount you move in a linear direction. Movement Step has a range of 0-100000. 3. Drag the Angular Step slider (or click on the slider scale) to adjust the amount you move in a rotational direction. Angular Step has a range of 0-90 degrees. 4. Choose OK. =============================== 4. Changing screen resolution =============================== With some graphics cards, you can use Visualiser in several screen resolutions. These differ according to the graphics card you are using and its configuration. To change the screen resolution press SHIFT and + or SHIFT and - on the keypad to change to a higher or lower resolution if one is available. At each end, the resolution changes wrap around. For example, changing down from the lowest available resolution switches to the highest resolution. If Visualiser only runs in low resolution (320 x 200), see the Troubleshooting section below. =================== 5. Saving screens =================== You can save the currently displayed screen to disk within Visualiser by pressing CTRL+PRINT SCREEN. By default, the screen is saved to disk as a 256 colour .PCX format file in the current directory. The name of the screen file is, by default, the first five characters of the configuration file name (usually the same as the VRT file name) padded with underscores if necessary, followed by a unique three digit number, and the file extension. For example, if you start Visualiser, load the world OFFICE.VRT and take three screenshots, the files are saved as OFFIC001.PCX, OFFIC002.PCX, OFFIC003.PCX. If you take the screenshots from the file GO.VRT the files are GO___001.PCX, GO___002.PCX, GO___003.PCX. You can override the default screen file name and format by choosing Screen Filename from the File menu. The Format button in the Screen Filename dialogue box lets you select one of the following graphics formats: PCX, BMP, GIF, JPG, TGA, TIF. ===================== 6. Printing screens ===================== You can print a screen on a connected printer without saving it to disk by pressing PRINT SCREEN. If this is the first screen to be printed, the Printer dialogue box is displayed, with a list of available printer types. Follow the dialogue boxes to set up your printer and print the screen. If you want to select a different printer choose Print Setup from the File menu. ======================== 7. Setting up a device ======================== The default installation assumes that you have no devices other than the keyboard and mouse connected to Visualiser. If you have an additional device (such as a sound card), you must configure the Visualiser software before you can use it. 1. Choose Device Select from the Settings menu. The Device Select dialogue box is displayed. 2. Scroll through the list of devices until you find your device. 3. Select the check box to the left of the device name to enable it (a tick is displayed in the box when the device is enabled). 4. Click on the Setup button to the right of the device name. A device configuration dialogue box is displayed. 5. Enter the details required, and choose OK. The Device Select dialogue box is displayed again. Some devices, such as sound cards, are activated immediately. Others, such as graphics cards, are only set up when Visualiser is started; in this case you are warned that you must save your Preferences and restart Visualiser. 6. Choose Save Prefs to save the new settings, (or OK to return to the Visualiser window without saving the changes). The Save Preferences dialogue box is displayed. Choose OK. An alert box warns you that the file you are about to save (called VIS.CFG) already exists and that you are about to overwrite it. Choose OK to save the new configuration. (Choose Cancel if you do not want to save the configuration.) The new device configuration is saved in Visualiser's Preferences file. =================== 8. Troubleshooting =================== This section identifies some of the most common problems that can occur with the Visualiser software. If you have a problem running the program the first time that you use Visualiser, check first that the hardware is operating correctly and that the software is correctly installed. 8.1 Bad command or file name ============================ For Visualiser to run correctly, you should be in the directory where it was installed (but see below). 8.2 No system message data specified ==================================== If Visualiser is not run from the install directory, it will not know where to find its system files. This can be overcome by setting an environment variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: SET VIS=C:\VISDEMO If, in addition, you add the install directory to the PATH in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you can run Visualiser from any directory. If you make these changes to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file make sure that you reboot your computer to enable the new configuration. 8.3 Visualiser runs in low resolution (320 x 200) ================================================= To run in a higher resolution, your graphics card must be VESA compatible. Most cards come with a small driver to do this. On one of the disks supplied with the graphics card there should be a file supporting this, probably a .COM or .EXE file with VESA somewhere in the name. If you cannot find a file with this name, consult the documentation included with the graphics card. The VESA driver is a small memory resident program that converts the SVGA card into a truly standard VESA SVGA. Copy this to your hard disk, following the instructions supplied with the graphics card. (It may also be necessary to copy some other files.) To test this, run the driver from the DOS prompt. You should get a short message informing you that the driver has been installed. Now run the Visualiser. If the title screen is displayed, then all is well and the VESA configuration has been recognised. To make this change permanent, add a line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to run the VESA driver every time you reboot. 8.4 Blank Screen ================ Some mouse drivers may cause problems with the SVGA leading to a blank screen. Try removing the mouse driver from memory (usually this means removing it from your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file and rebooting the machine), and running Visualiser without a mouse. If this cures the problem, try using a different mouse driver. Mouse drivers are usually called MOUSE.COM, and are in a directory called MOUSE, or UTILS. 8.5 Playing sounds hangs the system =================================== The Ad Lib Gold 1000, Sound Blaster 2 and Sound Blaster 16 ASP cards all require a certain amount of processor time to process the sound data. Several other devices, most notably the mouse, work in a similar way. Some mouse drivers contain a bug which causes them to lock up when using the interrupt driven sound in this way. Try another mouse driver. 8.6 Mouse does not work ======================= First, check that the mouse is connected to the correct port , and that the mouse driver supplied is installed correctly. Instructions on how to do this are contained in the documentation that accompanies the mouse. For three button mice, a different mouse driver may be required if the third button is enabled. Check with the mouse documentation to see if this is the case. 8.7 Image trails on screen ========================== If you press the B key (accidentally), you switch off the buffer clear mode instructing Visualiser not to clear the display buffer each frame. In this case the data in the buffer is left as it is and the next frame is drawn on top of it, causing an image trail to be left on the screen. Press the B key to cycle through the available buffer clear modes. 8.8 Error screen ================ Very occasionally a combination of keystrokes and operations may highlight an unreported problem. If Visualiser is the cause, the screen is likely to contain some form of data and an error message, usually as a red, white and blue error screen. Reset your computer, load Visualiser and try the same sequence again to see if it is directly related to Visualiser's operation. If the problem does not re-occur, it may have been due to an environmental problem affecting the hardware, such as a mains spike.