Merciful 2/Merciful - Disc 2.iso/software/i/imaginev3.2a.dms/imaginev3.2a.adf/im32_1.LZH/32.doc

Text File | 1995-03-20 | 34KB | 721 lines

Howdy

Here is Imagine 3.2

        Sorry for the delay, but trying to decide on how long things are
going to take to invent is an art form that requires years of practice.  So we
continue to practice.  Never-the-less we are happy with the new
improvements that have found their way into Imagine 3.2 and we are sure
you will feel likewise.

        This document is your resource for the new additions to 3.2,
please print this document or if you like, use it on line, and save the paper.

        Over the years people have wanted a way to increase the size of
the workspace or to take more advantage of the higher resolutions that the
computer can display.  If you are using a PC and have a vesa compliant
card you can now set Imagine to run in several different modes, and as an
added bonus you can now run Imagine in 256 color mode.  There is one
drawback, however, unless your computer is a speedy one, you will find
that the new modes slow things down a bit.  This is understandable due to
the increase in memory usage and the shear fact that there is much more to
keep track of.

        Other new features include, QUICK ATTRIBUTES, seems silly
after all these years that people would still need this function but after we
used it here in the office, it became one of the neatest and most useful new
features of Imagine 3.2.

        There are numerous new features and more importantly we have
fixed a box full of bugs in Imagine 3.2.  The following list is a
comprehensive list of things that were fixed, please take the time to review
the list and make sure that we have wacked the ones you have told us
about.

        So, on to all the new goodies and bug fixes.  Ah yes before we get
into the middle of it all, of course the next question you have is, when is
3.3 going to be out.  At the time of this writing it looks like Imagine 3.3
will be out at the end of March with 4.0 following close on its heels.  The
constant update program promised each of  you 4.0 by May and it looks
like we are right on track.

        Again thanks for you support and as always, let us know what you
think, we are listening.

        The Gang At Impulse.

INSTALLATION

        Insert the disk into the floppy drive, type A: to set the active drive
to the floppy (or B: if your floppy is drive B), and then type INSTALL X:
Where x is the name of the (hard) drive that you want Imagine to install to.
Note that this will create a new directory called IM32.  The reason for this
is that we have added a new config file and you might want to review it
before you copy over the older version of Imagine 3.1.  Also there is a new
directory called Attribs.  This is where the new QuickAttribute files are
stored.  If you decide the Config file that we have made is going to meet
your needs, copy it and Imagine to your old Imagine directory.  There are
two new textures and one new effects that will be put into directories that
are made in the new IM32 directory.  If you want to keep both Imagine 3.2
and 3.1 simply copy over to the Textures directory all of your textures from
3.1 and do the same for the effects.

        BUGS BUGS AND HOPEFULLY THE END OF BUGS
        oldest bugs ...

1.  Star field - animates correctly now

2.  Cloning states - works correctly now

3.  fog length changes now in "load attributes"

4.  Fixed "Constrain" menu item check mark

5.  transformations requester does constrained movement in "Pick Objects"
    mode only now (not Pick Groups).  Also, it ignores scale factors in
    constrained motion

6.  Fixed object morphs in looping animation's

7.  Fixed change from tweened motion to following a path, so objects
    don't slow down just before hitting the path

8.  Fixed a bug in the Particle F/X -- where points could move way too far

9.  Fixed "diminishing intensity" light sources

10. Fixed a couple of bugs with shaded perspective view, where the
    display would change after deleting objects, etc.

11. Fixed bug where state and forms data wasn't blown out on extrudes,
    etc., ... where the point count changes.

12. Fixed a bug in "Make Path" that caused trouble down the line
    if the "selected" object was one of the path axes

13. Fixed palette bugs (RGB reversals) in TGA files

14. "Add Font Object" works correctly on Amiga version now (compiler bug)

15. Fixed face colors on extrudes -- they work correctly again

16. "Fixed" brush/texture tacking with scaled up objects -- they use
    the texture axes in set in the "tacking state" now

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

        newer bugs..

17. Fixed a bug with the Phong shader in the PC version ... that caused
    odd behavior in rare circumstances

18. Fixed "Make Big/Small Bones Subgroup" functions ... big does big,
    and small does small now

19. Fixed bugs in "Pick/Unpick Subgroup", "Edge Filter", and "Pick Range"
    ... bugs where hidden points, edges, etc., were not ignored.

20. "Fracture" in edge/point/face mode deals correctly with subgroups now

21. "Hide Points" using "pick subgroup" can be undone now ... just like
    hiding with mouse clicks, drag box, etc.

22. Unpick subgroup works allot faster now -- still needs a redraw to see
    the changes

23. Fixed bug where interactive scaling of points was leaving edges picked
    internally ... which would screw up a "Join" later on  ... maybe more.

24. Removed un-necessary warnings (in Pick Points mode, etc.) about losing
    state data, when the states don't actually contain any "per-point" or
    "per-face" data

25. Made switch back to Pick Objects or Pick Groups mode in detail editor
    cause a perspective view redraw if points had been hidden in the
    previous mode.

26. Changed "OK to Quit PS Editor ?" text to "OK to Quit Spline Editor ?"

27. Added a ".FLC with more than 8 bits per pixel -- not supported"
    error message for 16 or 24 bit .FLC file format

28. Changed "Imagine" version number in TGA file headers to "3.0"

29. Fixed bug with ".FLI" files used in brush mapping ("LC" deltas)

30. Fixed EditPath/NewMode display bugs -- re-center, cursor scroll,
    etc., work correctly now.

31. Changed "Coordinates" format on title bar so large negative values
    don't mess up the display

32. Sped up "Edge Filter" a bit -- no delay before requester appears now

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

        recent bugs ...

33. "Cancel" is now allowed in Action editor's Cut/Copy modes

34. "Undo" allowed after Cut/Paste operations in Action editor

25. Fixed bug with Attributes requester's brush/texture slider ...
    it doesn't crash now when scrolling a large list, when the one
    of the items is highlighted, and it scrolls out of the box.

26. Fixed bugs with F/X data in staging files ... they didn't cause
    any problems with existing effects, but newer ones may not work
    with old software ... which, incidentally, is always the case.

27. Fixed a bug with the "color chip" in the Attributes/Light requester

28. Fixed a bug deleting "Quickrender" pictures when the directory path
    was set to "" in Preferences ... Fixed similar bugs when user sets
    the "Path for Movie" in the Subproject requester to "".

29. Fixed bugs in loading DXF files, using the "One Object Per Color"
    or "Color Change -> Layer Change" options

30. Fixed bug where Mold/Extrude would try to work in "Pick Points" mode

31. Fixed bug with hot-key for "Magnetism On/Off"

32. Made "darkons" work in the PC version (like Amiga now) ... Detail
    Editor light sources with negative intensity values.

33. Fixed bugs where "fog objects" and "global fog" appeared together,
    with no objects behind them in the scene

34. Fixed (an old) bug with specular hardness values ... a hardness
    value of 0 was the same as a value of 4, and the behavior for values
    1,2, and 3 was a bug  ... now values of 0,1,2,... act like the old
    values of 4,5,6,...

35. Fixed bug in Scanline rendering with transparent objects and global fog

36. "Drive Full" errors are now properly detected ... system doesn't
    keep slowly chugging along now.

37. Changed the way objects are saved to disk to avoid "stack overflow"
    crashes when groups with very "deep" hierarchies are saved ...

38. Fixed cases where perspective view was not redrawn after certain
    operations

39. Fixed "Hide Points" menu item -- doesn't come back disabled now,
    after going to Preferences editor from Pick Points mode, etc.

40. Changed the behavior of "Fracture" on entire objects ... now, it
    separates the faces in an object, and shrinks them down (for scale
    factors less than 1.0) to look like the holes that "Latticize"
    leaves in an object

41. Fixed interactive camera manipulation in the stage, for cases where
    the camera is tracked to an object.

42. Made the staging file (action editor data) remember "Y rotation"
    values if the camera is interactively manipulated, or manipulated
    with the transformation requester, in a frame corresponding to the
    first or last frame of a "tracking alignment" bar in the action editor.

43. Added support for "brush tacking" with altitude brushes ...



        NEW THINGS THAT WILL  MAKE IT HAPPEN!


        QUICK ATTRIBUTES

        Over the years of Imagine and previously Turbo Silver, we have
been asked to add "PRESETS" for the attributes files.  The process of
adding some function that would make things like glass, or chrome or gold
or any other attribute seemed like a waste of time.  From the attributes
requester, you can save the attribute only, using the save button, simple
give the attribute that you have created a name that means something to
you and then when you wanted that exact attribute again all you had to do
was click on the load button in the attribute requester, like magic there you
had the attribute that you were looking for. Well it all sounds simple
enough but it does require that you must go through several different
requesters, and of course this takes more time that you wanted to spend
finding things.  OK, so after all this time we have implemented Quick
Attributes, you will find this new function under the functions menu.
Click on it and you will be presented with 25 pre-set attributes.  To use it,
simply select an object, then choose the Quick Attributes menu item, click
on one of the buttons that describes what you are looking for in an
attribute, i.e. glass, or chrome etc.  Once the attribute is loaded, the object
has all of the properties that you were looking for.
        In the event that you want to make your own attribute presets we
considered this as a viable alternative to the 25 that we have made as
presets.

        You will note that once you have installed Imagine 3.2 there is a
new directory named, Attribs.  In this directory are the 25 presets that we
made.  They are named, 01.atr through 25.atr.  These correspond to the
boxes reading from left to right and from top to bottom just like the words
on this page.  So if you want GOLD to be in Attribute place holder 5, it
would be named 05.atr and would be saved under that name.
        The easiest way to do this is to add an axis to the work surface,
change the attributes as they would need to be changed to meet the needs
that you have set forth.  Now save the axis in the attribs drawer under the
corresponding button number.  Its that simple.  Finally you should go to
the preset settings in the preferences editor, find the 05.atr placeholder and
edit that holder so that the text of that holder reads GOLD. or what ever
you made.  You are limited to 8 characters so your descriptions must be
short and to the point.  As you can see from the presets, this should not
limit you all that much.
        A final note, you can set the quickattributes to include brushes as
well as textures, we have omitted these due to the fact that during
installation we do not create a new textures or brush drawer,.  Once you get
the hang of this feature, you will be able to set your own powerfull presets.
Share them with your friends, and most of all enjoy.


        SET EDGE LINE, FILL EDGE LINE...This new menu item
under the Functions menu will save you lots of time and help you do
something that has been very time consuming in the past.  Consider  that
you have two objects, or even a open seam in a single object.  In the past
you had to add faces to the two objects after joining them or you had to add
the triangles by hand to the open seam in a single object.

        This just takes too much time and if you are real proficient you
can make facing mistakes that leave holes in the object or cause the
triangles to lap over each other, creating a Phong shading problem.

        In order to use this new feature, we suggest that you add to planes
to the work surface, move them apart a bit so that they are sitting side by
side.  Now join the two objects together, select them both in multi mode,
use the Right A/J hot key and they are now one object.  The area between
the two planes could be filled with the add face command and you would
click on the various trios of triangles to add those faces.  Not any more.
Now all you have to do is, while in Pick Edge mode, select one complete
set of edges along the side that is closest to the other plane, use the Set
Edge Line command after you have multi picked the edge set that you want
to fill in with triangles, now click anywhere to de-select the picked edges,
now multi pick the corresponding set of edges from the other plane.  Use
the Fill To Edge Line command,  the area between the two sets of picked
edges will automatically be filled with triangles.  This function works on
open or closed sets of edges, so if you cause a tube to cut from a sphere, you
could join the two objects, set the Set Edge line and then the Fill Edge Line
function, the area between these two closed areas would be filled with
triangles.

        Another caveat is to do this function first when joining two
objects.  Consider that we want to join an arm to a chest object.  We first
pick all of the faces of the arm in Face mode, make this a subgroup and
call it ARM.  Now go back to object mode and select the chest object, select
all of its faces in face mode and name that subgroup chest.

        Now Join the two objects to make one using the Join command.
Now use the hide points command, enter the Hide points function and also
choose the hide command.  Now select the pick subgroup function,  when
the requester comes up, choose the Hide Interior points from the requester.
All of the points on the inside of the object are hidden and all that is left is
the area that could be called the perimeter of the object.  You would do this
hide function until, in this example all you would have left is the perimeter
of the chest and arm object, you could then finally hide all of the other
points that you don't need, and be left with only the area at the end of the
arm that meets with the chest object.  Now enter Pick Edge mode, notice
that the points still stay hidden, now choose one or the other of the final
edge are form either the arm or the chest and use the Set Edge Line
command, now use the Fill To Edge Line tool to define the other set of
edges,  in the blinking of n eye, the two objects will be joined together to
make a new "SEAMLESS" object.

        Using this command will make creating Contiguous objects from
several object very easy and will add in the creation of some great objects
that will lend themselves to being given bones.


        Pick More, Hide Unpicked, Unhide All, Unhide Subgroup.  Just
what it sounds like, when you are heavy into editing and have hidden
several points of an object, in order to get back the points you had to exit to
Object mode and then start all over.  This made us just as mad as it made
you so now we have fixed it.  From point, edge or face mode you can after
hiding some points, simply invoke the Unhide All command, all the points
that were hidden will now be reshown without ever leaving the mode that
you were in.  The same is true of the other command, Unhide Subgoup,
except that it works only on subgroups of faces, edges and points.

        Conversely, you may find that you want to hide the unpicked sets
of points and faces or edges that you are working on, not to worry,  Just use
the Hide unpicked menu item, then all of the points, edges or faces that are
not currently picked will be hidden from view.

        PICK MORE... As you create more and more elaborate objects,
you will become very aware that selecting a series of triangles that share
the same basic areas, can be much harder than it  appears to be.  With the
PICK MORE command you can select the next row of faces directly connected
to the area that you are working on.  Remember this however, if you were
working on a tube and wanted to use the PICK MORE command, that the command
selects more faces from both directions, so as you pick some in one
direction they will be picked on the other end of the tube.

        SMOOTH EDGE LINE... No matter how hard you try, you will
most likely never make a st of points perfectly smooth in an arc.  Making
points adhere to a more rectangular situation is easy when you are adding
points under the snap to grid function.  If you use the Spline editor you will
notice that it makes perfect curves, this is due to two things mostly
however it is due to the fact that the lines that have points on them are
splines instead of just raw points connected by  a line.

        If you select a line of points that looks to be irregular or after
making the outline of a lightbulb that you are going to spin, you would use
the Smooth Edge line function to make sure that the arc of the line that you
have created is as smooth as it can get.  When you do invoke this function
you will see small requester that has the number 3 in it. Above the  number
3 is says in the requester Complexity, actually the programmer used to
have the name Polynomial Value.  To those of us in the office that have no
idea what a polynomial is, we cried our eyes out and they changed the
name.  The function of Line smoothing is much easier to use than the
name implies.

        If you have a line of points connected by edges, you multi pick the
edges, then you invoke the Smooth Line command and hit return when the
small requester comes up just hit the return key.  The value of 3 will cause
the line of points to be smoothed.  If you don't like the results, simply use
the UNDO command and try a different figure.  From our experience the
lower the number the more sever the arc that is created, the higher the
number the lower the effect on the line.

        There are a few things to know, first, the number can be no lower
than the amount of edges that you are trying to smooth.  The larger the
number can at some point eliminate the effect to the line smoothing.  The
edges must be contiguous, they must connect one to the other,  and as of
yet it only works in edge mode, possibly in the future, we will have a object
smoother, we worked on it this time but the problem was very difficult to
make reliable.


        MONITORS AND HIGHER RESOLUTIONS

        This section is mainly for PC users, and for Amiga users with a
Retina display card installed ... although the "SMOD" setting, below,
(run Imagine on a 256 color screen), applies to Amiga users with a AA
(or better) graphics chip set (i.e. Amiga 1200 or Amiga 4000)

        If you like you can now make Imagine work in a higher
resolution.  One BIG caution, the increase in resolution will in most cases
slow your machines redraw don't by at least 50%.  There is also an
aberration in certain preview methods where the bottom of the animation
window will look as though it is tearing or going on the fritz.  These
problems are related to the manner in which Imagine works with the Vesa
standard, and most video cards.  If you have Pentium computer you will
most likely not see any major slowdown, you will notice it is slower, but,
its just not that bad.

        To set things differently you must make some changes in the
Preferences Editor.

        SMOD    0       # imagine screen width: 0=640,1=800,2=1024,3=1280

        Setting the SMOD variable to a value of 0 which is the default of
640, if you use the value of 1 it will set the Horizontal res to 800 pixels, a
value of 2 makes it 1024 and  a value of 3 will make the screen 1280 pixels
wide.  The vertical res of these different settings are as follows,  800 by
600, 1024 by 768 and 1280 by 960 or 1024 depending on what your video
card is capable of.  For Amiga users, this setting is ignored unless you
have a Retina display card, and are running RetinaEMU ... in this case,
you should set the "REMU T/F" setting to "T" ... this tells Imagine to
expect that RetinaEMU will trap its calls to the graphics library, and
cause the screen to appear on the VGA display.

        The ( S256      F       # run 640x480 Imagine in a 256 color
display (if possible)) function in the preferences editor will tell Imagine
that you want to use the 256 color mode of the display card, if the card is
capable of doing 256 SVGA colors.  By default this value is set to F (false),
if you change it to TRUE (T) then you will be running your video card and
the Imagine interface in 256 color mode.  You won't notice much of a
change because Imagine still only uses 16 colors for the interface, the
biggest change will come when you view an image as a backdrop picture,
you will see the picture in 32 levels of gray, much better to look at than the
single color of Imagine 3.1.  If you are running RetinaEMU on an Amiga, and
you don't have a AA graphics chipset, then you will need to set the "REMU"
setting to "T" (true) also.

        RETINA display users (Amiga version)

        The following two preferences settings control Imagine's use of the
Retina display.

RTNA    T   # "use Retina", not Opal or Firecracker (for 24 bit display)
REMU    T   # expect RetinaEMU for Imagine screen: use SMOD and S256 settings

The "RTNA" setting causes the normal "Use Firecracker" button in the project
editor to change to "Use Retina", which controls, then, whether Imagine will
try to display 24 bit image data in a 24-bit Retina screen.

The "REMU" value, when set to "true", tells Imagine to expect that the
"RetinaEMU" software is running, and that it will trap Imagine's "screen
open" call, and cause the screen to appear on the Retina display.  Within
RetinaEMU, you can set the entry for "Imagine" screen for the Imagine
software version you are running, (Imagine.fp, Im31.fp, Im32.fp, etc.),
to "Retina Standard" display, and then either leave the screen dimensions
set to "Default", and control the size with Imagine Preferences, or, you
can specify a screen size in RetinaEMU.  You can also use the "S256"
setting in Imagine's "Preferences", to get Imagine to run on a 256 color
screen.  Note: if you fail to set "REMU" to true, you can still use
RetinaEMU to control Imagine, but Imagine will ignore the SMOD setting,
and try to open a 640x400 (NTSC) or 640x512 (PAL) screen, in 16 colors.
Imagine will detect a change to the screen size caused by RetinaEMU,
even if the "REMU" value is set to false, but it will not look at the
"S256" setting, unless you set "REMU" to true, or you have a machine
with an "AA" graphics chipset.

        BACKDROP Images can now be loaded independently into each
of the quad view windows, this will allow for up to four images at a time in
the quad view.  All you need do is click in the window where you want the
image to show, then choose the load backdrop image function.

        Fracture has been changed so that you can now put in an amount
to fracture that is smaller than the number one.  If you choose fracture and
then input the number .5  (point 5) the triangles will be decreased in size to
one half their initial value and the object will maintain the general size
with the separated triangles.

        COOL NEW TOY, classic hand drawn animators use a technique
called page flipping, this is where as they draw the animation they keep
several pages of the animation secured between each finger of the hand
that they don't draw with.  This allows them to flip back and forth to see
the flow of the animation as well as the timing of the animation.  While we
don't have real pages to put in-between your fingers, we have added a
slider at the bottom of the animation requester that comes up in the detail
and stage editor,  after you have made an animation and want to preview
the animation before you commit to rendering it.  If you grab the small
black box and move it left to right you will see that it moves the animation
backwards and forwards.  This should make your timing work much
smoother and the animation process in general much easier.


        NEW TEXTURES

        Chaser Texture

Use:
Used statically, this texture can be used to paint a row of windows (bright
and not bright) onto a building or like on a space ship.  By animating, you
can do all kinds of chasing and random blinking effects - ie. LED bar
graphs, ping pong LEDs, landing strip strobing lights, blinking light
patterns on flying saucers, etc.


Number of Windows               : Sets the number of windows bounded by the
                                  texture axis

Window Size (0..1)              : Sets the size of each window within the
                                  bounded region

Window Color Red/Green/Blue     : Sets the color of the windows

Window Bright (0..1)            : Turns Brightness On/Off - morphing not
                                  currently supported

Window Fil Adj(0..1)            : Sets the filter value of the windows

Window Ref Adj(0..1)            : Sets the reflect value of the windows

Flat X/Wrap Z (0/1)             : Sets the mapping method, Flat along X or
                                  Cylindrically around Z (morphable)

Shape Rect/Rnd(0/1)             : Sets the shape of the windows to either
                                  rectangular or roundish

Percent On (0..100)             : Sets what percentage of the Number of
                                  Windows will be drawn

On Ordered/Rnd (0/1)            : Sets the "On" windows to all group
                                  together, or randomly space apart
                                  (morphable)

On Rnd Seed (0..1)              : This is a seed value for the random spacing
                                  above

Anim Chase/Rnd (0/1)            : This sets the animation mode from chasing
                                  to  random blinking (morphable)

Time Adj (0..1)                 : This is the animation tweening parameter

Intensity Adj (0..1)            : This sets the intensity of this texture
                                  when applied over others

Axis alignment:

The texture is completely clipped by the texture axis bounding box.  The Z
axis clips the top/bottom and the X axis clips the Left/Right sides of the
texture.


Special Negative Values:

Number of Windows               : Setting this to negative with "Bright"
                                  turned on, will cause the windows that are
                                  not "On" to be drawn, but not drawn bright.
                                  Normally the not "On" lights will not be
                                  drawn at all.

Time Adj (0..1)                 : Using a negative value in this parameter
                                  will cause the animation sequence to
                                  ping pong as opposed to running normally
                                  from start to finish.



SHREDDER EFFECT

Shredder (Explosion) effect:

Example Project:

100 frame animation.
Default size primative sphere at position (0, 0, 0).
Ground object at position (0, 0, -100.0).
Shredder applied to the Sphere from frame 2 to frame 100.

This example will give you a starting point when working with Shredder.
To speed up the animation so that all the particles stop moving, increase
the "End Time" to something like 2.

Overview:

Shredder does an explode that breaks up an object into random
shaped/sized
particles.  The effect can also explode an object while keeping subgroups
intact or, in the case of a grouped object made of many, smaller parts, it
can keep the whole objects intact.

The effect tries to use real-world numbers (seconds and meters) instead of
the usual frames and units measurements.  Because of this, you have to tell
Shredder how many units are in a meter and how many seconds are
represented
in the included frames.

Textures that are properly tacked to an object (State objects with shape
and texture data saved as well as lock states in all the textures) will
remain tacked during the explode.

Shredder is a very complex effect, and shredding an object with a lot of
faces will be slow compared to Imagine's other effects.  Using subgroups
or keeping objects intact is much faster than shredding up an object La
Machine style.

Shredder F/X Info

The first part of the Sredder requester asks the following info:

o Whole Objects as Parts (Grouped Object)
o Use Defined Subgroups as parts
o La Machine
Maximum Number of Triangles in Group []
Bounding Subgroup []

This Controls how the object(s) are shredded.  "Whole Objects as Parts"
keep
entire objects intact - like you may use to explode a grouped object while
keep the individual objects intact.  By selecting this, you can also make a
single object bounce on the ground like a rubber ball.  "Use Defined
Subgroups" lets you absolutely control the size and shape of the pieces that
fly off the shredded object.  By defining subgroups on the object you can do
something like blowing up a sphere with a logo pasted on it while keeping
the chunk of the object with the logo intact.  "La Machine" is where
Shredder gets its name - it totally shreds an object into random shaped and
sized pieces.  The size of the pieces is controlled with the "Maximum
Number of Triangles" parameter.  The "Bounding Subgroup" can be use to
restrict the explosion to a specific part of the object.  Try the example
project with "Whole Objects" selected to see the sphere bounce.

When Shredder shreds an object in "La Machine" mode, it selects groups of
adjacent faces by doing a random walk over the surface of the object.  This
produces shapes that tend to wander across the surface instead of looking
like clumps of faces all grouped together.

The Timing of the effect is controlled in the following seciton of the
requester data:

Start / End Time (seconds) [] []
Explosion Timing Delay (%) []
"Hold at" Frame Number []

The start and end time parameters control the speed and direction of the
animation.  These tell the effect how much real time apparently passes
during the time of the effect.  For example, increasing the end time from
1.0 to 3.0 without changing the number of frames in the effect will triple
the speed that the effect happens at (ie - originally n frames meant 1
second of time, now the same n frames represent 3 seconds of time).  The
start and end times can also be used to reverse the explosion timing (set
the start time to 1.0 and the end time to 0.0).

The "Delay" factor is used to slowly explode the object from the axis
position outward and the "Hold at" number will freeze the explosion at
a certain time.

The data that describes the bouncing of the particles is as follows:

o Bounce Particles
o Flip on Bounce
Ground Z Position (Imagine units) []
o Use Maximal Bounding Sphere
o Use Minimal Bounding Sphere
o Use Average Bounding Sphere
Elasticity Min/Max (%) [] []

Selecting "Bounce Particles" turns the particle bouncing part of the effect
on.  Selecting "Flip on Bounce" will cause the particle rotation to reverse
each time a particle bounces.  Where the particles bounce must be set in
the "Ground Z Position" parameter since the FX knows nothing about the
other objects in Imagine's world.  When particles bounce, they bounce
relative to when their center of mass hits the ground.  By selecting one of
the bounding spheres, you can make the particles  bounce as if their shapes
were actually spherical (they had a radius) instead of just points in space.
The Maximal Bounding sphere will totally enclose all the points in the
particle, the Minimal Sphere is inside all the points, and the average
Sphere has a radius of the average point distance from the canter of mass.
The Elasticity range allows you to control how much bounce the particles
will have.

The particle conditions are set up in the following:

Inital Velocity Range Min/Max   (m/s) [] []
Triangle Rotations Min/Max    (rot/s) [] []
Particle Trajectory Min/Max (degrees) [] []
Final Scaling Factor Range Min/Max    [] []
Gravitational Acceleration    (m/s^2) []

The Initial Velocity values control the initial energy of the explosion,
that is, how far and fast the particles blow away from their original
positions.

When the object explodes, it explodes as if the object's axes are the origin
of the explosion.  The Trajectory adjustment randomly varies the angle that
the particle flies off, relative to the objects axes position.

The Gravitational Acceleration controls how fast the particle will fall to
the ground.  Set this to 0.0 in outer-space scenes to emulate zero gravity.
Watch the sign on this value - negative values make particles fall down,
posative makes them fall up.

Lastly, the following parameters must be set up:

Imagine Units per Meter      []
Random Number Generator Seed []

"Imagine Units per Meter" needs to be set so that you can use real world
values for the velocity and gravity settings.  The Random Seed value is
used to vary all the randomness in the effect (ei - particle shapes, initial
velocities, etc...).

Shred on dude and dudettes.



Well  fellow users, let us know what you think, tell us about any bugs that
you might have found and keep watching those mail boxes for the next chapter
in Imagine.


Thanks for your support


        The Gang at Impulse