First of all, thanks for your interests in downloading and using SEMERT. SEMERT stands for Simple and Easy Movie Effects in Real-Time. This useful program is more than a QuickTime movie player. By using this program, you will experience the real power of Power PC.
Like most people who rarely bothers with README files, you have probably already played around with SEMERT before reading this text file. That's OK, cos I do this most of the time, too. However, if you still don't understand what exactly does SEMERT do, please read on.
SEMERT is, as its full name implies, a real-time movie effects application. You probably see many visual effects in TV shows and movies. You might wonder how they can do some of these effects, such as rotating and moving the TV or movie screen around. You will find your answer with SEMERT, since it provides some simple effects.
To run SEMERT, double click on the SEMERT icon. After you double click on it, you will see a shareware notice (yes, it is a shareware). Click on OK button and you will see the title screen. Click on the title screen and you will see a dialog box from which you can choose a QuickTime movie file. Choose any QuickTime movie file from here.
After you have chosen a movie file, you can see a movie window with title "Playing Movie". This window is the QuickTime movie itself. You should be able to see the movie that you have selected. The other window is the Tool Palette. You can also see the menu bar. These are the 3 main parts of SEMERT. Their funtionalities are explained below:
The "Playing Movie" Window:
This window performs basically the same function as Apple's Simple Player or Movie Player does, except that you can not double click on it to play or stop the movie. If you haven't used Simple Player or Movie Player before, then you are probably new to QuickTime applications. However, the window itself is very much self-explainatory. Just play around with it and you should be very comfortable with it.
The Tool Palette:
This is the "tool box" that lets you access most of the movie effects SEMERT offers through icons:
Row 1, Column 1: This is the Lens, or Glass Ball/Crystal Sphere, Tool. After you have selected it, you can click on the Playing Movie window. Now you will see an effect which looks like lens applied upon the movie.
Row 1, Column 2: This is the Magnifying Tool. The usage is the same as the Lens Tool. The only difference is that it magnifies the movie directly instead.
Row 2, Column 1: This is the Rotation tool. It lets you rotate the movie about the center of the screen.
Row 2, Column 2: This is the Moving Tool. It lets you move the movie around.
• Only one of Lens, Magnify, Rotate, or Moving tools can be selected at a time.
Row 3, Column 1: This is the Rotate Counter-Clock Wise tool (RCCWT). After you have clicked on it, the movie will rotate itself in the counter-clockwise direction.
Row 3, Column 2: This is the Rotate Clock Wise tool (RCWT). After you have clicked on it, the movie will rotate itself clockwise.
• Only one of the RCCWT or RCWT can be selected at a time.
Row 4, Column 1: This is the Trace Tool. After you have selected it, move or rotate the movie and you will see some traces of the old frames where the movie used to be at.
Row 4, Column 2: This is the Pixelization Tool. After you have selected it, the pixels of the movie will become large, back to small and vice versa. The effects of this function is hard to explain on paper (or screen, in this case). Check it out to see for yourself.
The Menus:
Apple Menu: You should know this menu if you use a Macintosh!
File Menu:
Open Movie: Lets you open a QuickTime movie file. You can only open one movie file at a time since SEMERT will need the maximum CPU time while playing a movie. Having two movies playing at the same time will slow down the frame rate even if you have a 8100 PowerMac.
Open Background Movie: Lets you open a "background movie". This will be explained later.
Close: Close a movie. After you have closed a movie, the Open Movie function will be enabled so you can open another movie.
Quit: Quit from the wonderful program, SEMERT.
Values Menu: All the functions in this menu are disabled for the demo version. If you would like to be able to customize the movie effects, please register your copy of SEMERT to enable the functions in this menu.
Special Menu:
Movie Wall: Lets you have a wall of movies. The movie wall is set up to a 3 by 3 configuration for the demo version. You can change the number of movies on the "movie wall" in the registered version. It is still cool to have a 3 by 3 movie wall though. Check it out!
Lens Inversion: This function is disabled in the demo version.
Background Movie: It lets you play a background movie behind the foreground movie. You have to select the Trace Tool icon to see the background movie. The background movie is the movie that plays at background in the place of the black area while you move or rotate the movie.
Same Fore- and Background Movie: It lets you have synchrounous background movie as the movie you selected in Open Movie. You have to set the Trace Tool and Background Movie to have this functioning properly.
Reset Menu: All the functions in this menu are disabled in the demo version. The registered version will make your life much easier... trust me.
Well that's all folks! Having read this far, you should know your way around SEMERT now. By the way, there is another limitation to the demo version of SEMERT: you can only play a QuickTime movie for 1 minute. After a minute has elapsed, SEMERT will automatically quit. So don't be surprised when SEMERT quits without a notice. I didn't put any notice while the SEMERT demo quits because I don't want to spend too much time on the demo version. I am sorry to put this restriction as I am a poor college student and have no other way of encouraging people to register their copies of SEMERT.
To register your copy of SEMERT, please send in $34.99 in cash or check (U.S. currency only please) to the following address for registeration:
Chao-Kuang Yang
532 Arboles Street,
Monterey Park, CA 91754
U.S.A.
Please make the check payable to Chao-Kuang Yang. Thank you in advance if you are going to register your copy of SEMERT! Upon registeration, you will receive a fully functional SEMERT and fully documented manual.
Please use the Registration Form (included with the SEMERT demo) to register since it would save me a lot of time so I can program more PowerPC shareware.
I hope you will have a great time playing with SEMERT. Any comments and bug reports will be appreciated. If you are not satisfied with SEMERT, please tell me why and what should be done to make it better for you. You can reach me at the following e-mail addresses:
Internet: chaoyang@usc.edu
American OnLine: Mark Yang
LAMG: Chao-Kuang Yang
You don't have to register your copy of SEMERT to give me comments. Just tell me how you feel about this program. If you like SEMERT, please spread the news around.
Please do not alter, distribute or have more than one backup of either the registered or unregistered version of SEMERT without permission. It is a violation of copyright law if you engage in any of the above activities. The author will prosecute criminals without intention to settle.
