The Complete Dancing Baby Screensaver/Complete Dancing Baby Screensaver, The (1998)(NCDS).iso/readme.txt

Text File | 1998-10-23 | 15KB | 320 lines

The Complete Dancing Baby Screensaver
Copyright (c)1998 Atomic Media. All rights reserved.
Published by NCDS.

HELP FILE
=========

QUICK REFERENCE
===============
For Tech Support and Ordering Information visit:
www.babycdrom.com

CONTENTS
========
1. Introduction
2. Using This Program
3. Adding/Removing New Animations
4. Adding MIDI songs from the Collection on the CD
5. History of the Dancing Baby
6. Troubleshooting FAQ
7. Ordering Information
8. Legal Info



1. INTRODUCTION

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of the Complete
Dancing Baby Screensaver! This program is the only screensaver
CD-ROM that is acknowledged by Kinetix, the creators of the
Dancing Baby. With over 150 different animations, 1700 full length
MIDI songs, and the ability to play .WAV files and even CD audio,
you have the best and most versatile program of it's kind. You can
even add your own animations and sounds/music! This means, you can
download a new baby animation from the Internet and easily integrate
it into the program making it totally expandable!

2. USING THE PROGRAM

Using this program is easy and fun. It works just like other
screensavers but also has a few more options. Here is a quick look
at how to use it. (This assumes you have already installed the program.
If you have not done so, follow the instructions on the inside cover
of the CD booklet.)

To setup your Screensaver do the following.

1. Click "Start", then "Settings", then "Control Panel". When the
   control panel opens, double-click on "Display". When the
   "Display Properties" window pops up, click on the "Screen Savers"
   tab.
2. Pull down the Screen Saver menu and choose "Complete Dancing Baby"
   from the list of screensavers.
3. Now you can click on the "Settings Button" to bring up the
   Dancing Baby Screensaver settings screen.

When the screen pops up, you will see that the different parts of the
screen are numbered. You can think of these numbers as steps to
follow when setting up your screensaver. Here is an explanation of
these numbered parts.

 1. Choose a Baby Video-- this is where you pick the dancing baby
    animation that you want to see. You will see a file window that
    shows the hard drive & folder the program is looking in, and a
    list of the video files in that folder. The program defaults to
    the install folder (where you installed the Dancing Baby Screen-
    Saver) and unless you are an advanced user, you should not worry
    about changing this. Instead, just scroll through the list of
    videos you see to the right and pick the one you want.

 2. Choose Sound/Music-- this is where you pick the music/sound that
    will play with your screensaver. This works exactly like section
    1 in allowing you to make your selection. The only difference
    is that the file window shows only music/sound files.
    The Dancing Baby Screensaver will play midi songs (.MID), and
    wave files (.WAV).

    Below both sections 1 & 2 are two checkboxes that say
    "Play Random Video" and "Play Random Audio". If either of these
    are checked, the screensaver will play all of the video and music
    files it finds and rotate through them. This is a cool way to
    see all of the videos and music! Try it and see what it does.

 3. Performance Settings--- These two checkboxes are self explanatory.
    Special note about using the Password option. This is the only
    place you can set the password option. There is a "password
    protected" checkbox in the Display Properties window, but it does
    not function.  Also, a slight bug was found at the last minute.
    When you are changing your password, you must CLICK on the "OK"
    button with the mouse; pressing ENTER will not work properly.

 4. Audio Settings--- You can only select ONE of these different audio
    settings at any given time. If you select "Play Wav/Midi File" the
    screensaver will of course play whatever wav/midi file you selected
    in section 2. If you choose "Play Audio Track of Video", the
    screensaver will play whatever audio that has been recorded with
    the video file (not all video files have audio). If you choose
    "Play CD Audio Tracks", the screensaver will play a music CD
    if there is one in the CD-ROM drive (you probaby don't ALWAYS leave
    one in your CD-ROM drive). Choosing "No Audio" makes a silent
    screensaver.

 5. The bottom buttons are: APPLY, which will of course save your
    settings and exit. CANCEL, will exit the settings screen without
    saving any changes to the settings, and HELP will display this
    file.


3. ADDING/REMOVING NEW ANIMATIONS & MUSIC/AUDIO

Adding new animations couldn't be easier. All you need to do is copy
the new animation (typically an .AVI video file) into the install
folder. Unless you changed the install folder during the program's
setup, it will be "c:\dancing baby screensaver".
Any video file (.AVI), midi song (.MID file), or .WAV file
the program finds in this folder, will be displayed when you
choose to change the Settings of the screensaver.

So where do you get all of these new animations?
There are lots of animations on the CD itself in the "\animations"
folder, the "\more animations" folder and the "\more animations 2"
folder. Also, be sure and visit www.babycdrom.com for more!

Where do you get more MIDI songs and .WAV files?
There are over 1700 MIDI songs included on the CD-ROM, they are
organized in a web page. This web page is on the CD itself, the
benefit of using this method is in the fact that it lets you
"browse" the MIDI song collection easily and quickly. To browse
the MIDI collection, you must have a web browser installed, either
Netscape Navigator/Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
See Section 4. for more info on copying the MIDI songs from the
web page to work with your screensaver.

Also, keep in mind that you can also REMOVE any animations and audio
that you don't want. All you have to do is delete the corresponding
.AVI/.MID/.WAV file from the install folder.


4. ADDING MIDI SONGS FROM THE MIDI COLLECTION ON THE CD

There are two ways to browse the Midi Song Collection. If you have
Autoplay enabled, a few seconds after you insert the Dancing Baby
Screensaver CD into your CD-ROM drive, the menu will appear. You can
now click on the "Browse Midi Collection" button. From here your
browser will start, and display the midi song collection. -- If you
do not have Autoplay enabled, you will have to start the menu manually,
do this by clicking START, then "Run" then type "D:MENU.EXE" (where
D: is the letter of your CD-ROM drive).

Once you are able to view the web page that has the Midi Collection,
you can just browse throught the songs. To hear a song, just click
on the song's title. If you decide you like a song and want to add
it to your screensaver, just RIGHT-CLICK on the song title, then
from the pop-up menu choose "Save As" or "Save Link As". Locate the
install folder ("c:\dancing baby screensaver" unless you changed it)
and click SAVE. The next time you go to change your screensaver
settings, your song will appear among the choices.


5. HISTORY OF THE DANCING BABY

In an excerpt from a Jan. 16 1998 Press Release from Kinetix, we
learn where the dancing baby came from:

Dancing Baby was created with Character Studio to illustrate to
animators that it's easy to produce 3D characters who have real
personality and charisma," said Jim Guerard, general manager of
Kinetix. "We're delighted to see that so many people on the Internet
are finding it fun and easy to personalize this memorable animated
character."

Originally named Baby Cha-Cha, Dancing Baby was sent to
customers in 1997 as an example of the advanced 3D character
animation that can be created using Character Studio. Since then,
graphics enthusiasts around the world have used the Internet to
share the 3D model with others who develop their own versions of
Dancing Baby. Although no official count exists, today there are
more than a dozen different ver