Ray Dream Studio(TM)/Ray Dream Designer 4.1 - Windows Version Read Me
Copyright (c) 1992-1996 Fractal Design Corporation. All rights reserved.
WELCOME
Thank you for purchasing Ray Dream Studio/Ray Dream Designer 4.1.3 for Windows. This document contains important information that is not included in the printed Ray Dream Studio documentation.
CONTENTS
Registration
Installation
How to Install Adobe AcrobatT
Where to Find Other Important Documentation on Your Ray Dream CD
REGISTRATION
We strongly encourage you to register your copy of Ray Dream Studio. The benefits of registration include:
Free technical support via phone, email, online services or the World Wide Web.
Advance information on future releases.
Special offers available to Fractal Design customers only
Notification of updates and patches.
Please take the time to fill out the registration card included in your Ray Dream Studio package and return it to us, postage paid.
Remember to include a copy of your serial number, which can be found on the back inside cover of your Ray Dream Designer 4 User Guide.
INSTALLATION-Windows
If you are experiencing installation problems on Windows 3.1x, please follow the instructions below.
Steps 1 through 3 should be followed to guarantee a successful installation. If the install still fails, consider the remaining steps in order until the problem is solved.
1. If possible, turn off 32-bit file access from the 386 enhanced control panel during installation.
2. Check the following:
If a LaserMaster printer driver is installed, disable it during the install.
If Hurricane is running in the background, disable it.
Make sure VM (swap file) is enabled. Permanent is preferred, temporary is OK.
If running Win 3.1 not WFW, make sure "share" is running in DOS.
If After Dark is installed, disable it during the installation.
If the following line appears in the 386Enh section of your system.inni file, change it as follows:
From: PageOverCommit=xx
To: PageOverCommit=2
If your BIOS has an anti-virus option and it is on, turn it off during the install.
Shutdown any programs running in the background in Windows.
3. Disable a previous version of Win32s by adding a semi-colon in front of the following line that appears in the [386Enh] section of your system.ini.
From: device=c:\windows\system\win32s\w32s.386
To: ;device=c:\windows\system\win32s\w32s.386
If your windows directory is named differently, adjust the path accordingly.
If after taking the above steps you are still unable to install properly, try each of the following steps in this order, until you are able to install.
1. Delete the previous version of Win32s as follows:
a) Remove the WINMM16.DLL from he folloiwng line in the [BOOT] section of the SYSTEM.INI file. Leave other DLL's that may appear on the same line.
From: drivers=mmsystem.dll winmm16.dll....
To: drivers=mmsystem.dll....
b) Remove the folloiwng line from your Windows SYSTEM.INI that appears in the [386Enh] section:
device=c:\windows\system\win32s\w32s.386
c) Exit to DOS.
d) Go to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM (could also be \WIN\SYSTEM) directory and delete the WIN32S.INI, W32SYS.DLL, WIN38616.DLL, and WINMM16.DLL files using the delete command.
e) Delete the WINN32S subdirectory using the command DELTREE WIN32S.
f) Launch Windows and try to install again.
2. Disable all unnecessary TSRs in your Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files. Windows only requires himen.sys, files=, and buffers=. Switch to the standard Windows VGA driver and disable Win32S as done in step 3. Run a Scandisk (DOS 6) or Chkdsk (DOS 5) to make sure there is no problem with the hard disk. Add the PageOverCommit=2 to the end of the 386Enh section of the system.ini file if it is not already present. Re-install Ray Dream Studio.
3. Advanced Users only: Install a 2nd instance of Window 3.1.x in new directory (preferably on a different hard drive or partition than the primary instance of Windows). Try to limit changes to your autoexec.bat and config.sys files during this installation and revert them back to their original state before the install. Re-install Ray Dream Studio on this new instance of Windows.
4. Upgrade to Windows 95 and re-install Ray Dream Studio.
5. Contact Technical Support at 408-430-4200
SYSTEM REQUIREMENT NOTES - Windows
The calculations required to manipulate and render graphic images in 3D are significant. Ray Dream Studio will run on any 486 or Pentium-based PC with 12 MB of RAM or more, but performance may be sluggish when creating complex files on a minimally configured PC.
Faster processor speeds, additional memory in your PC and a fast video card will significantly increase Ray Dream Studio's performance.
Virtual Memory - You should use the Windows recommended default which is to let Windows manage your virtual memory settings.
Adobe AcrobatT Installation
Included on your CD-ROM is much additional online documentation in Adobe's Portable Document Format (pdf). In order to access these PDF files, you will need to install the Acrobat Reader software. Insert your Ray Dream Studio/Designer CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive and double click on the Acrobat installer (Acrobat Installer for Macintosh, Acrobat.exe for Win 3.1, Win 95 and Win NT).
You can either browse your online documentation through Acrobat or print these file for your own use.
We've also included the Movie plugin for Acrobat to allow you to view movies in the SuperMesh documentation. The plugin needs to be in the plugin directory of your Adobe Acrobat directory.
3D Metafile Format
The descriptions below provide additional information about 3DMF options.
Texture Mapping -
When this option is selected, shaded previews will generate texture maps for
objects in the scene. This increases memory requirements.
Diffuse light:
When this option is selected, objects will be lit with diffuse light.
Specular light:
When this option is selected, objects will be lit with specularly reflected light.
Light cones and colors:
When this option is selected, the colors of the lights in the scene will be shown.
Additionally, the angular falloff and range of lights will be honored. When this option
is not selected all lights are modeled as colorless, and angular falloff and range are
ignored.
Follow light moves:
When this option is selected, moving a light causes a redraw of the entire scene
at each increment of the light's movement. This is useful to interactively
view the effects of moving a light, but can slow down interactivity.
ZBuffer cache:
When this option is selected and objects are dragged interactively, non-moving
background objects are generated once and reused, greatly increasing the
speed of interactive dragging. This increases memory requirements.
Texture resolution:
When the Texture Mapping option is on, the Texture Resolution option dictates
how finely detailed the generated texture maps are. Higher resolutions demand
more memory and more time to generate.
Icon Handler
An Icon handler is an extension to the Windows 95 Shell.
It produces an Icon from each file of a type and gives it to the shell so that the file is displayed with its own icon.
In other words, Windows 95 doesn't know how to extract the icons from our proprietary rd4 file format, this Icon handler extracts them for the Shell.
Once the Icon Handler is installed all the files that you will save with their preview (see the Ray Dream Designer documentation) will be displayed on your desktop with their preview as an icon. So you will be able to recognize them faster as they will all be different and you will have an idea of what is in the file before opening the application.
For example, you can browse the Dream Models that are in the Ray Dream Studio CD and see all of them without launching Ray Dream Studio. What you see looks like what you could see in the Object Browser in Ray Dream Designer but you see it in a shell window on your Desktop.
Installation : Choose it in the custom option of the installer.
Tip : If you have Windows 95 Plus, you are able to display icons with more then 16 colors. You will appreciate this Icon Handler even more.
What Information is in these PDFs?
The pdf contain a variety of information including documentation errata, techncial support info, third party notes, etc. There is a master pdf document called TOC.pdf that provides a full table of contents as well as active links to all the pdf documentation.
Once again, thank you for purchasing Ray Dream Studio/Designer!
Where are they Located?
For Windows 95 and Win 3.1 Users, all the pdfs are located in the folder called "Online.doc". Version 4.1.3 includes two new Extensions: the 3D Light Pack from Rayflect, Inc. and Fractal Design's Radical F/X. Documentation for these in pdf format are included in Online.doc in the folder called 3rdParty. Also included is a text file about the RealSpace VR technology called RealSpac.txt.
How Do I Use Them?
To begin using your Online Documentation, double click on the file called TOC ("Table of Contents").
