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Welcome to 3D Sci-fi Movie Maker instruction manual
Welcome to 3D Sci-fi Movie Maker instruction manual
On starting the application you will be confronted with the demonstration sequences. There
are a number of these and they will load in automatically as one ends, another will start.
The first demonstration sequence has some floating instructions that will give some control
guides and keys that you can use on the keyboard to navigate with.
To disable the sequences when the application starts up, simply open the
Options/Settings from the menu bar and de-select the demo on/off
This is the toolbar, from where you can get access to the main control deck and other
functions. The first button on the toolbar is the Reset option, represented by a blank page.
When this is pressed, the program will reset to a default setting, where all previously
saved data is automatically wiped and the application is ready for a new start.
This button, when pressed, will open the main control deck. You can control all
aspects of the program from there.
This is the key-frame button it opens up a control panel, where you can set the
key-frame options.
This button will open the camera option window. This is one of the ways you will
be able to move and rotate the camera (view point).
This is the background palette. Pressing this button will open a colour palette
window, where you can select the colour of the background.
These two buttons control the starting and stopping of the sequences.
Pressing the triangle in the circle, will play any sequence, and the square in the circle, will
stop it. The stop button will also stop any movement.
This is the camera record button. Pressing this will instantly record the camera
(view port) movements.
Movement controls To rotate the camera view, left click on the mouse, while the mouse pointer is on the main
window display and holding down the left mouse button, move the mouse. You will be
able to gently guide your viewpoint 360 degrees in all directions.
Actual movement through the environment is achieved by using the keyboard.
The W key
will move your position forwards incrementally. The longer you hold it
down, the faster you go. The speed can be adjusted via the settings control panel.(See
below)
The S Key
will move your position backwards at an incremental speed.
The Q key
will stop all movement.
The A key
will slide your position to the left
The D key
will slide your position to the right.
The Z key
will rotate or yaw the camera angle to the left
The X key
will rotate, or yaw the camera angle to the right.
The F key
will fire bullets from the central axis point of the model. However this
option will only work once you have activated the bullets from the Bullet control panel
and while you are Flying the model, (See below).
Main Control Deck This is the main control deck when opened from this button on the toolbar.
Notice along the top of the panel there are 15 small tabs. The first tab, Backgrounds, is
indicated as open and is showing the contents on the panel. By selecting another tab along
the top, the contents of the panel will change to represent the tab title. For instance, the
First tab is Model 1. Clicking on this tab will open up the panel that contains the settings
for Model 1.
The background panel contains a number of options that can be toggled and adjusted to
create all sorts of background scenery.
Select a Sequence
By left clicking the mouse over the selection bar (marked by a red circle), you will open a
list of pre-created sequences. Just select any one to view the sequence. Backgrounds
This drop list will open the different selections of background images, or what is known as
the sky box. These options are pre-calibrated, but you can load in your own images from
the main Skybox image loader. (See blow).
Planet Selection
From this drop list you can open the pre-selected planets, which will appear at their default
positions. However if you wish to move or rotate them you can choose to do so by
selecting the planet rotation, pan and zoom options. (See below).
Each planets texture can be manually changed.
Select the
planet detail
on the earth only to set it to full detail
Planet movements and rotations Once you have selected your planet, you can control its movement and rotation, by
selecting the appropriate option. Then by moving the slider controls, (sliders are indicated
by a red circle), the planet will move and respond accordingly. So with the Rotate Planets
XYZ radio button selected, the selected planet will rotate in a direction, depending on
which slider you move. If you select the Pan and Zoom Planet radio button then the planet
can be moved on its X , Y, and Z axis (Left and right, Up and Down, and In and out)
The Fade Button will allow the planet to be faded out, by using the top slider.
Height map and Ground
Here is the section that will open a ground map or terrain. Selecting the Height map drop
list will open to reveal several options. Each is a pre-defined type of ground environment.
For example, If you select the option, Mountains, then a mountainous terrain will appear.
A sunset will produce a flat terrain with a nice sunset showing in the background and so
on.
On the height map panel are four buttons that will change the terrain.
Load Map Texture
will open a dialog that will allow you to select a bitmap or jpeg image
to texture the ground with.
Load Map Detail
will open a dialog that will enable you to select a bitmap or jpeg texture
which will texture the second texture that can be applied to the first over the main height
map texture. This is called Multi-texture and creates a good effect as you will observe if
you open the Fields option. However to have a multi texture you must first select the
Multi Texture button.
Load Raw Map
load the .Raw file format of the terrain
Multi Texture
button toggles between single texture and multi texture on the height map. The bottom three radio buttons, Scale Map, Move Map and Rotate Map will, when
selected enable the manipulation of the height map
The Fog button will enable the fog over the terrain and which the top two sliders will
control
Sky Box Backgrounds
The
Sky Box
is the main background area. It consists of six separate, square images that
are set together as a cube. The environment is situated within this cube. You can manually
change all six images by selecting the appropriate button. For instance, Front button will
change the front of the skybox and so on.
You can select and de-select the Sky Box from the tick box. This will result in a plain
coloured background.
The size of the Sky Box can be changed by imputing an number range in the edit box.
Planet Colour
will enable you to change the colour of the texture on a selected planet.
Planet fog
will, when used in combination with the Fog button, enable the fog to be
applied to the planet. Use the slider to do this.
Fog Colour
will change the colour of the fog. Use the sliders to do this. The Models
3D Sci-fi Movie Maker comes packed with a number of decent models that can be
accessed through the Model s control panel. All the models are of 3D Studio format, with
the file extension of .3DS. This is amongst the most common formats that are freely
available for download on the internet.
The Model Panel
The control deck tab has now been set to Model 1. There are seven more model tabs to
use, all of them relatively the same.
As soon as you open any of the model tabs, a pre-loaded model will appear.
To change this model, simply click on the button, Load Model, and a windows dialog
will appear,
From where you can browse through you directory and locate any other model you wish. You can also change the texture of the model in the same way by clicking on the Load
Texture button
To select a listed model, click on the Select a Model list option, marked by the red circle
and select from the drop list any of the models located there. On each model tab there are
different models to choose from.
Model optimisations
There are a number of useful functions available in which to implement upon the selected
model and I shall run through these here.
The
Rotate XYZ
radio button is on by default and so if you move the sliders, the models
rotations axis will respond accordingly.
Changing the radi button option to
Pan and Zoom XYZ
, will allow you to move the
model left, right, up, down and in, out.
Selecting the
Scale
radio button will allow you to re-scale the model in three directions,
length, width and height.
Fade
Model will cause the model to become invisible, if you move the top slider to zero.
At the bottom left of the panel is the
Shiny
tick box. This will activate a shiny texture onto
the model.
The
Internal Colours
button will set the internal attribute of the model to active. This
means that if you have any