The Kinemorphic Screen Saver - Version 1.0 (beta) Copyright (C) 1997 All Rights Reserved http://www.halcyon.com/render/kine.htm This file contains the following information: OVERVIEW ..............: What is The Kinemorphic Screen Saver? OPENGL.................: What is OPENGL and why do I need it? CD/SPECTRUM PRO........: What is it and why do you mention it? BACKGROUND.............: Where did Kinemorphics come from? BETA NOTES.............: What should I know about version 1.0? SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ...: What do I need in order to run it? INSTALLATION ..........: How do I install it? / How do I get rid of it? REGISTRATION ..........: Where can I find info on how to register it? QUESTIONS/SUPPORT .....: Where can I get help with problems? UPDATES................: When is the next version due? OVERVIEW The Kinemorphic Screen Saver will animate an endless variety of awesome 3D patterns and images. As the 3D patterns animate on your screen, the objects, images, lighting, and colors will move through, around, and on top of each other. Kinemorphics has been designed to give you an unprecedented amount of control over the effects used. You can use your own graphical images as object textures and backgrounds while Kinemorphics generates super-realistic lighting effects on top of super-realistic "living" 3D objects. The Kinemorphic Screen Saver has been designed to work in conjunction with CD/Spectrum Pro V3.1 in order to provide stunning 3D visual effects that synchronize with the sounds from an audio device (like the CD player in your computer). With many of the module controls you can associate a sound frequency, a range of effect, and a sensitivity. Fluctuations in the amplitude of the frequency will oscillate the control values within the range of effect. Kinemorphics will work with both Windows 95 and Windows NT (V4.0 and up). OpenGL 1.1 (or higher) is also required. OpenGL 1.1 for Windows NT 4.0 is included with the Operating System and does not need to be installed separately. See the next section for more information on OpenGL. OPENGL OpenGL is a 3D graphics library. The Kinemorphic Screen Saver uses this library of graphics functions to perform its 3D animations. If OpenGL v1.1 (or higher) is not installed on your computer, then Kinemorphics will not run. Windows NT v4.0 (and higher) comes with OpenGL v1.1 as part of the operating system, so you're all set. Windows 95 (OSR2) also comes with OpenGL v1.1. Earlier versions of Windows 95 may not have OpenGL v1.1 installed. To check whether your machine has OpenGL 1.1 installed, run http://www.halcyon.com/render/opengl/glcheck.exe. To install OpenGL 1.1 on your machine, either run http://www.halcyon.com/render/opengl/glinst.exe OR, download and extract, http://www.halcyon.com/render/opengl/glinst.zip CD/SPECTRUM PRO CD/Spectrum Pro is a 32 bit shareware CD-Audio Player with a Graphical Spectrum Analyzer for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. It can be used in conjunction with The Kinemorphic Screen Saver in order to allow the patterns and the colors generated by the screen saver to be synchronized with sound. CD/Spectrum Pro has almost every feature you can find on any software CD player. It supports programmed mode, intro mode, optional taskbar icon operation, auto-play, auto-exit, auto-eject, artist/track/title database, etc. It also recognizes CDP files which can save you from typing in all the track/title information for your CDs. The spectrum analyzer graphically depicts the frequency spectra of the CD music in real time. CD/Spectrum Pro is not a part of The Kinemorphic Screen Saver, it is a separate product and must be registered. However, if you register both CD/Spectrum Pro and The Kinemorphic Screen Saver at the same time you can do it at a reduced price. See the file "OrderFrm.TXT" for complete information on registration. BACKGROUND When I began working with OpenGL (a powerful 3D graphics library), I quickly realized that the graphical effects that could be achieved were, put simply, awe-inspiring. Mike Irvine (the author of The Psychedelic Screen Saver) had been pressuring me to collaborate on a 3D project for quite some time so I decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to implement some of the effects I’d been contemplating. Our goal for Kinemorphics was to put these effects directly under *your* control. In pursuit of this goal, we made the user interface as powerful as possible while hiding much (okay, some ) of the complexity of the underlying mathematics. To get started, we suggest experimentation with the many *saved displays* that we’ve included. If you are a fan of Mike’s Psychedelic Screen Saver Collection (as I am), you will notice some very close similarities between his User Interface and mine. There is a reason for that...he wrote it :) . Many of the cool graphics effects and design ideas also came from Mike who brought a wealth of graphics experience to the Kinemorphics effort. David Wooden Co-author of Kinemorphics KINE V1.0 BETA NOTES * Registering Kinemorphics v1.0 (beta) gives you a license to use the beta, Kinemorphics 1.0 (release), and all subsequent versions of Kinemorphics 1.x (that is, all updates of The Kinemorphic Screen Saver prior to any versions labelled 2.0 or later). * You must have a sound card installed (and properly configured) in your system in order for Kinemorphics to sync with sound. * CD Spectrum Pro v3.1 or later must be running in order for Kinemorphics to sync with sound. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Suggested: * The Kinemorphic Screen Saver v1.0 runs quite nicely on a P-90 system. Machines with higher speeds or with 3D accelerator cards will of course perform even faster. * Microsoft Windows NT 4.x or Windows 95 with OpenGL 1.1. * Quality/Speed tradeoffs - Note that as you increase your display’s color depth and x-y resolution, the image quality will improve at some expense to performance. Conversely, as you decrease color depth or resolution, the image quality will decrease as the animation speed increases. INSTALLATION / REMOVAL To install the Kinemorphic Screen Saver, run the setup program (INSTALL.EXE) and then follow the directions. If you later decide that you would like to remove the software from your system, run the un-install program (UNINSTALL.EXE) that's in the directory you installed to. REGISTRATION Registration is easy! The file "ORDERFRM.TXT" contains all the information you need on how to register "The Kinemorphic Screen Saver" Please refer to LICENSE.TXT for information on the license agreement. QUESTIONS/SUPPORT If you have access to the World Wide Web, check out the home page for the Kinemorphic Screen Saver at: http://www.halcyon.com/render/kine.htm If you can't find the information you need here or in the product help, send me (David Wooden) email at render@halcyon.com. If you are experiencing a problem, check to see if the problem exists in the latest version of the software which can be found on my WWW site. If you are still experiencing the problem, email me with a description of the behavior and information on your hardware configuration and operating system. Please be sure to indicate which version of the the screen saver, which version of the operating system you are running, and what video display driver/adapter you are using. UPDATES I will be posting updates to the software on my web site fairly often. OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.