KINETICS -------- Kinetics Animation Player, Version 1.0 Copyright 1990, 1991 David Ramsden and Paul Dana All rights reserved Produced for exclusive distribution by: Lexicor Software Corporation 58 Redwood Road Fairfax, CA 94930 (415) 453-0271 TRADEMARKS ---------- Atari, ST, STE and TT are registered trademarks of Atari Corporation. Antic, Cyber Paint and Cyber Studio are trademarks of Antic Publishing, Inc. Phase IV, Kinetics, Prism Paint and Chronos are trademarks of Lexicor Software Corporation. DESCRIPTION ----------- Kinetics Animation Player is a utility program for the Atari ST, STE or TT that can display .DLT and .FLM animations. Kinetics may be copied and distributed freely so long as it is copied in whole and it is not sold in any way. TO INSTALL KINETICS ------------------- 1. Copy the file PLAYER.PRG and PLAYER.RSC to the same folder or your hard disk or floppy disk. TO USE KINETICS --------------- 1. Run Kinetics from any resolution. 2. The Copyright Dialog appears. Click the OK button. 3. The Player Dialog appears. Specify options in the dialog (explained below). Click the Quit button to quit Kinetics. Click PLAY to continue. 4. The File Selector appears. Click the Cancel button to return to the Player Dialog. Specify a filename and click the OK button to continue. 5. The animation you have specified displays. Press PLAYBACK keys to change playback options (explained below). Press either mouse button or any key that is not a PLAYBACK key to stop playback and return to the Player Dialog. 6. Click the Quit button in the Player Dialog at any time to quit Kinetics. PLAYER DIALOG OPTIONS --------------------- .FLM Click this button to play an Film file animation. .DLT Click this button to play a Delta file animation. Play From options These options let you choose whether you want the animation to be played from RAM or from disk. RAM Click this button if you have enough RAM to contain Chronos and the animation file you wish to play. This will enable the animation to play at faster speeds. Disk Click this button if you do not have enough RAM to load the entire animation. This feature lets you play very large animations, even on less powerful systems. Playback options These options let you choose how you want the animation to repeat while it is playing. Loop Click this button to continually play the animation, each time starting over at frame one. Ping-pong Click this button to continuously play the animation, each time reversing the order the frames play in. This option will play the frames backward until the first frame displays and then it will reverse again. Double Buffering This option eliminates screen flicker on ST, STE, and TT monitors. This option does not work with ISAC monitors. Selecting a speed This option lets you determine how fast the animation will play. You can enter a speed as a value representing frames per second (fps) or you can click on a speed button. PLAYBACK KEYS ------------- While the animation plays pressing a PLAYBACK KEY will change a playback option. Pressing either mouse button or a key that is not a playback key will stop the playback and return you to the Player Dialog. F1 = 5 frames per second (fps) F2 = 6 fps F3 = 8 fps F4 = 10 fps F5 = 12 fps F6 = 15 fps F7 = 24 fps F8 = 30 fps F9 = 48 fps F10 = 60 fps + = increase speed by 1 fps - = decraase speed by 1 fps spacebar = display one frame at a time mouse button = quit animation any other key = quit animation NOTE: Pressing the space bar will pause the playback until you press the spacebar again, or another PLAYBACK KEY. In this way, the spacebar is a "single step" key that allows you to view the animation slowly one frame at a time by continually pressing the spacebar. Pressing a different PLAYBACK KEY will resume the playback. Pressing any other key or either mouse button will stop the animation playback. .DLT FILES --------- .DLT files are animations created by Antic's Cyber Studio or Cyber Paint. They are animations in either ST Low resolution or ST high resolution. They have one palette for the entire animation. .DLT animation files are always "paired" with either a .PI1 file or a .PI3 file. If an animation is ST Low resolution then the "paired" file will be a .PI1 file. If an animation is ST High resolution then the "paired" file will be a .PI3 file. .FLM FILES --------- .FLM files are animations created by Lexicor's Prism Paint or Chronos 3D Key Frame Animator. They are animations in any ST, STE, or TT resolution, as well as resolutions of third party graphics boards. In the current implementation of .FLM there is only one palette for the entire animation. - END OF README.TXT