Animated Communications
PO Box 16907
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
800.949.4559
info@3dchor.com

Tech Talk

3d Choreographer is a program to create character animations. The animations are formatted as 8 bit FLC or 8 to 24 bit AVI files. The FLC files can be played from within 3d Choreographer or with Aaplay.exe, a player provided with the package. AVI files can be played with a run-time version of Video for Windows also included with 3d Choreographer. Single frames of an animation can be exported as BMP files at user selected resolution and with up to 16 million colors.

A new feature of 3d Choreographer version 2.0 allows the head of a 3D actor to be replaced by a photo. With this feature an animated organization chart can have actual photos of the managers on the bodies of 3d Choreographer actors. For example, the head of security can be on a policeperson's body or the CEO can be on a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Head shot photographs stored as BMP files are merged with the actor's body. 3d Choreographer blends the neck and makes the background color transparent. The powerful commands for the 3D actor are still available with the photo-head.

The animations made with 3d Choreographer can be incorporated into presentation programs such as PowerPoint, Freelance and Harvard Graphics as well as in multimedia authoring programs like Toolbook, Director and Authorware.

Creating an animation with 3d Choreographer is like writing a play. Actors are cast and movements are determined by a script. The script is a menu of commands that vary from complex like Dance, which makes an actor do the Charleston, to simple acts like Raise right eyebrow. Actions can be selected from a menu or can be created by the user.

3d Choreographer comes with over 60 prebuilt 3D actors with over 200 additional actors sold separately. The built-in commands permit rapid design of complex animations by combining commands like smile, walk, wave, talk, bow, kick etc. applied to a selected set of built-in actor taken from the library.

3d Choreographer is fully object oriented. Commands can be included in the creation of other commands which, in turn, can be nested again and again. Commands can be moved from actor to actor so that a dance command written for a bald businessman can be used on a blonde policewoman.

There are 3 different classes of commands for 3D Actors; Set Initial Pose, Script commands, and Insert Pose commands.

• Set Initial Pose creates the parameters that the characters starts with at the beginning of the animation. These commands set the size of the actor's head, hands, feet, eyes and clothing. Set Initial Pose controls the initial 3D orientation of the actor and the position of its head and limbs. Depending on the actor, Set Initial Pose can change a sphere to a pyramid or an old bald man to a long haired youth.

• Script commands move or change the actors in time. Commands like dance, walk, jump, raise right eyebrow, etc. are found here. These commands are menu selected and can be sequential or overlapping in time.

• Insert Pose commands are similar to key frame definitions but more powerful. Here the end position, shape or orientation of an actors is set at a point in time. 3d Choreographer builds all frames leading up to this key frame to achieve a smooth transition to the desired pose. Insert Pose commands are the most powerful and used extensively by the advanced user. Multiple Insert Pose commands are used to create complex Script commands.

2D actors can be made by the user with the 2D actor-maker within the program. 2D BMP images from user clip art libraries or from scanned images can be animated in a number of ways:

Alternate ways of utilizing existing 2D BMP images:

1. As a Bitmap actor
   • Scrolling, moving and scaling
2. As a Bitmap-transparent actor
   • Bit map is applied to a 3D plate which is then animated.
   • Background color is selected as a chromakey and the background and any identical color in the picture becomes transparent. This actor supports complex commands of movement, distortion, sizing and orientation.
3. As a head on a 3D actor,
   • 3d Choreographer will make the background color transparent.
   • Finds the neck of the head in the image. (program looks for a straight edge on bottom of picture)
   • Merges head with 3D Actor, blending the colors at the junctions.
   • Uses full 3D library of actions.
4. As a Background Actor
   • Automatically sized to fit the background. Can be scrolled.

Additional flexibility is provided by the Path option. The movement of any actor can be programmed by setting a path. This path is determined by discrete points whose number and position is set by the user. Each point defines the position of the actor at a given time. A control arrow is available at each point to alter the orientation of the actor at that time. Editing that path point allows detailed control of the actor size and orientation at that point in space and time. Paths can be copied from one actor to another, They can be altered in duration and in start and stop times.

Design of animations is done with stick figures or wire-frame. Final rendering into FLC or AVI files is done with the Animation command. The rendering time is dependent on the resolution selected, on the number of frames and the amount of motion in the animation. The resolution is determined by the user but is limited to a maximum of 640 by 480 pixels. FLC files support up to 256 colors, AVI allows up to 16 million colors. A compile utility is available for advanced users to allow rendering at very high resolutions either in FLC or in AVI. This is recommended only for users of Pentiums or better.