============
BIN Animator
============

0. What's new?
--------------
see changelog.txt

1. What is BIN Animator?
------------------------
This utility will help you to create a BIN animation
by creating the "animation control" BIN file that tells MTM
what models to use for the animation, how many frames to use
per second, and so on.

2. Installing BIN Animator
---------------------------

Simply copy the file
  BIN Animator.EXE
to a directory of your choice.
The Program should be ready to run.

3. How to use BIN Animator
--------------------------
How does MTM animate BINs? Quite simple: it takes
some BIN models that are identical in all aspects
(number of vertices, number of faces, textures,
texture coordinates, placement of faces) but one,
the position of the vertices, and calculates a smooth
transition from the first to the second model, from the
second to the third, and so on (and from the last to
the first, of course).

How does it know which models to take and how fast to
animate them? That's where the BIN Animator enters the
scene. It helps you to create a kind of "animation control
BIN" that contains the necessary information:

- the number of frames (models)
- the names of the frames
- the speed of the animation

You have to use this BIN in TrackEd to place the
BIN animation in a Track.

When you start the BIN Animator, you will see a dialog box
where you can enter:

- the name of the "animation control BIN" that will be
  created (in the directory where BIN Animator is located)
- the number of frames (models) that are used for the animation
- the animation speed in frames per second
- up to 20 filenames for the frames

When you click on "Save", the animation control BIN will be
created.

Click "Done" to exit the program.

Example:
If you use TRI's TrackEd to extract all files from
SYSTEM/STARTUP.POD, you will find the files
TERYL.BIN, TERYL1.BIN, TERYL2.BIN, TERYL3.BIN, and TERYL4.BIN
in your MTM models folder. These are the files of the Ptero-
dacteryl (?) animation, the flying dinosaur that sometimes
lifts the truck up instead of the helicopter.

TERYL1.BIN, TERYL2.BIN, TERYL3.BIN, and TERYL4.BIN are the
four frames of the animation, TERYL.BIN is the animation
control BIN.

The TERYL uses an animation speed of 4 fps (frames per second),
it will take exactly one second to beat its wings once
(4 frames/4 frames per second = 1 second for all 4 frames).

Let's build a BIN animation that beats its wings twice as fast.

- Start BIN Animator.
- Enter the name of the new animation control BIN: "FASTERYL.BIN"
- Enter the number of frames: "4"
- Enter the fps: "8" (twice as fast as the old TERYL)
- Enter the filenames for the first four frames:
  1 "TERYL1.BIN"
  2 "TERYL2.BIN"
  3 "TERYL3.BIN"
  4 "TERYL4.BIN"
  and leave the rest blank.
- Press "Save" to create the new animation control BIN.

You can now copy the new BIN "FASTERYL.BIN" to your
MTM models folder and use it in your track.


*********************************************************
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AND SEND ME A POSTCARD IF YOU USE ANY OF MY UTILITIES,
TRACK OR TRUCKS AND HAVE NOT ALREADY SENT ME ONE. THANKS!
*********************************************************

4. Known Bugs and Limitations
-----------------------------
- No error checking implemented. If you type nonsense,
  the resulting BIN file will not work 8-)

5. BIN Aniomator homepage
-------------------------
http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~pieper/mtm/

6. The author of BIN Animator
-----------------------------
Oliver Pieper
Student of computer science at the 
Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany.

email: pieper@ViaRegio.de
WWW: www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~pieper

*********************
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
*********************

Resale or distribution on CD-ROM is strictly prohibited unless given permission by
the author. All material contained with the ZIP file is considered copyrighted by
the author.

1997 Oliver Pieper