PC Shareware 1996 December/PC_Shareware-1996-12.iso/windows/formula/readme.txt

Text File | 1995-10-13 | 7.6 KB | 194 lines

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Formula Graphics Multimedia System
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  16 bit version 3.3
  32 bit version 4.0
   Release 95.10.12
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1) Description
2) Features
3) Product Comparison
4) Free Release
5) Registration
6) Customer Support
7) Free Distribution
8) Instructions
9) Requirements
10) Current Version
11) Video problems
12) Other problems
13) Contact details

1) Description
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Formula Graphics Multimedia System will bring your artwork,sounds
and animations together to create highly interactive multimedia titles.
The system was designed to simplify the task of authoring on a production
level, to allow the creative content of a presentation to be as rich as
possible, and to make it possible to achieve an unlimited amount
of interactivity.

It takes the finished artwork and animations from graphics packages
such as Photoshop, Animator and 3D Studio, or from image libraries and
sound recordings, and it presents this content in ways which give the
best possible result for any Windows PC.

Formula Graphics Multimedia System is very quick and easy to use.
It can be used by anyone in the home, office or classroom to create
very professional looking games and presentations.

2) Features
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Formula Graphics is the only multimedia system that has dynamic
palette handling for 256 color presentations. As the presentation plays,
palette colors are magically allocated and deallocated so that one long
stream of ever changing colors can be shown. As each picture is shown on
the screen, its colors are instantaneously remapped. Even animations are
remapped frame by frame as they are being played.

Animation is the strongest feature of Formula Graphics. The system handles
five animation file formats and four styles of playback, as well as MCI
video. It has powerful animation processing facilities, including
programmable editing. By converting to the custom VDO and WDO formats,
animations can be made to blend subtly into the background as complex
shapes rather than appearing as boring square boxes.

Another key feature of the system is its high performance object oriented
language. Similar to  Basic and C and highly focused towards multimedia,
this language can be used to give your presentations an unlimited amount
of functionality. It can be used to write fully animated sprite based games.
It can also be used to process your sound and animation files in an
unlimited number of ways as you are authoring your presentation.

3) Product Comparison
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Key features of Formula Graphics Multimedia System compared with
Asymetrix Multimedia ToolBook and Macromedia Director.

            Formula Graphics    ToolBook    Director
            ----------------    --------    --------
256 colors            yes        yes        yes
Dynamic palette management    yes        no        no
16 and 24 bit color        yes        yes        yes
Slideshow transitions        yes        no        yes

BMP, GIF and JPEG bitmaps    yes        no        no
AVI, FLC and MPEG animations    yes        no        no
Integrated animation playback    yes        no        no

Object oriented language    yes        yes        yes
Sprite based games engine    yes        no        no
Simple alternative logic    yes        no        no

4) Free Release
---------------
The full working release of the software is being given away for free
on the internet, on magazine coverdisks and on shareware CDROMs. Now
everyone can begin to author their own high quality multimedia titles
without having to outlay any money for a professional authoring tool.
The free release has all the features needed to build a short
interactive game or presentation.

Professional users who need to create interactive presentations
which run for more than a few minutes, or who wish to publish and
distribute their multimedia titles can use the telephone to purchase
a registration number which will unlock the professional features
of this release. For full details, run the software.

5) Registration
---------------
You can register using your credit card by phone, or you can register by
cheque or money order. Once you've registered version 3.x, then all 3.x
upgrades are free. If you choose to upgrade from standard to professional,
or from 3.x to 4.x then you will only pay the difference in price. For
more details about paying registration, see our world wide web site.

6) Customer Support
-------------------
If you require urgent telephone assistance, then a credit card support
fee will be required. You may also post a message to the "comp.multimedia"
newsgroup, but we do not guarantee a reply. But we can assure you that all
such feedback will be considered carefully, and the documention will be
updated regularly with more information and examples on those frequently
asked questions.

7) Free Distribution
--------------------
Formula Graphics Multimedia System may be distributed freely. Hardware
and Software vendors, bulletin boards, CDROM title authors, and all other
types of commercial enterprises have permission to distribute this software
without royalties. Modifications to this software will be in breach of
the license agreement and are against the law.

8) Instructions
---------------
Run "setup.exe" to install the authoring system onto your hard drive.
Run "demo.exe" under Windows to see the demonstation presentation.
Run "formula.exe" to open the multimedia authoring system.
Choose the Open command from the Presentation menu to open the
demonstration presentation "demo.dbx".

9) Requirements
---------------
Presentations will run on a 4Mbyte machine with Windows 3.1 or better.
Best video performance is gained from using a 256 color video mode or
better. Suitable for use on any speed CDROM drive or any type of sound
card. Minimum distribution size is about 350Kbyte with compression.

The version 3.x will work under Windows 3.1 and 95. Certain
features will be disabled under NT to improve performance.

10) Current Version
-------------------
Version 3.3 contains many fixes and updates from version 3.0:
  Rectangle elements
  Colored buttons
  Hypertext editor and topic search
  World wide web support
  More action box commands
  Improved documentation
  Bug fixes all round

Version 4.0 is completely feature compatible with 3.3.

Updated release of the software can be downloaded from our web site.
New versions will be posted on a regular basis. The software and
documentation are slowly evolving to satisfy our customer's needs.

11) Video problems
------------------
Some video cards may not display presentation graphics consistently.
This is due to bugs in their video card drivers. Ask your manufacturer
for an updated driver.

Microsoft WinG drivers can cause problems on some video cards.
WinG support has been disabled, but for the best performance on a
256 color video card, enable WinG by setting the [Graphics] FastMode=1
option in the formula.ini (or presentation.ini) file to 1.

We recommend installing Microsoft Video for Windows on Windows 3.1 to
give respectable video performance on low resolution video cards.

12) Other problems
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Our JPEG decoder does not accept files from every source. If you have
problems loading JPEG files then try loading them into Paint Shop Pro
or some other utility and then saving them again. Formula Graphics will
always read files it has written. This is being fixed.

13) Contact details
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Harrow Software P/L
GPO Box 1722 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia
#1/165 Sailor's Bay Rd Northbridge NSW
Australia phone: [phone]
International phone: [phone]
International fax: [phone]
World Wide Web: www.magna.com.au/~formula
Email: [e-mail]
October 1995

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