Making Object Movies

QuickTime VR Authoring Studio is a great resource for creating object movies. As the object movies are created, QuickTime movies can also be generated. These guidelines are to help the novice user construct a sequential object movie, one where a single row of pictures are converted into an electronic "flip-book" with adjacent images played in sequence.

Select the Application from the hard drive.

The software will load and you will be presented with the opening display.

Choose File->New->Object Maker in the Menu Bar.

Select the name of your object maker file. This file stores all the parameters which will be used to create the object movie.

This setup screen looks similar to the panorama stitcher screen. As with the panorama stitcher, you choose the files to be included in your object movie. It would be best to store the object movie with the images you are using for the movie. If you already have an image set click on the "Add Files..." button.

Select the files you wish to use in the object movie. Be sure that your image set is numbered sequentially in the order you wish the frames to be shown.

When the specific files are chosen, select the "Done" button.

The "Define Object" window will automatically open. In the simplest movie, the frames are numbered sequentially and these adjacent frames will be played sequentially. This default settings accurately reflect our intent: One row (movie plays sequentially) with twenty-four columns (24 pictures will be shown in the movie).

This object movie shows an animation, not a rotation, so the "degrees apart" window is not important at this time.

Now, if you want to use the default settings, click on the "Make Object" button.

All of the images in the image set will now be processed into an object movie and a QuickTime movie.

The QuickTime movie file is an intermediate step when creating an object movie and can save processing time if you ever decide to remake the object movie.

Once the object movie has been assembled, test the movie to see if it has the characteristics you wish it to have. Do this by placing your cursor on the image, depress button on mouse, and drag across the movie.

If you like it, close both windows, and you will get a message about saving changes. Click "Save" if you want to keep the changes, click "Don't Save" if you decide not to keep the default parameters.

If you would like to modify the default setting, click on the "Settings..." button.

This is the initial look of the Compression Settings page. If you wish to changes these settings, you need to click on the "Settings..." button.

The"Object Maker Settings" will change the appearance of the movie as it plays. You can change the direction of the controls, or swap controls (movies move left and right when you move the cursor up and down).

To make the movie automatically play when opened, select "Auto-play Views." You can force it to loop back and forth.

You can change the initial scale of the image.

"Mouse Scale Factor" affects the speed at which the movie moves relative to the movement of the cursor. Frames per second can be set to change the speed of the apparent motion of the movie.

You can change the depth of colors and the level of compression. The highest quality settings will produce a larger movie file.

Using the playback option, you can change the size of the movie. Novice users can ignore the "Default View State" and "Mouse Down View" state.

You can use the "File Settings" to document your movie.

When the settings are complete, click on the "Make Object" button, and the movie will be constructed using the parameters you selected. Enjoy!

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