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3D Settings

These are the main 3D settings that effect all of the modules selected in the "Main Settings" panel...

Local Lighting - This is what gives all the objects the smooth shaded (lit) look. You will usually want this on unless you are using textures and you *don't* want to see the object colors change "through" the textures.

Wireframe - When you turn this on, all objects are drawn with "outlines". This can be much faster, but of course, much less realistic.

Dithering - This will make colors on the screen saver flow together (or shade) more smoothly. When this is off, you will often see lines or blocks of solid colors instead of a smooth fading between colors.

Static Colors - This will make each face of every object have a random color. Other module-specific color settings and palette settings are ignored when this is on.

Perspective - You will usually want this on. Basically, this is what makes the objects (and the "viewing volume" itself) appear smaller as they move farther away and bigger as the move closer. Turning this off will keep the object the same size no matter how far or close it is (in other words, it won't look like its moving farther or closer)...this can lead to some very different and interesting visual effects however.

Texture Mode - This determines in what way texture images (selected in the individual modules? "texture name" fields) are applied to its modules' objects. 1 means the texture is applied directly to the object sides, 2 means the texture "sticks" to the object wherever the object happens to "hit" it, 3 means the texture is applied to the object as if it were a sphere. See the FAQ for more info on Texture Mode.

Texture Scale - This determines how big or small each module's texture appears when mapped onto that module's objects. This only has an effect when Texture Mode 1 or 2 is chosen. See the FAQ for more info on Texture Scale.

Shininess - Determines the relative "shininess" of all objects. A high value will make them appear very shiny (larger bright spot) and a low value will make them appear less shiny. The color of the shiny part of the objects is determined by the Specular fields.

Z Depth - Z Depth is how "deep" the viewing volume (the apparent 3D area in which Kinemorphics runs) is. When running with Perspective turned on, this will determine how far back (and how close up) objects can move when they are animating.

Clear depth freq. - This determines how often (in seconds) the stored up depth information is cleared. When the depth information is cleared, all of the old drawing is suddenly considered infinitely far away. This of course means that all subsequent frames will be drawn on top of the frames drawn prior to the clear, regardless of their depth position. A setting of 1 means the depth information is cleared after every frame of animation.

Clear screen freq. - This determines how often (in seconds) the screen is cleared. Note that this includes clearing the depth information (see Clear depth freq.). A setting of 1 means the screen (and depth information) is cleared after every frame of animation (usually more than every second). In this case (setting of 1), double-buffering is used which is a smoother way of redisplaying each frame. When the setting is greater than 1, standard single-buffering (no buffering) is used.

Object Quality - This determines how accurately "living" objects will be displayed. If you are running on a slower system, you may want to lower the object quality in order to increase performance. Conversely, if you are running on a fast system, you may want to increase the object quality in order to smooth out the angles. A value of 100 indicates that the object will be displayed at the same quality level in which it was created.

Specular (R,G,B) - These 3 fields allow you to specify the color (in red, green, and blue components) of the specular highlight (shiny part) of the objects. The size of this specular highlight is determined by the Shininess field.
 

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