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The best feature of the 3D Museum is that it is very much your museum, with your pictures, and your sounds prominently shown in a mobile 3D scene:
| National Gallery of art: http://www.nga.gov Poster pics at Art.com http://www.art.com Others at Art.net: http://www.art.net/studios/digital.html The Museum of Modern Art - MOMA: http://www.moma.org/ The Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/ The Guggenheim Museum: http://www.guggenheim.org/ The Louvre, France:(Mona Lisa etc) http://www.louvre.fr/ |
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It is just as easy to follow the classical theme and show art by the great masters, as it is to go high-tech with wierd techno-bop in the background. Many sound formats are supported, so finding sound files should not be all that hard. Multiple Windows user logins can select their own separate sounds and images from many acceptable formats. Free Screen Saver Download ...
Features and Operation :
The game-like navigation mode, allows you to move around the museum with your keyboard and mouse. To enter this mode just hold [Ctrl - A] down together any time the program is running. The [F1] help key provides a complete listing of all commands.
Use your arrow keys [< >] to move around in the scene. You can combine arrow keys as well. [Ctrl - A] will toggle back to automatic (Screen Saver) mode. [Ctrl-C] hides the animated character, and also toggles him back.
You can move the camera up and down using [Page Up] and [Page Down] and also move toward and away from the character (or camera target) using [A] and [S]. Basically this allows you to view your images from any dramatic 3D angle!
IMPORTANT: You will need to avoid the mouse and hit [Ctrl - A] only to toggle into game mode. Use [Esc] to exit the program altogether, or toggle [Ctrl - A] again to resume Screen Saver mode from where you left off.
Once in game mode, the program acts like a game and is no longer looking to escape the screen, like a Screen-Saver. Use [Esc] to exit any screen at any time.
The easiest way to travel is to hold the [ > UP ARROW] key and rotate the screen with your mouse. As you rotate the screen, this orients the character to travel forward, but it is also possible to view travel from sideways by combining the other arrow keys.
Other nice features include the ability to toggle [F] freeze the screensaver to view your pictures as they stand in the scene. Use [R] to prematurely rotate a new set of four images anytime into view. There are four rooms which together form a square, so ScreenBOT is eventually traveling clockwise from each of the four rooms.
If you purchase the program, the slightly annoying beg screens between museum rooms will go away, however, you will always be able to view keyboard commands using the [F1] key. Free Screen Saver Downloads:
Images and sounds may be selected from the Screen
Saver Settings button from the Display Properties Applet (which you can
load from the desktop or Control Panel.) Your selections may be played
in random or selected order. There are four rooms which each display four
pictures, so it may certainly be possible for you to group pictures together
in a special manner. The loading order for sounds is not linked in any
way with your images, however, that feature may be provided for clients
for free in the next release. Use [N]
to load your next sound file at any time. [M]
will mute sounds, but use [N] to bring
sounds back. There is a slight delay because the program has to "talk"
to the Direct Play component, tell it to cancel the old file, and then
load the next one.
Sounds can be enabled and disabled from the Screen Saver Settings button.
Just right click your desktop, choose Properties and the Screen Saver
tab on the top. Once you have Animated 3D Museum selected from the list
of screen savers, the settings button will load the special settings that
only apply to the Animated 3D Museum. This should have been already shown
on install, but many users may change display properties.
If you have not set up your image directories yet, the program will try to load images from wherever it can find your "MyPictures" directory. Otherwise it will load a few of my own travel photos taken from New Mexico. Sounds are not enabled by default, however, I have provided links to a few sites which offer excellent, and free, sound files online.
Multiple Windows logon users can customize the Animated Museum on the same computer with their own images and sounds. So for example: Mom can have her classic oil paintings with Mozart, and then her rock and roll fan, son, can log on later to hear his selected YellowCard in Concert sounds with accompanying radical 3D art, on the same identical PC.
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See our review. Was three stars on tucows.com, and will be updated again. |
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
You will need DirectX 8.1 (or later) and a multi-texture capable 3D video
card to use this program. The executable uses about 31 Meg. of Direct
X Managed memory, so it should run easily on most systems with over 64
Meg. of RAM (and nothing else intensive running). On some computers with
many services running, like NT, 128 Mb RAM may be necessary, because it
is quite hard for the computer to swap data and process math intensive
animation instructions at the same time. Direct X-9 is available from
Microsoft here:
http://www.microsoft.com/directx
If any of the above is not installed, you should receive a detailed message outlining the missing feature. (Programmers Note) I designed the program and animated character on a machine many people still have: a four- year old 500 Mhz Tyan machine with an AGP-2 Bus speed Slot for an NVIDIA 5200 -128 Meg Video Card. The newer video card provides the only way for this older system to run today's 3D Hardware Processed Direct X games.
This program does NOT change your video settings in any way.
Many programs and games that use 3D will change your video settings to a lower resolution, and then return back to the original settings when finished. This is often necessary to support the intensive processing and memory requirements of the game. This program has only one character, and uses only four textured images for the museums. There should be no need to change your settings at all, and so this program usually has no adverse affect on any other programs that rely on Direct X.
If you experience jitter, or shake while the program is running, something is really hitting your (500Mhz) processor for time slices. Faster computers should not experience any problems. This jitter is sometimes a program designed to occasionally query the internet for information, and is often spyware. If you enjoy my program more than the spyware, I recommend un-installing it, or using a good virus prevention program that will do that work for you, from McAfee or Symantec. If Direct X-8+ is installed and you still have problems, it is possible that your 3D Video card from a few years ago is not supporting multiple textures. Unfortunately, in order to run current games you will need a newer ($+-99) card. All AGP slot video cards now on the market are relatively inexpensive, support 3D, and can usually run this screensaver.
Some computers now come with cool flat screen panels, which are great for saving space, but generally they vary greatly in their ability to render 3D scenes without ghosting ar odd unnatural effects. If you plan to run games, or 3D applications, the flat screens may not always work. It pays to visit the hardware review sites first.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the program enough to buy it, so we can drive on to create even more impressive 3D games that feature avionics, much more animations, perhaps even some animation enhancements for ScreenBOT in the Museum. Some have said he needs sunglasses, and maybe a miniature camera too.