\BQUICK START\b
     The following tutorial is intended to give you a quick trip through most of Imagine's features.  Within a reasonably short time, you'll have created a unique animation and will have a sense of the program's layout so that the printed Reference Manual will be more useful.  Rest assured that as soon as the commercial release of the software is available, a full set of tutorials will be included.

\BBack-Ups\b
     Before using Imagine, make sure to make a back-up copy and put away your original disk in a safe place.
     You will notice that Imagine is not copy-protected in any way.  You are free to make as many copies as you need for archival purposes.  Impulse could have opted to use disk or manual protection schemes, but it hopes that common sense will keep you from spreading this product to your friends.  Many man-years have gone toward the development of Imagine and Impulse hopes that you understand the cost involved.  Impulse has attempted to price this product fairly so that it is within the reach of any computer user.
     Refer to your Amiga manual for information on duplicating a disk.

\BHard Drive Installation\b
     Duplicate your Empty icon.  Drag the copy onto the hard disk partition where you wish to install Imagine.  Rename the "Copy of Empty" drawer "Imagine" or some other appropriate name.
     Insert your backup disk in a drive, double click on the disk icon to open the disk window.
     Drag the Imagine program icon from the disk window to the Imagine drawer on your hard drive.
     Open a Shell or CLI and type "Copy Imagine:Imagine.Config to DH#:Imagine."  Replace the # with the appropriate partition number.  This will copy Imagine's configuration file to your hard disk.

\BStarting the Program\b
     From the Workbench, open your disk or hard disk directory icon and double click on the Imagine icon.
     From the CLI or Shell, type "Stack 10000." Change directory to your Imagine disk or hard drive directory and type "Run Imagine."  In low memory situations, you may wish to omit the Run command.

\BYour First Project\b
     If you haven't already done so, start Imagine now. After a moment, you will be greeted by the Imagine logo.  This is Imagine's Project Editor, the launching pad for all of your projects. Pull down the Project menu and select New.
     A requester will appear.  Selecting Disks will list all the drives mounted on your system.  Click on the floppy or hard drive partition you wish to use for this exercise.  If you have more than 3 megs of RAM, you may wish to utilize the RAM disk for this project.  If you are using floppy disks, be sure to have a fresh, initialized disk ready for the tutorials in this manual. Type in the name of your new project.  Name this project "FirstProject."  After a moment, you will be greeted by the Rendering Screen.
     Imagine has just created a directory and two subdirectories for your project.  If you named the project "FirstProject," your disk will now contain a FirstProject.imp directory with Objects and Stills as subdirectories.
     Imagine allows you to create multiple versions of your projects in varying resolutions and formats.  These versions are called Sub-Projects.  At the top of the Rendering Screen you may define, open, delete or modify a sub-project.  Select New.
     A requester will appear.  Enter "FirstSub" as the filename and click on "OK."  This now creates a sub-directory within the FirstProject.imp directory called FirstSub.pix.  All subsequent files created within this sub-project are stored in this directory.
     The program now displays the Rendering Sub-project Parameters requester, which allows you to set the current rendering method, picture and pixel sizes, file paths, file formats and viewing modes.  We will accept all the defaults.  Select OK.
     You are now back at the Rendering Screen.  Pull down the Editor menu and select Forms.
     After a moment, you will be looking at the Form Editor's Quad view. This is the default view for each editor in Imagine.  Simply click on the labels marked Top, Front, Side and Perspective to work on a full screen view.  Clicking on the current view's name will return you to the Quad view. The Forms Editor is used to create shapes which would be difficult to create in any other modeling program.
     We are going to create a simple animation of a red sphere metamorphosing into a blue cube.  Forms can be used to create far more complex shapes than these, but you'll have plenty of time to experiment later.
     Go to the Object menu and select New.  In the Forms requester, enter 12 for the number of points and 8 for the number of slices.  Select OK.
     A rough approximation of a sphere will be visible in all four views. Go to the Display menu and select Solid.  The perspective view will redraw and hidden lines will be removed from the wireframe.
     Return to the Display menu and select Shaded.  Move to the Perspective view and click once on the rectangular label on its left.  The Quad view will be replaced by a 16-color high resolution screen.  Your sphere will now be represented as a solid, flat shaded model.  Return to the Quad view by clicking once on the Perspective label at the left side of the screen.
     To morph during an animation, we need two versions of the object.  From the Object menu, select Save.  Save your object as Form.1.  We recommend you designate the Objects sub-directory of the FirstProject.imp directory as your destination.
     Now we need to convert this form into a cube. Go to the Display menu and select Grid Size.  Enter 100 in the Grid Size requester.  The grid will redraw to the larger size.
     Go to the Select menu and highlight Lock.  This makes all edited points snap to the grid's intersections. Go to the Symmetry menu and select 90 Degrees.
     Go to the Select menu and choose Drag Box. Now, in order to select a point, you must hold down the left mouse button and drag a rectangle around the point(s) you wish to select.
     Go to the Front view.  Hold down the shift key and drag a box around the two points in the lower right corner of the sphere.  The points will turn red along with their counterparts in the Right view.  Still holding the shift key, move the cursor to the grid intersection to the right and click once.  Release the shift key and the points will jump to the grid intersection.
     Continue to do this to all the corners of the form until both the front and right views depict a square with six points.  You'll notice that the Perspective view depicts a cylinder, which is the shape defined by these forms.
     Go to the Symmetry menu and select Off.  Now go to the Select menu and highlight Lasso.  This pick method expects you to draw a freehand lasso around the point(s) you wish to select.
     Go to the Top view, hold down the shift key, and draw a lasso surrounding the four points in the top and lower right corners of the form which do not currently intersect with the grid.  The points will turn red.  While still holding the shift key, move the cursor to the top right grid intersection.  Click once and release the shift key.  All the points will snap and the right side of the form will become a straight line.  Repeat the same steps for the left side.
     Your cube is now done.  Select Save from the Object menu and name this object Form.2.
     Go to the Project menu and select Detail Editor.
     This action loads the Detail Editor, the portion of the program in which you will spend most of your time when modeling objects.  Many of this module's commands will be familiar to users of Turbo Silver.  However, a great deal of effort has gone into streamlining the interface and making it highly interactive.
     Go to the Object menu and select Load.  Load Form.1.
     Pick your sphere by clicking once on its axis.
     Now go to the Object menu and select Attributes.  A requester will appear. Click on the Color switch.  The Red, Green and Blue labels will become unghosted.  Set the Red value to 190 by typing in the number or using the slider bar.  Set the Green and Blue values to 0.  Next select the Specular switch, set the sliders to 190, 100 and 100.  Select Dithering, Hardness and Shininess and enter 255 for each.  Click on Phong to set the sphere to smooth and finally, select OK.
     Select Save from the Object menu.  Saving the object as "Form.1" will erase the previous file.
     Go back to the Object menu and load Form.2. The cube will overlap the sphere.  Go to the Pick/Select menu and highlight Pick Select.  This will turn Form.2 pink (picked) and Form.1 white (unselected).
     Select Attributes from the Object menu and set the cube's color to 0, 0 and 190.  Set Specularity to 100, 100 and 190.  Set Dithering, Hardness and Shininess to 255.  Do not select Phong!  Click OK to exit Attributes.
     Save your cube as Form.2.  Now we're ready to animate!
     From the Project menu, select Stage Editor. A requester will appear asking you whether you are sure you wish to quit the Detail Editor.  Click Yes.
     The Stage Editor is one of the most powerful animation tools ever attempted on the Amiga.  This is the area of Imagine where you set your camera angles and lights and place all your objects in motion.
     Select Load from the Object menu and load Form.1.  Go to the Display menu and select Camera View.  The perspective will redraw and we will be seeing our sphere from the camera's point of view.  It is obviously too close.  Go to the Display menu and select Zoom Out.  This pulls out our orthogonal views.
     The circle with the line protruding is the camera.  Click once on the camera to pick it from the top view.  It will turn red.  Type m for move. The camera will now turn yellow.  This signifies that the object may be transformed interactively. Use the cursor down arrow to shift the top view forward.  Now hold down the left mouse button and drag the camera further away from the sphere.  Press the spacebar to accept your modification.
     The camera's view of the sphere will be smaller, but it will no longer be centered correctly.  Type r and x, for rotate on x axis. Now go to the Right view and tilt the camera slightly so that it has a better orientation. Press the spacebar to see the result of your action.  This method of pointing the camera is ok for wide views of many objects where slight inaccuracy in centering may not be apparent, but for a single object, this is quite tedious.  It is much easier to track the camera to the target object and the program will take care of centering automatically.
     Go to the Object menu and select Action.  This presents the Action Script, which represents the heart of Imagine's animation system.  Click once on Delete.  The highlighted button will turn red.  Place your cursor at the intersection of Frame 1 and the Camera's Align bar. Frame 1 and the word Align will turn red.  Click once and the blue align bar will vanish.  Select Add and return to the same position.  Click once. The title bar will read: "Starting frame is 1. Choose ending frame."  Click again in the same position.  A new align bar is placed on the script and a Specify Type requester appears.
     Select Track to Object. The Track to Object info requester appears.  Enter Form.1 as the object name and click on OK.
     Select Done.  The Stage Editor will reappear and the sphere will be perfectly centered in the Perspective view.
     Select Action from the Object menu. Now we need to declare the number of frames in our animation.  Change the number in Highest Frame # to 30.  Thirty frames will now be entered into the frame counter.
     Select Add and move the cursor to the intersection of Frame 2 and the Actor line next to Form.1.  Click once.  This is the starting frame for the new actor.  Go to Frame 30 on the same line.  This is its ending frame. A file requester will appear.  Load Form.2.
     The Object File info requester now appears.  Enter 28 in the Transition Frame count.  This means that the program will calculate 28 intermediate frames between the beginning and ending forms.  Select OK.
     Select Done.  At the Stage Editor, select Make from the Animate requester.  The Start, End, Step requester allows you to set the starting and ending frames and the number of frames to step.  Accept the default by pressing Return.
     Your animation preview will begin calculating in the perspective view.  Select Cancel to quit the preview calculation.  When the generating is complete, go to the Animate menu and select Play Loop. Your wireframe will play back at approximately 30 frames per second.  Use the Slow...Fast slider to adjust playback.  When you're done viewing your preview, select Quit.
     Now we must set lights for our animation.  Select Action from the Object menu.  At the Action Script, select Add and go to the Frame 1, (new) Actor intersection.  Click once on 1 and 30.  The Specify Type requester appears.  Select Light Source. Select OK in Light Source Info to accept the defaults.  A light source now exists in the 30 frames.
     Select Info. Click once on the light's Posn. bar.  In the Position Info requester, type -1000 and 1000 for Y and Z respectively. Select OK.
     Select Done.
     At the Stage Editor, pull down the Project menu and select Save Changes.  After disk activity has ended, select Project Editor.
     This returns you to the Rendering Screen.  To speed up our rendering, let's modify the default parameters we selected for our Sub-project.  Select Modify.  Enter 96 in both the Width and Height entries. Select OK.
     Click on Range.  Press Return to accept the Start, End and Step values.
     Select Make.  A requester will ask if you want Imagine to delete the individual images when it is completed.  Select No.
     The program will now begin to generate an animation.  The title bar at the top of the screen will display the progress of each frame.
     When the animation is complete, select Load.  When the animation is loaded into memory, select Play Loop.  Your animation will play back smoothly.  Adjust playback speed with any of the function keys.  To exit your animation, press Escape.
     To close this project without quitting the program, select Close from the Project menu.
     You've just seen a glimpse of the incredible power within Imagine.  We recommend you spend as much time as necessary with each module rather than attempting to understand everything at once.  The Reference Manual provides succinct definitions of each menu and requester so you should spend some time reading it thoroughly.