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• QuickTime Movie format support
• QuickTime Interactive Movie
• New Single Click Animation Scenarios
• Stereoscopic screenshots and movies
• Settings templates for most common tasks
• New Commands (TurboCAD v17.2 and later required)

QuickTime Movie format support

Now AnimationLab and MontageCenter can create AVI, MOV or GIF movies.

QuickTime Interactive Movie

A “QTVR Object Movie” is a series of still images that show an object from several different angles. The object may be shown in full rotation, often tilted at several angles as well. The images are arranged so that when the viewer drags them using the mouse, the object seems to tilt and rotate.

New Single Click Animation Scenarios

To simplify creation of an "Interactive Movie", several scenario presets were added "QT Interactive Movie" - automatically creates “QTVR Object Movie” with current "Views Columns" and "Views Rows" settings
"QT Interactive Movie (36x18)" or
"QT Interactive Movie (70x35)" - automatically creates “QTVR Object Movie” with Views Columns x Rows = 36x18 or 70x35

Stereoscopic screenshots and movies

Now there is a possibility to make a stereoscopic screenshot of the current drawing view or to make a stereo movie. Supported stereoscopic formats:
Red-Cyan Anaglyph glasses
Split Vertically or Horizontally
Interlaced Vertically or Horizontally

Settings templates for most common tasks

"Cell Phone" - small AVI movie (4:3 - 176x144, 320x240) without sound
"Computer" - medium AVI or MOV movie (4:3 - 400x300, 640x480, 800x600) with compression and sound
"HDTV" - large AVI movie (6:4 - 720x480, 1280x720, 1920x1080) with compression and sound
"Interactive Movie" - MOV “QTVR Object Movie” (400x300, 640x480, Stereo_400x300, Stereo_640x480) with compression and without sound
"Stereoscopic" - stereoscopic movie (400x300)
"Web" - small GIF movie (176x144, 320x240, 400x300) transparent and cycling.

New Commands TurboCAD v17.2 and later required)

SetPropertyValue (Support for Parametric Symbol Properties (PPM symbols, PartTree symbols, Dynamic components from SketchUp))
RenderStyle
ChangeRenderStyle

• Contour Animation
• GIF Frames and Movies
• Constrained Objects Support
• Part Tree Support
• New Commands

Contour Animation

Now Key Frames can remember coordinates of objects' nodes ("Nodes Coordinates" checkbox on the "Changing Parameters" page). This allows animating polylines, curves, and profiles of 3D objects.

GIF Frames and Movies

Animation frames can now be saved not only in BMP and JPEG formats, but also in GIF format; and the resultant movie can be either in AVI or in Animated GIF format. Support is also provided for such options as palette optimization, user defined colors count, dithering and transparency.

Constrained Objects Support (TurboCAD v12.2 and later required)

If "Nodes Coordinates" checkbox in the "Changing Parameters" page is checked, the actors will take existing constraints into account when each of the frames is calculated. This makes it possible to create animations of cinematic schemes or Compound Profiles of 3D objects.
By using "SetVariable" command it is also possible to change numeric values of Constraint Manager variables, the list of which can be found in the Calculator Palette.

Part Tree Support (TurboCAD v12.2 and later required)

If an actor was used as an operand in the Part Tree, then when this actor is changed the Part Tree will recalculate the resultant body, taking changes into account.
For example, if an actor is a part of a Compound Profile, on which an Extrusion was created, and then the edges were smoothed using Blend command, then if that actor is changed, the Compound Profile will be recalculated taking existing constraints into consideration, an Extrusion will automatically be built on the new profile, and edges will be blended.

New Commands

SetPropertyValue
SetVariable

• Single Click Animation
• Graphical Key Frames Editor
• Mix with Sound
• Considerable performance improvement
• New Commands
• BMP or JPEG Frames
• AVI Compression
• Stand-alone Montage Center
• Files Palette
• New Batch File Operations
• Thumbnail view support for Windows Explorer

Single Click Animation

Expandable set of Preset Scenarios allows creating an animation movie for your drawing with a single mouse click.
You only need to select the Preset Scenario, and AnimationLab will load the scenario, start the specified type of rendering, play the scenario for your drawing and create the movie file. Currently, 7 preset scenarios are included:

Look Around
Orbit Horizontal
Orbit Vertical
Panorama
Slide Horizontal
Slide Vertical

When this capability is used in Batch Operations mode, it provides the possibility to create animated albums for file libraries of all formats supported by TurboCAD.
 

Graphical Key Frames Editor

Key frame stores graphic properties (color, thickness, etc.), rotations, movements and scaling of actors.

Key frame editor calculates commands for intermediate frames on the basis of the specified key frames.

In the "Law of Changing" dialog, you can select one of the preset interpolation laws (for example, acceleration or deceleration), or define your own law using the field for graphic curve editing.

This provides the means to smooth the trajectory, control speed and acceleration within each step, make additional movements (e.g. oscillation).

Mix with Sound

You can assign a soundtrack for each actor. AnimationLab will calculate the sound scene, taking into account the distance to the actors, speed of their movement, and environment. Both mono- and stereo soundtracks can be calculated.

Considerable performance improvement

In the new version of AnimationLab, performance is greatly improved, thanks to the fact that now AnimationLab does not re-render TurboCAD Views when saving frames in a file.

New Commands

• Material, Luminance and Environment Commands.

• TurboCAD v9 Image Object Commands: Add Image, Change Actor Image.

• AVI Commands, which allow extracting a frame from an avi file and using it in other commands (for example, change material pattern or change background image).

• Lofting Commands (version 3.1).

• 3D Boolean Commands (version 3.3).

BMP or JPEG Frames

Now you can save scenario frames not only as BMP files, but also as JPEG, which allows saving disk space. 
Size and quality of the saved files are now defined in AnimationLab Options Dialog, and these settings are independent of the settings of BMP and JPEG filters in TurboCAD.

Support of new rendering capabilities of TurboCAD v8-v10

Using new commands in AnimationLab, you can set Luminance and Environment; as well as change the properties of the set Material, Luminance or Environment. 

  

This gives you the possibility to change transparency of a material, for example; or change the background picture for Environment. A frame from an AVI file can be used as a background picture – this provides the means for combining 3D animation with real video.

     

AVI Compression

Support of compressed AVI (Microsoft Video, Intel Indeo video, MPEG-4, DivX, etc.) allows significantly reducing the size of created files and finding the balance of image quality and file size that suits your needs. 
AnimationLab automatically detects video compressors, installed on your computer.

Stand-alone Montage Center

Montage Center is now accessible both from the AnimationLab Palette, and as a stand-alone application.

Montage Center allows creating compressed AVI movies with defined quality and image size. 
BMP, JPG, GIF, ICO, WMF, EMF and AVI files can be used as movie frames.
Preview mode lets you view individual frames, as well as the entire future movie.
The list of frames and all settings can be saved and loaded as a "Montage Center Project" file.
Each frame can be treated with the defined filter (for instance: filling background with the specified color; combining with another frame with the specified transparency; superposing a logo over a frame; etc.)
 

The set of filters can be expanded by adding new modules without reinstalling AnimationLab.

Files Palette

By viewing the contents of your network directories in a similar manner as the Windows® "My Computer" application, the File Palette makes it simple to open and manage your files directly from the TurboCAD desktop.

The File Palette can display thumbnails for TCW files, as well as image files (JPG, BMP, GIF, etc.). You can also create thumbnail albums for files of other extensions recognized by TurboCAD. Simply select the icon of the desired file in the File Palette, and choose "Make Thumbnail" menu item. TurboCAD will then automatically create a thumbnail of that file, so next time you will see a thumbnail of that particular file instead of the generic file icon.

       

New Batch File Operations

Using the File Palette, you can define a list of TCW files (from one location or across your network) and tell it to perform a process to all of the files at one time. Four types of batch processes are available:

• Batch Open - Open a set of selected files in TurboCAD
• Batch Convert - Convert a set of selected files from any format TurboCAD recognizes to any other format TurboCAD recognizes.
• Batch Thumbnail - Create sets of BMP or JPG thumbnails for a set of selected files.
• Batch Animate - Create animations for a set of selected files using any of the presets available from AnimationLab. You can use this to create the same animation on a number of different files.

Thumbnails view support for Windows Explorer