You'll need to have the Plugin installed to see this...
SCREAM is a vector based animation program designed to create VERY small animation files. SCREAM can produce complex Full Screen 256 colour animations with files as small as 2 or 3 K.
SCREAM animations are interactive and can load and run/display other SCREAM animations, Wave Audio, Midi, AVI Movie, Bitmap (.BMP 256 colour) backgrounds and more with a mouse click or key press.
SCREAM animations are easy to create, and objects can be stretched, rotated, morphed, color cycled and traced onto the screen with a few mouse clicks.
As if that wasn't enough, SCREAM objects can be manipulated in real time during playback by mouse input or even Midi Keyboard input. SCREAM's "Animation Modulators" are similar to those on an analog Music Synthesizer with "Attack", "Decay", "Low Frequency Oscilators" and more which you can patch to stretch, rotation, color cycle etc. again with only a mouse click or two.
In SCREAM Version 2.3, Wave and Midi File playback can also be patched to SCREAM's "Animation Modulators".
A single "Event" can download a new SCREAM animation, request ANY type of file from the server, or play a Wave audio file, Midi music file, .AVI movie QuickTime Movies and a lot more in response to the users input (mouse clicks, key presses or time). Most files can be pre-downloaded so that while you are playing a SCREAM game or watching a SCREAM animation, the next animations can be downloading in the background.
The SCREAM Editor has a "Genlock Safe Mode" to allow laying SCREAM animations over live video (if you own a Genlock of course!). If you want, you can hide the mouse cursor, and literally guide the SCREAM animated objects around the screen with your mouse. A key press can INSTANTLY call a new animation, or trigger just about any kind of effect. Moving SCREAM objects can sweep across the screen revealing the live video image as they go, or a simple rotating text logo can be created in seconds, and layed over video in real time!
With the Editor you can create SCREAM Multi-Files which combine ALL your animation, Wave, Midi etc. files into one. Sent as an E-Mail attachment, the SCREAM Desktop Player will play them straight from your E-Mail attachment allowing for outrageously COOL E-Mail Greeting Cards!
Corel Draw and other Vector images can be imported into SCREAM by first converting them to Windows MetaFile format. Corel Draw can save files in this format and there are numerous Shareware programs available to save MetaFiles. SCREAM has built in algorythmns for reducing the data size of imported objects.
The SCREAM Netscape Plugin can run SCREAM animations from disk, CD Rom or over the Internet using Netscape (2.x or better) or Internet Explorer (3.x or better).
The SCREAM Desktop Player can run SCREAM animations from disk or CD Rom and can run SCREAM Greeting Cards direectly from any E-Mail program.
The SCREAM Screen Saver can run SCREAM animations in the foreground while you are not using your computer, and in the background while you are. It also can (optionaly) retain all of the interactivity of SCREAM including Mouse and Midi Keyboard animation control.
SCREAM animations are ideal for Screen Savers because the files are very small, but can be re-sized to fill your screen, and can even dynamically change with time to create animations that are never the same twice!
The SCREAM Screen Saver, the Plugin and Desktop Player are freely distributable.
SCREAM is entirely vector based, and can be thought of as similar to the "Connect the dots" colouring books you may have played with as a child. The graphic below shows a simple SCREAM object being edited. The white circles show the points which describe the object. The yellow lines "Connect the dots" and the pink area is a solid fill.
The larger circle with the cross shows the point being currently moved. As you can see the right hand point is being dragged further out from the center using the mouse. The red circle at the bottom shows the starting point of the single line which describes this object.
Now SCREAM can move this object around the screen, rotate it and change its appearance using the SCREAM animation tools.
SCREAM can only animate one object at a time, but can do some very dramatic things with just one object.
Using the animation tools found in the toolbar on the right when you enter "Animate Mode", you can modify the position, rotation, size and colour of the object. Each new setting can be recorded as a "Snapshot'. When the animation plays, SCREAM will "tween" smoothly from snapshot to snapshot producing some very exciting effects in the process. Below is a screen capture of the next step in the (very) simple demo animation.
