PRISCILA PROJECT:: User Manual
A real 3D presentation system

INTRODUCTION

PRISCILA is a presentation application. PRISCILA presentations are composed of slide where several kinds of items can be placed in a 3D space.

It is intended to be controlled only by the keyboard but in future mouse support will be added (maybe :).

PRISCILA provides a built-in editor which currently is still quiet primitive.

Features

The main PRISCILA features are listed bellow.

Support of True-Type fonts for text rendering
Load of several image formats using SDL_img library
Load of 3D models. For now only 3DStudio models can be loaded.
Some simple Special Effects which will be augmented in future.
Built-in slide editor.

Insertion of text, images and 3d models
Modification of position, orientation, scaling and color of any item in the slide (in 3D space)
Navigation of objects in slide and stacking order modification
On-Screen Real-time information of items.

NAVIGATION MODE

PRISCILA starts in Navigation mode. This is the normal operation mode of the application. In this mode the following actions can be performed, pressing appropriated keys.

ESC : Exit application
Cursor Right : Move to next slide in presentation
Cursor Left : Move to previous slide in presentation
INSERT : Enter Edit Mode.

EDIT MODE

In Edit mode, users can modify the current presentation using the embedded command-line or directly manipulating the slide.

In this mode several kinds of actions can be performed. They are summarised below by category.

General

'INSERT': Return to Navigation Mode
'TAB/Shift TAB': Cycles throughout items in slide.
'0', '1', '2': Changes current increment to 0.01, 0.1 and 1.0 respectively
's': Saves current slide to disk
'l': Loads current slide from disk
':': Activates command-line interface

Item Manipulation

Cursor Right/Left: Moves current Item in X axis according to current increment
Cursor Up/Down: Moves current Item in Y axis according to current increment
SHIFT + Cursor Up/Down: Moves current Item in Z axis according to current increment
B/b N/n M/n : Rotates current Item respect to X, Y, Z axis respectively. Capital letters increase angle.
Q/q: Changes current item alpha (transparency)
A/a: Changes current item scale
RETURN: Allows editing of current item. Currently only Text items can be edited this way.

Item Creation

t: Inserts simple text item in slide.
p: Inserts shadowed text item in slide.
i: Inserts image in slide. A simple File selector is shown
o: Inserts 3D Model (3DS) in slide. A simple File selector is shown

Command-line Interface

The command-line interface supports the following commands:

quit: Exits PRISCILA
clear: Clears current slide, removing all the items in it.
set_next filename: Allows to set the next slide in presentation.

set_next slide03.pris
set_prev filename: Allows to set the previous slide in presentation.

set_prev slide01.pris
link prev_filename next_filename: Allows to set previous and next filename linked to current slide

link slide01.pris slide03.pris
load filename: Loads from disk the file 'filename'. Extension must be provided.

load template.pris
w filename: Saves current slide to disk as 'filename'. If 'filename' is not provided, the current slide name is used. If a 'filename' is provided, current slide name is changed to 'filename'.
w sample.pris
select item_number: Selects the item 'item_number'

select 2
show item_numer/-1: Shows information of the item 'item_number' or disables information display if parameter -1 is provided
set_color item r g b alpha: Set color of item 'item' to (r, g, b, alpha)
set_scale item scalex scaley scalez: Set scale of item 'item' for the three coordinates

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Special effects are stored in a separated file named against the slide file name with extension .fx. So, to add special effects to file index.pris, a file index.pris.fx must be created.

Current FXs have to be included manually in the presentation. Next sections shows how:

SLOW_ZOOM

This effects performs an slow zoom of a given item, changing slowly its Z coordinate.

To apply SLOW_ZOOM to a slide item, the following line must be added to the xxx.pris.fx file:

GL_SLOW_ZOOM
item minZ maxZ step

This line will do item 'item' change its Z coordinate from minZ to maxZ using an step 'step'

SPIN_OBJECT

This effect allows to rotate items in slide continuously

To apply SPIN_OBJECT to a slide item, the following line must be added to the xxx.pris.fx file:

GL_SPIN_OBJECT
item stepX stepY stepZ

This line will rotate item 'item' in the X, Y and Z axis using the stepX, stepY and stepZ increment. Providing a value of 0.0 to any increment will disable rotation on that axis.

ANIM_OBJECT

This effect allows basic key framed animation of a given item

To apply ANIM_OBJECT to a slide item, the following line must be added to the xxx.pris.fx file:

GL_ANIM_OBJECT
item frame0 frame1
NONE
px0 py0 pz0
rx0 rx0 rx0
sx0 sy0 sz0
r0 g0 b0 alpha0
NONE
px1 py1 pz1
rx1 rx1 rx1
sx1 sy1 sz1
r1 g1 b1 alpha1

This lines will animate item 'item' from 'frame0' to 'frame1' interpolating the values of the first parameter block (XX0) to the values of the second parameter block (XX1). The meaning of each parameter is summarised below:

px, py, pz : Position of item in slide
rx, ry. rz : Orientation of item in slide
sx, sy, sz : Scale of item in slide
r, g,b ,alpha : Color of item in slide

FLYING QUADS

This effect will show a random set of quads flying in the background.

FLYING_QUAD effect is applied to the whole slide not to a given object. The following lines must be added to the xxx.pris.fx file

GL_FLYING_QUADS
n velocity size z y_base y_delta alpha

where:

n : Number of QUADS to generate
velocity : Mean value of quads velocity
size : Mean value of quad size
z : Coordinate of the Z plane where quads will fly
y_base : Vertical base position of quads
y_delta : Deviation of vertical base position of quads
alpha : Alpha mean value of quads (transparency)

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Please send comments to dmartin AT uvigo DOT es