List of Experiments

1. Study of MAYA software2. Study of FLASH software3. Creating a Flash Banner4. Creating animation with Flash:

a. Creating a ghost (unshaped) 2D objectb. Creating animation with moving objects c. Adding sound to the animation (with play button )

5. Creating a game using action script6. Creating a flash based presentation (4/5 frames) with UI controls7. Study of VLC player, its setting, streaming and non streaming techniques.8. Study of VRML9. Creating a 3D object using 2D and show special effects for the same

Substitute your steps wherever the text is blue or missing.

LAB MANUAL

MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM DESIGN

Sem – VIII

B.E. Computer

RAMRAO ADIK INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

EXPERIMENT - 1

Study of MAYA software

AIM: To study the MAYA animation software in brief

THEORY:

Introduction:

Maya is the 3-D animation software that provides a number of tools for creating complex characters and animations. Maya's powerful feature set gives us the flexibility to create any kind of animation. The functionality of the Maya software can be extended with the use of MEL (Maya embedded language). MEL can be used to customize the user interface and write scripts and macros. 

Maya can create objects, lights, cameras and textures. Any object, light, camera, or just any entity can be animated by changing the value of its parameters in time. We can use Maya, to create effects or animations or movies, commercials, architectural animation and forensic animation.

Interface:

Maya user interface looks provides a large number of functions and the scope to add more functions to the user interface which provides the real flexibility to the program. Along with the common functions there are set of functions dedicated to a more specific task like modeling, texturing, animation, rendering etc. The default Maya user interface can be divided into the following sections.

Main Menu Bar

Tools and items are accessible from pull down menus located at the top of the user interface. In Maya, menus are grouped into menu sets. These menu sets are accessible from the Main Menu bar.

Status LineThe Status Line, located directly below the Main Menu bar, contains a variety of items, most of which are used while modeling or working with objects within Maya. Many of the Status Line items are represented by a graphical icon. The icons save space in the Maya interface and allow for quick access to tools used most often.

ShelfIt contains different tools and commands which are used to organize commonly used functions and tools into groups. Different shelves can be created for different functions like modeling, animation, texturing etc with the required tools for each function.

Tool BoxMaya Tool Box contains common tools as well as layout buttons for changing views and layouts. The tool box contains:

- Select tool to select a particular object or a group of objects together. - Lasso tool is used to draw a free hand border around the objects to be selected. - Move, Rotate and Scale tools are used for transforming objects in Maya. - Soft Modification tool is used to select the sub-object elements and modify them by moving, rotating or scaling in a way that the neighboring sub-objects also get affected by this deformation with the effect being an inverse of distance from the primary selected sub-objects.- Last Selected tool section shows the last used tool for easy access. - Single Perspective view button lets you view the workspace as a single large view from a single perspective. - Four Views can be used to view the workspace in four sections with each section containing the three orthographic views top, side and front and a perspective view respectively. Other combination options below these tools are used to divide the workspace into different section in such a way that one section contains the view of the scene and other contains an animation or rendering editor so that you can edit the attributes and watch the results simultaneously.

WorkspaceThe Workspace displays by default in a perspective window or panel. The purpose of using workspace is to view your scene. The workspace can be divided into sections to accommodate the orthographic and perspective views of the scenes as well as the different editors for animation, texturing and rendering etc.

Panel MenusEvery view panel has a common set of menus at the top.

Time Slider & Range SliderThe Two Sliders are for controlling the frames in your animation. The Time Slider includes the playback buttons and the current time indicator. The Range slider includes start and end times and allows animators to focus on a specific part of the animation.

Command LineThe command Line lets you enter the MEL (Maya embedded Language) commands to perform various functions. The left side is where you can type MEL commands and the right half displays system responses, error messages, and warnings.

Help LineLike several other applications, you can look at the help line for descriptions, instructions, and other useful information. While a tool is selected, the helpline gives out a brief description for "how to" and "what for".

Channel boxThe Channelbox is on the right side of the screen. In this menu you will find all the properties of selected objects, and you can change those properties. If you apply a certain command on an object, Maya will remember this. This is called the history of an object and that is also shown here.

Layer editor

It helps in working with different layers in an animation. Objects can be placed in different layers and can be edited using this tool.

Components:

1. Fluid Effects A realistic fluid simulator effective for simulating smoke, fire, clouds and explosions.

2. Classic Cloth Cloth simulation to automatically simulate clothing and fabrics moving realistically over an animated character.

3. Fur Animal fur simulation similar to Maya Hair. It can be used to simulate other fur-like objects, such as grass.

4. Hair A simulator for realistic-looking human hair implemented using curves and Paint Effects. These are also known as dynamic curves.

5. Maya Live A set of motion tracking tools for CG matching to clean plate footage.

6. nCloth nCloth is the first implementation of Maya Nucleus, Autodesk's simulation framework. It gives the artist further control of cloth and material simulations.

7. nParticle nParticle is addendum to Maya Nucleus toolset. nParticle is for simulating a wide range of complex 3D effects, including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust.

8. MatchMover This enables compositing of CGI elements with motion data from video and film sequences.

9. Composite It is an interactive node based film composing solution.

10. Camera Sequencer Camera Sequencer is used to layout multiple camera shots and manage them in one animation sequence.

Maya Embedded Language:

Maya has its very own cross-platform scripting language called Maya Embedded Language. MEL is used not only for scripting, but also as a means to customize the core functionality of the software, since much of the tools and commands used are written in it. Code can be used to engineer modifications, plug-ins or be injected into runtime. Outside these superficial uses of the language, user interaction is recorded in MEL, allowing even inexperienced users to implement subroutines.

CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 2

Study of FLASH software

AIM: To study the Flash software in detail.

THEORY:

Introduction:

Flash is a drawing and animation package designed to work with vector graphics. It creates animations which can include sounds, music and interactivity, and which are optimised for use on the web. Hence, the files it produces are small and designed for streaming. Furthermore, all the elements which form part of a flash movie are embedded within the movie. This means that, unlike a standard web page which relies on the fonts and resources on the client machine, as long as the user has the flash player installed, the movie will play exactly as you design it.

The default file extension for a Flash file is .fla. Flash movie files can also be published in .htm, .swf, .jpg, .exe, .png or as a projector file.

Layout:

Toolbox:

The toolbox contains all tools necessary for drawing, viewing, colouring and modifying your objects. Each tool in the toolbox comes with a specific set of options to modify that tool. The diagram below outlines the grouping of tools.

1. Arrow tool:It is used to select a single or a group of objects.

2. Lasso tool:It is used to select objects by drawing either freehand or straight-edged selection area.

3. Text tool (“A”):It is used to include custom text with various options like selecting a font, colour, style, etc.

4. Line tool:It is used to draw a line with options of line width and style.

5. Oval tool:It is used to draw an oval object. Ovals can be filled with colours and outlines can be customized.

6. Rectangle tool:It is used to draw a rectangular object.

7. Pencil tool:The Pencil tool is used to draw lines, shapes or freehand forms. The pencil tool has three modifiers: straighten, smooth and ink. Flash straightens or smoothens the freehand drawing made by this tool.

8. Brush tool:The Brush tool allows you to draw brush-like strokes for creating special effects, including calligraphic effects and paintings with an image. The brush tool has the following modifiers: paint options, fill colour, gradient, brush size, brush shape, lock fill.

9. Paint Bucket tool:It is used to change the colour of the existing paint and fill empty areas surrounded by lines.

10. Inkbottle tool:It allows to stroke lines and shapes with only solid colours but no with no gradients or bitmaps.

11. Eraser tool:It erases lines and fills. It can also erase selected items such as only lines or only fills, etc.

Timeline:

The timeline indicates what frame you are at and also indicates the number of frames in your movie. Within the timeline you will find layers - you can have any number of layers within a movie and it is within these layers that you put your graphics, text, and sounds.

Work Area:

The Work Area is not viewable when you play your movie, so it is a place to work on objects or if you want your objects to “fly in” to your movie then start them from the Work Area.

Stage:

The Stage is where all viewable objects lie. Anything on the stage is seen by the user and will be seen in the animation.

CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 3

Creating a Flash Banner

AIM: To study the process of creating a custom banner in Flash.

THEORY:

Introduction:

A web banner can be a form of advertising on the World Wide Web that can be placed onto a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. One way of creating a banner is using Flash banners are often used as they can contain animation, sound, or video.

Steps for designing a simple Flash Banner:

1. Edit the dimensions of two images to 430 pixels wide by 180 pixels tall with an image-editing program. Save and close the files and the program.

2. Create a new Flash document with a frame rate of 22 frames per second (fps) and the same dimensions as the images (430 px by 180 px).

3. Rename "layer 1" to "picture 1" in the timeline panel.4. Select the first frame of "picture 1" and press "CTRL+R" to import an image to the stage.5. Align the image to the center of the stage using the "Align" panel (CTRL+F3).6. Click frame 80 of "picture 1" and add frames by pressing "F5."7. Press "Insert layer" in the timeline panel and place the new layer above "picture 1"; rename

the new layer "line 1."8. Draw rectangle 10 pixels wide by 20 pixels tall in the "line 1" layer and align it to horizontal

right and vertical center with the "Align" panel.9. Insert a keyframe in frame 10 of "line 1" by pressing "F6."10. Click the rectangle with frame 10 selected and select the "Free Transform" tool from the

"tools" panel. Click and drag the left horizontal transform handle until it extends across the full width of the stage.

11. Click on frame 20 of "line 1" and insert a keyframe by pressing "F6."12. Click on the rectangle and select the "Free Transform" tool. Click and drag the lower-middle

vertical transform handle and drag the rectangle down until it reaches the bottom of the stage. Repeat this process with the upper-middle vertical transform handle.

13. Right-click on frame 5 of "line 1" and choose "Shape Tween" from the contextual menu. Repeat this process on frame 15.

14. Right-click on "line 1" in the "layer names" panel and choose "Mask" from the contextual menu.

15. Insert a new layer above "line 1" and rename it "picture 2."16. Select frame 60 of "picture 2" and press "F6," then "CTRL+R" to import the second photo to

the stage.17. Center the new image on the stage using the "Align" panel.18. Select frame 160 of "picture 2" and press "F5" to insert frames.19. Insert a new layer above "picture 2" and rename it to "line 2."20. Repeat steps 8 through 14; changing the starting alignment of the rectangle to the upper-

left corner of the stage instead of right center.

Steps for making the Banner clickable:

1. Insert a new layer above the existing layers and rename it "button."2. Draw a rectangle with no stroke and the same dimensions as the stage (430px X 180px).3. Select the rectangle and press "F8" to convert it to a "Button" in the "New Symbol" dialog

box.4. Enter the new button symbol by double-clicking the rectangle. Drag the keyframe from "Up"

to "Hit."5. Click on "Scene 1" and select frame 160 of "button" and press "F5."6. Select frame 1 of "button" and press "F9" to open the actionscript panel.7. Type the following in the actionscript panel:

on (release) {getURL ("http://www.anylink.com","_blank");}

8. Press "CTRL+ENTER" to test the finished Flash Banner.

CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 4

Creating an Animation with Flash

AIM: To study the process of creating an animation with 2D objects, motion and sound.

THEORY:

Introduction:

Flash allows us to create custom animations with still images, moving objects, sound, text and special effects. Custom unshaped 2D objects (ghosts) can be created by combining two or more predefined objects or by using freehand tool such as the pencil tool.

A. Steps for creating an unshaped 2D object by combining predefined objects:

There are 4 ways of combining objects, using the Combine Objects commands in the Modify menu (Modify -> Combine Objects):

1. Union:It joins two or more flash drawing objects. Before union, there are two objects which are united together into one single object.

2. Intersect:It creates an object from the intersection of two or more drawing objects.

3. Punch:

It removes any part of a flash object which is overlapped by the top-most object, and deletes the top-most object entirely.

4. Crop:It keeps any part of an underlying flash object which overlaps with the top-most object, and deletes the other portions of the underlying objects.

B. Creating animation with moving objects:

1. Set up the Stage.

Set your Flash project to a size appropriate to the animation you want by choosing the menu Modify -- Movie from the menu bar, and then entering the appropriate numbers into the boxes. Background color can also be selected now

2. Create your Objects.

You can create your own objects using various freehand and shape tools or import image or graphic elements by choosing File -- Import; from the menu bar. You can also add text.

3. Animate the Objects.

You can animate several aspects of an object:

location: move the object from one place on the Stage to another. transparency: make the object fade in and out of the scene.

rotation: make the object spin.

size: make the object get bigger and smaller.

4. Animating Location.

When you create or import the object, it goes into frame 1 in the Timeline. The steps to make the object animate are as follows:

1. Create or place the object on the Stage, where you want its animation to start. It should show up in frame 1 on the timeline.

2. Choose Insert -- Convert to Symbol from the menubar, and convert the object to a Graphic symbol.

3. Create a keyframe in frame 15, by selecting frame 15 in the timeline, and then choosing Insert -- Keyframe from the menubar.

4. With the keyframe (frame 15) selected in the timeline, choose the black arrow tool, and then move the object to where you want it to end its animation.

5. In the timeline, select frame 1.

6. Choose Insert -- Motion Tween from the menubar.

7. Use the Control menu to rewind, and then play the animation.

8. Watch the object move across the Stage.

C. Adding sound to the animation (with play button): 1. With Flash open, click "Menu->Import to Library."2. Locate and select the audio file that you want to play in your Flash movie.3. Select the file and click "Import."4. Create a new layer for the audio to keep your various functions separate on the visible

timeline.5. Insert a blank keyframe on the new layer where you want the audio to start. If you want the

audio to stop after a certain number of frames, insert another blank keyframe further down the timeline.

6. In the "Properties" panel at the bottom of the screen, click the "Sound" dropdown menu to expand a list of the available audio files in your library.

7. Select the name of the audio file that you imported.8. If you want to add sound effects, choose an effect (such as "Left Channel" or "Fade Out")

from the Effects dropdown menu.9. Choose an option from the "Sync" dropdown menu, including "Event," "Start," "Stop," or

"Stream."10. Enter a value for how many times you want the audio to loop.

CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 5

Creating a Game using ActionScript

AIM: To study the process of creating a game in flash using ActionScript.

THEORY:

Introduction:

Flash is widely used online for having banners, interactive menus, animation for websites and so on. But one of its most popular use for creating small standalone interactive games. Flash games can use different types of multimedia element are generally not very system intensive.

ActionScript:

ActionScript 3.0 is an object-oriented language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. It has the same syntax and semantics as JavaScript), and is used primarily for the development of websites and software targeting the Flash Player platform, used on Web pages in the form of embedded SWF files.

ActionScript was initially designed for controlling simple 2D vector animations made in Flash. Initially focused on animation with very few interactivity features it has evolved for adding functionalities allowing for the creation of Web-based games and rich Internet applications with streaming media (such as video and audio).

Steps for creating “YOUR GAME’S NAME” game using ActionScript.

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CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 6

Creating a Flash Based Presentation with UI Controls

AIM: To study the process of creating an animation with 2D objects, motion and sound.

THEORY:

Introduction:

Flash is a popular platform independent format. Creating your presentations in Flash enables you to playback your PowerPoint presentations without installing any specialized software. Flash presentation can also be viewed in any internet browser with flash plug-in. Generally, flash based presentations require lesser space, hence, can be distributed easily. All types of multimedia components such as images, graphics, video and audio can easily be incorporated in the presentation. Also, flash based presentations can be made interactive.

Steps for creating a flash based presentation:

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CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 7

Study of VLC Player

AIM: To study the process of creating an animation with 2D objects, motion and sound.

THEORY:

Introduction:

VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project. VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to stream over networks and to transcode multimedia files and save them into various formats. It is a cross-platform media player, with versions for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, GNU, Linux, BeOS, MorphOS, BSD, Solaris, iOS and eComStation.

It can play:

MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 / DivX files from a hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, and so on DVDs, VCDs, and Audio CDs

From satellite cards (DVB-S)

Several types of network streams: UDP/RTP Unicast, UDP/RTP Multicast, HTTP, RTSP, MMS, etc.

From acquisition or encoding cards (on GNU/Linux and Windows only)

VLC can also be used as a streaming server.

Interface Elements:

1. File Menu 

File menu is used for opening files and media.

Quick Open File Open a file quickly from your computer

Open FileThis option essentially gives you the opportunity to open any kind of media from a disc, across the net, or from your computer.

Open Directory This will open a directory and play each file one after the other.

Open Disc Open a disc. This can be a DVD, audio CD, VCD etc

Open network Stream Open a file on the internet (usually a live stream).

Open Capture DeviceIf you have a webcam or other camera/sound device, connected to your computer then you can see/hear it via this option in VLC.

WizardThis is used for creating streams, or converting media formats (transcoding). This is really for the more advanced user.

Exit quit VLC

2. View Menu 

The View menu allows you to see various VLC information windows.  

PlaylistIf you have loaded many items to play in VLC then you can see and manage the playlist here.

MessagesMessages on the operations of VLC are displayed here including useful error messages.

Stream and Media Info Information about the media playing now.

VLM ControlVideoLAN Manager - allows you to send several streams at once through vlc. This is really an advanced function and shouldn't be attempted by those with weak hearts.

3. Settings Menu

All the settings and preferences are set here.

Switch Interface

VLC has more than one graphic user interface type and you can choose your favourite from this list.

Add Interface Apart from the graphical interface, VLC can be controlled through many other

methods including through its very own webpage, and through the command line. To use these features you'll need to be a bit of an 'advanced' user.

Extended GUI

Beyond the default interface you see when you open VLC there is an extended interface available with more options. These options allow you to control the color (brightness, hue, contrast etc) of the video played, as well as the quality and volume of the audio.

Bookmarks Bookmark your media like you would bookmark a webpage with a web browser.

Preferences All the preferences for every function.

4. Audio Menu

This allows you to control the audio played back when listening to a media file. Nothing will appear in this menu unless something is being played back.

5. Video Menu

This allows you to control the video played back when watching to a media file - the most interesting feature is the full screen video mode. Nothing will appear in this menu unless something is being played back.

6. Help

Basic information about VLC.

Streaming with VLC Media Player:

The easier way to start streaming with VLC is by using one of the graphical user interfaces: wxwindows for Windows and GNU/Linux, the skinnable Windows and GNU/Linux interface or the MacOS X native interface.

Streaming using the GUI

A second way to set up a streaming instance using VLC is using Stream Output panel in the Open... dialog of the wxWindows (Windows / GNU Linux), skinnable (Windows / GNU Linux) and MacOS X interfaces.

To stream the opened media, check the "Stream output" checkbox in the "Open File/Disc/Network Stream/Capture Device" dialog and click on the "Settings" button.

Open file dialog - wxWindows interface

Output methods

Play localy: display the stream on your screen. This allows to display the stream you are actually streaming. Effects of transcoding, rescaling, etc... can be monitored locally using this function.

File: Save the stream to a file. The Dump raw input option allows to save the input stream as it read by VLC, without any processing.

HTTP: Use the HTTP streaming method. Specify the IP address and TCP port number on which to listen.

MMSH: This access method allows to stream to Microsoft Windows Media Player. Specify the IP address and TCP port number on which to listen.

UDP: Stream in unicast by providing an address in the 0.0.0.0 - 223.255.255.255 range or in multicast by providing an address in the 224.0.0.0 - 239.255.255.255 range. It is also possible to stream to IPv6 addresses.

RTP: Use the Real-Time Transfer Protocol. Like UDP, it can use both unicast and multicast addresses.

Encapsulation method

Select an encapsulation method that fits the codecs and access method of your stream, among MPEG TS, MPEG PS, MPEG 1, OGG, Raw, ASF, AVI, MP4 and MOV.

Transcoding options

Enable video transcoding by checking the "Video Codec" checkbox. Choose a codec from the list. You can also specify an average bitrate and scale the input.

Enable audio transcoding by checking the "Audio Codec" checkbox. Choose a codec from the list. You can also specify an average bitrate and the number of audio channels to encode.

Miscellaneous options

Select methods to announce your stream. You can use SAP (Service Announce Protocol) or SLP (Service Location Protocol). You must also specify a channel name. The Mac OS X interface also allows you to export the description (SDP) file of a RTP session using the internal HTTP or RTSP server of VLC, or as a file. This can be done using the according checkboxes. The SDP URL text box allows you to give the url or destination where the SDP file will be available.

CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 8

Study of VRML

AIM: To study the basics of Virtual Reality Modeling Language.

THEORY:

Introduction:

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CONCLUSION:

EXPERIMENT - 9

Creating a 3D Object using 2D Object and show Special Effects for the same

AIM: To study the process of creating a 3D object using a 2D object along with special effects.

THEORY:

Introduction:

Flash is extensively used for creating different types of animations, presentations, games, etc in 2D. However, flash does not support 3D but we can create the impression of 3D objects using 2D objects There are many different degrees of 3D you can implement into a Flash movie. This can range anywhere from a simple zoom in and out of a movie clip to a completely drawn spinning 3D object.

The basic 3D from a normal, static view revolves around the concept of perspective scaling in which the position of the object in a 3D space is simulated using the position and scaling of the object in the 2D space.

If there are more than one 3D objects then we have to make sure that together they all correctly overlap each other to show correctly who's closest and 'on top'. This is the adjustment of transposition or overlapping.

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Refer: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/3d_animation.html

Special Effects:

http://tutorials.iwebtool.com/flash_special_effects.html

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash5/specialeffects.htm

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CONCLUSION: