EmailMovie

Making and Sending Email Movies with VirtualFriend™ 2

Users of this document must have VirtualFriend 2.x installed and have Regular or Web Authoring licensing. Email Movies are sent as attached files through your regular email application. If you have previously sent emails using VirtualFriend, skip to the section
Saving and Sending Your Email Movie. Refer to the Monkey See Monkey Do demonstration on the VF CD for a fun, virtual version of these instructions. For instructions on how to animate your Email Movie, see the Key Frame Animation document.
This help document is divided into sections for easy reference; the topics appear in the table below.

Opening VirtualFriend and The Big Edit Window
Adding Character Commands
Adding Morph and Emotion Commands
Saving and Sending Your Email Movie

Opening VirtualFriend and The Big Edit Window
    1. Open VirtualFriend by double-clicking the VF icon on your desktop or by accessing the program through the
        Windows Start menu.
        The VirtualFriend interface window appears.
        You may want to click the Shut Up button, so you can have quiet while you work.
    2. In the upper left corner of the interface window, click the Exclamation Mark button to access the control panels.
    3. Keep clicking the Exclamation Mark button until the Authoring control panel appears on the right side of the
        interface window.
    4. In the Authoring control panel, click on the Big Edit Window button.
        The Big Edit Window appears with lines of text highlighted, which is the sentences (and character commands) for the current
        VirtualFriend demo.
    5. In the Big Edit Window, delete the highlighted text.
        Note: The script is not permanently deleted; it will reappear in the Big Edit Window when you close the
        program. The empty Big Edit Window is where you will add the text and commands for your email movie.
6. Drag the Big Edit Window to a comfortable location where you can use it and work with the VirtualFriend character.

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Adding Character Commands
The VirtualFriend interface contains sets of options called Button Sets for controlling character appearance and behavior. The button sets include textures, speech clips, backgrounds, morphs, emotions, and various character combinations to use in your email movie.
    1. In the interface menu bar, click Button Sets, and scroll to select Speech Clips.
        The interface icon buttons change and display the speech clips buttons.Each button has a picture of what the speech clip is.
    2. In the VirtualFriend interface, click on the I luv you button.
        The interface adds the command for the speech clip I luv you to the Big Edit Window. The command looks like this:
        [ah<100,30>iy<80,22>L<100>ah<140,33>ah<100,16>V<100,7>yx<120,12>UW<220,8>]
    3. In the Big Edit Window, click your cursor after the last bracket of the I luv you command, and hit the space bar once.
        Then, type in a sentence that you want your character to speak.
        Note: Be sure to add your text after the command brackets.
        Example: [ah<100,30>iy<80,22>L<100>ah<140,33>ah<100,16>V<100,7>yx<120,12>UW<220,8>] You are my friend!
    4. In the Big Edit Window, click Play.
        Your character will speak whatever speech clip or text that you added.
    5. Repeat steps 2-4 to add other speech clips and text to your Email Movie.
        Note: You can delete unwanted speech clips, commands, and text from the Big Edit Window by highlighting and deleting.
        However, with the commands, be sure to carefully delete only the characters contained within brackets and the brackets
        themselves. Long strings of commands are separated by spaces. Identifying where one command ends and another begins
        is tricky. Example: Delete from here > [:\kfrs00000aa753277720dp] < to here.

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Adding Morph and Emotion Commands
The VirtualFriend interface contains sets of options or Button Sets for controlling character appearance and behavior.The Button Sets include textures, speech clips, backgrounds, morphs, emotions, and various character combinations to use in your email movie.
    1. In the interface menu bar, click Button Sets, and scroll to select Shapes.
        The interface window changes to let you edit your character's shapes and emotions. Each button has a picture of what the shape
        or emotion looks like.
    2. In the Big Edit Window, insert morph and emotion commands like you did with the speech clips.
        Whenever you want to review what you have selected, click Play in the Big Edit Window. Your character will speak and perform
        the speech clips, text, morphs and emotions that you added. Experiment with all of the Button Sets options until you have the Email
        Movie you want.
        Note: You can delete unwanted speech clips, commands, and text from the Big Edit Window by highlighting and deleting.
        However, with the commands, be sure to carefully delete only the characters contained within brackets and the brackets
        themselves. Long strings of commands are separated by spaces. Identifying where one command ends and another begins is tricky.
        Example: Delete from here > [:\kfrs00000aa753277720dp] < to here.

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Saving and Sending Your Email Movie
Once you are satisfied with your Email Movie, you save and send it. VirtualFriend has its own email sending feature; however, it's not currently activated. The Email Movies are sent as attachments through your regular email application.
    1. In the Big Edit Window, click Save.
        A window appears and lets you name your movie and the location for saving it. Make a note of the location where the file is
        saved, so you can easily find it.
    2. In the file browser window, type the name of your movie followed by the .vfe extension and click Save.
        Your Email Movie is saved.
        Example: A file called birthday is named like this: birthday.vfe.
    3. Go online and in your regular email application, compose a new email.
        You may want to explain to the recipient that a 3D Email Movie is attached and they will need to download at least the
        VirtualFriend 2.0 WebPlayer version to view it. (They can also download the full 14MB version.)
        To download, go to: http://www.haptek.com/downloads
    4. Attach the .vfe file to your regular email, and send it.
        Note: VirtualFriend has its own email sending feature; however, it's not currently activated. The Email Movies are sent
        as attachments through your regular email application.

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