Section1: Club Microsoft Lighthouse Tutorial Introduction
This is one of the premier demonstrations of the kinds of integration and the possibilities available when using the DirectAnimation libraries. The main feature of this sample is the use of audio and graphics that are both controlled by a common animation description (the wind speed). It integrates 3-D models (the bird, the boat, and the weather vane). It also has more traditional sprite animation (the surf, the trees, the sky, and the boy with the kite). In addition, the sample makes use of synthetic audio, where sound seeds are dynamically manipulated and mixed together randomly for the both the ocean and seagull ambient sounds. This gives a rich audio environment which can respond to the user-controlled wind speed without having to download a long audio track. Events are used to synchronize the surf animation with the ocean surf sound. In addition, the seagull's sound is spatialized based on its 3-D location, and it has a flying behavior which is both autonomous and interactive (when dragging the bird). All three forms of media are coordinated and influenced by weather intensity, which is driven from VBScript by a slider.
The tutorial leads you through the process of creating this complex animation, step-by-step. Section 2 illustrates how to use VBScript to make the scrollbar control the wind speed. Section 3 describes how animated cell images are constructed using a helper class. Section 4 describes the process of integrating 3-D geometries into the sample. Section 5 illustrates the synthetic audio helper class and how it has been used to create some handy synthetic modules. Finally, Section 6 shows how to make the seagull interact with the mouse.
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