VIRPET PERFORMANCE DESCRIPTOR MANAGER

This is one of the utilities that were written in the second Virpet cycle. After opening the Virpet File Manager, the VPD Manager will open automatically. It deals wtih .vpd files. These files can be described as the show itself. In the analogy of a movie, this file is a collection of Stage Scene Files (.ssf), which can be analogized to the scenes of a movie. To create a new .vpd file, click File and new. Name the file, ignore the Main World box, as it is not used currently. In the box below, Add .ssf files in the order they will appear in the show. One confusing aspect is that, when you clcik Add Scene, this is not the scene by what you name the SSF. The button with two dots on the lower right is where you will browse for the .ssf file. the field on the left to give the SSF file an alias for the show.Usually, it is safe to make the alias something similar to the SSF name. The VPD file is hardcoded into the autoexec.cfg file. This means that, currently, when the Stage runs, it will always refer to the file iplay.vpd

STAGE SCENE FILE MANAGER

This utility is accesed through the tools menu of the VPD Manager. Its function is to edit the contents of an SSF file. SSF files are entered in a .vpd file as scenes. The Puppet menu can delete a puppet or launch the VPM manager for the current selection. The sound and camera menus delete items if desired. The world name field refers to the current .dtx world file. If this were a stageplay, this is analogous to a stage set for a certain scene. Main camera is the starting camera. It refers to a camera from the list in the cameras tab. Nickname, Server, and Port are used for networked Virpets. In the Puppets tab, .vpm files, which reference characters, are added to the scene. Their position, orientation (radians), and scale are listed to the right. One of the most welcome improvements in the Virpet system would be a graphical way to place, scale and orientate a model.

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