Currently, there are two panels that facilitate the creation of
virtual marine worlds. The first panel, shown in
Fig. 
, lets the animator select the numbers of
different objects in the animation and is used in the beginning of an
animation. The available selections include eight species of fish
(corresponding to eight different textures), and three environmental
items: plankton, seaweeds and obstacle cylinders. The user can select
an item and input the desired number of the item from the keyboard.
With a companion pop-up panel, the user can specify the number of
leaves in each seaweed cluster. It is also possible to read all the
necessary data from a script file by pressing the ``scriptfile''
button and specifying the file name.
The second panel, shown in Fig. , lets the
animator initialize the positions of objects in an animation. The
user is able to move around and re-size individual objects and observe
the result in the graphics window. Once the user is satisfied with the
current layout and setting, she/he can then save it as a script file
for later use.
| Xiaoyuan Tu | January 1996 |
