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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