tutorial: installation

[Click here for a printable .PDF of these instructions]

• Mac OSX

For Mac OSX, the installation of SAM Animation is as simple as downloading the zipped file from the download page. OSX should unzip this file automatically and the SAM Animation icon will be added to the desktop. Clicking on this icon will run the software. (Note: If you do not have the most recent version of Quicktime, it is advised that you download that before running SAM Animation).

• Windows XP

For PCs running Windows XP, there is an installer available on the download page. This installer will do three things:

1. Install SAM Animation
2. Install WinVDIG (this allows Quicktime to work with your webcam)
3. Install most recent version of Quicktime

The whole process will take about 5 minutes and will require that you restart your computer.

Getting Started

To begin in SAM Animation, the user must plug in a webcam and ensure that the computer recognizes the camera. Next, click the "Create a New Project" button. At installation, a folder is created in the "My Documents" (just "Documents" on a MAC) section of the hard drive called "SAM Animation". A project consists of a number of folders for storing information and one ".sam" file which is your project. Once a project is created, the user is brought into the image grabbing section, shown below:

On the right-hand side of the opening screen a live feed from the webcam is displayed. If a "No Camera is Connected" icon appears, click the refresh camera connection button to see the image from the camera. To "snap" an image, which capturing a still image from the live feed, click the snap image button . The image captured will appear in the preview window on the left and a thumbnail of this image will appear in the timeline at the bottom of the screen. The image is referred to as a single "frame".

Once a number of frames have been captured, the preview window on the left-hand side of the screen allows the user to watch the animation. Clicking the play button (see image) will play the animation back at the frame rate (see image) selected by the slider button. Frame rate is listed as "fps" or frames-per-second. As a reference, motion pictures are typically shot at 24 frames per second and television is usually 30 frames per second.

If the animation is not at the desired frame rate, the user can change the frame rate and press the play button again to see the adjusted animation. Once the desired speed is set, clicking the Export button at the top of the window will export the movie as a Quicktime file to a desired location. The user can also Save the project for editing later. SAM Animation will no open Quicktime movie files, only SAM Animation projects (denoted by the ".sam" file extension).

The user will also find that each button in SAM Animation has roll-over help, meaning that if the cursor is placed over a button text will appear at the bottom of the page describing that button's function. Please click on the Podcast tutorials below to learn more about additional features in SAM Animation.

Happy Animating!