VIRTUS VR FOR Windows VERSION 1.0
RELEASE NOTES
15 December 1993

Welcome to Virtus VR! Before you install the software, 
please read this file for important installation and usage 
tips. Also, you may want to print this file for handy 
reference before you begin working with Virtus VR.

WHAT SHOULD I DO FIRST?

Before you do anything else, please fill out and send in the 
registration card included with Virtus VR. Not only will we 
be able to keep you informed about updates to Virtus VR and 
other products that work with it, we will also be able to 
offer you better customer support should you need to contact 
us.

WHAT ARE THE SAMPLE SCENES INCLUDED WITH VIRTUS VR?

We have included seven sample scenes with Virtus VR. 
Scenes are relatively complex models. They are:

wacotex.vvr	- Branch Davidian Compound
dealypl.vvr	- Dealey Plaza
hindenbg.vvr	- The Hindenburg
housesqd.vvr	- House Squared
oceanflr.vvr	- Ocean Floor Complex
whthouse.vvr	- The White House
vrlogo.vvr	- VR Logo

WHAT ARE THE MODELS INCLUDED WITH VIRTUS VR?

We have included 29 models with Virtus VR.
VR models tend to be relatively simple models. Some 
exceptions to this rule are the Lunar Module, the Apollo
Rocket and the Space Shuttle models. These are quite 
complex and thus will take longer to navigate through. 
The models included with Virtus VR are: 

a10.vvr		- A-10 Airplane
bulldog.vvr	- Bulldog Fighter
cargopln.vvr	- Cargo Plane
jeep.vvr	- Jeep
flywing.vvr	- Flying Wing
infantry.vvr	- Infantrymen
m1a1tank.vvr	- M1A1 Tank
mbattery.vrr	- Missile Battery
f15.vvr		- F-15
skydiver.vvr	- Sky Diver

apollo.vvr	- Apollo Rocket
astronut.vvr	- Astronaut
hubble.vvr	- Hubble Telescope
lunarmod.vvr	- Lunar Module
meteors.vvr	- Meteor Field
mission.vvr	- Shuttle in Space
splashdn.vvr	- Splashdown
shuttle.vvr	- Shuttle Launch
sputnik.vvr	- Sputnik
spacesta.vvr	- Space Station
voyager.vvr	- Voyager Probe

smallcar.vvr	- Compact
van.vvr		- Delivery Truck
18wheel.vvr	- 18 Wheeler
4wheeldr.vvr	- Four-Wheel Drive
indycar.vvr	- Indy Car
cycle.vvr	- Motorcycle
sedan.vvr	- Sedan
stwagon.vvr	- Station Wagon

These scenes and models are for you to explore and enjoy. 
To get started, you might want to open one of them and 
select Play from the Walk menu. This will take you on a tour
through the scene. You can stop the tour at any point by 
pressing the mouse button.

To get more information on some of these scenes, including 
information on the subject and the person who created it for 
Virtus VR, open the SCENES.TXT file in the VIRTUSVR 
directory.

ARE ALL SCENES AND MODELS MODELED TO SCALE?

For technical reasons, some scenes are not drawn to scale. 
For example, the Hindenburg scene is approximately one-third 
scale (the airship's length is 200 feet instead of 700 
feet). The Dealey Plaza scene is also smaller than scale. 
Therefore, any objects you drag and drop into such a scene 
will be oversized for that scene. You can fix this by 
resizing objects after adding them to the scene.

WHAT DIRECTORIES WILL VIRTUS VR INSTALL ON MY HARD DRIVE?

The Virtus VR installer will create a directory on your hard 
disk called VIRTUSVR. Within this directory, in addition to 
the Virtus VR application and this Read Me file, you will 
find six sub-directories: 2GALLERY, 3GALLERY, SCENES, MODELS, 
TEXTURES and BONUSTEX. These directories contain files which 
Virtus VR needs to operate. Please don't move or rename them 
or their contents.

WHAT VIDEO MODES WILL VIRTUS VR RUN IN?

Virtus VR will run best with the VGA, SVGA and third-party 
256-color display drivers. However, for the best combination 
of speed and image quality, we recommend that you run Virtus VR 
in 256 colors at 640 x 480 screen resolution.

WHAT ARE VIRTUS VR'S MEMORY REQUIREMENTS?

With simple models, Virtus VR will run with as little as 4 
MB of memory. As models grow more complex, Virtus VR 
requires more memory. For complex models, such as some of 
those provided in the SCENES directory, we recommend you 
have at least 8 MB memory installed on your system. Windows 
can use Virtual Memory (using your hard-disk as temporary 
storage) but the results are less than desirable. 

If you are running on a machine with 4 megabytes of RAM, we 
recommend you use less complex scenes and objects. Also, we 
recommend you make as much memory available to Virtus VR as 
possible by following the steps below.

HOW CAN I MAKE MORE MEMORY AVAILABLE FOR VIRTUS VR?

You can free memory in the following ways:

1) Don't run other applications while running Virtus VR.

2) Remove unused texture palettes from the TEXTURES directory.

Within the TEXTURES directory, you will find a number of 
files, each containing a group of textures. These are the 
items that appear in Virtus VR's Texture Selector pop-up 
menu. Each group of textures, known as a texture palette, 
consumes approximately 20-25K of memory while Virtus VR 
runs. If you don't plan to use the textures in one or more 
palettes, you can move those palettes to the BONUSTEX
directory to free more memory.

WHAT IS THE MEMORY INDICATOR?

There is a memory indicator to the right of the Message Bar, 
at the lower right corner of your screen. The memory 
indicator contains a colored bar that shrinks and grows, 
indicating the amount of memory currently available to 
Virtus VR. If the bar indicates that your PC's memory 
resources are below 75 percent, the bar is colored 
blue. When the amount rises above 75 percent, the bar is 
red.

CAN I ADD MY OWN TEXTURES?

You can add your own textures to Virtus VR in a limited 
fashion. To make any BMP (windows bitmap file) available as 
a texture within Virtus VR, place it into the TEXTURES
directory. The next time you start Virtus VR, a new Custom 
Textures palette will be available in the Texture Selector. 
This will contain your BMP file, which you can apply to an 
object, surface or surface feature. BMPs will stretch to 
cover the entire area to which you apply them, and will not 
be shaded. This feature is best used for scanned images of 
photographs, wall art and the like.

To place your own photograph or other image into a Virtus 
VR world, first add the BMP file as described above. Next, 
select a surface for editing by going to the Walk Window, 
selecting the Select Surface Mode icon and clicking on a 
surface. Next, switch to the Design Window above. The 
Galleries Window should now contain 2-D surface features. 
Drag a rectangular surface feature from the Galleries Window 
and drop it onto the surface in the Design Window. Finally, 
with the surface feature selected, select your texture from 
the Custom Textures palette. You may want to resize the 
surface feature for the best fit to your image.

WHAT ARE SHADED TEXTURES?

When examining the texture palettes in the TEXTURES and 
BONUSTEX directories, you'll notice palettes have an extension of 
*.tlb. There are two different versions of each palette, 
shaded and unshaded. The shaded textures are identified by 
the "@" symbol at the end of the file name. When you select 
a texture from the Texture Bar, you will notice that each 
group of textures has an alternate name of "name@." For 
example, if look in the BONUSTEX directory you will find 
groups of textures called Mix and Mix@. These contain the 
same textures, but the Mix textures will be displayed 
WITHOUT the effects of lighting. The Mix@ textures 
will be shaded (darkened) according to their position and 
orientation in the scene relative to Virtus VR's lighting 
model.

To make a scene more realistic-looking, use shaded textures. 
To make the textures look brighter and clearer, use non-
shaded textures.

WHAT ARE THE FILES IN BONUSTEX?

In addition to the standard texture palettes in the TEXTURES
directory, which will appear in the Texture Selector pop-up 
menu, we have provided additional texture palettes in the 
BONUSTEX directory. These contain more textures that you may 
want to use in creating or customizing worlds within Virtus 
VR. To make some or all of these texture palettes available, 
move them from the BONUSTEX directory to the TEXTURES 
directory and restart Virtus VR. Remember that each texture 
palette consumes 20-25K, so if you are running short on 
memory, you may want to add only those palettes you actually 
need.

HOW DOES COLLISION DETECTION WORK WITH TRANSPARENT SURFACES?

In Virtus VR, surfaces can have one of three levels of 
opacity: opaque, translucent and transparent. Opaque 
surfaces cannot be seen through at all. Translucent surfaces 
can be partially seen through. Transparent surfaces are 
invisible.

When collision detection is turned on (using Preferences... 
under the Edit menu), as you move around in the Walk window, 
you will not be able to move through opaque or translucent 
surfaces (just as you can't move through walls or closed 
windows in real life). However, you CAN move through 
transparent surfaces or surface features.

Technical Note: If you apply a texture to a surface, the 
surface will retain its underlying opacity type. Therefore, 
you could apply a brick texture to a transparent surface. 
This would result in a normal-looking brick surface, but one 
which could be moved through, even with collision detection 
turned on.

HOW CAN I UPGRADE TO WALKTHROUGH OR WALKTHROUGH PRO?

In addition to Virtus VR, Virtus also offers WalkThrough and 
WalkThrough Pro for Windows (WalkThrough Pro will ship in 
1st quarter of 1994). These programs, which feature a rich 
set of modeling and editing tools, were used to create the 
scenes and objects included with Virtus VR. WalkThrough Pro 
also adds texture mapping similar to that featured in Virtus 
VR, but you have much more control over the process. Of 
course, you can open models created in Virtus VR using 
WalkThrough and WalkThrough Pro, and vice versa. For 
professional use, however, you will find WalkThrough and 
WalkThrough Pro indispensable.

WalkThrough's list price is $195 and WalkThrough Pro's list 
price is $395 (all prices subject to change without notice).
However, as a Virtus VR customer, you can upgrade to
WalkThrough for $69 or to WalkThrough Pro for $219. To order
one of these upgrades, or for more information about these
products, call the Virtus Sales Department at 1-800-VIRTUS-1.

HOW CAN I CONTACT VIRTUS CUSTOMER SUPPORT?

If you have any questions, please contact our Customer 
Support Department. Here's how:

1) Online Services

America Online: VirtusTech
AppleLink: VIRTUS
CompuServe: 75300,3251
Internet: virtustech@aol.com

Also, be sure to visit our support areas on America Online 
and CompuServe. You can leave us messages, talk with other 
Virtus software users, get tips on using our programs, 
download new models and much more,

America Online: Select Keyword under the Go To menu and then 
enter "VIRTUS" (Control-K, type "VIRTUS")
CompuServe: Enter "GO VIRTUS" at any prompt (Control-G, type 
"VIRTUS")

2) Telephone Support

If you wish to call Virtus Customer Support, we recommend 
that you first check your Virtus VR documentation and the 
tutorial video. If you still can't find the answer to your 
question, we can help you best if you call us while sitting 
at your computer with Virtus VR running. Also, please have 
your serial number ready to give to us. You'll find it in 
the Message Bar at the bottom of the screen when you select 
About Virtus VR... from the About menu.

Fax: 919/460-4530
Tel: 919/467-9700 (9 a.m.-6 p.m. EST), Monday-Friday

HOW CAN I SUBMIT FEEDBACK AND IDEAS?

We would love to know what you think of Virtus VR. We would 
also like to know what suggestions you have for future add-
on gallery subjects. Please send us electronic mail at any 
of the above addresses, fax us at the above number or write 
to us at:

Virtus Corporation
Virtus VR Feedback
117 Edinburgh South, Suite 204
Cary, NC 27511

A FINAL WORD

The programmers of Virtus VR voted by a 2-to-1 margin for 
chocolate chip cookies WITHOUT raisins. We thought you'd 
like to know this.
