To start successfully using the z800 xtra you'll need to have these things. This is quite a long list, but once things are setup correctly it's not so difficult:
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Windows XP only (until emagin/someone comes up with z800 USB drivers for the Mac side...) |
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emagin z800 visor functioning normally. ** Note that if you want 3D stereo with Director, you do NOT need nvidia stereo drivers as stated in some versions of emagin documentation. See the 3D stereo section below. |
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800 x 600 at 60Hz VGA output. |
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emagin 3D Visor Software Utility initial setup of the visor (usually needs to be done only once the first time you use the visor on a computer). This gets stuff like screen position and convergence set correctly and cannot currently be done with the z800 xtra. |
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emagin 3D Visor Software Utility shutoff. After initial setup, m ake sure the Visor Software Utility is shutoff each time you use the xtra. Only one program is allowed to connect to the visor at a time. |
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Adobe Director (or a correctly setup Projector EXE). I use MX 2004 only, however the xtra should work with versions 8.5 and MX. |
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Device and Tracker DLLs. The DLLs are "EMADevice_DLL.DLL" and "EMATracker_DLL.DLL" and are also available through the emagin SDK, though I distribute them in my ZIP file. THEY MUST ALWAYS REMAIN NEXT TO THE DIRECTOR.EXE APPLICATION, AND NEXT TO ANY PROJECT EXES THAT USE THE Z800 XTRA. This is important, because the Director program can become unstable if the xtra functions are called and the DLLs are moved or not present. |
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DirectX 9.0c End-User Runtime installation. I compiled the Tracker DLL with the most-recent version of Microsoft DirectX, and it needs a specific DLL only found in the End-User Runtime. NOTE that this is NOT the same as simply having DirectX 9.0c, and it is NOT included in any Microsoft Update; you need to get the DirectX End-User Runtime from Microsoft here. |
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z800 xtra in the appropriate xtras folder, and in the xtras folder of any Projector EXE that uses it. ** Note that the z800 xtra is NOT currently shockwave compatible. However I don't see why it couldn't be, as long as the DLLs were in the correct place. If anyone has shockwave interest, let me know and I can try it. |
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an understanding of Director and Lingo, as well as 3D Lingo |
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specific 3D Lingo used to access visor data and set properties (see the Lingo examples ) |
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a Director W3D scene that is properly setup to work with the 3D Lingo commands (see the Lingo examples) |
For 3D stereo, these things are needed: |
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z800 visor firmware version 6.38. Versions before 6.38 will not produce 3D stereo views. You can view the firmware version with the Visor Software Utility. |
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60Hz display refresh rate. Otherwise 3D stereo frames will not sync. |
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page-flipping 3D stereo. The video card needs to support page-flipping 3D stereo. I have used a few different cards from ATI and Nvidia and all have been able to show 3D stereo, however settings adjustments may be needed. Also note that nvidia stereo drivers are not required to view 3D stereo with the z800 xtra; any recent nvidia driver version will work. Computers with on-board VGA may not have the settings available to produce good 3D stereo, or may not be able to produce page-flipping 3D stereo at all... I haven't tried this with any computers with on-board VGA. |
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The Director scene may need #opengl rendering, not #software or #directx_7. If the #directx_7 renderer cannot support the required frame synchronization (vertical sync), frame-tearing will occur. OpenGL vsync is supported on the Nvidia cards that I have... however I haven't seen Direct3D vsync support.
Note that on any video card, OpenGL may not work unless your video card is set to Single or Span mode. For example, on my nvidia cards I usually use DualView mode, and OpenGL DOES NOT WORK in DualView. I need to switch to Span or Single mode to enable OpenGL. |
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Vertical Sync must be ON. Find the setting buried in your display properties for Vertical Sync. For an Nvidia card, you can find it in Display Properties > Settings > Advanced > {your video card tab} > flyout menu > Performance & Quality Settings > Advanced Settings > Vertical Sync. It should be ON. I have seen ATI cards with this option as well, but you may have to dig into your settings for it. **Setting this will make any animation rendered with OpenGL lock to the display refresh rate, which needs to be 60Hz. All OpenGL rendered animations will run at 60 frames per second, regardless. There is no current way to set this programmatically with Director, though it's probably possible in the xtra... maybe in the future. |
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60 fps frame rate. All Director 3D scenes need to be able to sustain at least 60 fps, otherwise stereo frame-tearing will occur. If there is too much "stuff" that needs processing in a Director 3D scene, the frame rate will drop below 60 fps, and the z800 visor will produce frame-torn or incorrectly flipped views. |
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Director 3D scene correctly setup with left and right camera alternating views every frame (see Lingo examples) |
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