Formula Graphics Multimedia System 3.0
--------------------------------------

Formula Graphics Multimedia System will bring your artwork,sounds
and animations together to create highly interactive multimedia titles.
The system was designed to simplify the task of authoring on a production
level, to allow the creative content of a presentation to be as rich as
possible, and to make it possible to achieve an unlimited amount
of interactivity. 

It takes the finished artwork and animations from graphics packages
such as Photoshop and Animator, or from image libraries and sound
recordings, and it presents this content in ways which give the
best possible result for any Windows PC.

Formula Graphics Multimedia System is very quick and easy to use.
It can be used by anyone in the home, office or classroom to create
very professional looking games and presentations.

Free Distribution
-----------------

Formula Graphics Multimedia System 3.0 may be distributed freely.
Shareware vendors, bulletin board sysops, CDROM title authors, and all other
types of commercial enterprises have permission to distribute this software.
No royalties will be due on profits. Modifications to this software will
be in breach of the license agreement and are against the law.

Features
--------

Formula Graphics is the only multimedia system that has dynamic
palette handling for 256 color presentations. As the presentation plays,
palette colors are magically allocated and deallocated so that one long
stream of ever changing colors can be shown. As each picture is shown on
the screen, its colors are instantaneously remapped. Even animations are
remapped frame by frame as they are being played. 

Animation is strongest feature of Formula Graphics. The system handles
five animation file formats and four styles of playback, as well as MCI
video. It has powerful animation processing facilities, including
programmable editing. By converting to the custom VDO and WDO formats,
animations can be made to blend subtly into the background as complex
shapes rather than appearing as boring square boxes.

Another key feature of the system is its high performance object oriented
language. Similar to  Basic and C and highly focused towards multimedia,
this language can be used to give your presentations an unlimited amount
of functionality. It can be used to write fully animated sprite based games.
It can also be used to process your sound and animation files in an
unlimited number of ways as you are authoring your presentation.

Product Comparison
------------------

Key features of Formula Graphics Multimedia System 3.0 compared with
Asymetrix Multimedia ToolBook 3.0 and Macromedia Director 4.0.

			Formula Graphics	ToolBook	Director
			----------------	--------	--------

256 colors			yes		yes		yes
Dynamic palette management	yes		no		no
16 and 24 bit color		yes		yes		yes
Slideshow transitions		yes		no		yes

BMP, GIF and JPEG bitmaps	yes		no		no
AVI, FLC and MPEG animations	yes		no		no
Integrated animation playback	yes		no		no

Object oriented language	yes		yes		yes
Sprite based games engine	yes		no		no
Simple alternative logic	yes		no		no


Free Release
------------

The full working release of the software is being given away for free
on the internet, on magazine coverdisks and on shareware CDROMs. Now
everyone can begin to author their own high quality multimedia titles
without having to outlay any money for a professional authoring tool.
The free release has all the features needed to build a short
interactive game or presentation.

Professional users who need to create interactive presentations
which run for more than a few minutes, or who wish to publish and
distribute their multimedia titles can use the telephone to purchase
a registration number which will unlock the professional features
of this release. For full details, run the software.

Instructions
------------

Run "setup.exe" to install the authoring system onto your hard drive.
Run "demo.exe" under Windows to see the demonstation presentation.
Run "formula.exe" to open the multimedia authoring system.
Choose the Open command from the Presentation menu to open the
demonstration presentation "demo.dbx".

Requirements
------------

Presentations will run on a 4Mbyte machine with Windows 3.1 or better.
Best video performance is gained from using a 256 color video mode or
better. Suitable for use on any speed CDROM drive or any type of sound
card. Minimum distribution size is about 350Kbyte with compression.

Windows 3.1, NT and 95
----------------------

Formula Graphics Multimedia System 3.0 (16 bit version) will work under
Windows 3.1, NT and 95. Certain features will be disabled under NT to improve
performance. Microsoft Video for Windows MSVIDEO.DLL has been included to give
respectable video performance on low resolution video cards. This file is also
included in Windows 95. The improved Windows 95 version will automatically
override the distributed version.

Current Releases
----------------

Version 3.02 contains minor fixes from version 3.0. Fixes were in the
areas of hypertext hotspots, sound delays and JPEG. Version 3.03 has an
additional rectangle element and an updated instruction manual. Version
3.05 has some minor fixes. Keep an eye out for further updates.

Future Releases
---------------

Future releases of this software will use the same registration numbers.
A registration upgrade fee may be applied. Version 4.0 (32 bit version)
with ODBC and HTML will be released at the end of 1995.

==============================

Harrow Software Pty Ltd
#1/165 Sailor's Bay Road
Northbridge NSW 2063 Australia
Australia phone: (02) 9967 4033
International phone: (612) 9967 4033
September 1995

