                        JPatch 0.4 PREVIEW 1
                     written by Sascha Ledinsky
                         (c) Copyright 2005

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Thank you for downloading and testing JPatch!
This is a preview of the upcoming version 0.4, consider it a very early beta.



License
=======

GNU General Publice License (see LICENSE.TXT)



Requirements
============

A Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.4 or higher is required to run
JPatch. It can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html
for Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms.

NOTE: Downloading the Software Development Kit (SDK) is not required - if you
don't plan to develop Java applications, just download and install the JRE.



Mac OS X notes
==============

Mac OS X ships with an installed JRE. If your JRE is version 1.3, an update to
1.4 is available here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/java.html
At present a two button mouse is required (although I recommend a three button
mouse with scrollwheel)
I don't know if the animator runs on OS X, especially the invocation of the renderers.



Installation
============

Just extract all files from the archive to a folder of your choice.
A subfolder jpatch0.4p1 will be created.



Running JPatch
==============

Open a shell (or command prompt*), change to the directory which contains the
jpatch.jar file and start it with the following command:

java -jar jpatch.jar

Be sure that "java" is in your PATH and points to the right JRE!

NOTE: On most platforms, .jar files are associated to the javaw program, so
JPatch can be run by doubleclicking the jpatch.jar icon from the desktop. 
However, this is not recommended for this versions: On an error, JPatch
will print important information to the console window (shell, DOS-box) which
could be helpful for identifying and fixing a possible bug.
I kindly ask to always start it from a shell* and report any error messages
it may print out.

* On Windows, click on the "Start" icon in the taskbar, select "Run...", and
enter "cmd". A DOS-window should appear. Change to the directory where JPatch
was installed by using the "cd" command.

NOTE: If JPatch runs out of memory, try specifying a higher maximum heap size,
e.g.:
java -Xmx512M -jar jpatch.jar
This will set the maximum heap size for JPatch to 512 MB



New Features
============

New features (since version 0.3) include:

* A builtin renderer (Inyo) written by David Cuny.
* Modeller support for morphs.
* The JPatch animator (in a very early state of development).
* Output as triangle-, quadrilateral- or SDS-mesh.
* Some bugfixes and enhancements.



Reporting bugs
==============

Please use the forum on the JPatch homepage to discuss any issues (feedback,
ideas, feature requests, bugs, etc.).
If you've found a bug, please let me know if (and how) it is reproduceable,
and include any error messages (stack traces) that JPatch might have printed
to the console.



Documentation
=============

There's some documentation available on the JPatch homepage at
http://www.jpatch.com
I'll add more tutorials and documentation to the homepage in the future.

There are some free tutorials for sPatch, hamaPatch or Animation:Master
available on the internet, many of them also apply to JPatch.



Quick start
===========

The demo/ folder contains some model (.jpt) and animation (.anim) files.
They use MagaPov for rendering, you can download it from
http://megapov.inetart.net
Windows users should download the windows console version. Note that you
need to install POV-Ray 3.6 available at http://www.povray.org first!

The first time you use the JPatch animator, you'll have to configure some
preferences:

1. Start the animator.
2. In the main menu, select Options -> Preferences.
3. Set the model directory to the demo/ folder of the JPatch distribution.
4. In the main menu, select Options -> Renderer.
5. Set the preferred renderer to PovRay.
6. Set the working directory to the demo/ folder of the JPatch distribution.
7. Select the POV-Ray tab.
8. Set the path to the POV-Ray executable (e.g. megapov.exe in the bin/ folder
   of you POV-Ray installation) and set the version to Unix (assuming you're
   running unix or use the Windows console version of MegaPov)
9. Set the mesh-density to 16.

Now you should be able to load an animation file from the demo/ folder and
render it. The rendered images will be placed into the "working directory"
which should be set to the demo/ folder.



Getting help
============

You can post any questions about JPatch to the support/help forum on the
homepage. I (or another user) will try to answer it.



JPatch homepage
===============

http://www.jpatch.com



Source code
===========

I'll put the latest sourcecode online soon.


-- Sascha Ledinsky, May 9 2005

