Okay, here we go. Start the program and you will see a number of toolbars and two primary windows.

The left window is the uv map, or the grid view. We will refer to it as the grid view in this document. This is the area you will use to create the separate muscles or objects that will comprise your finished model. The right window is the 3D view. This is the 3 dimensional representation of your creation.
There are toolbars everywhere, so let's start at the top.
Main Program Toolbar
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Looking at the first set of toolbar buttons, which are the little boxes with the icons.
| File Options: the first one is New, which opens a new file. This is used when you are starting fresh with a blank grid. Next is the Open button that opens a file that has already been created. Close, the next button closes all the open windows for the current object. This last saves you from closing each window when you have several open at once. The next button is Save, which brings up a dialog box the first time you use it on a new document. You can name your file and save it for later use. | |
| Edit Options: The next three buttons are Cut, Copy and Paste. These are timesaving tools that allow you to copy portions of your document that you wish to reuse, without having to redo the work. | |
| View Options: The next two buttons define how your windows are oriented on the monitor. The first one is for vertical windows side by side and the second one is for horizontal windows, one on top of the other. | |
| Shape Options: The last set of buttons define the basic 3 dimensional shape of the object you are creating. The choices are Conic, Planar, Spheric, Disk and SuperQuadric. These are just basic reference shapes, and the rest of our efforts will be aimed towards deforming or otherwise modifying these . |
Now let's take a look at the two main windows.
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| The left hand window is the uv map or Grid view and is
set up as follows: The lower left corner has a value of (0,0) and the top
right corner is (1,1). The U value increases horizontally with 0
on the left and 1 on the right. The
V value increases vertically,
with 0 on the bottom and 1 on the top.
(The default grid size was designed using an 800X600 screen resolution. If you are using a 640X480 resolution, only a portion of the grid will be visible and scroll bars will be present. If you are using a higher screen resolution, then the grid will fill less of the screen.) |
The Right hand view is the 3D Preview window. This shows a preview of what the model your are creating will look like. You can view it using smooth shading as shown above, or in a wireframe view to see the exact polygons that will be created when exported. |
| (If your windows do not fit your screen, click the Vertical tile button on the top toolbar. The window that is currently selected will show up on the left hand side, so make sure the grid window is selected before choosing the Vertical tile button. ) | |
Muscle Types
The easiest way to understand how this program is used is to use it, so lets begin with some basic introduction to several of the features.
The default shape shown above is a conic object, since this is the most commonly used shape for creating models of arms, legs, heads etc. However, when first learning the program it is likely easier to visualize the results if they are 'unwrapped' onto a flat plane. So let's change to a planar object. On the Main Program toolbar as shown above, click on the Planar toolbar item.
Now click on the Grid View to make it the active window, and we'll show you the different muscle shapes available as well as how to use left hand toolbar.
The Grid View Toolbar
| The top button is a pointer and that is used to select
specific muscle(s) from within the grid.
The next two define how New muscles will be created. The first will create new muscles by drawing their outline bounding box, and the second will create them by drawing their center line The next three are used for making new muscles. Muscles need an orientation, and these three define the basic direction of the item. They are vertical, orbital (or horizontal,) and point (or circular.) The last button in this toolbar is the Replicate button. This allows you to create multiple copies or mirror images of an existing items. The next toolbar set contains buttons for zooming in or out on the displayed items. |
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Let's create a new vertical muscle. First, click the Vertical toolbar item. Then place your mouse at the top of the grid on the left hand side. Click and hold down the mouse, then drag it 3 or 4 squares wide, starting a couple of squares from the top and ending a couple of squares from the bottom.

As soon as you let go of the mouse you will get a dialog box called Edit Muscle Properties. For now we are just going to change the name, so type "vertical" in the name box and click OK. Click on the Orbital toolbar button. Place your mouse on the grid just to the right of where you started your vertical muscle. Hold the mouse button down and drag it to the right so that you have an object that is 4 or 5 boxes top to bottom and extends to the right almost to the edge of the grid. So now you have a box that's 4 or 5 boxes vertically and long and skinny horizontally. When the Edit Muscle Properties box pops up, change the name to "orbital". (Knowledge Note: It's called orbital because if you had chosen a cylinder or sphere as your primitive object, this muscle would go around the object.)
Click on the point toolbar button and make a square muscle down in the right hand corner. When the Edit Muscle Properties box pops up, change the name to "point" and click OK.
The completed Grid view will look similar to this:

The 3D View
Now on the 3D view you can see all the muscles you have just created. If you click on the 3D view, hold down the mouse button and drag it to the left, to the right, up or down, you can see the object from all sides. Left and right spins it sideways, or in the y-axis. Up and down spins it up and down, or in the x-axis. If you hold down the shift key and the left mouse button, and move the mouse, the object spins in the z-axis. (Knowledge Note: If you have a 3-button mouse, you may also use the middle button for rotating in the z-axis.)
If you hold down the Control key and the left mouse button and drag left and right, this will pan your view. You can move it up and down or sideways. If you hold down Control and Shift and drag the mouse, the object will move forward and backward, like a zoom view. (Knowledge Note: If you have a 3-button mouse, you may also use the middle button for zooming in the z-axis.)
Basically these are the keys you use to view your object from every angle.
Still in the 3D view, the toolbar on the right hand side, the bottom button says Recenter Object. Click on this to get your object back into the center of the screen.
The 3D Preview Toolbar
| Looking at the right toolbar, the top set of buttons define
how to display the object. You will notice that the top button is selected,
and this is the Smooth-shaded option. The next one down is Flat-shaded.
This shows you the individual polygons. The next one is Wire Frame
and it shows you exactly where the polygons are going to be. The last one
is the Point view and it shows you a point where all the vertexes
will be. The most frequently used views are Smooth-shaded or Wire
Frame. Put the view back into Smooth-shaded and click in the
grid
window again.
The next set of buttons are used for rotating and panning the object. By selecting the first button, all subsequent click and drag mouse actions will rotate the object (although you can override this action by holding down the control key.) The second means that the following click and drag actions will pan the object. (This is the same as holding down the control key and dragging, but allows for single handed operation.) The third button resets all rotation and panning values, and recenters the object at the origin. (If you are working with a large object, you may need to pan it in the z-axis in order to see the entire object.) The last set of buttons is for simple animation of the object by rotating
about an axis. You can continually spin the object to view it from all
angles, or single step around it. The rotation step sizes are set in the
Viewport dialog as found in the Context menu.
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Let's go through a few ways to modify your muscles. Click on the vertical muscle in the Grid View, and it will be highlighted as shown.

When you click on it, it gets a dashed border around it. (You will notice that the square that you drew for the point muscle has been changed to a diamond shape. The reason for this will be discussed later.) Now when you move your mouse into the center of the selected object, the cursor changes to a move arrow (i.e. 4 arrows pointing out from the center) and you can click and drag the object about the grid. If you go to any of the black dots, the cursor changes to a resizing arrow, and you can click and drag it to resize it in any direction. Drag out one of the sides and make either the top or the bottom shorter. You can move the entire muscle around by clicking inside the shape and dragging it to where you want.
Make sure you have the vertical muscle selected (the muscle outline should be dotted) and click the right mouse button. This brings up the Context menu. Choose Modify Item. This brings you back to the Edit Muscle Properties window. We have already used this screen when we originally created the muscle and changed its name.
Now we will discuss some of the other options available. The texture default value is 0 and the drop down list shows the name texDefault. This value defines the drawing color of your muscle and the texture name to be used for exporting purposes. Change this to 1 (or select texRed from the drop list,) and click OK.

The lines around the selected muscle on the grid will now be red.
Now select the orbital muscle, right click, select modify items and change the texture to 2 (or select texGreen from the drop list,) and OK. The lines on the grid for this object should now be bright green. Select the point muscle, right click select modify items and change the Texture to 3 or select texBlue from the list. Click OK and the lines on the grid for this object should now be blue. The final result will appear similar to this screen capture

Now let's look at the effect those changes have made.
Click in the 3D view, then right click. This will bring up the 3D Preview Context menu. Click on Select Layers. The default value is Skinned. Click on the Layered button and OK. (You don't have to actually pick the layers. If you pick no layers, it will show you all of them.) [TIP!! There is the same dialog box in both views (3D and grid) so if you don't see an effect from doing this, click on the 3D window to make it active. This feature of viewing different layers in the two views allows you to view only the layer that you are working on in the grid view while viewing all of the layers in the 3D view so you can see how the changes you are making interact with all the other layers.]
| Now you should see all of your objects with the colors you have just set by changing the values in the Texture box. | If you now click the Wireframe toolbar button, you can view the polygons that make up the different items. |
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Now if you drag the muscles around to overlap each other, you will see how they interact.
Modifying Your Muscle's Shape
The Vertical Muscle
Click on the grid view. Delete all but the vertical muscle by clicking on each muscle and hitting the Delete button on your keyboard. Drag the muscle into the middle so you can better see the effects you are about to produce. Right click and select Modify Item.

The next button we will look at is the Active button. This button turns a muscle on and off, so you can actually hide a muscle without having to delete it and then remake it later. The next box to the right is called Resolution. Let's set the U value to 10 and the V value to 20. Click OK. Now you should see the change in the 3D view. It has a lot more polygons. (It's 10 across because u goes horizontally, and v goes vertically.)

Double click on the vertical muscle in the grid view. You should have
a four pane window.
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This Modify Item window is divided into four panes. The pane
in the upper left is the basic muscle shape. There is a center line and
two width lines, one on either side of the center line.
The center line and the width line to the left are the only active lines at the moment. The active lines are the ones with the black squares on them. The label shows the layer name for this item (in this case Bone Surfaces,) the name of the item (in this case it is the muscle we previously named Vertical) The (C) refers to which of the three lines is currently selected. The C refers to center, and the other two possibilities are (Lo) for the low or left side curve, and (Hi) for the high or right width curve. The label is drawn in blue and this indicates that this is the currently active pane, so any keyboard commands will be directed towards this pane.
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The Modify Item ToolBar
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The first two buttons are for the Undo and Redo options. |
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The next three buttons are the Equalize Control Points options, and are only active if two or more control points are selected. |
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The next two buttons define the type of line used to connect the points. The first connects the points with a spline (a curved line,) while the second uses a polyline (or a straight line.) |
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The next two buttons describe the symmetry of the muscle. The first button means Symmetrical, and is the default. That means that we only use one of the width curves to change the muscle width, since the other width curve will mirror the first one. The second button defines your muscles as Asymmetrical, and allows the two width curves to be different |
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The final three buttons are for setting the zoom factor for the window. The first turns zooming on and off, the second brings up a dialog to enter the User zoom amount, and the third clears or Resets the zoom values. |
Go to the top of the low width curve (the left one,) and click fairly close to the little square on the top of the line. This is the curve control point, and the little box will turn light green. Now click and drag it to the left a little. If you look in the 3D view, you can see that you have stretched out the top of your muscle.
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Now click on the Asymmetrical button on the toolbar on the top of this window.
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You will notice that your muscle is now curved only on the side you changed and the other side is flat. The width line on the right is also now active, as you can see from the control points along its length. Now you can make this side different from the other side.
Another thing you might like to do it to make your muscle bend. Click on the middle box on the center line and drag it to the left or right. (You can go past where the width lines are.) The concept here is that you have three lines you can use. The center line of your muscle, which you can move to change the basic shape, and the other two width lines, which define distance from the center line to the muscle's edge. You can change the width, and then you can drag the center line to wherever you want, without changing the relationship of the width to the center line. Now you should have a big fat C.
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