Load ANIMOIDS Data from an ANIMOIDS CD
If you purchased ANIMOIDS on a CD then that CD will contain a data folder that holds hundreds of objects (Animoids, Behaviors, Sets, Scenes, Textures and Sounds) that can be used by your ANIMOIDS program.

The data is organized by theme - making it easy for you to find objects of a specific style.

This tutorial tells you how to access the data in that CD.

Load/Mount the CD
Since the CD contains hundreds of Mb of art, ANIMOIDS allows you to mount the CD and have the ANIMOIDS program access the art, on demand, directly from the CD - without having to copy all the art to your hard drive.

From the ANIMOIDS Main Menu select "File", "Load CD Data..." from the main menu:

On Windows and Mac PCs, ANIMOIDS should be able to find the CD and it's data. (If you remembered to install the CD in the drive!)

If so, a small Dialog will appear telling you where the data was found:

If you are happy with the selection, click Yes and a new Dialog will appear:

Otherwise a File dialog will open. You should use it to browse to the top level data folder on your ANIMOIDS CD. (Remember to first load your ANIMOIDS CD in your CD drive!)

The data folder will probably be called something like "CD * Data". (The first CD released supported ANIMOIDS 1.6 and its data folder was "CD 1_6 Data)".

Click on Open to load the CD. (Or click Cancel if you change your mind about loading the CD.)

Once you load the CD, extra folders will appear in your Option Trees and file Choosers:

You see (in the above image) that the CD folder appears below your "Local ..." folders.

Folders will appear only if they contain data types that match the "Local" data type. Folders are organized by theme and sub-theme.

As usual, double click on folders to open or close them. (Or single click on the icon that sits in front of the folder icon.)

The mounted CD will remain mounted the next time you restart ANIMOIDS.

Remember that you can still use the Star Gallery to search for art. Once you find what you want, click on the art in the Gallery and it will be loaded from your CD!

Dismount the CD
If you ever (accidentally or intentionally) remove the CD then ANIMOIDS may prompt you to reload the CD (several times). However, if you do not reload the CD when requested, then ANIMOIDS simply assumes that the CD is no longer available.

In that case you'll need to repeat the simple Load step above if you ever want to use the CD again.

You can tell ANIMOIDS to stop using a CD by first selecting "File", "Load CD Data..." from the main menu and then selecting "Cancel" when the File Dialog appears.

In that case you'll see:

Click Yes to confirm that you want to stop using the CD.

Note on the ANIMOIDS Registry:

If you have multiple copies of the same object (e.g. you download one copy and have another on CD) ANIMOIDS will track only one copy of the object in it's internal database. (The last version of an object opened or loaded will be tracked.)

So, when the CD is dismounted, ANIMOIDS may not be able to find some objects that exist on your hard drive. (If they also existed on the CD.)

If that ever occurs, select "Edit, "Refresh Registry..." from the ANIMOIDS Main Menu and that task will rebuild your local database so that previously downloaded files will be easier to find.

(Note that downloaded objects are tracked by their unique internal file id. It has nothing to do with file name.)

Copy the CD Data
You can also choose to manually copy the CD Data folder into your "My Animoids" folder then Load the data into ANIMOIDS from there. (I.e. after you copy the files, repeat the "Load" process described above but use the File dialog to browse to the folder you created on your hard drive.)

You might do this if you have lots of disk space on your PC and you want to free up your CD drive.

Drag and Drop
As with any ANIMOIDS objects files, you can browse the objects on the CD using your local system's file browser (e.g. Windows Explorer for Microsoft Windows systems) and drag and drop the files from the CD into the ANIMOIDS start window or 3D Canvas.

That drag and drop normally has the same effect as selecting the same file from the ANIMOIDS' Option Tree.

Note that, if you try to drag an object that references other objects from an unmounted folder then ANIMOIDS may not be able to find those referenced objects until you go through the Load/Mount process.

More
Go to the start of the Tutorial.

Try the Blue Screen Overlay tutorial.