HyperMatter characters automatically exhibit the physical characteristics of real objects made from real world materials. It provides physically based soft body dynamics for 3D animation. It enables the user to apply natural substances—such as rubber—and physical forces—such as gravity—to any 3D computer model. The result is computer generated behavior that convincingly simulates natural physical laws. HyperMatter objects stretch, wobble, squash, and otherwise react to any object in their environment. HyperMatter was designed for artists and animators in game development, commercial animation, and motion picture production.

	Forcade Associates designed and produced the user manual for HyperMatter, a soft body dynamics plug-in for 3D Studio MAX

Project Scope
As a member of the core development team, Forcade Associates worked with team members in England—London, Sheffield, Cambridge—and San Francisco. We were called upon to write the lexicon for this unique program for which many functions simply did not have non-technical terminology. We did extensive work on the user interface by designing iconography and the layout of various on-screen elements such as buttons and dialog boxes. We also worked on the specification of various essential program features and were instrumental in testing and evaluation.

Forcade Associates was contracted to write, illustrate, design, and coordinate the production of a 250 page user manual. The manual is fully indexed with a detailed table of contents, tutorials, command reference, and glossary of terms. We provided all manual content including the design of all tutorials, tutorial support files for CD-ROM distribution, along with the outline and design for the manual itself. The finished manual was provided in plate-ready form, suitable for printing, trimming, and binding. Forcade Associates also supervised the printing of the manual.