Copyright: ®2000-2001 Dragon Films


Contents
Table of Contents
Version 1.20, updated September 12 2001.
.
Welcome to the Dragon Films 3DMM Tips Help File!

In this file you will be given access to hints, tips, and cool effects that can all be put into your movie with 3D Movie Maker.  It is a compilation of many thoughts put together by Greg Strnad into a single help file.  If you wish to submit to this file, please check out the Submit Your Techniques section in the Contents!

Contents

Introduction

Scene Techniques

Actor Techniques

Prop Techniques

3D Word Techniques

Sound Techniques

Word Techniques

Miscellaneous 3DMM Techniques

Submit Your Techniques

Contacts and Credits


Information
Useless Information

The Dragon Films 3DMM Tips Help File, version 1.20.

This help file was coded by Greg Strnad and compiled using Rimrock Software's HelpGen Help Generator, ©1994 Rimrock Software.

You can visit Dragon Films at http://dragonfilms.cjb.net

If you have any questions, comments, etc., you can e-mail Greg Strnad at JNGNON@worldnet.att.net

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Introduction

This DF3DMM Help File is a compilation of tips and hints from people all over the world who use the great program 3D Movie Maker.  To use this file, simply click on the topic of your choice in the Table of Contents.  That will bring you to another table with different entries about that topic, which are the things submitted by people.  If you'd like to submit to this file, simply hop over to the Submit Your Techniques page and read up on how to do it.

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Scene Techniques

-So you want to make a manmade scene?

-How to use a scene multiple times in a movie

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So you want to make a manmade scene?

After using 3DMM for awhile, you'll notice that eventually you can't have all your movies taking place in the city, a restaurant, a haunted house, or a mall.  You need to have another scene to put your action in!  That's why you would want to make a manmade scene to add some variety and creativity to your movie.

Manmade scenes can be simple or complex, take seconds or hours to build, or be as colorful or drab as you want them to be.  It all really depends on the skill of the director, the time they are willing to spend on it, and the complexity of the scene.  These scenes can usually convey the message of the movie better than a regular scene, and are, I think, more fun to work with.

So let's build a manmade scene.  First, you need to think of a setting that you want to reproduce with your custom scene.  It could be anything... a grassy field, a dark city, or even the inside of someone's mouth.  Whatever the case, the next step is to, using good ol' fashioned brain power, dissect the scene in your mind into geometric primitives: cubes, spheres, and other props that you can use or make in 3DMM.  Then, go wild and build your dissected world with the props you extrapolated in your mind.  For example... a house could be a simple cube, or it could be a series of wrapped 3D Word characters with windows, doors, and tiled roof.  A tree could be a cylinder with a green sphere at the top, or it could be the back of a totem pole with first-frame explosions as foliage.  Get it?  It takes a lot of abstract imagination, which may be tough for some people, but after awhile and after good practice, you should be able to create at least a semi-believable manmade scene.

Those are pretty much the basics of making manmade scenes... look around in this help file for some advanced techniques if you've mastered manmade scenes and you want to add the next touch of realism.

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

Back to the Scene Techniques


Manmade Scene (def.)
A scene made in 3DMM using props, 3D words, and sometimes actors as the setting - made completely by the user.  Using these custom-made scenes, a 3D Movie gets more unique and is more fun to watch, usually.


How to use a scene multiple times in a movie

Here's a useful tip for all those people who want to use scenes in their movie multiple times.  Let's say you have a scene that took hours to build, and you're really proud of it.  To show your 3DMM talents off, you decide to include the scene in your movie multiple times, but you don't want to have to rebuild the scene every single time.  How do we do this?  Well, there are two ways.  The first way is useful if you want to have the exact same scene one or two times more in the movie, but the second way is better if you want to use it many times.

To do it the first way, first you need to have the scene you want copied to exist, so build it.  Next, work on the movie until you get to the point at which you want the scene to appear again.  Now, save your movie.  This is important.  Then, go into Scenes>Scene Organizer, and, using the Import Movie button, import your own movie to the end of it.  In other words, click the Import Movie button and choose your own movie.  Then, when it's been added to the end, use the Remove Scene tool to remove all the scenes before and after the desired scene in the attachment.  So basically what you just did was tag the movie to the end of itself, then sliced out everything from the addition except for the scene you wanted to keep.

The second way is better if you want to use the scene many times in your movie.  To do this, the desired scene must be created already.  I think that's sort of obvious.  Next, save your movie.  Again, important.  Now here's the tricky part.  Go into Scenes>Scene Organizer and delete all the scenes in your movie except for the one you want to be reused (if you're a little uneasy about wiping an entire movie like that, you may find it in your best interest to back up your movie, just in case).  Then, after hitting OK, use the Save As command and save it as something that sounds like the scene you made, like Farm.3mm for a farmhouse or the like.  Be sure to use Save As, though, and not Save, as Save will overwrite your movie with the single scene, and months of production could be lost!  Now, whenever you want to have that scene in your movie, simply go back into Scenes>Scene Organizer and import that movie onto the end of yours.  That's it!

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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Actor Techniques

-Non-Integrated character movement

-Let's make a fight scene the right way!

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Non-Integrated character movement

I'm sure we all have noticed that the characters in 3DMM really don't have enough actions.  Talk, walk, and jump are nice, but we hardly ever use those spin, squash, and stretch ones.  Why didn't Microsoft put other useful actions in place of those useless ones?  Well, since as of yet there is no patch or anything you can use to give characters more actions, you'll just have to make up your own non-integrated character movement.  What the heck is that?  Just a word I made up.  Here's what it means.

Let's say that you have an actor in a movie that needs to roll underneath a table to escape a train that happens to be thundering at him.  Is there a roll action?  Didn't think so.  We have to make it up.  First off, mentally picture what types of premade actions are similar to a roll.  There's kneel, crawl, and jump that all have frames where it looks like the character could be rolling.  So go into the Actions screen and assign one of those promising frames to the actor.  Now your actor should be crouched down in some form or another.  So how do we get him rolling?  Go to the next frame (or make a new one using CTRL+Next Frame) and use the Rotate Tools to tilt the character to the side a bit, so that it looks like he's tipping to one side while crouched down... in other words, rolling.  Then use the Move tool to push him to the side a bit, then go to the next frame, tilt and move him a bit more, and before you know it, he'll be under the table!  You could even add some sound effects to make it that much cooler too, if you wanted.

There are many many non-integrated character movements that can be made... holding a rifle, shinnying up a lamppost, flipping off of a cliff, hugging someone, and hanging on a string.  You just have to experiment with a bunch of different pose frames, and eventually one will jump out at you as one that could be used in some non-integrated character movement.

For more realistic non-integrated character movements, try using a different pose of the character each and every frame.  You can cycle through poses quickly and easily by selecting Continue Action and then clicking and holding down on an actor while holding CTRL.

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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Non-integrated character movement (def.)
This is a term used to define a custom-made movement for a 3DMM actor that isn't in the list of premade actions.  These include flips, dives, rolls, and other actions which are made by manipulating premade actions by hand.


Let's make a fight scene the right way!

You've got to admit that some time or another you've run across a movie in which two people are taking turns using Karate Kick to kick one another over and over.  How exciting is that??  Not very.  If you ever need to have a fighting scene in one of your movies, here's the right way to do it.

First of all, you need your characters that are going to be in the brawl.  Once you have that, you can put them where they will start out.  Now, if you look at a real fight, people don't just take turns kicking the other person, falling over, waiting for the other guy to get up, then kick them again.  No... they lunge at the enemy, swing with their arms, jump off tables (and sometimes walls), and do a lot more than just Karate Kick.  So how can you do this with 3DMM characters?

Here are a few pointers.  To get a nice punch, you can use poses in the Greet, Fly, and Karate Kick actions that have an outstretched arm, and then manually move the actor so he looks like he's throwing a punch.  A sweeping action with the legs can be used using the first few frames of the Lie Down action and spinning the guy manually.  Flips and stuff can be done by freezing the actor in a cool pose in Jump or Kneel, then rotating him along the desired axes.  These non-integrated character movements take a lot of time to master, but eventually they turn out spectacular.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind.  When a person falls over, he doesn't always roll over and then get up like in the Get Up action.  And they don't always fall over like in the Fall Over action, either.  Using poses from other actions like Karate Kick and Jump can get some nice effects, and then by manually manipulating the actor you can make him fall over in a dramatic fashion then get up by flipping up onto his feet.  Try it!

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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Prop Techniques

-Making Stuff out of Props

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Making Stuff out of Props

Everyone wants to know how to make decent explosions, grenades, golf clubs, hammers, chainsaws, swords, you name it.  I'll show you how to make some of these things.

Fragmentation grenade: Take a sphere, stretch it so it looks somewhat like an oval, color it a shade of green, and add the pin if you want to.  Just type the letters OI in 3D Words and use the Spin action until they attach.  Have your character pull the pin, and use a non-integrated character movement to toss the grenade at something or something.  Add an explosion, cut the grenade.  Ta da!  You can also make flashbang grenades, which can be just a blue cylinder.

Hammer: Depends on what type of hammer.  I have no clue how to make a claw hammer, but here's how to make a sledgehammer.  Two cylinders, one stretched and one not.  It'll look like a hammer after you screw around with it.

Sword: Try the letters tIIA (exactly how I have them here - lower case t, everything else is caps) and use the Spin action until they attach.

Chainsaw: These are hard.  Really hard.  I mean REALLY HARD to make.  Just fool around with the shapes.  You'll get it at one point or another.  Just get the sounds from Jason movies or something.

Submitted by Trevor Burke.

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Flashbang grenades (def.)
This temporarily blinds, stuns and deafens the enemy by making a loud noise and a big flash.  If you ever come across one in real life, do NOT look at it.


3D Word Techniques

-So you want to make cool looking weapons with 3D Words

-Make wicked guns from 3D Words

-How to make realistic blood

-3D Word floors and walls

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So you want to make cool looking weapons with 3D Words

Have you ever gotten sick of having to use only cylinders for guns?  Well here's a little walkthrough I made.

Stage 1 - Easy Guns: In 3D Words, type L or F.  Flip it in a direction you want and poof.  A very dull but effective gun.

Stage 2 - Moderate stuff: Use some of these examples and use the "spin letters" action until they all settle togethor.

Examples of pistols:

|'''

Just use spin letters until they settle.

L|||

Make them stand in a circle in the 3D Words menu, then use spin letters until it looks like a standing up rectangle with something sticking out of it.  Position its angle right, and blast it!

Ll]l

Same as above.  There are hundreds of others so check em' out!

Stage 3 - Getting circular: Everything in this step requires you to put the words in a circle form so make sure it is!  Then you just have to strech until it all fits together.  Most of this type of gun is usually a big type.

Examples of big guns:

|/

||[

[|]|/|L

Use spin letters until a little part is sticking out (the handle).

Well, have a great time with one of the best games in the world!  And keep on going to Dragon Films for movies you just can't get anywhere else!

Submitted by Davis James.

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Make wicked guns from 3D Words

Listen... nobody wants to make realistic looking guns which you need to move every little detail, do they?  I, for one, can't be bothered.  "L"s look really fake and don't really do the job very well.  I got this as a tip from here: http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/disk/15/home.htm

Well, you go to "3D Words" as if you were going to do a "L" but instead you do:

For a cool handgun: 'l'''

For a cool machinegun: 'l'|'''

You can experiment around a bit to get better looking guns.  Now you have a buncha dumb looking dashes or something.  Now you go to the "Actions" and click "Spin letters."  Poof!  They will all join up somewhere in the middle of the action.  There you go!

Submitted by AJ Thomas.

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How to make realistic blood

In making a violent action movie you'll need blood when someone gets hit by a car or gets shot or falls off a clif onto jagged rocks.  Or if you're making a horror movie of course someone will be stabbed or mangled.  So you'll need some blood.  Blood can be made by flattening a red sphere under the body.  But it doesn't look real enough.  There's a much better way of making blood.

First, go into "3D Words" and type a star (*).  It's right on the eight key on your keyboard above the eight.  Put in anywhere from three to six stars in the text bar depending on how gory or how big you want your puddle of blood to be.  Now, go to 'Shape', then click on the third option from the top.  Color it red.  Then click OK.  You should be back on the recording screen.

Now, go into the Actions with your 3D Word.  Click Flip Letters.  On the start of the action, go forward with the starting pose 10 times.  Click OK, then go into the Sqaush tool.  Squash the blood out as much as you can, then you have a puddle of blood.

Submitted by Shaun Winfield.

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3D Word floors and walls

Here is a good technique for making a long walkway, floor, or wall.  Go to 3D Words.  Now hold shift and press the | key many times.  (It's located above the ENTER/RETURN key, with a under a |.)  Now choose the color that you want your floor/wall to be.  Exit the 3D Words area.  Click on Action and go to the action screen of your |||||||||||||||||||||||||||.  Click "Spin Letters."  Choose the 3rd starting pose.  You should now have a long wall/floor shape that you can use in your movie.  You can use this in place of many squares or something.

Submitted by John Boyer.

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Sound Techniques

Sorry, nothing here yet in this version.  Please contribute your tips and, obviously, things will spring up here!

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Word Techniques

-How do I make a word box disappear?

-So you want your word boxes to move?

-Want words to type across the screen?

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How do I make a word box disappear?

For some odd reason people keep asking me how to make a word box disappear in a movie.  There really isn't anything hard to it, and in fact, I think it mentions it in the 3DMM handbook somewhere.  Anyway, all you have to do to make a word box disappear is go into the Words screen, and from there select the CUT tool.  This is NOT the BOMB tool... that removes the box from the entire scene, and you don't want that.  Then, when you get to the frame in which there is a word box you want to make vanish, all you do is cut the frame border, but not the text itself.  That's it.

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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So you want your word boxes to move?

When making 3DMM, Microsoft apparently thought that word boxes would only be used to show a story or scroll some credits, where in fact, seasoned 3DMMers know that words can be your best friend when it comes to special effects.  Words can be made to fade in and out, jump across the screen and look neat, create cool teletype effects, and even make a whole movie.  But whenever you try to make a word box move, it ends up simply staying in the last place you specified throughout the scene.  How can you get around this?

Well, sadly, there is no way.  The only way that you can make text move is to make it appear for one frame, then disappear the next frame and have a box just like it appear in a different location.  That's all that you can do.  So, let's try it.  Make a word box and type some gibberish in it.  Now, go to the next frame (or make a new one with CTRL+Next Frame), and use the CUT tool while still in the Words screen to cut the border of the text, but not the actual text itself.  Now it will vanish and be stored in clipboard memory.  Now, to make it 'move', use the PASTE tool, and you'll get your word box again.  Move it to the spot where you want the text to translate to, and you've got your moving text.  Then repeat those steps until you have all the movement you want.

If 3DMM2 ever comes out, there should be a way to make words move a lot easier than that, and scrolling text should have the option of pausing the movie or not, so that you could have scrolling text while the movie is going.  But until then, this is the only known way to make your text move.

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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Want words to type across the screen?

3D Movie makers who like to make sci-fi and action movies like to give the effect of the words being typed across a computer screen.  You can do this by making a Word Box.  Then, type in the first letter of the word you want to type. Next, move one frame (by holding CTRL and clicking the next frame button).  Then get another Word Box, type in the next letter, and put it beside the first letter in the first Box.  Move over another frame and repeat.  Keep this up and it will look like words are being typed instead of just appearing there.

Submitted by Brad Hibbard.

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Miscellaneous 3DMM Techniques

-How to compress your movie in 3DMM

-Dragon Films Movie Making Secrets

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How to compress your movie in 3DMM

It is easy to let your 3DMM movie baloon up with extra information that is needless and just adds to the file size.  Here are some quick and easy ways to put them on a quick crash diet.

Lots of times you'll see a movie in which a very long .wav file is used in a scene that is repeated many times.  And sometimes you'll see, if you go in to edit the movie, that there are multiple copies of the same huge .wav file.  That takes up a lot of unneccesary space, and makes it take longer to download from the Internet (and is a pain to webmasters like me who post them).  How can we save this space?  Simple:  ditch all but one copy of the .wav file (this is done by selecting the file in its respective Sound menu and hitting the DELETE key).  Then, in every part of the movie that needs that sound used, simply use that one copy of the sound.  What this does is make the movie use the same sound over and over, instead of using different sounds of the same thing over and over, which wastes a lot of space.  This can also be done for other smaller .wav files.  It'll take time, but every little bit counts.

I also formulated another compression technique, but I don't know how much space it actually saves.  Nevertheless, it's another simple way to make your movies take up less space.  Whenever you are putting in an actor, prop, or 3D word, always check to see if you have an analogous one that already exists and use that one if you can.  In other words, if you're building a scene which uses a cube somewhere, see if you have a cube sitting in your props scrolling menu that isn't in use in the current scene.  If you can find one, use that instead of just importing a brand new one.  This can make the movie hard to edit when you're using many props which are all over your props scrolling menu, but it saves the computer the time and space of inserting yet another object into the file.

So the more you can recycle what you already used, the smaller your file will be.  And that saves computing time when saving it, loading it, uploading it, and downloading it.  It benefits everyone.

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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Dragon Films Movie Making Secrets

This list used to be on the old DF2K site.

1)  Movies are nothing without a good storyline, and serious movie makers don't like watching a movie that doesn't have a storyline at all.  As goofy as it may seem, the most action-packed, special-effect-souped-up, stunning-visual-and-audio-effect movie can be looked at as more poorly made than some second-grader's original story.  When making a new 3D Movie, take the time to think of a plot, characters, their development, and other things like that before you start.  There are too many movies out there that are just mindless action, and that's an unhealable scar to the 3DMM community.  This is the 3DMM First Commandment, and whoever follows it will have a great movie.

2)  Have you ever wanted to have a character get into a pose that isn't in the actions list, like ready to run or looking at a watch? Well, you can get those actions by putting them into frozen poses in other actions.  For example, you can use Karate Kick to get a character into tons of neat poses, like a new way to fall over!  Try it!

3)  When creating your own scenes, remember to keep it simple.  By this I mean don't make the scene so full of stuff that it takes hours to animate movement and it takes a long time for every frame to compute on a slower computer.  Instead, try building scenes that make use of 3D text (which allows you to build objects out of one singular part instead of 30).  Unless, of course, you're going for a very detailed scene... in which case put in everything you can!

4)  Here's something for all you special-effect addicts.  To make rings of energy eminating from something, go to 3D text and put in a long string of underscores (_) until you can't make any more.  Keep the font default, wrap it, and color it.  Then place it somewhere in your movie and go to Action.  Tell the ring to 'Grow and Shrink' and stop the pose when the ring is in its largest bulge.  Now you have a seamless ring of energy that you can use to make things flashy!  If you put multiple ones rotated at 45 degree angles from each other in close proximity with the same focal point, you'll get a really cool energy dispersion sphere.

5)  Have you ever noticed that the cars in 3DMM are sort of short and stubby?  They look really odd when you try to make a movie with them. Here's a quick simple fix.  When you put the car into the scene, enlarge it a tad and then squash it a bit.  That will make it longer, like a real car.  Then it's time to cruise!

6)  You want to know what one of the most annoying things in poorly-made 3DMM movies?  Horrible music selection.  What's the idea of playing "She Walks In" when someone is running from the cops or playing "Fight Moment 1" when someone just cracked a joke!?  I've seen these before, so don't laugh.  And another annoying thing is when the music changes so quickly... like a new song every scene or 2 frames. It's nice to have cool music, but if you don't know how to use it, itjust doesn't make sense!!  Here's what to do.  First, you need to find a midi that sort of is the theme to your movie.  Play that in the beginning and during crutial parts of the film, if the music fits the actions of the characters.  Then make sure you have a reason to use a new midi in the movie before you use it, and keep it playing for a few scenes and not just one.  That way people can hear the whole song, not get confused with spastically changing music, and enjoy your movie.

7)  Everyone wants a movie that is fun to watch and leaves them with a sense that they made a worthwhile download, right?  Well, here's a little tidbit for all you no-plot Action movie makers [not you, of course... another reader]:  Take the time to integrate a story.  I've gotten too many movies that have little to no plot, and they're just all-action-shooting flicks.  Where's the satisfaction of downloading those?  So here's my advice.  If you're good at making fight scenes with Martial Arts or guns, try putting that into a Horror movie.  If you can make stunning special effects, put together a Fantasy or Sci-Fi film.  And if you really want to make an Action movie, at least integrate a storyline that makes sense.  "An escaped criminal is killing the city" just doesn't cut it any more.

8)  Here's a tip for voices.  When you record a voice for your movie, make sure it's loud enough to hear when played with any other music and/or sounds in your movie.  I've seen too many movies that have incomprehensible voices because the director was too lazy to check if they could be heard!  If, though, you are having trouble getting voices, you can hop over to the Classifieds section of Dragon Films and get a list of people who are willing to do voices for you.

Submitted by Greg Strnad.

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Submit Your Techniques

This is a form by which you can submit your own techniques to this help file to make it grow and be more complete.  To do this, simply copy this form out into an e-mail, and replace the bracketed words with the information required by the field.  Then e-mail it to

JNGNON@worldnet.att.net

and I'll integrate it into the next version of the DF3DMM Help File!  Thanks for your help!

Name: [Your name]

E-Mail: [Your E-Mail]

Webpage URL: [Your webpage URL, if you have one]

Webpage Name: [Your webpage name, if you have one]

Submission Title: [Your submission's title]

Submission: [Your 3DMM tip or technique]

Definitions: [Definitions of any unique words you used]

Thanks for your help!

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Contacts and Credits

This help file was compiled by Greg Strnad using Rimrock Software HelpGen help file compiler.  It is the product of many people pulling together to make something for the 3DMM community, which will keep growing and growing.  Thanks to everyone who submitted:

John Boyer

Trevor Burke

Brad Hibbard

Davis James

Greg Strnad

AJ Thomas

Shaun Winfield

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John Boyer (def.)
Zonno2@aol.com

3D Movie Maker World: http://www.expage.com/3dmoviemakerworld


Trevor Burke (def.)
rsm@sgi.net


Brad Hibbard (def.)
coolbeg343@aol.com

MK2000: http://www.expage.com/mk2000


Davis James (def.)
charmander_is_cool@hotmail.com


Greg Strnad (def.)
JNGNON@worldnet.att.net

Dragon Films: http://dragonfilms.cjb.net


AJ Thomas (def.)
andyjthomas@maxnet.co.nz


Shaun Winfield (def.)
Zigluckmin@aol.com


e