Hint of the Day
(version July 30, 2007)
These are short suggestions and ideas that will help you see the full capabilities of the software.
Visualizing in 4 Dimensions [08-06-2007]
You Don't Have to Do Everything Only Digitally [08-01-2007]
Why is the "Masked Animator" Wearing 3D glasses? [07-30-2007]
On Starting a New Project [07-22-2007]
Scaling Objects in Your Scene Properly [07-21-2007]
Free Textures and Texture Generators [07-20-2007]
Make a Terrain from Any Image (Picture) File in Vue Infinite [07-19-2007]
Academic Superstore [07-18-2007]
Poser 7 Walk Designer [07-17-2007]
What a New Student Should Learn [07-16-2007]
Vue Infinite 6 Post-Processing Window [07-15-2007]
Deep Freeze Technology in the 3D Animation Lab [07-14-2007}
Hand Animation? Are You Kidding? [07-13-2007]
Mayang's Free Textures. Have You Heard About Them? [07-12-2007]
Are Free Models Found of the Web Any Good? [07-11-2007]
Using Digital Elevation Maps in Vue Infinite [07-11-2007]
Importance of Textures [07-09-2007]
Using Light Panels in Vue 6 Infinite [07-06-2007]
Put Your Face on a Computer Model [07-05-2007]
- [08-06-2007]
VISUALIZING IN 4 DIMENSIONS. Our three-dimensional world has not been fully captured in computer devices. We still look at flat monitors than run a 2D representation of a 3D world. We have two-dimensional printed photographs of our 3D world. Techniques with light, such as color and shading, help to make our 2D images more three-dimensional. But right now—though at prices close to $25,000—there are 3D television set in development. Perhaps in the next 3 years these units will be on the market. (See: 3D TV A Reality In Stores By 2010.) Although 3D printers already exist, most of us have access only to 2D printers. What lies beyond three-dimensions? This is a fair question, it seems, to ask—especially when physicists describing the “real world” around us in string theory think in terms of eleven dimensions. We have a long way to go from three dimensions to get up to eleven. Let’s just play for a moment with the thought of 4 dimensions. In order to do this we’ll bounce back and forth a bit from 2 dimensions, to 3 dimensions and 4.
Since we already live in a 3D world, let’s first get an appreciation for the question we are looking at by imagining instead that we are two dimensional, that is, 2D is our reality. A 3D person looking into our 2D world at us would see the following: we move on a flat plane (almost as if we lived on a big sheet of paper and we could only walk on the paper—we could never leave it). What would a 2D person see if a 3D object came into his world? Suppose we toss a ball onto the sheet of paper, and that it passes through the paper. What would the 2D person actually see? The answer: Mysteriously a circle would show up on the paper and it would grow from being a point to as large as the biggest circle cutting the ball, and then it would shrink down to a point again and disappear. So, all that a 2D person could see is the circle of intersection of the ball with the plane, and that is always a circle (a point when it first enters and when leaves the plane).
You might recall from geometry and algebra that a circle has a mathematical formula like this:
x**2 + y**2 = r**2 (circle with a radius of 5 is x**2 + y**2 = 25) [Note: x**2 means "x-squared"]
and a sphere has this formula:
x**2 + y**2 + z**2 = r**2 (sphere with a radius of 5 is x**2 + y**2 + z**2 = 25)
(The reason we are using math here is that it will help us in 4 dimensions.)
Here’s what the 2D guy sees when a 3D sphere goes through his world (passes through the sheet of paper).
A sphere in 3 dimensions has (x, y, z) coordinates, but in two dimensions the z value is always 0 (zero), so the equation looks like the one for a circle. In other words, the equation x**2 + y**2 + 0z**2 = r**2 is the same as x**2 + y**2 = r**2.Let's change the perspective now so that we become a 3D person and encounter a four-dimensional (4D) sphere passing through our world? What do we see?
In math a 4-dimenisonal sphere is
x**2 + y**2 + z**2 + w**2= r**2
but we can’t see the w in the (x, y, z, w) coordinates, we can only see (x, y, z) so all we can view is
x**2 + y**2 + z**2 + 0w**2= r**2 which is the same as x**2 + y**2 + z**2 = r**2
All we will see is an ordinary sphere as the 4D sphere passes through our world. Going back to the pictures for the 2D guy looking at the 3D sphere passing through his world, we just go up one dimension: instead of seeing a circle in my world, we go up one dimension and have a sphere. Putting it all together, if a 4-dimensional sphere passed through our 3D world, we would see it as an ordinary ball passing through our world. We would only see the cross-section of the 3D-world and the 4D-sphere, and that is the sphere. To brush up on the math presented here, view the following page: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Sphere.html.
- [08-01-2007] YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING ONLY DIGITALLY. Don’t confine yourself to working only with digital tools. Yes, in 3D you are working in a digital world. But you can bring in effects for backgrounds and textures which are very difficult to create or render in the computer alone. Very successful 3D artists can also work in the traditional world of painting to achieve results that computer programs alone would not allow: a brushstroke from real paint is still very difficult to simulate. One of the best programs in the world for doing true art effects on canvas, simulated in the computer world, is Corel Painter (version IX or X). But it will not be able to do everything. For some of your special projects do work in traditional media, and scan in the images for use in your 3D applications for backgrounds or textures. Pay attention to scanner settings. Any brushstrokes or three-dimensional effect on canvas may need particular scanner settings, or work in Photoshop or Artweaver afterwards to bring out the sense of depth in keystrokes. Markers on translucent paper will give you another complete range of effects that can only be created partially in computer software. Try some experiments. Work with traditional media, exploiting the effects that are possible in these media, then scan into your system. Do a series of experiments where you try out varying amounts of paint, different brushes and brush strokes. When the paint has dried, put your scanner to use. You will start to envision what is possible by working in both worlds, and from these experiments you will extend your artistic reach.
- [07-30-2007] WHY IS THE "MASKED ANIMATOR" WEARING 3D GLASSES? For everyone who comes to Texas Tech the Masked Rider
is familiar. If you are reading these pages from elsewhere, you may not be acquainted with the lore. Here is a good summary. Our Masked Animator can be found in the Section Learn About the 3D Lab. Does he really need to be wearing 3D glasses for us to be working in 3D? The answer is a quick "No", but not so fast: there is more to this story than you might first think. In fact this will eventually become an article for Topics in 3D, another section in this Web site. For now, some basic information. There are many uses of the term 3D and not all of them refer to the same thing. We often switch between these uses without considering the differences. We are, however, interested in all uses of the term "3D" at this Web site and interested in all shades of meaning. Over time we will clarify the major differences and then the subtler differences. For starters, the 3D we refer to here mainly means we have a object, such as a building, modeled in 3D. It might be the Texas Tech University Library main building (the background shot of the "Masked Animator"). This 3D model can be turned around to view all sides. We can scale it larger or smaller, and we can animate with it. Instead of having the building move, we may animate persons out in front of the building so that it looks like normal foot traffic past the library. Just from saying this, we see that our 3D objects can interact with each other--persons going past the building, persons going inside the building. More than that is happening. Light interacts with the building so that the parts of the building that are windows reflect the light. When a person walks in front of the window, the image of the person shows in the glass of the window. The light reflected off the window may hit other objects and cause additional light to shine off them. Our "rendering" of the 3D scene we are making uses light and shadows to give us the sense or illusion of depth. How about 3D sound? Are we interested in that? First, a definition. 3D sound has direction associated with it: it appears to come from a particular point or area in a scene. We like movies where we have a sense that the sound is coming from the left when the character speaking is on the left. The sound "travels" with the character as he moves across the screen. We are given the sense of the sound coming from the character speaking. Movie makers have explored various ways to add the sense of depth to a movie. When everything is done in 3D objects, such as in an animation, it is possible to control lighting and shadows to influence the sense of depth. Some older 3D movies did it another way: using multiple cameras (two or more), multiple images are taken and then superimposed over one another when the movie is played to viewers. Wearing special 3D glasses, like the "Masked Animator", the sense of depth is brought out: the special filming technique coupled with the 3D glasses lets the user have a greater sense of depth than ordinary lighting and shadows would allow. The use of 3D glasses to give a greater sense of depth is not confined to movie production alone. The same effects can be achieved in looking at still images which have made use of a similar superimposing of images from two cameras. But 3D software alone--without the cameras--can generate this "3D glasses" effect. It is not necessary to have the usual red/blue 3D glasses for this to happen. Some "3D" images consist of two "normal" images side-by-side. By focusing your eyes to bring them together in one image you will get an heightened sense of depth as well. In addition to red/blue 3D glasses, there are other glasses used to give a heightened 3D effect. Didn't realize so much was happening, did you? We will continue to discuss this topic here in these pages and provide examples to point out the differences in what is possible using various 3D techniques. Not all 3D is the same technology, but we are interested in all of it. Some good examples of what we are discussing can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html (3D glasses required) and http://www.angelfire.com/ca/erker/freeview.html (you need to look cross-eyed at pairs of images).
- [07-22-2007] ON STARTING A NEW PROJECT. When you are planning a new project, it is often helpful to look at a collection of models or images to get a good feel for what others have already done in the area. You might find something you can use directly, or you will realize that there are no easily found models available to download for your project. Keeping your own collection of free models can help greatly. You will explore on your own and follow your own interests. Those models that you find on your travels will lead to future ideas if you let them come to light frequently. The 3D Animation Lab model collection is another source of models that you will want to browse as you begin projects. Apart from the model collections in the Lab, our software loaded on the machines often has basic collections of models to work with to get you started. Become familiar with these collections, but don't forget about them after one look. They are always worth going back to. The major model stores (Content Paradise, DAZ Productions, Renderosity and Cornucopia 3D) are always changing and new ideas abound at these stores. Looking at 2D artwork is also a good idea. Here you can a wider range of images and possible ideas for your future work. Note that most museum shops are not great places for seeing image art. Generally the files are very small thumbnails which give only a poor idea of the work. The small thumbnails are there to prevent others from using the images on for-sale items (T-shirts, mugs), but we all wind up paying the price for that stinginess. We will talk about sources for 2D art in a later hint.
- [07-21-2007] SCALING OBJECTS IN YOUR SCENE PROPERLY. As you 3D scenes grow more complex with additional objects in the scene (people, animals, buildings and trees), you will be placing some objects in background and some in the foreground. When the dog is placed in the background and needs to walk to foreground to his master, how do you make the dog's proportions right so that he looks the proper size when he walks to the foreground? One method that works for many kinds of scenes is to bring everything into one area of the foreground as a kind of staging area where you do your scaling of objects. Put the man next to the dog, the tree next to the man, and adjust all the relative sizes of your objects so that they make sense. Do this for as many objects as you can (mountains may not easily work this way, for example) and take time in your staging area to make everything fit. Then you can put the objects back into your scene wherever you would like them to start out. Trying to scale a dog to a tree when the dog is in the background and the tree is in the foreground will never be very easy. Make it easy for yourself by bringing the dog into the foreground next to the tree; return the dog to the background after you have adjusted the size. The dog will scale much easier and your project will have a better overall look and feel.
- [07-20-2007] FREE TEXTURES AND TEXTURE GENERATORS. Build your own collection of free textures. Keep on hand anything of high quality, high resolution. Small image files are often difficult to scale up. A future HINT will talk about ways of doing this, but in general you want to go for higher resolutions: 1600x1200 is the smallest you should keep and 2000x2000 and higher will serve you well in the long run. Even if you home computer is not capable of going above 1600x1200 right now, plan for the future. Your future system will in all likelihood go above this size. The trends in this industry are to go for higher resolution and larger size. One good reason for working in larger size is that you can really enhance your work significantly by working in large size and then scaling back for distribution. In other words, work in 2000x2000 textures and let users display your work at 1600x1200. The results will make you look very good. Check out the Links section for free textures and free texture generators. A texture generator is software that will build a texture according to your specifications following certain options and choices in the software. Rather than storing lots of image files on your system, use the texture generator software to create what you need at the resolution you need when you want it. When working with textures don't forget about BUMP MAPS, REFLECTANCE and TRANSPARENCY. All these factors play a role in how your texture will appear. Even if you find a good texture on the Web you will still need to do some work most likely in these other areas. See IMPORTANCE OF TEXTURES on this page.
- [07-19-2007] MAKE A TERRAIN FROM ANY IMAGE (PICTURE) FILE IN VUE INFINITE. There is much to be said about the Vue Infinite version 6 abilities to make convincing scenes that mimic nature using standard, default functions. But did you know that you could take any image file (JPG, TIF, many others) and turn it into a terrain (= landscape) in just a few clicks? Here are some brief notes on getting started. You will want to try this out in the 3D Animation Lab. Start Vue Infinite and follow along. (1) Right-Click on the Create Terrain button (top left) and select Terrain in Editor. (2) In the Terrain Editor Screen click on Picture, then Load. (See images below.) (3) Navigate to a picture file, select it, and click OK. In this example a picture of clouds was selected. (Color pictures are okay. The system uses the brightest spots for the higher elevations, the darker spots for the lower elevations.) In our example below the top left cloud picture was selected. (4) Following along In the fourth image below, move the slider in Proportions all the way to the right (100% Picture). The Preview window shows the Terrain that will be created. Select OK and this is the Terrain that Vue Infinite will create and load into your scene. NOTE that not all picture files work well, and you may have to do some editing. For a particular effect, such as a mountain in the shape of the letter "S" just make a drawing in Photoshop of a fat "S" where the center of the "S" is while and the colors fade through gray into black, like the example shown as the fifth image down. You can load that image and get an S-shaped mountain. The result is shown as the sixth image below. The harsh edges can be reduced by changing the Proportions slider to less than 100%. We will come back to this topic in a future hint.
- [07-18-2007] ACADEMIC SUPERSTORE. Some of the products described at this Web site are available to students at a discount through various vendors. One of the vendors is Academic Superstore in Dallas, Texas. Student can mean K-12 or college/university student. Each vendor decides on how to make the product available. In some cases staff and faculty are also eligible for discounts, often on a different version of the product. For each item offered at Academic Superstore there is a chart showing eligibility. Search for the product you are interested in (and double-click on the listing you want if there is more than one hit). This will bring up a description of the product, and to the right you will see a chart showing eligibility. Proof of student/staff/faculty status is required. Some versions have a limited life span and may expire after one year. Be sure to read the full description of what you are purchasing so that there are no surprises. Academic Superstore offers free shipping on all orders as of this writing; be sure to check on the order total in case this policy does change. Shown below is a SAMPLE chart of what to look for. This listing change frequently, so be sure to check for the latest information. The chart varies by product and version, so be sure to read the fine print. Note that one vendor may offer discounts to students and faculty while another may offer discounts only to students. Generally the products offered are full, working versions of the latest software. Occasionally some extras are also included in the purchase. For schools there are some vendors who offer Lab Licensing, which can be a fixed number of workstations. The description at Academic Superstore will tell you if this is the case. The store offers very quick turnaround time, but some vendors are sluggish in making product available to Academic Superstore. The store staff is very helpful in handling questions and helping find out where you shipment is.
- [07-17-2007] POSER 7 WALK DESIGNER. In need of a quick animation of a figure? Take a look at the Walk Designer feature in Poser 7. You can have a animation of a figure walking in a matter of minutes. Choose one of the know figure types from the Library of characters, such as Simon or Sydney (G2 figures). These come with the Poser product. Here is a quick summary of how to do it. Add any clothing, hair style or props to your scene. Give you figure a starting pose. Click Figure | Create Walk Path from the menu. Poser automatically draws an S-shaped curve which you can edit. If you don't immediately see the curve, zoom out a bit and take a closer look. The default for a walk animation is 30 frames and you can change that to another value to meet your needs. Recall that the animation plays at 30 frames per second so that the default gives you one second of animation. Click on Window | Walk Designer. Follow the prompts. The Walk Designer tool appears with a number of sliders. First try out just the defaults. See how the system does a normal setup, and then go from there to make your changes. Notice that you can select Follow Path or Walk in Place. Click Apply. Look at the VCR-controls at the lower left of the screen which allow you to Play, Stop, and Rewind your animation. Right below these controls is a Loop toggle. If the toggle is selected, the animation will play continuously when you press the Play button. For now click the Loop button off. Now press Play. You animation should look like the one below: To view our animation double-click on the image below.
- [07-16-2007] WHAT A NEW STUDENT SHOULD LEARN. Take a look at Getting Started in 3D. What a New Student Should Think About, Part 1, which is in a new section on this Web site. If you are brand new to 3D, digital art, rendering, modeling or animation, this section will give you some very basic pointers about getting started. That article mentions that you should get to know a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can do just that by going to the 3D Animation Lab where you will find the entire Creative Suite 2 package installed on all workstations.
- [07-15-2007] VUE ININITE 6 POST-PROCESSING WINDOW. Are you annoyed by the post-processing window that comes up each time you do a render in Vue Infinite 6? It comes up by default and is designed to allow you to make some basic adjustments to your result which you can have applied each time you render. A check box in the lower left of the post-processing window lets you turn this option off. Then you can easily go back into the post-processing window any time you wish by using one of the controls in the top right of the render screen. This gives you a quick option to change brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and more, and saves you a step in calling up the image file in a program like Adobe Photoshop.
- [07-14-2007] DEEP FREEZE TECHNOLOGY IN THE 3D ANIMATION LAB. While working in the 3D Animation Lab at Texas Tech University Libraries, you are in charge: you can update programs on the workstations, install applications you wish to test. But as soon as you reboot the system is restored to the state it was at before you started your session. This gives you flexibility in trying out other software, such as plug-ins. You can customize the way your favorite application runs without stepping on the toe of anyone else who uses the Lab machines, because they get back a clean machine after rebooting. If you are working in the Lab and do not find that an application is responding the way think it should, try this simple step of restarting your system and going back in the operating system. You should have a machine restored to its pristine state. In the meantime others can experiment with the workstations and adapt to their needs at least temporarily.
- [07-13-2007] HAND ANIMATION? ARE YOU KIDDING? If you are brand new to 3D and Animation, you might want to visit the video tutorial in the 3D Lab for Project Dogwaffle which teaches you how to use a 2D program to create a short animation. Project Dogwaffle is a fantastic 2D art program that works with most of the picture formats including PSD (Adobe Photoshop format). It has a variety of drawing tools, nozzles, particle brushes and paper textures. The user community supporting Project Dogwaffle is very active in writing new plug-ins and in creating tutorials. Project Dogwaffle and Artweaver (a free Photoshop look-alike) work well together, and there are tools which supporting working in one and sending the clipboard over to the other, giving you as a result a wide range of art tools. But the reason for mentioning Project Dogwaffle here are the three animation tutorials from the tutorial collection "The Art of Project Dogwaffle" in the 3D Animation Lab. The basic concepts of key frames, understanding how animation is built by frames, and how this is stored in a video file, are taught without all the distraction that 3D software can introduce. This is a good learning bed for your first course in animation. Recall that animation has a very long history, going back to the days of hand creation of drawings, a skill that is still practiced by some. This tutorial set helps you to get started in this field by helping you learn the most basic steps. Once you have these down you will find that you have a good foundation to learn more in 3D applications. See the Project Dogwaffle web site at http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/.
- [07-12-2007] MAYANG's FREE TEXTURES. HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THEM? This is a collection of 3400 free textures, and you can download up to 20 per day to the same IP address. See their web site at http://mayang.com/textures/. Here are some of the main categories of textures available: Architectural, Buildings, Fabric, Man-Made, Metal, Nature, Plants, Stone, Wood. Most are 2560x1920 resolution and some of the older ones are 1600x1200. The entire group of textures on the web site is available for purchase at $50.00. Here are a couple of samples of what is at the Mayang site.
- [07-11-2007] ARE FREE MODELS FOUND ON THE WEB ANY GOOD? There is everything under the sun in terms of quality of models. Some Web sites check carefully the uploads of models submitted by artists as freebies. Others do not. The model may work partially but not in every case. If you are interested in looking for free models, you need to test everything yourself, unless you go to one of the major online Web store for models which offer occasional freebies. Content Paradise (http://www.contentparadise.com) and DAZ 3D (http://www.daz3d.com) offer free models from time to time which are backed by the store. You get tested models and they will work well in your projects. If you encounter problems with free models, you can contact support for the store and they will assist you. There are many other stores where the quality of free is not guaranteed and where there is no support to help when free models have problems. Renderosity (http://www.renderosity.com) is a major store with tons of free models. It is not uncommon to find some that do not work as expected. Check out the free models of Captain Marlow (http://web.mac.com/captainmarlowe/iWeb/Marlowe%20and%20Mary/Free%20Stuff.html) to see a range of quality free models in a variety of formats. Another site of interest to 3D Lab users may be tSDepot (http://www.tsdepot.co.uk/downloads/models/index.php) where you can find many models in native trueSpace format. Exploring for free stuff is often rewarding and worth the hassle. A future hint will talk about converting models that are in one format for use in another program.
- [07-10-2007] USING DIGITAL ELEVATION MAPS IN VUE INFINITE. DEMs or Digital Elevation Maps are a special kind of picture file which can be used to recreate the topography (mountains, valleys) of a known location on the globe. For example, you can tell Vue Infinite to create a terrain (a mountain) using a picture file. If the picture file is a DEM file of Lubbock, Texas, then the result will be a very accurate copy of Lubbock, showing highs and lows in the ground. You can scale the terrain as you wish, so that you can just zoom into the portion that you want. In this way you can have a very accurate replica of a physical location on the globe where you have a DEM file. Where do you find DEM files? The best news is that many of them are free from the United States Geological Survey. They are usually available in various resolutions (degree of detail), with high resolution files being very large to download. The Web site http://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/DEM/250/ contains by letter of the alphabet a list of various files which can be downloaded in gz form (zip programs will recognize this format and unzip them for you, giving you the DEM file; be sure to give it an extension of .DEM for it to work with Vue Infinite.). Vue Infinite gives you the option to blend the DEM file with a standard file using a slider. Set the slider to zero to have the resulting terrain be entirely from the DEM file. WANT TO USE DEMs BUT YOUR 3D SOFTWARE DOES NOT SUPPORT THEM? No problem, just create a terrain using your DEM in Vue Infinite and then export your terrain in your favorite format to the software you want to use. This is quick, easy and will give you a wide range of possibilities.
- [07-09-2007] IMPORTANCE OF TEXTURES. If you are new to 3D modeling, you may be unfamiliar with the term TEXTURE. As a quick definition you can think of a TEXTURE as a picture or image that you "stick onto your model" just like a DECAL. Nowadays you can find stickers of all kinds at the grocery store. Peel one off, put it on something and you are using a TEXTURE. So what's the big deal? Why are textures so important? Take a look at the two examples below. They were done in trueSpace using a flat SLAB (imagine a section of sidewalk just poured in concrete) and applying a texture. Very interesting results from just clicking on "give me a slab" and "stick this picture on the slab". That is just about all that was done here, and the results can look very sharp. [We actually did one more step, we applied a BUMP MAP as well as adding some lighting. These techniques will be discussed in a future hint.] Instead of taking a long time to create all the detail yourself, applying a TEXTURE might save you time and give your work nice results. Watch this space for more about TEXTURES.
- [07-06-2007] USING LIGHT PANELS IN VUE INFINITE. With version 6 of Vue Infinite a new kind of LIGHT was introduced in the software, a light panel. This is a very interesting "gadget". A light panel is like a rectangle of light. You can scale the dimensions and place it like any object in your Vue scene. You can control the POWER and COLOR, as well as numerous other settings. If you are modeling a room and you wish to make one of the walls a light, use a light panel. This will give you an entire wall surface as a light source, a flat panel that gives off uniform light. Find out more about light panels from the Vue Infinite reference manual which is installed on all 3D Lab workstations.
- [07-05-2007] PUT YOUR FACE ON A COMPUTER MODEL. Poser 7 can be used to "put your face" on a computer model. Read about the details for doing so in the Poser manual which is installed on the computer along with the software. You do your work in the FACE ROOM of Poser. What do you need to have with you in order to do this? Bring along two digital photographs of yourself (or whomever you want on the model): one should be a close-up face view and the other should be a side view. In the FACE ROOM you load your photographs and then make minor adjustments to "wrap" the face around the model. Some faces work very well, some will work less well. A different model choice may make it all work the best. But there are many controls for making many fine adjustments. Once you have place a face on a computer model, you can animate or pose the model. You can use the Talk Designer to have the face talk, speaking your own recorded voice. Investigate the possibilities in the 3D Animation Lab. Have some fun with this Poser option.
