Modeling Class - Day 2 Interface

[rgarber]

Welcome back, and please be seated.

As you know, attendance is voluntary, participation is voluntary but the bulk of the teaching comes from you all. It has been my experience that people best participate, learn and stay involved when the students themselves do the teaching. The course material is pretty easy. In fact, modeling is fairly easy. But learning new software on top of everyday life is a struggle and it's so easy to want to plunge in without really learning the interface. And as much as we love to push buttons first and ask questions later, today, we're gonna do the interface first.

Let's take a look at the 3DC 7.1.2 interface first.

Interface.jpg

Yikes! That's intimidating when you first look at it, isn't it? Lots of buttons and tiny to boot. I'm almost convinced the designer of the interface must've been a midget with really good eyes.

So let's begin.

Your classwork assignment follows. In the following picture of the interface, subsections of the interface are lettered. Pick a letter for your post, include a picture (optional) as you detail what that subsection does. You can be brief or you can be detailed but your job is to instruct the basics of what that section does. Do not write a manual, just a short brief description and include the title of that subsection along with the letter. You may end up duplicating someone else's post, that's fine.

What I'm suggesting is in the following posts after this one that the subsections are listed making for an easy read and a brief intro to the interface. As the subsections are listed I will repost this picture with the subsections listed as the subsections are completed.

Feel free to discuss your experience with the subsection you've written. Something like if you use those features a lot in that section, or whatever. Ver 8 users, feel free to do the same for version 8. I'll have version 8 installed tomorrow and have a pic of the same shortly.

Here's the picture of the interface again but lettered.

Interface - lettered.jpg

To repeat... pick a letter and write a brief description (and anything else you like) and post that description along with a more detailed picture explaining the particulars if you feel so motivated. Words like thingy and "that squiggly thing" are entirely appropriate. Half the things I use I don't even know the names of. This is everyday language used here but no colorful metaphors please.

Folks, there's your Day 2 assignment. Have fun and let's see the enthusiasm continue.

Rich

[Trainguy76]

Okay, I guess i'll start.

Letter G,

The X,Y, and Z buttons.

These buttons allow you to limit the directions your focus(object, face, etc) moves or changes. For example, I want to change the shape of an object without making or moving it higher, I would click the Y button, and then it is impossible to move or change the object in the Y direction.

[rgarber]

Excellent Alex, and thanks! This feature we use a lot! Great tool for making precision-like changes. Let's say you want to move a box only to the left without moving the box up or down. You click on the Y and Z buttons to restrain those axes and the box will only move along the X axis. - Rich

[artimrj]

Well I will try B Object layers, however in my version of 3DC it is called Shape Layers.

This is a list of everything you do in the scene on your screen. Place a cube and a new entry is made in the list. Extrude or scale it and those are also placed in the list. The newest item goes on top. So you are layering your work. Each line also has a check box. If you uncheck it, that piece or operation will be taken away from the scene. Clicking it again turns it back on. It is sorta like an UNDO function.

layerbox.jpg

Below the actual listing window are 5 buttons. From left to right beginning with the curved arrows is UPDATE, COMPACT, MOVE UP, MOVE DOWN and DELETE. If you hilite a linies you can use these buttons to do one of those 5 things.

Below the buttons is the PARAMETERS window. Whatever you do has some type of parameters. When you hilite an item in the Layers list, the parameter window changes to reflect that operation. You can then adjust the parameters to adjust your model at that point in the modelling.

layersbox2.jpg

At this time I am unsure as to what the COMPACT button does.

[rgarber]

Excellent Bob!

[sleepyto]

I'll try D.

Primitives.jpg

This is the primitives selection panel. Here you can select one of the primitives and insert it into your drawing. There you will have the basic shape to adjust as you please. A lot more to it bt thats the general idea I believe.

John

[Trainguy76]

At this time I am unsure as to what the COMPACT button does.

Compact removes all of those layers to make loading time faster, I would recommend using this only after you are done with a complex object.

[SMMDigital]

A - The Properties and Information Panel.

This panel produces a list of objects and their properties within your current work scene. When working with an asset, it's components, as well as it's Groups, will be shown here. You can also set properties for lighting (Abient, Point Light, and Directionals) as well as the Animation Camera. Especial useful is the third tab from the left, where you can set material properties, as well as coordinate positions for each object or Group.

[rgarber]

Just to add a little to previous post, the list is known as the heirarchy and the properties boxes are opened by right-clicking on the object name and a menu appears (in v7). Object Properties in 7 is pretty close to the same in v8 of 3DC, pictured below.

Object Properties in v7.jpg

Rich

[Toldrabald]

M

letter_m.jpg

With the navigation control on left you move your camera around the screen, click with your mouse on one of them and drag in any direction. The green part moves the camera up or down, the area directly at the red arrow moves around the screen, the first area right of the red part rotates the cam around the current viewpoint, the most right area is for zooming (move mouse towards or away from you) and for panning (left or right movement). If you click directly on the colored areas it rotates the view around the selected axis, if you click on the intersection point of the axis you can rotate the cam freely in all directions.

The right area only appears if you have an object selected and manipulates it. Note the different colors in that area, the lighter grey areas in the front moves the object around, the darker ones changes the size of the object in the particular direction (width or height). The direction in which the object is changed, is different by the angle you look on it. By clicking on the arrows you can rotate the object in the same way as your viewpoint, the intersection point is again for free rotation.

letter_m2.jpg

In the other views the navigation control is used for moving around and zooming (right panel)

You can also change some properties of the object by double clicking on the navigation control on the right, depending on what kind of object you have. I've tried around with it a bit but could not find out what is exactly changed by this, except for inner radius of the donut. Oh: and do not try to do too drastic changes there, program crashed two times by setting too high values

Edit: note that all my description refers to the 3D view on Rich's screen in the upper left. (I seem to miss the others, freeware restriction?)
Edit 2: updated post after setting up the 4 panel view and changed the name of the function to it's real one

[artimrj]

I just want to add 1 small comment on the M to add to Toldrabald's excercise, (can I know your first name?). It's real name is the Navigation Control. And when you select an object in the scene the Edit Control appears on the lower right side.

One more thing to the Teacher. I only have 1 window showing also. Were we supposed to make 4 screens? I hope I wasn't sleeping in class

[Toldrabald]

My name's Matze, you can see in the day 1 thread but thanks for reminding me to put it on at least in this thread under my posts And navigation control seemed to be just to easy as a name for that function.

[rgarber]

@Bob,

Here ya go (wasn't sure you was asking how to make different screen views... but no, no particular setup is necessary for this):

screen-selection.jpg

From the top menu bar, select View. The small box on the right opens and you can select window variation by clicking on it. The panes are adjustable as well by running the mouse over the perimeter and dragging the pane edge whichever way you need to go.

Rich

[johnybgood18]

Ok, let's try this with "C" (Guess I picked the most complex one).

In 3DC 8.2, it seems to be called "Shape Operations" as opposed to "Object Operations".

3DC-002a.jpg

When you have an item that you are working on, when you click on it, this little panel becomes avalable. You can then modify the selected object in various ways, altho, most of this is way too complicated for me right now!

3DC-002b.jpg

Hopefully, someone will be able to add to this basic info!

Christian

[rgarber]

That's good Christian, appreciate it.

Folks, keep at it. Here's a glimpse of the payoff... my newest building in-game for the steel mill (farthest right).

sm2-g-ingame.jpg

Rich