Teach Yourself
CorelDRAW 8 in 24 Hours
In the last 22 hours, you have extensively covered CorelDRAW and have been introduced to Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Now in the twenty-third hour, you encounter another tool in the Corel Suite of products called Corel Dream 3D. Dream 3D is unlike both CorelDRAW and Corel PHOTO-PAINT.
In Dream 3D, a world is filled with three-dimensional objects (or an object), lights are set up to light up the creation, and then a virtual camera is used to take a picture of the scene. Taking this picture, in 3D jargon, is called rendering. The image that is created from the picture is a bitmap that can be used as is or can be further manipulated by PHOTO-PAINT or used within CorelDRAW.
Just A Minute: To model an object in Dream 3D is to say that you create the object.
An environment is all those things that make up the three-dimensional world other than the objects and direct lights.
When Corel Dream 3D starts, it asks to create an empty scene, open an existing scene, or use the Scene Wizard to create a scene. For our purposes, let's choose Create an Empty Scene. Dream 3D's environment (Figure 23.1) is similar to that of CorelDRAW and PHOTO-PAINT.
Dream 3D.
Clicking on the X control of a window can close each of the windows in the work area. If the Perspective window is closed, then the file is closed and you will be asked to save the current scene. The other windows can be opened and closed at will without closing the current scene.
To open a closed Shaders Browser window, for example, select Windows | Shaders Browser. You can also maximize or minimize the Perspective or Hierarchy windows by clicking on the window control handles in the upper-right corner of each window. These windows can be reopened using the Windows menu. To reset the entire work environment to a default setting, select Windows | Workspace and then select a default screen resolution size.
The Perspective window is a view of the Dream 3D world in which you create your scenes. Each scene can be saved (choose File | Save or Save As) or loaded back into Dream 3D. For every scene that is loaded, a new Perspective window is created to hold that scene. In this window, you modify your scene by adding more lights, changing object positions, creating objects, and so on.
The Perspective window contains three planes (grid areas) (see Figure 23.2), which represent three-dimensional space. The plane to the left extends along the x-axis. The plane to the right extends along the y-axis. The plane on the bottom represents the plane perpendicular to the z-axis (the axis that goes top to bottom).
Dream 3D planes.
The red pyramidlike shape in the upper-left is a default lamp (or light) used to light up the scene when you take a picture of the scene. The red rectangular shapes are projections of the lamp onto the planes.
The Hierarchy window is a hierarchical display of all the objects in the current scene (or universe). You find a unique Hierarchy window for every scene that you open.
Objects can be grouped together and selected, and the object's properties modified using the Hierarchy window. To change the properties of an object, right-click on the object in the Hierarchy window and select Properties.
The Objects Browser window contains groups of predefined, Dream 3D objects and is categorized by folders: Home, Sports, Transport, and Tutorial.
You can add an object from the Object Browser into your scene by dragging the object to either the Perspective window or the Hierarchy window. You can also right-click on an object in the Objects Browser and select Open In New window. This creates a new Perspective window containing just the object from the Objects Browser window.
The Shaders Browser window contains the Object Shaders that you can apply to objects in your scene. Objects in the real world have all sorts of properties, such as roughness, shininess, transparency, color, and so on. These shaders are applied to objects to simulate real objects.
Just A Minute: The Main menu changes depending on the currently selected window. Make sure that the window you want to work in is the currently selected window before trying to access the menu for its commands.
Dream 3D's toolbox contains tools for creating and manipulating objects, lights, cameras, and applying paint shapes to objects.
In the following sections, you create a sphere object. This introduces you to some basic Dream 3D concepts, such as the bounding box and the object's projections on the planes.
You can create many objects in this way and position them above, below, in front, behind, inside of each other, and intersecting one another.
A sphere created in Dream 3D.
A black outline cube surrounds the sphere. This cube represents the outside boundaries of the sphere and is visible only on the currently selected object. You can drag each of the nodes on this object boundary box to distort the shape of the sphere.
CAUTION: Dream 3D only has one level of Undo, so you may find it helpful to save critical points of your scene to separate files so that you always have a backup to revert to.
The red pyramid lamp (or light object) in the top-left corner of the Perspective window is placed there by Dream 3D as a default light for a scene. Each object, including the lamp, has associated with the object red rectangle shapes on each of the planes. These rectangle shapes are projections. A projection is the silhouette of an object onto a plane. If you look directly at one of the planes, the red rectangle shape outlines the object on the plane.
You will also notice that, just like your lamp, you have projections of the outline of the boundaries of the sphere on all three planes. Drag the projection on the left-hand plane and watch as the sphere starts to float above the bottom plane. All three perspective projections are now visible. These projections are useful in manipulating the object in your three-dimensional scene; they are also useful for restrained scaling of objects.
The projections also help you to see the relative position of an object in relation to other objects and in relation to your planes (see Figure 23.4).
Notice the two spheres in this scene. The blue sphere is above the red sphere.
Just A Minute: Your universe can extend beyond the grid planes displayed in the Perspective window. The planes exist only for reference and will not render (will be invisible) in your final image when you take a picture of your scene.
The whole idea behind working in Dream 3D is to model a scene and then create an image of your scene. This image can then be incorporated into CorelDRAW or PHOTO-PAINT (or any other package that accepts bitmapped images).
Just A Minute: To view the area that a spot lamp illuminates, right-click on the lamp using the Selection tool. The result is a light cone that shows the area where the lamp illuminates.
Picture of your sphere.
Notice that our image of the sphere does not contain the lamp. Lamps, or lights, in Dream 3D only affect other objects. They are not visible themselves. If you want a lamp to be visible, you have to model a lamp and place the light into the place where the light bulb would be. Dream 3D lights are only point sources of light and hence are invisible. Their effects, however, are visible and are what cause the realistic effects in the finally rendered images.
Note a couple of things when viewing your scene: The quality of the image displayed while working on your scene, and that you can view your scene from different default view positions while creating it.
By default, when working in the Perspective window, objects display using Preview Quality mode. This mode uses a quick, but inaccurate, method of shading your scene. You can select the Preview Quality mode on the Standard toolbar along with the other viewing modes (see Figure 23.6).
The Preview Quality modes.
The quickest mode is the bounding box mode. This mode only displays the bounding box of objects and is best used in complex scenes. The slowest, but more accurate mode, is the Better Quality viewing mode. These modes do not affect the properties of the objects themselves; they just affect how you view them while working on them.
The Perspective window currently is a reference view of your scene. A reference view is a view on your scene that looks three dimensional; that is, it looks like there is depth to the scene. You can look at your scene in other ways by choosing View | Type and then selecting the kind of view you want of your scene. To get back to the Perspective, choose View | Type | Reference.
You have already seen that you can move objects using the Selection tool by moving their projections or by moving the object. You can also position objects numerically. Right-click on the sphere and select Numerical Properties (see Figure 23.7). Position the object to a new position by entering different values for x, y, and z and pressing Apply.
Object's numerical properties.
The origin of your universe is exactly in the middle of all the axes. Enter 0,0,0 for X, Y, and Z, and the object floats exactly in the middle of your planes. To move the object closer to the corner of the planes select -45, -45, -45. You can also scale, rotate, and distort the object by changing the values for Size and Yaw, Pitch, and Roll. Experiment with different values for these settings; notice that rotation of a sphere does not appear to change the object.
Just A Minute: Yaw, pitch, and roll are terms used to explain rotation around an axis. The z-axis goes from top to bottom and rotation around the z-axis is called yaw. The x-axis goes out toward the left. Rotation around this axis is called roll. The y-axis goes out toward the right and rotation around this axis is called pitch.
Object tool flyout.
To delete an object, select the object using the Selection tool, and press Delete on the keyboard, or right-click on the object and choose Delete. You can also delete the object by right-clicking on the object in the Hierarchy window.
To transform an object means changing an object's size by scaling the object and changing its general shape by using the Deformation tool. You can change the shape and size of objects in a number of ways by scaling the object bounding box or projections. You can also change the size and general shape of the object by modifying the Size values in the Numerical Properties box. You can also transform objects by right-clicking on an object and selecting Properties. The Properties Dialog box appears (see Figure 23.9).
Object Properties dialog box.
The same types of values that appear in the Numerical Properties window appear in the Transform tab of the Object Properties dialog box. A newcomer is the Hot-Point section. The hot point of an object is a black dot that can be seen in the center of an object boundary or as a hollow circle in a projection of an object.
The hot point is a reference point for transformations like the rotation and alignment of objects. To center the hot point of an object, choose Arrange | Center Hot Point. Or type 0, 0, 0 for the HX, HY, and HZ values in the Object Properties dialog box.
Another interesting transformation that can be applied to objects can be found under the Deformer tab in the Object Properties dialog box. Select the type of deformation (you can stretch, shatter, bend and twist, or scale an object), the type of preview (usually the Selected Object Preview gives the best preview), and the amount of the deformation.
You can use two tools to rotate an object: the Virtual Track Ball tool and the One Axis Rotation tool found in the flyout tool menu (see Figure 23.12).
A cube rotated around a repositioned hot point.
The Rotation tools.
Here you use an object from the object browser to experiment with the Virtual Track Ball tool.
Rotating using the Virtual Track Ball.
Here you rotate the bicycle along a specific axis using the One Axis Rotation tool.
Just A Minute: To constrain the angle of the rotation to 15 degree increments, hold down Control as you rotate the object.
The regular Cut, Paste, and Duplicate commands found in the Edit menu can be used for copying and duplicating objects. These same menu commands can be found by right-clicking on an object and selecting the desired action from the pop-up menu.
Duplicates are, by default, placed directly on top of the object being duplicated. If you duplicate an object and move it and then duplicate that object, Dream 3D moves the new duplicate the same amount as the previous movement. This is a handy feature for creating a row of the same object.
Using the One Axis Rotation tool.
To facilitate selecting objects, select the object in the Hierarchy window or select it in the Perspective window by using the Selection tool and holding the left mouse button down over the object for a couple of seconds. A small menu appears showing all the names of the objects located beneath the current cursor position, and you can then select the object you want.
To group objects, Shift-select the desired objects using the Selection tool and then choose Arrange | Group. The group appears in the Hierarchy window as an apparently new object named Group 1. Click on the plus sign next to the Group 1 object to display all the objects in the Hierarchy window that make up a group. You might select individual objects within the group and manipulate them without manipulating the entire group by selecting the object in the Hierarchy window and then modifying the object in the Perspective window.
Dream 3D comes with an Alignment tool that helps to align objects in three-dimensional space. To view the Alignment dialog box, select two objects and choose Arrange | Align Objects. The object that you first select has a red color bounding box (see Figure 23.15). Press the small arrow in the lower-right of the dialog box to expand it.
The Alignment dialog box and the red and blue anchor bounding boxes.
The red bounding box indicates that this object will not be moved, but that the other object(s) will be moved relative to this anchor object. To choose another object as the anchor object for aligning, press on the small red arrows in the Alignment dialog box.
The blue bounding box is also used as an anchor object, but only with the Distribute alignment option.
Expand the Alignment dialog box to show all three axes. Because you are working in three-dimensions, you can align in any direction in your scene. The following are the four different types of alignment:
In this hour, you were introduced to Dream 3D basic concepts, text objects, and built-in primitive objects. You learned to manipulate the objects within your scene by moving, aligning, transforming, and deforming the objects. You learned different ways to look at your scene from different views, and you took a picture of your scene that mom would be proud of.
The following steps create the image in Figure 23.16. This exercise creates some objects, aligns them, and takes a picture of them.
Figure 23.16.
Workshop image.
© Copyright, Macmillan Computer Publishing. All rights reserved.
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