This script contains step-by-step instructions for the projects covered in the Ray Dream Video Tutorial on 3D Illustration. These instructions are minimal, as they are intended to be used in conjunction with the video. You will probably not be able to complete the projects satisfactorily by using these instructions alone.
To order the Ray Dream Video Tutorial, contact Ray Dream directly at 1-800-846-0111.
Before you begin, make sure you have the following files loaded on your hard drive, in a place you can easily find:
1. Shader file Video.sha
2. Files: Greet.ai, NM.ai and canopy.ai
3. Texture maps - wood and cloud 9
All of these files can be found inside the folder called Video on your Ray Dream CD.
One last thing before we get started. Ray Dream Studio is fully compatible with both Macintosh and Windows. Throughout the demo we'll be switching back and forth between the two platforms- Windows and Macintosh. Ray Dream Studio and Ray Dream Designer are exactly the same on both platforms, this won't affect your ability to follow along. This tutorial is designed to complement the tutorial in Chapter 3 of your manual. If you haven't done that tuturial, we suggest you complete it before going any further so that you'll get the maximum benefit from your video.
Let's begin. I've already launched the Ray Dream application and created a new, empty scene. You can see it here on my screen.
The scene we'll be creating is called "New Mexico Postcard". It's a simple scene composed of a covered wagon, some cactus, text and a beautiful sunset.
Wagon Body
The first thing we're going to do is change some preferences in the modeling window. Let's go to File, Preferences and select modeling. This is where you'd adjust the grid spacing, etc. I'm going to turn Snap To on.
With Snap to on, points will aline or snap to the nearest grid interesection, making it a bit easier to create the shapes we need.
1. Drag a new free form object into the hierarchy window. Name the object "Wagon Body". This opens up the modeling window. Our wagon body is a simple U-shape extruded along the sweep path.
2. Switch to Drawing Plane view and turn off previews.
3. Select a simple rectangle from the toolbar.
4. Draw a rectangle on the plane and center it.
5. Next go to Arrange-Ungroup. Ungrouping allows us to work with the individual points on this object.
6. Select the add point tool and add four new points to the rectangle. Now we turn our rectangle into the basic u shape we need by using the selection tool and pulling the added points into a new position.
Clicking off the object once allows us to work with one point at a time.
We now have a simple U shaped object on the drawing plane.
Let's return to the reference view and see how that looks by turning the preview back on.
It looks great, but it could use a little more depth. Let's click and drag on the end point of the sweep path and extrude this object a little more. With Snap to enabled, our sweep path conforms to a straight line.
Click done and jump back out into the modeling window. Select Center Hot Point.
That's one way to create a the basic wagon body. But to give you an idea of Ray Dream's flexibility, we're going to create that shape two more times using different modeling techniques.
1. Once again, drag a free form icon into the hierarchy window.
2. This time, draw a rectangle on the drawing plane this way.
3. Center it in the modeling window.
4. Click on the pen tool and draw a U-shaped sweep path.
Remember, in using the pen tool on the sweep path, the first click of the mouse is always the second point of your sweep path.
Now switch to the left hand view. Something is obviously wrong - although we have sides that have depth, the floor of the wagon is flat. We can fix by changing the Extrusion method from a translation to a pipeline.
In a translation extrusion, every part of our object is perpendicular to the botton plane of the modeling box. In pipeline extrusions, every part of our object is perpendicular to the sweep path.
5. Click done and jump back into the perspective.
If we look at them side by side, they appear identical. Neither method is better to use - it all depends upon which is best for the illustration you're working on.
Now we going to create a wagon body using a yet a different method. This wagon will have the same U shaped body, but will also have a back on it.
1. Drag a free form object onto the Hierarchy window.
2. On the drawing plane, draw a rectangle and center it..
3. Choose Create from the Section menu to create a second cross section.
4. Choose Create multiple cross sections and enter one as the number of sections to create. You now have a rectangle with 3 cross sections.
5. Choose No Preview from the View menu - this will make it easier to manipulate the cross sections.
6. Choose go to from the section menu and go to cross section 2.
7 From the section menu choose show...current. We're now looking at and working with only the current cross section.
8. Choose Preset View - Drawing plane. Select the pen tool and draw a u-shaped piece on Cross section 2.Having the snap to option on during this procedure really helps aline the points.
After completing the U select Group the U.
9. Go back to reference view and select Show all cross sections.
The procedure we're going to use now is called Shape Numbering.
Shape numbering is a powerful tool that allows you to work with multiple shapes on cross sections, while controlling how the shapes interact with one another. When you work with multiple shapes, shapes with corresponding numbers sweep or extrude one to the other. Shapes with different numbers will not fill one to the other.
10. Select and copy the U-shape on cross section 2, go the the next cross section (3) and delete the rectangle on that cross-section. Now paste the U shape on that cross section.
11. Turn on shape numbering. The rectangles on cross sections 1 and 2 should be Shape 1. The u-shapes on sections 2 and 3 should be Shape 2. To edit a shape number simply click on it.
If you find that your shape number boxes are one right on top to the other, simply select one shape and move it to the side. After you change the shape number, just move it back to its original position.
We've now created a wagon body with a back. Look at all three side by side. None of these is neccessarily the best or only way to accomplish creating this shape. Your job in working with Ray Dream's modeling tools is to use the technique that works for you.
Move all three seats off to the side and choose Make Invisible so that we aren't distracted while working on our other objects. Invisible objects are italicized in the hierarchy window.
Wagon Seats
Let's move on to the wagon seat.
Up to now, we've worked with simple extruded shapes without any envelopes. For the first example of a wagon seat, I'm going to introduce envelopes.
Scaling envelopes allow you to specify how an objects surface should curve from one cross section to the next, giving you precise control over the objects form.
1. Drag a free form icon onto the perspective window.
2. Draw a simple rectangle.
3. Select Envelope, symmetrical in plane.
These blue lines are our scaling envelopes. When I select the symmetrical in plane option, the two envelope lines on this plane mirror one another or are symmetrical, and the envelope lines on the botton plane are symmetrical to one another.
4. Add a point to the envelope and create this shape.
5. Now take that same point on the bottom and bow out the sides of the seat.
We've now created an object by working with non-symmetrical envelopes.
Let's create a different version of the wagon seat, one that uses two shapes instead of one. Sometimes you'll find that working with multiple shapes in groups is easier and produces better results than using one shape alone.
1. Drag a free form object onto the perspective window, name it Seat Back
2. Draw a simple rectangle on the drawing plane.
3. Bring your sweep path back to 1 grid space in depth.
4. Click done to return to the perspective window.
1. Drag a free form object into the perspective window, name it Seat Bottom
2. Draw a small rectangle on the drawing plane.
3. Turn on Symmetrical envelopes.
Previously, we worked with a non-symmetrical envelope, now, when we work with a symmetrical envelope, manipulating one envelope line causes the other three to reflect that change.
4. Using the add point tool, add two points to the envelope.
5. Adjust the points
6. Click done.
In the perspective window, arrange the seat back and seat like this.
1. Select the 2D rotation tool and tilt the seat back
2. Using the appropriate views, line up the seat back with the seat.
3. Select Group.
The bounding box changes to indicate that these two items are now grouped. In the hierarchy menu is a new group, Group 1. Click on it and hit return to name it: Wagon Seat 2.
Wheels/Hub
We're now going to create wagon wheels in 3 different ways.
1. Drag a free form object onto the perspective window, switch to drawing plane
2. Select the oval tool and holding down the shift key, draw a circle on the drawing plane.
3. Go to View Grids and turn off the snap to function
4. Draw a second circle inside the first circle.
5. Ungroup the first circle
6. Add additional points around the circle
7. Group the circle
8. Select both circles
9. Select Make Compound
10. Go back to reference view and bring the sweep path back to a length of 1 grid.
11. Click done.
Compounding shapes is like grouping them, with one significant difference - any shape which is completely enclosed by another in the same compound creates a cutout in the larger shape. When a compound is extruded, the inner shapes create holes through the extrusion.
A second way to create a wheel is thru envelopes.
1. Drag free form object, turn off snap to
2. Draw a circle on the drawing plane
3. Pull sweep path back to one grid
4. Center object
5. Turn on envelopes - symmetrical
6. Go to left view
7. Draw sweep path.
8. Go to reference view
9. Select cross section options
10. Turn Fill off
Turning off Fills on cross sections is a great way to create hollow shapes.
A third way to create a wheel
1. Drag free form object
2. Draw a small rectangle on the drawing plane
3. Select Make Torus
4. Enter a diameter of 12.
None of these wheels is better or worse that any other -its just a question of which way works for you.
Wheel Construction
Spoke
1. Drag free form object
2. Draw a square on the drawing plane
3. Create cross section
Now you have a spoke for your wheel. But let's use a few techniques that will give a slightly more detailed spoke.
The first thing we're going to do is rotate the shape on the first cross section only.
1. Select the oval on the first cross section
2. Go to Rotate and rotate 90 CW, twist surface
This gives us nice twist to our spoke. Next, we're going to make it taper from one end to the other by scaling the cross section on the first plane only.
1. Select the square on the first cross section.
2. Go to scale and scale it 75%. This will make the first cross section 25% smaller than the last cross section.
Now let's quickly create some finishing pieces
Axle
1. Free form
2. Select polygon
3. Five sided polygon
4. Extrude
Hub
1. Free form
2. Select circle
3. Bring sweep path back
4. Center object on drawing plane
5. Choose symmetrical envelope
6. Add point to envelope
7. Shape like this.
Build Wheel
Now we're going to arrange some pieces to form a completed wheel. To help us with aligment we're going to turn on the axis indicators. These are visual represetations or x.y and z for each object in your scene. Go to Preferences, perspective window and turn them on.
Make sure the hot points of both the wheel and the hub are centered. Let's use the compound wheel. Open the numerical palette and resize the wheel rim to
x: 30
y: 3
z: 30
We're going to use the alignment tool to center the hub inside the wheel. Choose alignment and align on hot point for all three axes.
Group the Wheel and hub and name it Wheel.
Arrange your spoke by:
1. Use the 2d rotation tool to orient it in the same direction as the hub and wheel.
2. Use the align tools to Contact box min on X, align on hotpoint for Y and Z.
The box minimum constraint allows you to align objects using their bounding boxes as guides. Box minimum is the edge of the bounding box with the lower coordinate value.
3. If necessary, resize the spoke y axis, first turning off the Keep Proportions button.
Objects can be resized proportionately, which means that changing one dimensions changes all three, or non-proportionately, which allows you to alter one value without changing the others.
Now we're going to duplicate the spokes all the way around the wheel. To do this
1. Duplicate the spoke.
2. Using the numerical palette, change the roll value to 30
Yaw, pitch and roll values are always expressed in degrees.
Since I wanted the spokes to be spaced evenly all around the wheel, I arrived at the 30 figure by dividing the 360 degrees of a circle by 12. To help determine whether you want to change roll, pitch or yaw, you can use your axes indicators.
3. Duplicate the spoke whose position you just changed, without deselecting or doing anything else.
RDS has the ability to replicate an item, remembering changes in orientation, size and positioning relative to the object it has just been duplicated from.
4. Now duplicate that spoke all the way around the hub - we want to end up with 12 spokes.
Congratulations! The wheel is complete! Now we're going to move on to grouping it, so that we can work with it as one object.
Grouping the Wheel
1. In the hierarchy window, shift-click to select the wheel rim, wheel hub and all 12 spokes.
You can also drag a marquee around a group to select it.
2. Select Group.
3. A Group will be created in the hierarchy window named group 2. To rename it, hit return or enter while it is selected.
4. Name the group - Wheel.
Wheel Base
1. Open the numerical palette, and with the wheel selected, enter the coordinates 0,0,0. We've just sent the wheel group to the center of the working box.
2. Duplicate the wheel.
3. The duplicates appear in the hierarchy window.
4. Rename the duplicate Wheel 2
What we want here is to position these wheels so that the wagon body fits in between them. Let's move our wagon body into place to use as a reference. Let's use the 3rd wagon body we created, the one with the back. We can just delete the others.
Position the wagon body next to the Wheel, like this.
With the Wagon Body selected, open the numerical palette, if it isn't still open. We want to size the wagon to:
x= 40
y= 60
z=27
Now let's use our aligment tools to correctly space the wheels.
1. Select Wheel 2 in the hierarchy window and move it slightly away from wheel 1
2. Click on wheel 1 and then shift click on wheel 2.
3. Pull up the alignment dialog box.
X=space 48
y=align hot point
z=align hot point
4. Group these two wheels and name them Wheels Back
5. Duplicate the Wheels Back group abd then rename it Wheels Front.
6. Move it slightly off the first group.
7. Using the alignment menu, align on hot point for z and x and space 35" for y
Spacing for objects is measured from hot point to hot point.
Alignment is applied to objects relative their position to each other's hot point. If I begin with the wheel group's hot point on the other side, the same aligment values produce this result.
Wagon Seat
Now select the wagon seats you created by clicking them in the hierarchy window and making them visible.
Delete Wagon Seat 1.
Move Wagon Seat two into place.
Now is a good time to save your file. After you do that, take a break for a moment if you'd like.
Canopy
We're now going to build the final piece of our wagon - the Canopy.
1. Drag a free form object onto the hierarchy window.
2. Go to File-import and get the file called canopy.ai. Scale the canopy by 75% in both directions.
Ray Dream can import outlines from Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw and others to use as the basis for creating models. The advantages of this is that it allows you to use a drawing program's more sophisticated tools as the basis of Ray Dream's modeler.
3. Increase the sweep path depth.
4. Switch to left hand view
5. Convert the points at each end of the sweep path to curves and arc the sweep path slightly.
6. Change the extrusion method from translation to pipeline
7. Turn on free envelopes
With Free envelopes, each envelope line can be shaped independantly of one another. To maintain the relationship between the sweep path and the envelope, when you add a point to the scaling envelope, a point is also added to the sweep path. Likewise, when you delete a point from the envelope, the corresponding point is deleted from the sweep path. You may move points on separate envelopes lines or on the sweep path, but only in one plane at a time.
8. Add 5 curve points to the top envelope line and adjust them so that the top envelope looks like material draped over a rim, which is what the canopy on a wagon really does.
9. Adjust points on the bottom envelope to form a straight line, as if the material was gathered at the bottom.
10. Switch back to reference view.
11. Click done.
12. With the numerical palette, size the canopy to 46, 75, 46.
13. Using projections, place the canopy on top of the wagon.
Lets group our wagon by selecting all its components and selecting Group. Name this group - Wagon. And let's also delete anything we're not using so that we end with a clean hierarchy window.
Shading
Now that we've completed the main parts of our wagon, let's move on to shading. Ray Dream's shader editor allows you to control attributes in eight different channels, color, highlight, shininess, bump, reflection, refraction, transparancy and glow. These channels are explained in more detail in Chapter 7 of your manual.
The first thing we're going to do is build a shader for our wagon. Let's look at the rendered image: the effect we want is weathered wood. Let's build that shader.
1. Go to the shader browser and open the shader family called video.sha.
2. Select New Shader and Name it: Wagon Wood
3. Drag the new shader (it will be red) to the Video family.
4. Double click on it to open the Shader editor.
5. This shader is going to begin with a mix function.
6. The first item in our mix is a texture map, so select Texture map from the components menu and find the texture map called Oak2.tif from the shader folder on your Ray Dream Studio CD.
7. Tile this texture 12 times horizontally and vertically. We use tiling when we want the pattern to appear smaller on the object. Choose seamlessly so that the pattern will appear smooth, with no obvious lines between tiles.
8. In our second channel of information, we're going to also use a mix function. Make the first, or left color a dark grey and the second color a light gray.
What we've asked the shader editor to do is to mix the procedural spot shader with the Oak texture map. In order to apply this, we've got to tell it how to mix. To do this, we drop a value bar here and set the value to approx 40. This tells our shader editor to take 40% of the texture map and mix it with 60% of the gray spots.
9. Now add value sliders to highlight, shininess, reflection, transparency, refraction and glow, leaving their values set to 0. We now have a matte finish, weathered wood look.
So far, we've left the bump channel alone. Now we're going to add a function to it to make our wagon wood look even more realistic.
The bump channel is excellent for adding texture and depth to your shaders. Look around and notice that in real life, things are rarely totally smooth. Often, too smooth a shader will result in a "plastic" look to your objects.
We're going to use the wires function in the bump channel to make our wagon look like its been constructed of planks of weathered wood.
Let's first apply what we have so far to the body of the wagon.
1. Go the hierarchy window and click to open up the Complete Wagon group.
2. To see the effect of the wire bump map we're creating, double click on the wagon body and then apply the shader in the modeling window.
3. Select better preview
4. In the bump channel, bring the vertical wire count and width to 0, the horizontal count to 30 and the height to 15. Click apply and see what effect this has. The wagon now looks like it has planks.
5. Click done to return to the perspective window.
6. Jump into the wagon seat and apply the stripes vertically 10 times at 15% to the seat and 15 times at 15% to the seat back.
Textures apply to objects differently depending upon how they are created.
Now we're going to apply our wood texture to the wheel. Although you've created the wheel and duplicated pieces of it, you only need to apply your texture to the master of an object for that teture to be applied to all of the instances of that object.
The master object is the "mold" from which objects are duplicated. If a master object modified, all of the objects derived from it are modified as well. If only the object is modified, then the change affects only that object.
In order to apply our wood shader to the Masters of the wheel and spokes, we're going to go the masters tab in the hierarchy box.
1. Double click on the Wagon Wheel.
2. Drag and drop the Wagon Wood shader onto the wheel.
3. We are also going to apply a paint shape to the wheel, giving it a metal rim.
4. Select the paint shape tool
5. Holding down the Alt/option key, draw a metal rim all the way around the wheel.
6. To apply the shape with a little more control, select Object properties
7. Choose the shader tab.
8. Select the shader.
9. Enter a value of .53 for width and 19.35 for height. Thiswill fit your paint shape more closely to the object.
The length of the sweep path is always equal to width. Height is equal to the distance around the cross section.
You can also move a paint shape by selecting the paint shape selection tool and moving a paint shape by hand.
Apply the hub metal shader to the master of the hub. Apply the Wagon Wood Shader to the master of the spoke.
For the Canopy shader duplicate the white shader in the colors family. Drag the duplicate shader to the video family and double click the shader to open the shader editor. Put values in all the channels expect bump and leave them set to zero. In the bump channel we're going to use the spots function again to make our canvas more realistic.
Set the spot size to approx. 30 and the blending to approx. 73. Switch to the glow channel and turn the glow up to approx. 7, which will make the canopy seem slightly luminous.
Go to masters and double click to jump into the canopy, then drag and drop the Canopy shader onto the canopy.
Click done to return to the perspective window, switch to the objects tab of the hierarchy and close the wagon group.
Terrain
To create the horizon you see in the Postcard, we're going to use a cylinder as the basis for the terrain. First change to preview from better preview, then make the wagon invisible.
1. Drag and drop the cylinder tool onto the hierarchy window
2. With the cylinder selected, open the numerical properties dialog box.
3. Enter these values: x-1000, y - 1000 and z- 3. Set the z height to -15. Remember to uncheck the Keep Proportions check box.
4. Switch to top view (magnification 4) and using the 2d rotation tool, rotate the wagon like this.
5. Switch to front view.
6. Drag and drop the Sand shader onto the cylinder.
Adding Cactus
Open the Object file. Drag and drop the cactus into the hierarchy window.
1. Stretch the cactus until it is a little taller than the wagon.
2. Switch to top view and duplicate the cactus 3 times.
3. Move the duplicate cactus to new positions and using the 2d rotation tool, alter their positions.
4. Switch to front view. Open the camera properties dialog box and switch from isometric to conical view.
Isometric cameras provide a view in which object size is not related to distance from the camera-there is no vanishing point.
Add Text
1. Drag a free form onto the hierarchy window and import Greetings.ai
2. Bring the sweep path depth back to 2 grid and drag and drop the blue shader onto it.
3. Click done.
4. Using the numerical properties dialog box, increase the x size to 200, the y size to 8 and the z size to 45. Change the pitch to 15.00 and the roll to -25. Move them into place using the selection tool.
1. Drag a free form onto the hierarchy window and import New Mexico.ai.
2. Bring the sweep path depth back to 1 grid and drag and drop the stucco shader onto it.
3. Click done.
4. Using the numerical properties dialog box, increase the x size to 200, the y size to 9 and the z size to 30. change the roll to -14.00
5. Switch to conical view and Move the letters on the y axis forward to 200.
6. Use the selection tool to move the letters to the appropriate position.
Lights
Drag a light onto the hierarchy window.
1. Change the light to a distant light, from the back. Make it a nice pink color.
2. Click ok and then select and delete light 1.
Use the render preview tool to see if your scene is lit correctly.
If the cactus appear too dark, as they do here, drop a second distant light onto the hierarchy window. Bring the shadows down to 0 and the brightness down to about 20%. Choose a light gray as its color.
Check your render preview again.
Backgrounds
For this file, we're going to use a backdrop.
1. Go to render effects and choose backdrop. Select the texture map Cloud 9 and click ok.
Backdrops are not reflected in the scene - they are merely static. Reflected backgrounds can be seen on reflective objects in the scene. These two files illustrate the difference.
Using cameras
1. Click on the camera tool.
2. Zoom out until you see the production frame.
3. Hold down the control key to zoom into the picture.
4. Using the dolly, pan and track views, adjust the view until it looks like this.
Dolly allows you to rotate your view around the center of the universe or around a selected object in the scene. Pan moves the camera up and down or side to side, like looking around a room by moving your head from side to side. Tracking moves the entire camera from side to side. Adjust the camera until the scene looks like our postcard.
Congratulation! You are now ready to render your scene!
