Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Mastering

Autodesk

®

VIZ 2007

George Omura

Scott Onstott

Jon McFarland

72725book.fm Page i Monday, August 21, 2006 9:52 AM

File AttachmentC1.jpg

72725book.fm Page iii Monday, August 21, 2006 9:52 AM

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Mastering

Autodesk

®

VIZ 2007

George Omura

Scott Onstott

Jon McFarland

72725book.fm Page i Monday, August 21, 2006 9:52 AM

Acquisitions Editor: Willem Knibbe

Development Editor: Heather O’Connor

Technical Editor: Mark Gerhard

Production Editor: Sarah Groff-Palermo

Copy Editor: Sally Engelfried

Production Manager: Tim Tate

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher: Joseph B. Wikert

Vice President and Publisher: Dan Brodnitz

Permissions Editor: Shannon Walters

Media Development Specialist: Kate Jenkins

Book Designers: Maureen Forys and Judy Fung

Compositor: Craig Woods, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Proofreader: Nancy Riddiough

Indexer: Ted Laux

Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed

Cover Image: © Pete Gardner/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN-13: 978-0-470-07272-1

ISBN-10: 0-470-07272-5

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianap-olis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strat-egies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a compe-tent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

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TRADEMARKS: Wiley, the Wiley logo, and the Sybex logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. Autodesk is a registered trade-mark of Autodesk, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Dear Reader

Thank you for choosing Mastering VIZ 2007. This book is part of a family of premium quality Sybex graphics books, all written by outstanding authors who combine practical experience with a gift for teaching.

Sybex was founded in 1976. Thirty years later, we’re still committed to producing consistently exceptional books. With each of our graphics titles we’re working hard to set a new standard for the industry. From the paper we print on, to the writers and CAD professionals we work with, our goal is to bring you the best books available.

I hope you see all that reflected in these pages. I’d be very interested to hear your comments and get your feedback on how we’re doing. To let us know what you think about this or any other Sybex book, please send me an email at: sybex_publisher@wiley.com. Please also visit us at

www.sybex.com

to learn more about the rest of our growing graphics line.

Best regards,

Dan BrodnitzVice President and PublisherSybex, an Imprint of Wiley

72725book.fm Page iii Monday, August 21, 2006 9:52 AM

Acknowledgments

This book covers a topic that has always been one of my favorites, so I am glad to have the opportunity to be involved as the author. But many other people have helped bring this book to you, and they cer-tainly deserve recognition. I’d first like to thank Willem Knibbe for his early efforts in making this book a reality and helping to keep it alive. I’d like to thank the many members of ELS Architecture and Plan-ning with whom I’ve had the great pleasure to work: Clarence Mamuyac, Ed Noland, Jamie Rusin, Bruce Bullman, and David Petta all contributed samples from their projects for reproduction in this book. The 3D modeling work of Jeff Zieba, Chris Jung, and William Gordon appears in a number of the ELS renderings as well. I would also like to give a special thanks to David Fawcett for including me in so many great 3D projects. At Autodesk, a special thanks to Jim Quanci for his help and positive encouragement in the early stages of this book, and to Denis Cadu for his help in obtaining software. Thanks also goes to Shaan Hurley for keeping me up to date on the beta software.

—George Omura

First off, I would like to thank George Omura and Scott Onstott; revising their book has been an incredible opportunity and experience. I’d like to thank Willem Knibbe and Sybex for giving me this opportunity. Thanks to Heather O’Connor for keeping me on track and on schedule through-out the process and to Mark Gerhard for his knowledgeable suggestions and his exacting work locating my errors and omissions. Thank you also Sarah Groff-Palermo, our trusty Production Editor, and Craig Woods, our diligent compositor.

This book could not have been done without Denis Cadu, program manager of the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN), who provided access to the VIZ, AutoCAD, and Architectural Desktop beta builds.

Finally, and most important, I want to thank my beautiful wife, Lucy, and my sons, Zach and Jacob, for their support and understanding and for showing me what is truly important.

—Jon McFarland

To my children—George Omura

To my loving partner, Jenn—Scott Onstott

To my loving wife, Lucy, and my sons, Zach and Jacob—Jon McFarland

72725book.fm Page iv Monday, August 21, 2006 9:52 AM

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

Chapter 1 • Getting to Know VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introducing VIZ 2007 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Touring the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Main Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3The Main Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Docked and Floating Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Toolbar Flyouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Tool Palettes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Tools for Working with the Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Tools for Working with Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Getting to Know the Command Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Understanding VIZ’s Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Working with Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Selecting and Moving Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Rotating and Scaling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Copying an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Selecting Multiple Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Naming Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Editing Named Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Getting the View You Want . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Understanding the Perspective Viewing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Using Multiple Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Changing the Viewport Display and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Working with the Custom UI and Defaults Switcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Chapter 2 • Introducing VIZ Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Understanding Standard Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Adjusting an Object’s Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Accessing Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Introducing the Standard Primitive Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Modeling Standard Primitives with Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Adding a Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Accessing Modifier Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Inserting Modifiers Where You Want Them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Using the Modifier Stack Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

How VIZ Sees Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

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vi

CONTENTS

Making Clones That Share Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Creating an Instance Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Creating a Reference Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Scaling and Rotating Objects with Transform Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Making a Clone Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Cloning a Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Introducing Extended Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91Modeling a Couch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Working with Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Grouping the Components of the Couch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Working within Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Disassembling Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Chapter 3 • Creating Shapes with Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Drawing with Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Drawing Straight-Line Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Constraining Lines Vertically and Horizontally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Drawing Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109Lathing a Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Modifying a Shape Using Subobject Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Adjusting the Lathe Axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Flipping Surface Normals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Smoothing Spline Corners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116Adjusting Tangent Handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Creating Thickness with a Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Outlining and Extruding Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Drawing Accurate Line Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Giving Walls Thickness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Using Grids and Snaps to Align Objects Accurately . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Adjusting a Wall Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Combining and Extruding Primitive Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140Combining Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Joining Closed Splines with Boolean Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146Creating a Solid Form with Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Introducing the Spline Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Editing Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157Placing and Beveling Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Chapter 4 • Editing Meshes and Creating Complex Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Creating Openings in a Wall with Boolean Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Hiding Shapes That Get in the Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166Creating the Shape of the Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168Subtracting the Opening from the Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169Creating Multiple Openings in a Single Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171Making Changes to the Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

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Tracing over a Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Importing a Bitmap Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175Scaling the Image to the Model’s Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177Tracing Over the Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179Building Objects from Traced Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Editing Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191Creating a Tapered Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191Converting the Spline to a Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194Moving a Single Mesh Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198Tapering the Top of the Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Using Instance Clones to Create Symmetric Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206Adding a User Grid to Aid Tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206Building the Tower Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207Adding the Vaulted Ceiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211Creating the Smaller Towers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217Drawing the Remaining Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Attaching Objects to a Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224Smoothing Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Smoothing within a Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227The Smooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Creating Clones with Array and Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231Creating a Column Grid With Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231Creating a Multitransform Polar Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Creating Multiple Clones Using Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Chapter 5 • Creating AEC and Entourage Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Using AEC Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239Creating a Parametric Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239Adding Doors and Windows to Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242Changing Elevations with Stairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246Setting Boundaries with Railings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Adding Foliage to a Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Creating Trees with the EASYnat Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255Creating an EASYnat Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255Modifying an EASYnat Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Adding Content with the RPC Plug-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260Adding a Static RPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261Adding an Animated RPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Chapter 6 • Organizing and Editing Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Naming Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267Organizing Objects by Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Setting Up Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272Assigning Objects to Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273Assigning Color to Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Controlling Object Visibility through Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

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Lofting the Roof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279Setting Up the Shapes to Form the Roof Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280Lofting an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285Adjusting the Loft Profile in Relation to the Loft Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287Fine-Tuning a Loft Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289Using Different Shapes along the Loft Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Adding a Third Shape to the Loft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295Using the Path Clone to Edit the Loft Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Creating Surfaces from Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301Building the Spline Armature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302Deforming the Armature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Creating Shells from Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309Completing the Roof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Tracing the Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310Working with Booleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312Putting the Roofs Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Extruding with the Sweep Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316Aligning Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Chapter 7 • Light and Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Lighting Your Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323Understanding the Types of Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323Adding a Spotlight to Simulate the Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325Moving a Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326Editing a Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328Changing the Light Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Rendering a View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331Ambient Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Faking Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336Adding a Highlight with an Omni Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340Looking at Omni Light Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Adding Shadow Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346Softening Shadow Edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348Understanding Shadow Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349Using Ray Traced Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352Using Advanced Ray Traced Shadows and Area Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Playing in the Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357Using Two Suns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357Adding a Second Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359Using Invisible Objects to Cast Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361Using a Clone to Cast Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Using the Light Lister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365Using Scene States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

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Chapter 8 • Enhancing Models with Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Understanding Bitmap Texture Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371Diffuse Color Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372Surface Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Adding Materials to Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376Adding a Map Path to Help VIZ Find Bitmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377Fine-Tuning Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384Understanding Material Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386Adding Material Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Understanding Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392What Happens When You Add the Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392Adjusting the UVW Map Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Editing Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401Adjusting Bitmap Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401Adjusting the Material Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404Copying Color Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Selecting Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406Map Scalar Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407Using Bump Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410Adding Entourage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Hiding Unwanted Surfaces with Opacity Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413Adjusting an Object to a Bitmap Shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Ray Tracing Reflection and Refraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421Assigning Materials to Parts of an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Opening a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423Creating a Multi/Sub-Object Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424Applying a Sub-Material to an Object’s Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

Using the Architectural Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430The Physical Qualities Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432The Special Effects Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

The Material Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Chapter 9 • Staging Your Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Understanding the VIZ Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439Adding a Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440Editing the Camera Location with the Viewport Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Setting Up an Interior View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448Creating an Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Making Adjustments to the Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452Immersive Environments for Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Creating a Credible Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458Using a Texture Map and Hemisphere for the Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Using Render Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463Render Elements for Compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

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Chapter 10 • Working with Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Gaining Access to Materials and Objects from Other Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469Arranging Furniture with XRefs and the Asset Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476Replacing Objects with Objects from an External File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Substituting Objects for Faster Viewport Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480Importing Files with the Asset Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Arranging Furniture with XRef Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485Using the Rendered Frame Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Printing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490Opening Multiple Rendered Frame Windows for Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491Zooming, Panning, and Controlling Channels in the Rendered Frame Window . 491Obtaining Colors from External Bitmap Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

Using the Asset Browser on the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493Tracking and Locating Scene’s Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Chapter 11 • Using Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Adding Daylight to Your Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499Understanding the Radiosity Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Refining Your Radiosity Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504Setting the Material Reflectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506Understanding the Radiosity Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

Creating a Finished Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516Working with Artificial Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Using Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524Using a Shortcut to Generic Light Fixtures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528Importing the Photometric Lights Using XRefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528Adjusting Shadows for Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

Understanding Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535Points Are Bulbs, Linears Are Tubes, and Areas Are Rectangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535Controlling the Direction of Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536Understanding Web Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536Specifying the Color Temperature and Light Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538Specifying Linear and Area Light Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

Understanding Dynamic Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540Assembling an Articulated Luminaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544

Transforming Pivot Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544Aligning the Light Source with the Fixture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546Using Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Chapter 12 • Using mental ray. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

Understanding mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563Setting Up mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565The Material Editor and mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Using Photon Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570Testing the Photon Map Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

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Final Gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583Reviewing the Basic mental ray Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

Contour Renderings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586Skylight Global Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Image-Based Lighting and Skylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592Using High Dynamic Range Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Chapter 13 • Understanding Animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597

Understanding the World of Video Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597Creating a Quick Study Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598

Adding Camera Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599Adjusting the Camera Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602Viewing the Camera Trajectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604Controlling the Camera Trajectory Visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605Creating a Preview Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606

Understanding Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608Increasing the Number of Frames in an Animation Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610Accelerating and Decelerating the Camera Motion Smoothly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612Editing Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615Adding More Frames for Additional Camera Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Adding Frames to the End of a Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618Adjusting the Camera Motion through a Keyframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621Compressing and Expanding Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625Adjusting the Camera Trajectory Using the Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630Increasing the Number of Frames between Selected Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635Speeding Up the Preview Rendering Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637

Adding Frames to the Beginning of a Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637Other Options for Previewing Your Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639Moving the Camera Target over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641Controlling Lights over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Chapter 14 • Creating Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

Rendering the Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647Creating a Study Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648Creating a Quick Overall Study Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651Adding a Moving Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652

Automating Output of Multiple Still Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656Setting Up a Camera for Elevations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657Setting Up the Four Elevations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658

Rendering a Shadow Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662Adjusting for True North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662Changing from IES Sun to a Standard Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664

Creating a Walkthrough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665The Animation File Output Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669

True Color versus 256 Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672File Naming in Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672

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Choosing an Image Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672The AVI Codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Chapter 15 • Using Photoshop with VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

The Photoshop Interface and VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675Creating a Tree Map in Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Selecting Areas in an Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677Selecting Areas with the Lasso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681Selecting Specific Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682

Creating an Opacity Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684Using Quick Mask to Fine-Tune Your Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685Transferring a Selection to a New File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686Changing a Color to Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687Softening the Edges with the Airbrush Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688Saving Images with Alpha Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690Using Alpha Channel Images in VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691

Using Photoshop to Create a Montage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694Adding a Tree in the Foreground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697

Creating Bump Maps for Elaborate Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699Using AutoCAD for the Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700Building Textures in Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703Testing the Image in VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708Adding Irregularity and Color to the Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710Adding Color through Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712

Modeling with Displacement Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716Using the Displace Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717

Using the Material Editor to Create Displaced Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720Converting a Displacement Map into an Editable Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724Creating an Editable Mesh from a Displacement Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727

Chapter 16 • Combining Photographs with VIZ Designs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

Mesh Editing with a Photograph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729Establishing the Basic Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730Moving Vertices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733Adding Curvature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736Smoothing the Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

Adding Detail with Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745Creating a Material for the Car Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745Adding the UVW Map Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747Adding the Front to the Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749Smoothing the Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754

Matching Your Design to a Background Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756Setting Up the Model and the Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757Adding the Background Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758Adding the Camera Match Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759Aligning the Camera Match Points to the Background Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762

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Fine-Tuning a Camera-Matched View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765Matching the Design Image Quality to the Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

Chapter 17 • Using AutoCAD-Based Applications with VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769

Creating Topography with Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770Updating Changes from an AutoCAD File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774Exploring Terrain Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

Setting Up an AutoCAD Plan for VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778Importing AutoCAD Plans into VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783

Extruding the Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785Extruding Headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786Extruding the Mullions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787Adding Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787Creating a Floor with Openings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 789

Exploring the File Link Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794Editing Linked AutoCAD Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796Understanding the Block Node Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797Understanding the File Link Manager Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800Understanding File Link Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801Using the Substitute Modifier with Linked Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 806

Importing a Truss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 808Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811

Chapter 18 • Exporting to the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813

Creating Panoramas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814Making Virtual Reality Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819

Installing a VRML Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820Virtual Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820Building a Virtual World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822Exporting the VRML File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830Exploring the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831

Exporting Shockwave 3D Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 835Using Render to Texture for Real-Time Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837

Calculating Advanced Lighting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837Baking Lighting into Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 840Examining the Baked Materials and Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 846

Appendix A • Installation Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847

Installing VIZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847Moving VIZ to Another Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849Visit the Autodesk Website Often . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 851

Appendix B • Modifiers and Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853

Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853Selection Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853

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World-Space Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 854Object-Space Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 856

Materials and Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871Materials (Blue Sphere) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872Maps (Green Parallelogram) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 875

Appendix C • Patches and NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879

Understanding Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879Converting a Plane into an Editable Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879Converting Other Standard Primitives to Editable Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 880

Understanding NURBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882Looking at NURBS Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882Creating NURBS Surfaces from Standard Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 884Applying a NURBS Deformation to an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885

Appendix D • Helpers and Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887

Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887Standard Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887Atmospheric Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891Camera Match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891Assembly Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891VRML97 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891RPC Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891

Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891Atmospheric Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 896

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901

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Introduction

Much of your work as a designer involves sketches and drawings throughout the design pro-cess. Such graphic representations of designs not only help convey your ideas to others, they also help you see problems with a design and help you refine your ideas. 3D computer modeling and animation take design visualization way beyond hand-drawn sketches by allowing you to create a complete replica of your design and look at it from virtually any point of view.

With Autodesk VIZ 2007, you can apply color, texture, and lighting to see how variations of these elements affect your design. You get a realistic view of your design so that you can make better decisions as you progress through the design process.

Mastering Autodesk VIZ 2007

is intended to help architects and designers visualize and present their designs through images, 3D models, and animations. This book focuses on the use of Autodesk VIZ 2007 as a modeling and presentation tool. Because

Mastering Autodesk VIZ 2007

is focused on design issues, you won’t find an in-depth study of character animation or animated special effects; nor will you find a book that describes every single tool and function that’s available.

You

will

find step-by-step tutorials covering the major functions that you’ll need as a designer. These tutorials are based on years of experience using earlier versions of VIZ and its precursor, 3D Studio MAX (now known as 3ds Max), on real projects with real deadlines and requirements. You’ll learn how to construct complex geometric forms and how to apply lighting and materials to study a design. You’ll also learn how to create effects to emphasize parts of your design for presentations.

How to Use This Book

The goal of this book is to give you the appropriate skills to produce professional-level presentations of your ideas, from conceptual designs to finished renderings and animated walkthroughs. Once you’ve mastered those skills, you’ll be equipped to confidently explore Autodesk VIZ 2007 and its rich set of tools and options on your own.

To get the most from this book, you’ll want to read the chapters sequentially from front to back, doing the tutorial exercises as you go along. Each chapter builds on the skills you learned from the previous chapters, so you can think of this book as your personal, self-paced course on Autodesk VIZ 2007.

The first three chapters help you to become familiar with the way Autodesk VIZ 2007 works and how it is organized. If you are already familiar with VIZ, you may want to skim through these chapters to become familiar with some of the new features. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 show you how to build a fairly complex building, using a variety of tools. These chapters introduce you to some of the more common methods of construction in VIZ. Chapters 7 through 10 show you how to use lighting and materials. Chapters 11 and 12 show you advanced rendering techniques

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INTRODUCTION

using radiosity and mental ray. Chapters 13 and 14 cover animation, and Chapters 15 through 17 delve into some of the finer points of modeling and rendering. Chapter 18 shows you techniques for generating interactive content for the World Wide Web.

At the back of the book, you’ll find a set of appendixes that offer general reference information on some of the more commonly used tools in VIZ. Once you’ve worked through the first half of the book, you can use the appendixes as an aid in your own exploration of VIZ. In fact, you may find it useful to skim over the appendixes once you’ve completed the first three or four chapters so that you’ll have some understanding of their content. You can then refer to the appendixes as you work through the rest of the book.

Finally, before you get started with the tutorials, make sure you’ve installed the sample files from the companion CD. You’ll need those files to complete many of the exercises. See Appendix A for details on installing the sample files.

NOTE

It is important that you set up VIZ to recognize the location of the sample files from thecompanion CD. Make sure you perform the instructions given in the section titled “Adding a MapPath to Help VIZ Find Bitmaps” in Chapter 8. If you like, you can set up VIZ as described in thatsection right after you’ve installed the samples.

What You’ll Find

To give you a better idea of what you’ll find in this book, here is a summary of the chapters and their contents.

In Chapter 1, you’ll get an introduction to the VIZ interface, and you’ll get your first look at VIZ objects and how they are created. You’ll also learn how to perform some basic editing operations, such as moving, scaling, and copying objects. Toward the end of Chapter 1, you’ll be introduced to the different ways you can view your designs in VIZ.

Chapter 2 delves deeper into the workings of VIZ objects. You’ll learn about the different types of objects available in VIZ and how you can use them to create the shapes you want. You’ll learn how to manipulate VIZ’s core set of shapes, called primitives, into more complex shapes. You’ll also learn about the different ways you can duplicate shapes, and why these different duplication methods can help you quickly build your design.

Chapter 3 looks at how you can create complex forms from simple lines. Here you’ll learn how to manipulate a basic type of object called a spline shape and to turn it into a wineglass. You’ll look at creating walls and doors as well.

Chapter 4 introduces you to object and editing methods that are common to architectural projects. You’ll begin to model a well-known building, using a hand-drawn sketch as a background. You’ll also focus on drawing objects that have unusual shapes.

In Chapter 5, you’ll explore the parametric AEC (Architectural, Engineering, Construction) objects included in VIZ including walls, windows, doors, stairs, railings, and foliage. You will also gain experience with two plug-ins that ship with VIZ 2007: EASYnat for creating plants and RPC for creating people and plants.

In Chapter 6, you’ll continue working on the building you started in Chapter 4 by exploring ways to organize parts of the design. You’ll learn how to use object names and layers to help identify parts of the design. You’ll also continue your exploration of modeling complex forms by building a complex roof form.

Chapter 7 uses another well-known building as a vehicle for introducing you to digital light and rendering. You’ll also learn about the different types of lighting and shadow and how to use them together. In addition, you’ll learn how you can create a more realistic effect in your renderings by placing lights in strategic locations.

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WHAT YOU’LL FIND

xvii

In Chapter 8, you’ll build on the work you will have done in Chapter 7 while exploring materi-als. You’ll read about the many different properties of materials, such as color and bump map textures. You’ll also learn how to align a texture to a surface, and you’ll be introduced to methods for adding entourage, such as trees and foliage, to a design.

Chapter 9 continues with placing cameras in the model and setting the model in an environ-ment. You’ll learn how to control the background to affect the mood of your renderings. You’ll also see how to selectively render parts of your model to save time.

Chapter 10 shows you different ways of using VIZ files. You’ll learn how to combine files effi-ciently to allow distribution of work among other members of a design team. You’ll also discover ways to share data between files. The latter part of the chapter shows how you can share models on the Internet.

Chapter 11 gives you an introduction to the ins and outs of radiosity rendering. Radiosity is a rendering method that accurately simulates the way light bounces off materials and surfaces, and it produces some of the most lifelike views available in a computer simulation.

Chapter 12 shows you how to get started rendering with mental ray. This renderer offers the highest level of realism and you will learn how to simulate global illumination and caustic optical phenomena in a step-by-step tutorial. The latter part of the chapter shows you how to light a scene using the soft light of a skylight in conjunction with image-based lighting and high dynamic range images (HDRI).

Chapter 13 introduces you to animation. You’ll learn how to create and control the animation of a camera to produce an animated flyby of the building you worked on in earlier chapters. You’ll also see how to edit an animated object’s motion, preview your animation, and control lights over time.

Chapter 14 continues your look at animation by exploring the options for file animation output, backgrounds and props, and other walkthrough animation tools.

Chapter 15 explains how you can utilize Photoshop and other image-editing programs to enhance your use of VIZ. You’ll learn how to quickly convert your own scanned images into custom-made props for your VIZ design, such as trees or foliage. You’ll also learn how to use bitmap images to create geometric forms in VIZ.

Chapter 16 continues your look at Photoshop and VIZ by showing how you can convert a scanned image of a car into a 3D model of a car. Here you’ll learn methods for editing meshes to shape them into smooth forms. In the second half of the chapter, you’ll learn how to match a design to a background image to create a montage.

Chapter 17 shows you how you can use AutoCAD-based files with VIZ. You’ll learn the differ-ent ways that you can combine both 2D and 3D AutoCAD data with VIZ design files. You’ll learn the best ways to prepare an AutoCAD drawing for import into VIZ, and you’ll learn how you can use a single AutoCAD file as a shared data source for both AutoCAD and VIZ designs.

Finally, Chapter 18 shows you how to export interactive content to the Internet including pan-oramas, virtual reality worlds, and Shockwave 3D. You will also learn how to bake scene lighting into textures for use in real-time simulation engines.

In addition to the chapters, this book contains four appendixes. Appendix A has important installa-tion notes, Appendix B is a reference for all the modifiers and materials available in VIZ 2007, and Appendix C has information about patches and NURBS surfaces, which are optional modeling tools. Finally, Appendix D contains reference material on helper objects and rendering effects.

You’ll also find a bonus chapter on the companion CD that covers some of the more technical issues you’ll face when you’re ready to distribute your animations. You’ll learn about the different video storage options that are available and how they work. You’ll also learn methods for getting the best quality from your animations.

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INTRODUCTION

System Requirements

This book assumes that you already have Autodesk VIZ 2007 and a PC on which to run the soft-ware. In addition, you should perform a full installation of Autodesk VIZ 2007, including the optional tutorials and plug-ins. (See Appendix A for more on the installation of VIZ for this book.) The following list shows you the minimum system requirements to run VIZ; you should exceed these values whenever possible for better system performance:

◆

Intel- or AMD-based processor at 500MHz

◆

512MB RAM

◆

500MB swap space

◆

3GB free disk space before VIZ software installation

◆

Graphics card supporting 1024

×

768 32-bit color display.

◆

DirectX 9.0c (included in the VIZ 2007 CD package)

◆

CD-ROM drive

◆

Microsoft Windows 2000 with SP4 or XP, Professional or Home Edition, with SP2

Autodesk does not support VIZ on Windows Me, NT, 98, 95, or 3.1.The 3GB of free disk space includes space for sample files and general work space for your

projects. For later chapters, you may want to have a copy of AutoCAD version 2007 or earlier and Photoshop CS2, CS, or 7. You can obtain a trial version of Photoshop from the Adobe website. As of this writing, you can order a trial version of AutoCAD 2007 from Autodesk’s website. It’s not essential to have these other programs, but you may find them useful companions to VIZ.

What’s on the Companion CD?

As mentioned earlier, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve installed the sample files from the compan-ion CD that’s included with this book. They are needed for many of the exercises that you’ll encounter. You’ll find installation instructions for the sample files in Appendix A. The companion CD also contains a VIZ trial version and a bonus chapter on distributing VIZ animations on videotape.

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Chapter 1

Getting to Know VIZ

Welcome to

Mastering Autodesk VIZ 2007

. Once again, Autodesk VIZ 2007 benefits from the devel-opment of its sister product, 3ds Max, to give architects and other design professionals an indis-pensable design tool. VIZ 2007 gives designers cutting edge rendering technology, easier-to-use architectural materials, improved communication with other software, enhancements to modeling and animation tools, and improvements in the user interface.

This chapter introduces some of VIZ 2007’s special features and then gets you started working with the VIZ 2007 interface.

◆

Introducing VIZ 2007 Features

◆

Getting Started

◆

Touring the Interface

◆

Working with Objects

◆

Getting the View You Want

◆

Working with the Custom UI and Defaults Switcher

Introducing VIZ 2007 Features

With each new version of VIZ, Autodesk inevitably adds some cool bells and whistles that old and new users will certainly appreciate. VIZ 2007 is no exception to that new-feature rule. Autodesk has smoothed out some old rough edges when it comes to using multiple files on a project, asset and support searches, the implementing of XRefs, DWG importing/exporting, and more still. Take a look at the features in the Asset Tracking System, the improvements to XRefs, and other features listed next.

Asset Tracking System

You’ve probably noticed when you are working with complex projects using many file assets acquired from several sources that keeping track of all the required files is an arduous task. Any files that you can’t locate when a file is opened or rendered can trigger a warning dialog box to appear and cause the rendered output to be inaccurate. VIZ 2007’s new Asset Tracking System simplifies this issue by presenting a dialog box for display and repathing of scene assets including image maps used in materials, external references, linked AutoCAD files, and output files. Figure 1.1 shows the new Asset Tracking dialog box.

User Paths, which define the program’s asset and support search parameters, can now be exported into text files. You can distribute these files to other project contributors to ensure that all users access the file assets from the same location. This ensures that any changes to files used in a project are updated in all instances in which they were used. These text files can also be utilized to help migrate the VIZ 2007 settings when you set up a new PC.

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2 CHAPTER 1

GETTING TO KNOW VIZ

Figure 1.1

The new Asset Tracking dialog box

XRefs

Autodesk has made improvements to the implementation of externally referenced files (XRefs) including the new Overlay feature to reduce to occurrences of circular references. You can now XRef materials without referencing geometry in a scene. XRef’d cameras are now properly saved in the new scenes. Autodesk has revised the layout of the tools in the XRef Objects dialog box to make the tools easier to access. They’ve also improved the overall performance of the XRef system.

DWG Import/Export

The DWG import and export functionality and the DWG File Linking has been updated to coincide with the 2007 family of Autodesk products.

Mental Ray Rendering

Autodesk has upgraded the mental ray renderer that ships with VIZ 2007 to version 3.4 of the high-level, production-quality rendering system. This version includes faster final gathering for smoother light distribution and more accurate raytrace ren-dering. You can now use the Distributed Bucket Rendering feature to allow up to eight sys-tems running Autodesk VIZ to each contribute the mental ray rendering of a single project.

OpenEXR

VIZ now supports the OpenEXR file format. OpenEXR is an HDRI file format used by Industrial Light & Magic in the production of major motion pictures. The new HDR Data and Luminance HDR Data Render elements output High Dynamic Range information as separate image files from the Render Scene dialog box. These can be used to analyze a scene’s lighting information.

Getting Started

Although many of VIZ’s components are typical for a Windows program, quite a few are unique. To begin exploring the VIZ 2007 interface, start the program by doing one of the following:

◆

Double-click the Autodesk VIZ 2007 icon on the Desktop.

◆

Choose Start �

Programs �

Autodesk �

Autodesk VIZ 2007 �

Autodesk VIZ 2007.

You’ll see a variety of components in the VIZ window (see Figure 1.2)—some that are familiar and others that are not.

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TOURING THE INTERFACE

3

Figure 1.2

The standard Autodesk VIZ 2007 window

At the top, you see a typical menu bar and toolbar. You may also see up to five floating toolbars containing additional VIZ tools. In the center, you see the viewport area, which currently shows a Perspective viewport. At the lower right corner of the screen, you see the viewport navigation tools for adjusting your views in the current viewport. You also see the time controls for creating anima-tions, the prompt line and status bar, and the MAXScript Mini Listener (for creating macros). On the right side, you see the Command Panels, which contains nearly all the tools you’ll use to create and edit objects in VIZ. Let’s take a closer look at each of these components. VIZ often offers several methods including toolbars, Command Panels, menus, shortcuts, and so on for accomplishing many tasks.

Touring the Interface

VIZ offers a wealth of tools, and their sheer number can be overwhelming. To get a basic under-standing of the VIZ window, let’s look at each of the window components individually, starting with the menu bar.

The Main Menu Bar

At the top of the screen is the main menu bar. Here, you find the typical Windows commands for file maintenance, as well as commands specifically for Autodesk VIZ 2007.

The options in the menu bar are organized in the same way as they are in most other Windows applications. Clicking an option issues a command, and you’re expected to take some action. An option that’s followed by three periods, called an ellipsis, opens a dialog box, usually to allow you

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4 CHAPTER 1

GETTING TO KNOW VIZ

to make changes to settings related to the option. An option with a right-pointing arrow displays more options in what is called a

cascading menu.

Try out the menu bar by taking a look at the Units Setup dialog box.

1.

Choose Customize �

Units Setup. The Units Setup dialog box displays.

2.

Select the US Standard radio button, and make sure that Feet w/Decimal Inches is selected below it and that the Inches radio button is selected for Default Units.

3.

Click the System Unit Setup button and you will see another small dialog box. Make sure 1 Unit is set equal to 1 inch. Do not change anything else in the System Unit Setup dialog box and click OK twice to close both dialog boxes.

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TOURING THE INTERFACE

5

By setting the Units Setup dialog box, you ensure that in future exercises, you’ll be working with the same units that are discussed in this book.

NOTE

Autodesk VIZ 2007 is something of a chameleon. It can change its appearance, dependingon the focus of your modeling needs. If your VIZ 2007 window doesn’t look the way it does in thefigures in this book, choose Customize �

Revert to Startup Layout. You’ll see a warning messagetelling you that any user interface (UI) changes you have made will be lost. Click OK to set up yourVIZ windows to match the interface you see in this book.

The Main Toolbar

Just below the menu bar is the Main toolbar. The tool icons on this toolbar offer tooltips to help you remember their purpose.

To the far left of the toolbar are the Undo and Redo options. Left-click to step backwards or forwards through your recent steps or right-click to see the history of your recent steps.

Next is a set of tools for selecting objects. These selection tools let you select objects by clicking them or by selecting them by name. You can also set the method for selecting objects by using a selection window, which provides a way of indicating a selection by placing a rectangle, circle, or other border around the objects.

To the right of the selection tools are the transform tools. This set of tools lets you move, rotate, and scale objects. You can also choose the reference coordinate system, set the center of the trans-form using the pivot options, use different snap options, work with named selection sets, and use tools to mirror and align objects.

The next group of tools to the right include the layer and graph editor tools and the materials and rendering tools. The graph editor tools display your scene information as graphs or wiring diagrams to indicate the functionality or relationships of scene objects. The materials tools give you control over the appearance of objects. With these tools, you can create color, texture, opacity, and other material characteristics, and then apply these characteristics to objects in your model. You can also open the new render dialog, select the render type, and perform a quick render with these buttons.

The rendering tools give you control over the output of your Autodesk VIZ 2007 scene. Unlike output from most applications, output from VIZ 2007 is most likely to be image or animation files. The rendering tools let you set the type and size of output, from single, large format stills to video-ready animations.

TIP

If you’re working with a screen resolution of 1024

×

768 or less, you won’t see all the tools on theMain toolbar. Some of the tools are off the screen to the far right. To access these tools, place the cur-sor on the toolbar so that a hand icon appears, and then click and drag the toolbar to the right. Thehidden tools will emerge. You can also click the Rendering menu item to access all the renderingtools. The smallest supported resolution in VIZ 2007 is 1024

×

768, but the recommended resolutionis 1280

×

1024 or higher.

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6 CHAPTER 1

GETTING TO KNOW VIZ

Docked and Floating Toolbars

In addition to the Main toolbar, you see several “floating” toolbars sitting on top of the viewport (see Figure 1.2). There are also five toolbars that are hidden. You can open hidden toolbars by right-clicking a blank part of any toolbar. A context menu will appear listing the available toolbars. Let’s take a quick look at the floating toolbars.

1.

Right-click a blank area of the main toolbar and click any of the toolbar items that do not have a checkmark next to them.

2.

Repeat the process until all five floating toolbars are exposed.

All five toolbars float over the Perspective viewport: the Layers, Render Shortcuts, Snaps, Axis Constraints and the Extras toolbar. As with most toolbars, you can move these floating toolbars to the side or hide them altogether to gain better access to objects in the viewport.

TIP

In VIZ and many other graphics programs, screen space is always at a premium. Using a two-monitor system allows for a lessening of screen clutter by moving items such as floating toolbars,the Material Editor, graph editors, and so on to the second monitor, freeing up as much screenreal estate as possible.

Let’s preview these toolbars briefly in the section below:

Layers

Layers are like overlays that help you organize the objects in your model. If you are an AutoCAD or Photoshop user, you should have an idea of how layers work. You’ll learn more about layers in Chapter 6.

Render Shortcuts

Render shortcuts contain predefined render settings, such as resolution and output file type, used to create content from your VIZ scenes. The Render Shortcuts toolbar is where you will find the tools for saving and storing your preset values. You’ll learn about ren-dering in Chapters 10 and 11.

Snaps

Snaps are features that control where the cursor jumps to, adding a degree of precision to your scene, when it is near a characteristic in the scene. Using snaps you can easily move the corner of one object to the midpoint of another or nearly any other characteristic combination. Snaps are important in producing accurate architectural models.

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TOURING THE INTERFACE

7

Axis Constraints

Transforming objects (moving, rotating, or scaling) is often done along a particular axis, or direction, relative to the object or the scene. This functionality is usually utilized through the Transform gizmo, an on-screen tool used to facilitate the transforms; the Axis Constraints toolbar also contains these tools.

Extras

The Extras toolbar contains tools that don’t fit cleanly into other categories. You can override existing shortcuts and turn on a creation grid relative to the surface of any scene object with the tools on this toolbar. You can also create numerous, precise clones of objects in matrices, along a path, or at equal intervals.

You can dock the floating toolbars or float the docked toolbars. Try the following exercise to see how to change the location of toolbars:

1.

Click and drag the title bar of the Layers toolbar so that the toolbar is below the Main toolbar (see Figure 1.3). The Layers toolbar appears ghosted as a horizontal outline just before you release the mouse button.

Figure 1.3

Docking the Layers toolbar under the Main toolbar

2.

When the outline is in the position shown in Figure 1.3, release the mouse button. The Layers toolbar is now in a docked position.

3.

Dock the Extras toolbar just to the right of the Layers toolbar (also just under the Main toolbar).

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8 CHAPTER 1

GETTING TO KNOW VIZ

4.

Right-click the two vertical lines (called the toolbar handle) on the left side of the Extras tool-bar to open the shortcut menu.

5.

Select Float from the shortcut menu. The Extras toolbar returns to its floating position. Another way to do this is to drag the toolbar by its handle down into the viewport.

6.

Select the Snaps toolbar and dock it to the left side of the user interface. (Toolbars can be docked on either side of the viewports.)

7.

Select the remaining floating toolbars and dock them on the top of left edge of the viewport. Your screen should look similar to the VIZ window shown in Figure 1.4.

In this brief exercise, you learned how to dock and float toolbars, and how to access the shortcut menu where you can t