Describes: working with Tornado3D interface, producing an high quality image from scratch.
Start Tornado3D and close the Tips window (this and the following tutorials assume that the projects settings are kept at the defaults Tornado3D ships with).
From the main Tornado3D screen select Workspace> Lights so that lights are shown on the editor, and then with Objects> Lightsource> Point add a new light to the scene.
At first this light is invisible, so redraw the screen with Amiga-R to see it placed at the center of the Quad -View. It resembles a little black star.
The PointLight object
Move the mouse over the light and you will see the pointer turn into a cross-hair. When it does so, click once with the left mouse button to select the light. Everything must be selected before changes can be made to it.
Open Transformation Panel with Amiga-T and click the leftmost cycle gadget that reads Ignore attributes so that it reads Position. The lower three numeric gadgets will be activated.
Transformation Panel
The values in this panel represent the object's posi tion, size and orientation in Tornado3D's virtual world. They now read 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 because the light is at the origin of the coordinate system. Enter 100.0, 100.0, 130.0 in the three gadgets and then click Accept.
The screen will redraw showing the light in another position and still selected (white). Press the space bar to deselect the light, it will go back to black, and then select Objects/ Text to open the Text Panel. Text Panel allows to create three dimensional objects from the text typed and the font chosen.
Text Panel
Click on the Question Mark on the line that reads Type1 Font and a file requester will open, asking for a file name.
Select the font to load
Note that the name of the file, ERASBLKBL.PFB is different from the name that gets displayed in the Text Panel. This is because Type1 fonts store the real name of the font inside the files.
Type in the Text gadget the string T3D 2.1 and press return. Leave the other settings at their defaults and click Accept. After a while, the screen will redraw and several new objects will appear on the workspace, forming the 3D version of the text we just typed.
The text as a 3D object
Now open the Images Panel pressing F6 and click on Load to load a bitmap image that will be used as a back drop for the scene.
Images Panel
A file requester will appear, find the Nature folder and select the Clouds.24 file.
The picture to be loaded
After loading it into the Images Panel, the image will be displayed in the little preview window and be ready to be used everywhere inside Tornado3D.
Since it has to be used as a backdrop, open the World Panel with F5. The World Panel controls global (world wide) settings such as backdrops, foregrounds, glows, fog and other non object-specific effects.
World Panel
From the list in the upper right of the panel, select the Clouds.24 file. A small preview will be shown to aid in choosing between files. Then, click on the Apply Back ground button at the upper left. This will install the se lected image as a backdrop for the current scene.
Click on Accept to close the World Panel and press key (3) to turn on Flat Shade preview. Depending on your processor and graphic card speed, a more or less detailed image will replace the wireframe in perspective view showing the solid T3D 2.1 letters in front of a clouded sky.
A preview of the scene in perspective
Now move the mouse in the Front View, press the right mouse button and drag keeping it depressed. A rubber band box will appear, this is a selection box. It acts like the single click of the cross hair used before to select the Pointlight but it is much more useful when many objects are to be selected.
Leave the right mouse button and press space bar to deselect any object that may have been selected by mistake. Now move the mouse to the lower left of the T object in Front view, keep the Shift key depressed, and press again the right mouse button, dragging the box to the upper right of the T3D 2.1 group of objects. Make sure the PointLight is not inside the select box then release the mouse button while keeping Shift still depressed. The T3D 2.1 objects should all turn white and the status line should read Group mode: 7 items selected. If not, repeat the procedure until you select all the objects but not the PointLight.
Now use Amiga-J or the Modify> Structure> Join menu command to join the objects into a single object. Tornado3D will warn that the operation is not undoable, answer ok. The status line will read 1 item selected because the seven characters were fused into a single object.
With the new object still selected, use Modify> Sur faces> Forget All accepting once again the warning that will pop-up. Those two steps have essentially removed all the extra informations that were not needed in this simple project and created an object that can be edited much faster. No real changes should be apparent yet.
Press F7 to open the Materials Panel. This is the place where surface properties, like metal, glass or wood are applied to objects. If the panel does not open, make sure the text object is still selected.
Click Load to open a file requester and select the Aluminium.mat file. This is a predefined material, that will also load in an environment map. Don't worry about the many settings, the only change to be made is to uncheck with a click the Smooth gadget just below the preview spheres.
Save the project with Project> Write As... and press the key (8) to turn on Photorealistic preview. After a while the preview window will show an approximation of the rendered image. Now it looks much more like a realistic 3D image than it did before but there is still much room for improvement.
Materials Panel
The first thing that lowers the visual impact of this
image is the boring point of view. The logo is placed
straight in front of the viewer and does not show its third
dimension very well. Pressing key (e) or clicking the eye
gadget switches the perspective view to Camera Mode.
The change is not too dramatic, but the scene seems already more three dimensional. With Workspace> Show> Camera Tornado3D's virtual camera is revealed. Use Amiga-, two times to zoom the view out, then press space bar to deselect the logo and Amiga-F to open the Object Finder.
A window with a list of objects to choose from will pop up. Even if the Camera is already highlighted, click on it anyway, then click Accept.
Now the camera object is selected, white, and also shows a pyramidal shape in front of itself. When an object is outside this pyramid it does not appear in the final image.
The Camera's pyramid of vision
With the camera still selected, open again the Trans formation Panel. This time, activate both the left and right
most cycle gadgets so that one reads Position and the other Alignment.
Enter the following values for X,Y and Z position: -104.0, -7.0, -229.0. Without clicking on Accept, change X, Y and Z alignment to read -9.25, 21.0 and 0.0. Now close the panel clicking Accept and the view will change to a much more interesting and dramatic one.
Looking at the Quad View it is clear that the camera moved and changed its alignment and that this change is reflected in the perspective view. Switch to a less processor -intensive preview method, pressing key (3) and then use the space bar to deselect the Camera.
Press F9 to open the Lights Panel. There are two lights currently available, the Omnilight that existed since Tornado3D was started and the PointLight added at the beginning.
Lights Panel
Click on PointLight in the Available Lights list to select it, then click on the Flare Active checkbox. This will allow to change the Lens Flare settings.
Activate Central Hit, Red Glow, Noisy Streaks and Lens Reflections. Then click on the Light Color button in the upper right of the panel. A color chooser will open, showing a color wheel and three color sliders.
Color Selection Panel
Use the colorwheel or the Red, Green and Blue component sliders until the color shown is a pale orange with components of 255, 225 and 200.
Accept both the Color and the Lights panels, return ing to the editor. Apparently nothing has changed, but a quick switch to Photorealistic preview will show a colorful sun-like lens flare that adds realism and visual richness to the image.
Save the project and open Render Panel with key F10, to produce a final image.
Render Panel controls how and where the images are to be created. From the Resolution area choose VGA so that the X and Y size gadgets read out 640x480. Any value can be typed directly in the size gadgets.
Then select AA Standard Quality from the Quality radio buttons and in the Output To area change the save mode from TGA to Iff. Click on render and wait for the image to be computed. On a PowerPC 604e/200Mhz it should take approximately 15 seconds.
Render Panel
Now the image is recorded in ram:t/ and is called pic.0000. It can be viewed with any picture viewer in full color.
If you are familiar with some other simpler softwares you may be wondering why there isn't a percentage indicator that shows how far the rendering has progressed. This is due to the way Tornado3D operates and can't be changed. The most Tornado3D can do is to tell the step it is performing (deferring shading, beauty pass...).
This completes the Quick Start tutorial. We have toured almost all the features needed to do basic 3D ren dering and creating a simple but effective image of high visual quality.
The following tutorials will delve deeper in Tornado3D inner workings and even if the results will not always be as flashy as those in this one, it is of extreme importance that all the tutorials are followed and com pleted in order to gain a working knowledge of Tornado3D.
The final rendered image