IMAGINE DEMO VERSION 01/17/96 This disk contains a demo copy of IMAGINE 4.0, the 3D Modeling, Rendering and Animation program. This demo will let you explore a portion of this programs features. The system requirements are: Intel based 486 and above with at least 8 megs of ram. A standard mouse and SVGA video with VESA 1.2 and above video driver. When you Unzip the Im40Demo.zip file, using Pkunzip you get this ReadMe.Txt file along with: Imagine.exe - The program. Imagine.pic - The intro picture. Objspics.Tif - A pic. of the objects included. ImagPics.Tga - Some sample pictures. ???.obj - 6 different pre made objects. ???.itx - 11 Textures you can use. There should be a total of 22 files unziped to your harddrive. When you move on to the full version of Imagine 4.0 you can delete just this entire directory. When you are ready to order the full Imagine 4.0, we can be reached at: Impulse, Inc. 8416 Xerxes Ave. No. Brooklyn Park, MN. 55444 Tech ----- 612-425-0557 Ordering - 800-328-0184 WWW.Coolfun.com RUNNING THE DEMO: First, be in the directory where you unzipped this Demo program. Type Imagine and press enter. After a small delay, depending on the amount of ram you have, you should see the opening Imagine screen. (If an error occurs, see the section of this readme file that covers some possible system configurations problems that may arise.) This image was made with IMAGINE 4.0. Clicking on the left mouse button or pressing the escape key will bypass this screen and launch you into the Demo versions DETAIL editor. IMAGINE 4.0 has 7 different editors. This demo version will allow you to explore only the Detail editor. This editor is packed full of tools, designed to make the building of objects as easy as possible. It is not possible to give you all the editing tools that are available in the full Imagine 4.0 version, but this will give you a good idea of Imagine's power. The editors, that are not included are: PREFERENCES: This is where you customize the IMAGINE 4.0 program to operate in the manner you want. You can redesign default functions, Functions Keys, ALT + Key strokes and user gadgets. This editor allows to control Imagine 4.0's flexibility. tool in making IMAGINE operate the way YOU want it to. SPLINE: Used to make 2d spline type objects. You also would load fonts here. Imagine 4.0 uses Post Script type II fonts. FORMS: A key slice style editor designed to make organic or unique shapes. CYCLE: Designed to use the objects you make and animate for repetitive movements or cycles. Like a hand opening and closing or waving. STAGE: This is where all functions come together for animation's. You add lights, actors or objects, camera functions, special effects, morphing capabilities and so on. ACTION: This is used in conjunction with the STAGE editor. It offers a time line and bar system for morphing controls and special effect timing. USING THE DEMO PROGRAM After bypassing the opening screen, you will be in Detail editor. The look of this orthogonal view is the same for most of the editors in IMAGINE 4.0. The orthogonal view, consists of a top, front, right and perspective views. The long bar along the left side of any of these views has the name of the view in it. By clicking in the bar, you can change to a full screen view. Clicking back in that bar will bring you back to the orginal view. Imagine's functions are accessed by a drag and click method. There are a number of ALT+Key combinations, user gadgets and function keys that are also available to activate most menu items. As you look at the Detail editor you can see two rows of yellow buttons running along the bottom of the editor. These are the user gadgets. These buttons, along with the 20 function keys (F1 - Shft-F10) can be set by you. You can tailor the system in a wide variety of ways in the PREFERENCES EDITOR. Since we did not include this editor, you will have to use what we have pre-set for you. A complete list of these User Gadgets and Function keys can be found further along in this text file. You may want to just experiment, after all, that is what a demo version is for. Along the top of any screen you will see a black bar. This is the menu bar where the drag down items are. Press the right mouse button to see these menu items, or drag the mouse to this bar and press the left button to activate. There are a wide variety of functions available to you. The main menu items have submenus below them. Some of the submenus also have their own sub menu. Take sometime to check these out. LOADING AN OBJECT: We have included some sample objects with this disk. Go to the first item in the Menu bar. This is named Project. Click on it and drag down to "Load New Object" to pick it. In the menu, next to "Load New Object, you will see the highlighted "ALT-L" letters. This shows you the ALT + Key strokes that will also bring up this menu item. As you move along with the Demo version of IMAGINE 4.0, notice these different ALT+key combinations, they can save you a lot of time. When you pick the "Load New Object" menu, a requester comes up and you will see a list of objects ( they have the extension of .OBJ). Pick any of the predone objects to load. In a few seconds that object will be displayed on your work surface. Look at the long bar, with the name Persp in it. At the bottom of that bar are 3 letters, they mean: A = Attitude or orientation Z = Zoom in or Zoom out P = Perspective or wide angle view These buttons control the look of the object you see in the Persp. view. With the object loaded into view, click on the "A" button. Move your pointer into the Persp. view, click the left mouse and hold, now by moving your pointer around, the object will rotate. While still holding down the left mouse also press and hold the right mouse. Now when you move the pointer the view will rotate around itself. Play with this function, You will be using it alot. After you get the view you want, go ahead and render the picture. To do this, move to the menu bar and go to Rendering. That is all the way to the right. Drag down to Render. Pick that, and your picture will begin to render. You can select the different modes of rendering by changing the Method: Scanline - A good looking render Trace - Photorealism type render - 24bit, 16million colors Try them both to see the differences in speed and looks. There is a menu item here called Show Pics. We have a couple pictures that we included, use this item to check these out. These pictures have the extension of TIF, TGA or our own PIC. MORE FEATURES: This DEMO Version of IMAGINE 4.0 has a lot of functions that you will want to explore. Below is a listing of all the Functions and their meanings. We also put in a list of the ALT+key combinations and the F1 - F20 function key meanings. Use this as a reference, but explore for yourself. Remember, this is a Demo Version. Imagine 4.0 is the most powerful 3D Modeling and Animation program on the market today. We hope that this small look into the world of 3D will wet your apitite to explore that world more fully. When you are ready we are here and we are listening. In the following pages you will see a listing of all available funtions along with User Gadgets and Function Keys. We have also includes information on some of the Textures that we ahve included with this Demo Version if Imagine 4.0. Please play around with all these functions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** MENU ITEMS **** Name: Info: Sub Menu ALT + Key ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Project: Add New Obj --------------- Imagine has predone primitivities to use as building blocks, such as sphere cone, disk etc.. You can also add a ground, and plain axis. Load Obj ------------------ Load premade Imagine objects in our own ALT + L object format. Load DXF ------------------ You can load objects that are made in the Autocads DXF format. This is a very complete DXF loader, having controls for layering and color. Save Obj ------------------ This Demo version will allow you to save ALT + S single objects in our format. You can not save grouped objects. Check Obj ----------------- This will check the integerty of other objects not made with IMAGINE 4.0. Quit ---------------------- To exit the program. ALT + Q About --------------------- To check out the version number and general info. EDIT: Delete -------------------- To delete an object from your work surface. ALT + D It does not delete the object from your drive, just the screen. Copy ---------------------- Make a copy of the picked object. ALT + C Paste --------------------- To place or paste the object you copied. ALT + P Undo ---------------------- To undo the last operation you did on the ALT + U work surface. Display: In this menu you will see a small check to the left of the item you select. These checks turn the function on or off. Rest Views ---------------- Will reset all 4 views as they were when you first started Imagine 4.0. Home ---------------------- Not implemented. Same as "Reset Views" ALT+Z Corrdinates --------------- The nurmeric coordinate system will be displayed in the upper right hand corner of the work surface. Grid On/Off --------------- Toggles the light gray grid look on the ALT + = work surface to either on or off. (you can set the color of this grid in the preferences editor, with the full version.) Grid Size ----------------- Sets the size of the grid on the work ALT + - surface. Redraw -------------------- Will redraw the work surface. After ALT + R moving things around use this to clean up the views. Zoom In ------------------- Zoom in the view. ALT + I Zoom Out ------------------ Zoom out the view. ALT + O Set Zoom ------------------ Allows you to determine how much the Zoom ALT + / function moves in or out. Recenter ------------------ This function Recenters the views to an Alt + . area you pick. You select this funtion or use the ALT + Key first, then the next time you click the left mouse anywhere on any of the 4 views, all screens will be recenterd to that place. It's a great tool try it. Perspective View ---------- This menu has 4 Submenus. These all pertain to the perspective view, the upper right hand corner view. You can set the way that view looks, by one of these choices: Wireframe - Set the view to simple wireframe mode. ALT + W Solid View - This view will not show the hidden lines on your ALT + H objects. Shaded View - This is the default in this demo. A low res gray scale look to the perspective view. 3D Edit View- This allows you to get to points, edges and faces in perspective view. Set Persp Zone ------------ When you render a picture, you are rendering what you see in the Perspective View. Use this function to select a smaller range or area to render. When you select this item, you then go into the Persp view. Click and drag, you will see a yellow bounding box displayed. This box is the new Zone that will now render. If you do not like the Zone, then redo the process. Clear Persp Zone ---------- Use this function to clear any current Zone and reset it back to the full screen. MODE: These functions have to do with the editing of an object. your object must be picked or blue on your worksurface for these functions to work. To pick an object, Move you pointer to the axis of that objects and pick it. You than can use the functions on that picked object. Pick Group ---------------- When you have more than one object, you may want to ALT + 1 group these together. They maintain their own charatistics, but moving or saving a group is a much easier way of dealing with multiple objects. NOTE: This demo version will not save a group of objects. They will load, but you can not save. Most of the objects we have included are grouped. Pick Objects -------------- Sometimes you want to pick the parent or ALT + 2 individual objects of a group. Pick Faces ---------------- When editing objects you will need to pick certain ALT + 5 faces, mabey for coloring, deleting or extruding. Pick Edges ---------------- Same as above. ALT + 4 Pick Points --------------- Same as above. You also could move them. ALT + 3 Add Faces ----------------- Faces are made up of three (3) points. You may ALT + 8 need to add faces to an object, or even build your objects this way. Add Edges ----------------- This functions is designed to add an edge between ALT + 7 two points. Add Points ---------------- Used to add points to an object. You might add ALT + 6 edges after these points are added. Add Lines ----------------- Adds lines to the object. A line consist of two ALT + 9 points and an edge. This does that all for you. Drag Points --------------- When in the Pick Point Mode, you can turn on this ALT + 0 Function. Select a range of points and drag them anywhere you need. Magnetism ----------------- When you drag points, you can use a Magnetism of influence, to drag a mountian out of a group of points. This menu has two submenus: On/Off ------------ Turns on and off the magnetism function ALT + M Setup ------------- Ability to change the parameters of the Magnetism function. Pick Method --------------- This will change the method of pointer you choose. There is a check mark next to the one that is in use. Click ------------- The default. Clicking once will pick that item. Drag Box ---------- Click and Drag a box around items to be picked. Lasso ------------- Click and draw around items to be picked. Lock -------------- This is "snap to grid". It will lock or snap the point to the nearest grid intersection. FUNCTIONS: The items in this menu show some of the real power of IMAGINE. There are a wide variety of these functions. You will need to play with these to get a better understanding of them. We have documentmented these functions for you. Make----------------------- Is a drag down menu to other items: Make Sharp Edges -- When you select an objects and go into Pick Edge mode, you can pick some edges and make them hard or sharp. A building has a sharp edge, a ball would have soft edges. Most objects made in Imagine have, by default, soft edges. This is a way of changing that. Make Soft Edges --- Just the oppisite of above. Make Quick Edges -- You can show your objects in Quick Edge Mode. This can redraw faster that the default. This function allows you to select certian edges that would be shown in the manner. UnMake Quick Edges- Undo the above function. Make Sub Group ---- This powerful function allows you to pick certain Faces of an object and make them a SubGroup of the larger object. You could then color or apply textures or brushes to just that subgroup of faces. UnMake Sub Group -- Undo the above function. EXTRUSIONS: This menu function allows extrusions of objects, edges or faces. ALT+E When you select this function, another sub menu gives you the options you can do. You can also use the functions along paths. With each submenu you get additional controls. You will need to play with these to get the full power of each sub menu. Extrude ----------- To extend or extrude objects, edges or faces along the Y axis of the object. Replicate --------- To make a replica of the object or edges along the Y axis of the object or path. Spin -------------- Extrude a 2D shape by spinning it on it's Z axis. Sweep ------------- Create a surface like a lathe would. DEFORMATIONS: These are functions that allow you to change the general shape of an object. These functions are done along the Z axis by default. You can choose any axis you want in the menu. Twist -------------- Twist the object along the Z axis. Taper -------------- Taper the object along the Z axis. Pinch -------------- Pinch the object along the Z zxis. Bend --------------- Bend the object along the Z axis. The beginning and end of the object stay the same, just the middle will bend. You will some faces in the middle of the object to make the bend. Shear -------------- This will shear the object. CONFORMATIONS: These are functions that allow you to conform you object to the items listed below. Each menu has requester that you input data, to control the function. Conform to Sphere -- Will allow you to conform your object to a sphere shape. You control the size of the effect. Conform to Cylinder- Same as above, but now in the shape of a tube or cylinder. Conform to Path ---- You can also make a path, and conform your object to that path. FRACTURING TOOLS: These are tools to mapiltatute a object. They may increase the face and point count of the object. Fracture ----------- In object mode it will split or explode the object where the faces are. In face mode, it will fracture one or more faces into more faces. It is great for adding more detail or smoothing out the surface. It also can be used in edge mode to fracture a single edge to more edges. Latticize ---------- It will make a group of faces look like a wood lattice. Slice -------------- This is also called Boolean. Where two objects ALT -X intersect it will slice them. Similar to a cookie cutter. You will then have multiple pieces and will need to keep what you want and throw away what you do not want. Split -------------- This will split the object into two objects. You must pick the object, go into face mode. Pick the faces that you want and do SPLIT. You will now have two seperate objects. This will not delete anything, just give you two objects. SURFACE TOOLS: These are tools for for making the object look the way you want. This is where you will spend alot of the design time. It also is where your artistic talents can be fully used. Attributes --------- This is a large menu. All the color and textures and also brush wraps will be applied. Making objects light sources is done here. Many hours of fun can be found here. Apply -------------- This is a real time saving function. You can take all the attributes of one object and APPLY them to as many others as you like. Select the first object and give it the attributes that you want, then Multi Pick one or more other objects. Use the APPLY function. All the other objects will now have the same attributes as the first object. Randomize Face Clrs- An object is made up of many faces. This function allows a random coloring of those faces. Particlize --------- Imagine has a full Particle system. This shows the main menu for this function. DISPLACEMENT MAP: This is a cool function. It uses a image to displace or bump your current object. When you have an object picked, you select this function and the brush requester pops up. You then pick the picture (.TIF or .TGA) to use as the displacement map. It will raise or bump the object with the picture as a reference, using the color or the picture to modify the object. To have a larger bump, increase the "Y" axis of the brush in the "edit axis" portion of the brush requester menu. Try it, it works great. DEFORM TOOL: This function allows you to put a grid or box like object around an object and change that objects shape using that Deform tool as a reference. This function is a very powerful tool, but it will take some expirmentaition to fully understand it's power. Add deform tool --- Add the box or grid shape to the work surface. Accecpt the default values that are given. Scale it a little larger than the object you want to deform. With the deform tool picked, go into "pick point mode". Grab some points and move them around to change the shape of the box or grid. Press the space bar when complete and you will be returned back to the box or grid being picked. You have changed the shape of the Deform tool, now you must apply it to your object. Apply deform tool - Pick the object that you want to deform and select this function. A list of the available objects and deform tools will pop up. Select the deform tool you were working on. You should see the object change with respect to how you set set the deform tool. BLOBS: What a neat functions this is, and simple to use. The discription below is taken out of the new 4.0 documentation. ** In a nutshell, to use Imagine's blobs, add several spheres, group them, and tell Imagine that you want this group treated as a blob. Now when the group is rendered or explicitly meshed, the object will be converted into a blob object. To create a blob object, add several CSG spheres in the detail editor (use "Add Sphere" not "Add Primitive"), and group them. Tell Imagine that you want this group treated as a sphere by picking any of the spheres and selecting "Blob Attributes" from the blob menu. For starters, just accept the default value(s). Once Imagine knows you are working with a blob object, the group will automatically mesh (look like the blob object) in the prespective view and when you go to render it. Depending on the speed of your computer and the complexity of the blob object, it may take a few seconds to see the blob in the perspective view. If you want to shut off the automatic mesh generation in the perspective view, set the perspective mesh density (in the objects/blobs menu) to zero. This may be useful if the meshing process gets to be too slow. Each blob group has its own blob mesh density that is used when the object is explicitly meshed or when the blob is rendered. The mesh density can be set and adjusted by setting the blob attributes on the parent sphere. With the mesh densities, higher numbers create finer meshes that look good rendered, but they take a while to generate and can exceed Imagine's maximun edge count. If the max edge count is exceeded, the blob object will be split into multple objects and the seam between the objects will render as a hard, jagged, edge. The Blobs/Create Mesh menu item generates a standard, faced, Imagine object that can then have textures tacked to it and be animated with tools like bones or states. The "Strength" value of the blobs is set with "Blob Attribs", and can be thought of as representing the hardness or squishiness of the components of the blob group. The strength can be set independantly on each component of the blob group. A good range for the Strength is from about three to negative three. Posative values will add to the blob object, and negative values will subtract or push the surface of the blob away. A component with a value between 0 and about .65 will not show up on it's own, but will still add to the overall blob surface. High strength values, like three, will make the components more or less maintain their spherical shape when near other components as opposed to looking like the components have melted together. A note on the missing threshold value: If you are familiar with other blobs editors, you may notice that there is no threshold parameter, here's why: The spheres you see in the orthogonal views of the detail editor are representative of the isosurface of each element. By looking at the blob this way, the threshold/strength parameters just become a ratio - therefore, in Imagine, the "Strength" just represents the magnitude of the strength relative to the threshold. Also, in imagine, there is no way to see the absolute sphere of influence of each blob component as you can in other blob modellers, but since the process of modelling with imagine's blobs is so interactive, it is easier to just experiment and get a feel for the blobs rather than having all the extraneous data cluttering the editing screens. If you don't get what this last paragraph has been about, don't worry, none of it really matters to how Imagine's blobs works. Also notice about the blobs: In the perspective view, if the perspective mesh density is set to be very fine, and Imagine's maximum edge count is exceeded, rather than splitting into a new object, the object meshing will just stop - This is to give you some clue about the number of edges your meshed object will have and to give you some guidance when setting the blob object's final mesh density. SNAP TO GRID: This is used with the grid system of IMAGINE. With an object selected, go into pick point mode. Pick a point and select "Snap to Grid". The point will jump or snap to the nearest grid intersections location. EDGE STICHING: The functions found here are designed to help in making seamless objects. Objects that are not seamless, when bent, will come apart or show a hole. Skin -------------- This function stretches a skin of faces over an outline of shapes. The shapes themselves cannot have any faces to start with. Add two different disks to the work surface. Delete the center points of each one. Pick both disk shapes and select skin. It will put faces between or around the two shapes. Set Edge Line ----- Pick a continuious group of edges of an object. Select "Set Edge Line" to make these edges the active ones. Fill to Edge Line - Pick another set of continuious edges and select this function. It will now add faces between these two different sets of edges. 14. SET EDGE LINE, FILL EDGE LINE...This new menu item under the Functions menu will save you lots of time and help you do something that has been very time consuming in the past. Consider that you have two objects, or even a open seam in a single object. In the past you had to add faces to the two objects after joining them or you had to add the triangles by hand to the open seam in a single object. This just takes too much time and if you are real proficient you can make facing mistakes that leave holes in the object or cause the triangles to lap over each other, creating a Phong shading problem. In order to use this new feature, we suggest that you add to planes to the work surface, move them apart a bit so that they are sitting side by side. Now join the two objects together, select them both in multi mode, use the Right A/J hot key and they are now one object. The area between the two planes could be filled with the add face command and you would click on the various trios of triangles to add those faces. Not any more. Now all you have to do is, while in Pick Edge mode, select one complete set of edges along the side that is closest to the other plane, use the Set Edge Line command after you have multi picked the edge set that you want to fill in with triangles, now click anywhere to de-select the picked edges, now multi pick the corresponding set of edges from the other plane. Use the Fill To Edge Line command, the area between the two sets of picked edges will automatically be filled with triangles. This function works on open or closed sets of edges, so if you cause a tube to cut from a sphere, you could join the two objects, set the Set Edge line and then the Fill Edge Line function, the area between these two closed areas would be filled with triangles. Another caveat is to do this function first when joining two objects. Consider that we want to join an arm to a chest object. We first pick all of the faces of the arm in Face mode, make this a subgroup and call it ARM. Now go back to object mode and select the chest object, select all of its faces in face mode and name that subgroup chest. Now Join the two objects to make one using the Join command. Now use the hide points command, enter the Hide points function and also choose the hide command. Now select the pick subgroup function, when the requester comes up, choose the Hide Interior points from the requester. All of the points on the inside of the object are hidden and all that is left is the area that could be called the perimeter of the object. You would do this hide function until, in this example all you would have left is the perimeter of the chest and arm object, you could then finally hide all of the other points that you don't need, and be left with only the area at the end of the arm that meets with the chest object. Now enter Pick Edge mode, notice that the points still stay hidden, now choose one or the other of the final edge are form either the arm or the chest and use the Set Edge Line command, now use the Fill To Edge Line tool to define the other set of edges, in the blinking of n eye, the two objects will be joined together to make a new "SEAMLESS" object. Using this command will make creating Contiguous objects from several object very easy and will aid in the creation of some great objects that will lend themselves to being given bones. SMOOTHING TOOL: This functions works in all modes (object, points, edges and face). It's purpose is to smooth out the items you select. Select an object and go into any mode, select this function. A requester pops up allowing you to key in a value for how much smoothing is to take place. You also are allowed to lock the perimiter points if you choose. Select OK and the tool will smooth the object, points, edges or faces. This is a easy function to use, but try it a few times with different numbers in menu to see the different results that are available. GROUPING TOOLS: When working on objects, it is sometimes easier to move, save or delete a group of objects as aposed to having to pick each one. These grouping tools are designed to for grouping functions. Remember, you can not save a group of objects with this Free DEMO version of the Imagine 4.0, but you can see how this function works. Join -------------- All Imagine objects have their own axis. You select ALT + J that axis to pick the object, to rotate, move, size or scale the object. The axis is the beginning of all Imagine objects. Sometimes you may want two different objects to have the same axis. You use Join to do this. Select two or more objects (hold the shift key down while you are picking your objects to pick more than one at a time) and JOIN. You now have one axis and one object. This function can not be unjoined, so make sure that this is what you want. You could Undo, but only immediatly after you do it. Group ------------- This function allows all different objects to be ALT + G selected by picking the parent or main object. Select more that one object, Group them. Now picking the parent, all the others will also be picked. Casade ------------ This function will also Group objects, but it will do this in an order or cascade. UnGroup ----------- Use this to remove any group of objects. ALT + Y STRIP OBJECT: Many time you will need to remove things you have done to an object. Such as attributes, Brushes, Textures an so on. It is a useful tool that could save you alot of time. PICK/SELECT: These menu items are used for a wide variety of picking functions There may seem to be alot, but these become more handy the more you use the software. Pick All ---------- To Pick All, whether it is all objects, faces, ALT + A points or edges. Select Next ------- Use to select the next item as above, in order. ALT + N Select Prev ------- If you have gone past what you wanted, use this ALT + B select the perviuos item. Pick Select ------- To pick the next object that has been selected. UnPick Select ----- To unpick the selected object. UnPick Last ------- Yep. More unpicking controls. Find -------------- Selecting this will bring up a requester that will ALT-F show a list of all objects on your worksurface. The names are the ones that are found in the attributes requester's name field for that object. This Find requester is great for finding out how many Points, Edges and Faces your objects have. Pick SubGroup ----- You can make subgroups out of faces of the object. In pick face mode you then use this functions to select those subgroups. UnPick Subgroup --- To undo the last fucntion. Pick Range -------- In pick Points, Edges and Face modes you can select a numeric range for picking those items. UnPick Range ------ To undo the last function. Edge Filter ------- To control the edges of an object. Pick More --------- In all the pick modes use this function to pick more of the items you were picking. As you create more and more elaborate objects, you will become very aware that selecting a series of triangles that share the same basic areas, can be much harder than it appears to be. With the PICK MORE command you can select the next row of faces directly connected to the area that you are working on. Remember this however, if you were working on a tube and wanted to use the PICK MORE command, that the command selects more faces from both directions, so as you pick some in one direction they will be picked on the other end of the tube. Pick More, Hide Unpicked, Unhide All, Unhide Subgroup. Just what it sounds like, when you are heavy into editing and have hidden several points of an object, in order to get back the points you had to exit to Object mode and then start all over. This made us just as mad as it made you so now we have fixed it. From point, edge or face mode you can after hiding some points, simply invoke the Unhide All command, all the points that were hidden will now be reshown without ever leaving the mode that you were in. The same is true of the other command, Unhide Subgoup, except that it works only on subgroups of faces, edges and points. Conversely, you may find that you want to hide the unpicked sets of points and faces or edges that you are working on, not to worry, Just use the Hide unpicked menu item, then all of the points, edges or faces that are not currently picked will be hidden from view. Hide UnPicked ----- This will hide the items that are not presently picked. As stated above. UnHide All -------- To undo the last function. UnHide SubGroup --- To UnHide a subgroup of faces. RENDERING: This is where you tell IMAGINE to make or render the picture. It will render the current image that you see in the perspective view. It will also render the imagine that you set with the SetZone command. Render ------------ To go ahead and render. Method ------------ You can check FULL TRACE or SCANLINE. ScanLine will render faster, but does not give light source shadows or object to object reflections. Full Trace renderings take alittle longer, but it gives you the photorealisim images you may be looking for. Generate Pallett ---------- Check this if you can not display in 24 bit, 16 million colors. Auto Lighting ------------- Imagine will add a default light, or you can turn off to add your own lights. Show Pics ----------------- This is our image viewer utitlity. We have a couple of rendered images that you can look at. ================================================================================ ALT + Key Combinations Listing -------------------------------- ALT + A PICK ALL ALT + Y UNGROUP ALT + B PICK PREVIOUS ALT + Z HOME ALT + C COPY ALT + = GRID ON/OFF ALT + D DELETE ALT + - GRID SIZE ALT + E EXTRUSIONS ALT + / SET ZOOM ALT + F FIND ALT + . RE-CENTER ALT + G GROUP ALT + 1 PICK GROUP ALT + I ZOOM IN ALT + 2 PICK OBJECT ALT + J JOIN ALT + 3 PICK POINTS ALT + L LOAD ALT + 4 PICK EDGES ALT + M MAGNETISIM ON/OFF ALT + 5 PICK FACES ALT + N PICK NEXT ALT + 6 ADD POINTS ALT + O ZOOM OUT ALT + 7 ADD EDGES ALT + P PASTE ALT + 8 ADD FACES ALT + Q QUIT ALT + 9 ADD LINES ALT + R REDRAW ALT + 0 DRAG POINTS ALT + S SAVE ALT + T TRANSFORMATIONS ALT + U UNDO ALT + W WIREFRAME ALT + X SLICE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FUNCTIONS KEYS -------------- The 20 Function Keys, F1 - Shifted F10, are limited by this Demo version of Imagine 4.0 to just a couple of functions. In the full version all Function Keys can be made active, but we have only activated 3. They are: F1 - Pick the selected item F5 - Load New Object menu F7 - When an objects is picked, this will bring up the attributes requester. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********** USER GADGETS ********** Listed below are the User Gadgets that this DEMO version of IMAGINE has. The Gadgets are the small yellow boxes that run in two lines along the bottom of the work surface. In the full version of IMAGINE, you, the user, can set these Gadgets to any menu item that you want. You can have as many or as few charaters as you want to make up the Gadget. Below is the symbol or text that makes up the Gadget and the coresponding funtion. Some of these Gadgets are a duplication of a menu item. Some could be accessed by an ALT+Key combination. Those that you see that are ghosted are accessed only when something else is first accessed. These are set to show you an example of how you may tailor the system for your own workin habits. Ro - Rotate the picked object. Mv - Move the picked object. Sc - Scale the picked object. The next group is the short cut to the Deformations functions covered earlier in this text. These select the function with the default settings. To get more control, select these functions from the Deformations Menu Tw - Twist Pi - Pinch Sh - Shear Bn - Bend Tp - Taper St - Stretch Loc - Moving, Rotating and Scaling can be done in relation to the World Axis. It could also be used in relation to it's own object or Local axis. Clicking on this will set it back and forth. X - Selecting the X axis for moving, rotating or scaling. Y - Selecting the Y axis for moving, rotating or scaling. Z - Selecting the Z axis for moving, rotating or scaling. Smo - Smooth rounds off the Deformations. By default it is angular. OK - Same as pressing the space bar. It will accecpt the function you have preformed. Can - Cancels the funtion you have preformed. ShFt - Same as pressing and holding the Shift key down. Use this to move, rotate or scale just the axis. Also used for multi-pick mode. + - Load New object. Primitivies only - - Delete teh picked object. Ld - Load an existing objects. Sv - Save your picked object in Imagine 4.0's format. Undo - Undo the last operation you preformed. Rend - Render the image set in teh Pers. view. Show - Brings up the show pic utilitiy. Attr - With an object picked, it will brin gup the Attributes requester. Wire - Set the Persp. view to the wire frame mode Shade - Set the Persp. view to the shaded view mode. >< - Zoom in. <> - Zoom out. On the second row of available User Gadgets: Clk - Change the pick method to click. This is default. Box - Change the pick method to the Drag Box method. ******************************************************************************** Listed below is information on most of the Textures that are included with this Demo Version of Imagine 4.0. Textures are applied to objects in the Detail Editor under the Surface Attributes requester. Add an object to your editor and try these out for yourself. The objects that we have included use these textures. Imagine 4.0 Textures The textures included with Imagine4 .0 are a wonder to use. You will wonder from time to time how to use them and you will then wonder how you ever worked with out them. Textures are far less expensive than image wraps. While an image wrap may be an exact picture of what you are trying to simulate, images take lots of memory, taking away from your overall scene complexity and slowing the rendering process down. Textures on the other hand, can in most cases go beyond the general use of an image, and most importantly they don't take up any where as much memory, which means that your scene can be more complex "looking" while not having such a high overhead as in the use of image maps. Here in this document is an explanation of how each included texture functions. DONT STOP THERE. Render each texture more than once. WE here at Impulse do something like this: We add a sphere to the worksurface and then add the texture to that sphere that we want to work with. Then we experiment with each of the settings, but not one at a time. We copy the sphere, make the changes to the variable we are working on and then change it some more on another copy. In some cases we end up with a screen that has 10 or 20 spheres on it. We render this scene and then keep that picture with readme file attached to it. Then when we want to go back a take a look we have the data of what we did and what the results looked like. Have fun and make great pictures and aniamtions. Use these textures, many months of effort and toil went into each one to make them as usefull as possible. Enjoy. Over all texture notes: In textures that take color, many of the requesters will take a negative (<0.0) value and treat it as "ignore this." This could mean, "ignore the adding color portion of this texture", or, "ignore the adding reflect value portion of this texture" - This lets the the objects previous attributes show through rather than modifying them. The textures have very little in the way of error checking - This was done to keep the rendering speeds from getting slower. Many of the textures thus have suggested ranges for some of the parameters. If you enter numbers outside of the suggested ranges, you may get some unpredictable results (and may crash the renderer, although I haven't seen this happen). Many of the textures have a user controllable noise function that is adjusted with "Noise Magnitude" and "Noise Velocity" parameters. The "Noise Magnitude" parameter controls how much noise or disturbance is added to some aspect of a texture. The "Noise Velocity" can be thought of as controlling the frequency or speed at which the added noise changes. A large magnitude value and a small velocity value will sort of add slow wavy noise to the texture. A small magnitude used with a large velocity will add a jagged / fuzzy noise to the texture. Textures can be morphed and animated on an object, and textures that have a "Dist Travelled" parameter have been specifically designed with animation in mind. The "Dist Travelled" parameter is set to zero on the starting texture and is set to 1.0 in the target of the morph. The parameter controls the position of the tween of the object. Some animatable textures also have a "Travel Magnitude" parameter. This parameter gives you some control of how many gyrations an animating texture will go through during the morph. ======================================== Clouds Texture * new in version 3.1 * Type: Animatable/Space Filling (Color, Filter). This texture was designed to apply clouds to a scene and attempts to get around some of the problems inherent in applying a brushmap or texture to a ground and using that as a cloudy sky. As usual, this texture has shown to be a lot more useful than just doing clouds. Clouds.itx applies a random splotchiness to an object. The splotchiness is divided into two areas (called Cloud and Sky in the requester) that have separate color and filter attributes. The density (cloud cover) can be adjusted and the clouds can be animated to change shape. There is a horizon distance that is set, and this is used make the horizon look totally cloud covered or totally clear. Requester: Density Adjust: This parameter adjust how much space the "clouds" will take up on the object as compared to the "sky." For example, setting this to .5 results in about a 50% cloud cover - setting it to 1.0 results in total (100%) cloud cover. Horizon Fade Distance: This is the parameter that aliasing and detail problems that happen when you use a texture or brushmap as cloud cover applied to a ground. Setting this parameter to 10000 tells the texture to go to completely overcast at 10000 units from the center of the world (Note: this is not from the camera position, but from the absolute world origin). By setting it to -10000 (note the negative sign) the horizon will be totally clear (totally sky). Setting it to 0 will turn off the horizon fading, and the texture will give clouds shrinking all the way out to the horizon. Cloud Color/Filter: These are the attributes that you can set for the "cloud" part of the texture. As defaults, they are set to white and non transparent. Sky Color/Filter: These are the attributes that you can set for the "sky" part of the texture. As defaults, the sky color is set to white, and the filter is set to full filter. This way, the sky color is actually taken from the background color (like if you wanted to use stars in a night sky). Time Adjust: This parameter is used for animating the clouds. As this parameter morphs, the shapes of the clouds will change. You can move the texture axis to get the clouds to move as a group (wind). The parametric morphing is a looping morph from 0.0 to 1.0. You can also change the cloud shapes by moving the texture axis in a direction perpendicular the ground you are using. Intensity Adjust: This parameter blends the texture attributes with the attributes that are already applied to the object. It can be used to morph the texture onto or off of an object or just to apply the texture "thinly." (Use edit axis to change the size/position/orientation of this texture) Note: When using this texture to simulate clouds by applying it to a ground object, set the perspective to NewMode and edit the size and position of the texture axis in the perspective view to get an idea of the clouds' sizes relative to the objects in your scene. When doing a daylit scene, make the sky plane (the ground with clouds.itx on it) a bright object. Also try applying this texture to a regular object with different colors set in the cloud/sky colors and the filter values all set to 0.0 (with the intensity value turned down, this may be a good way to "dirty" up objects.) Reflect: Reflect sets the reflection colors for the particles. Any negative values will tell the texture to not modify the reflect value already on the object. Filter: Filter sets the transparency colors for the particles. Any negative values will tell the texture to not modify the filter value already on the object. ============================ Shingles Texture Type: Bump. This texture applies a bump map to an object that sort of emulates the shape of roofing shingles. This texture only works in 2D so apply it to a plane with the Z axis coming out of the surface, and the Y axis pointing towards the peak of the roof. Requester: X, Y, and Z Sizes: These parameters are used to scale this texture. Scaling any of these independantly can stretch the shingles in that particular direction. Shingle Ht and Width : These parameters set the height and bottom edge width of the shingles as a fraction of the total size that a shingle and it's bevels take up. Face Slope Adjust: This parameter lets you adjust how much the face of each shingle looks like it is sloped from perpindicular to the surface on which the texture is applied. Bottom, Left, and Right Edge Slope: These parameters adjust the apparent steepness of the bevels on the shingles. Stagger Adjust: This parameter can be used to stagger every other row of shingles. THis parameter defaults to a value of 0.5 which stacks the tiles like a brick wall. Slope Variance: This parameter adds some randomness to the directions that the faces an bevels face on the shingles. Shingle Size Vary: This can be used to add some randomness to the sizes of the shingles. Apply As Checks: By by entering any posative number in this parameter, you can tell this texture to only apply every other shingle. sample object: primative plane with Z axis perpindicular to it's surface. ============================ BumpNoiz Texture Type: Bump. This texture applys a random bump map to an object to make the object's surface un-smooth. The texture is independently scale-able in all 3 texture axis directions, and has bump magnitude and % flat adjustment. The % flat allows you to take an object and put dings or pits in the surface (or on the surface) and by adjusting the scaling to the extreme, you can get a sort of brushed metal appearance. The noise value can be posative or negative, and its value determines the apparent depth and direction (in or out) of the bumps. This texture has 2 separate, independently adjustable noise functions that can be applied in a single requester. Requester: X, Y, and Z Sizes: These are the scaling values that allow you to alter the size of the bumps, or to stretch them in a particular axis to make the bumps line up. Bump Noise: This is a depth adjustment for the bumps (how bumpy it is). It can be set to either a posative or negative value. % Flat: This value adjusts what percentage of the surface is covered with the bumps. Adjusting this will give you a pitted look. sample obj: primative sphere ================================================== 2D Textures: ================================================== Blast Texture Type: Color, Reflect, Filter. Blast is was created to do burn/blast marks from things like bullets or phasors. In this texture, the texture axis' bounding box actually bounds the area of effect of this texture. The blast is made of three colors, one that dominates the center of the blast and two that make up the lines that emminate from that central point. Requester: Radial Lines 1 and 2: These parameters set the colors of the lines that will be mixes and radiating out from the center of the texture. Central Color: This is color that will dominate the center of the blast. Radial Lines(2,4,8..): This adjustment lets you control the number of rays that radiate out from the center of the blast. Radial Line Size Vary: This parameter controls how much the length varies between radial blast lines. Setting it to zero will make all the radial lines the same length. Filter Adjust (0..1): This lets you set the transparency of the blast area. It can be used to do something like punching ragged looking holes in objects. Noise: These Magnitude and Velocity parameters allow you to control the scattering of the color and the variance of the shape of the blast area. sample object: primative plane with Z axis perpindicular to surface ================================================== Specific Primative Textures: ================================================== DeathStar Family: Type: Color, Reflect, Filter, Bump. Coolness - These textures applies a random pattern of beveled, dirty tiles to an object. Color can be added to the bevels and dirt or rust can be added to the corners of the tiles. The first texture, Death Star, applies itself best to flat or cubic objects, the second, Radial Death Star, applies best to tubular or spherical objects. The bump mapping can be turned off, and by adding only color you can do a printed circuit board type look. Requester: X,Y, and Z Eccentricity Adj: These sets the amount of scaling difference in tiles that are affected by an eccentricity factor an a particular axis. - Its a little tough to explain - just play with it. Bevel Width Adjust: This parameter sets the width of the bevels (lines) between the tiles. Bump Adjust: This adjusts the apparent steepness of the bevels between the tiles. 0.0 will make the bevels flat. Red/Green/Blue Bevel Color: The bevels on this texture can be colored. These parameters allow you to set this color. A negative value in any of these will turn the application of color to the bevels off. Bevel Reflect/Filter: These let you explicitly set the reflectance or transparency of the bevels. Negative values in any of these will tell the texture to just use the values already on the object. Try this texture on a fully transparent object with this filter value set to 0.0. Bevel Dirt/Rust: These parameters let you dirty up the corners of the tiles. The value you put in here sets the approximate size of the dirt spot. If you apply both dirt and rust, it may look best to keep the rust size smaller than the dirt size. ========================= DethStar (Death Star) Texture Requester: X, Y, and Z Sizes: These allow scaling of the texture. By adjusting them independantly, you can stretch the tiles in any particular axis. sample object: primative plane. ========================= ================================================== Specific Application Textures: ================================================== Iris Texture Type: Color. This texture was specifically designed to do the colors of an iris in an eyeball. The texture is applied to a black disk with it's Z axis coming out of it's surface. It has four colors that can be set. Two of the colors are used as base colors from which a range of colors is interpolated to get the rays of coloring that go from the pupil to the edge of the iris. One of the other colors is for the band of color around teh pupil, and the last is for the band of color around the outer edge of the iris. A noise function is also included to give the color banding a more non-uniform look. How it works: Add a primative disk, and use Transform to rotate the disk's axis by 90 degrees around the X axis. Change the color of the disk to 0,0,0 (black) and apply Iris (the texture) to the disk. Accept the defaults in the requester. It's that easy. Requester: Inner/Outer Radius: These parameters set the size of the Iris texture. The inner radius is the radius of the pupil, and the outer radius is the radius of the outer edge of teh iris. Iris Color 1 and 2: These colors are used to set up two colors that the texture will randomly interpolate between to come up with colors for the iris. A negative value in any of these parameters will tell the texture to use the color(s) already on the object. Inner Color: These color values set up the color of the edge of the iris near the pupil. A negative value in any of these parameters will tell the texture to use the color(s) already on the object. Outer Color: These color values set up the color of the outer edge of the iris. A negative value in any of these parameters will tell the texture to use the color(s) already on the object. Noise Magnitude and Velocity: These parameters add some noise to the area of the iris that just uses the iris colors. Light Textures ============================= ============================= SoftEdge - Soft Edge Lighting Texture Type: Round Shape and Rectangular Lights This texture, when applied to a shaped light, adds a penumbra to the light so the edges of the light aren't as sharp as they usually are in imagine. This makes the lights look as if they are being cast from further away. Penumbra Adj : This parameter sets the size of the light's penumbra (soft shadow) as a fraction of the amount of light showing. Noise 1 and 2 : These parameters allow you to add noise to thei penumbera area of the texture so you can get a more grainy penumbra instead of a smooth gradiant. ============================= PROBLEMS IN RUNNING THE DEMO VERSION OF IMAGINE 4.0 If you have a problem, here is a list of some of the known potential ones you may have with your system: 1. "Mouse driver not loaded" Remember, this is not a windows program, so unless you load the mouse drive in your config.sys or autoexec.bat, you will need to load this before running Imagine. 2. "I type Imagine and press the enter key. The screen goes blank and then comes back to the system prompt" This may be on of 2 problems: A. You just do not have enough RAM. We need at 4 megs of ram to run the program. You could never have to much ram. B. You may be running a newer version of dos that has memory management controls. To allow Imagine to run, try adding the "-noxms" flag to the Imagine command (i.e. Imagine -noxms). 3. "I enter the Imagine command and get back the error emm386 unrecoverable error ???? press any key to reboot" This is cause by a conflict with Imagine and you memory manager command in your config.sys file. We don't like to have you change your system, but there is no way around this problem, without changing your config.sys file. Use whatever editor you feel comfortable with and edit your config.sys file. In this file, you will see a line that reads something like this: device=c:\dos\emm386.exe noems There may also be more information after the noxms flag, but those 5 letters "noems" must be removed from that line, or IMAGINE 4.0 will never run. Taking this flag out should not cause any problems, but we could never be certain with all the different system configurations that there are. As with any change, make sure you make back-up copies of any files you are planing to change. 4. "When I run Imagine, I get an error that the Vesa driver is not loaded" Imagine uses the industry standard VESA drivers 1.2 and above for our display of 24 bit color pictures and the attributes requester. If Imagine does not see a current 1.2 VESA video driver loaded, it will not display any of these pictures with that qualtity. The images are fine, it's just that Imagine will not display them. To correct this, get a driver that is for your video card. This is probably included with the disks for your video card. They may have been copied to a directory on your harddrive already, but the driver may not be loading in dos. Check your video cards documentaion for instructions in adding this driver to your config.sys or autoexec.bat. If you can not find a driver for your card, there may be some generic drivers available such as UNIVEB, or others listed on the manufactures BBS, or even on the Internet.