Session Twelve

I. Project updates

EXERCISE: With a partner, examine and discuss your projects. Be ready to explain your strategy for creating a compelling place description and completing the course requirements.

II. Lighting

• A source located at 45 degrees from the view point will dramatize three-dimensional qualities.
• A weaker second source on the opposite side can act as a fill light to reveal what would otherwise be lost in shadow.
• Backlighting or high-contrast lighting can be used for special effects.

B. Pragmatic tips:

- Save your work often.

- Test lighting with

• small output files (Display --> Image Options --> Custom Image Size)
• start with lower quality rendering first (first no shadows or transparency or texture maps)
• simpler geometry (turn off detailed layers)

- Take notes about variables, view locations & settings

C. TRY IT: Copy "Chinhse.fmz" and "win.zlb" from the Course Disk, Session 12, to your Guest folder. This Chinese farmhouse was built when there was little paint available.

1. Show what the house would look like after an interior paint job by selecting faces and changing their color. Can you make the topography look more realistic?
2. The farmhouse currently has one interior light and one exterior sun. Show what the house would look like at twilight by adjusting the lighting and changing the background.
3. When the village becomes more prosperous, the house could have more electrical lighting. Show how the lighting could be used to make a welcoming place.

III. Materials Basics

TRY IT: In a new file, create a simple box, sphere and cone.

1. Try mapping the default Autodessus texture map onto each one.
2. Once you are have centered the label onto the shapes, create a new texture map with the map.TIFF file. Can you spin the globe to show Austrailia? You can look at either globe.fmz or globe.GIF as examples.