Lesson 4: "Problems with Points" or "Don't start rotating now!"

 

Well, I don't think you understand what I'm telling you, but I'll continue anyways....:)

Now you've joined your model together into pieces like the turret or the barrel you plan to rotate/move independantly from the rest. Now we've got to "export" (=Save them in a file format the 3dobuilder can understand) them. Select the part of your unit you want to export. Now the hardest thing about exporting: You can't export them right away where they currently are. You've got to export them at a position relative to the center of the axes so that the origin point (center of rotation) of the piece is where you want it. If you really don't understand this, don't worry: We can fix it later thanks to the improved 3dobuilder+ 2.0. But let's try it:

Don't worry about the positions of the objects: We'll move them into their correct positions later. All that counts is the origin point. I'll show you how I would for example export a very simple tank (You can also download this example model!):

I colored each of the pieces I wanna export with another color for your viewing pleasure....:) Now I select one of these pieces I wanna export and press:

F3 (export command)

Can also be found in the "File menu": "Export Selected..."

this box will appear:

I enter the the name of the piece and select "LightWave" as file type. Some veteran modellers might have told you that you should use .dxf, but Lightwave is a lot better to use with the new 3dobuilder. Then click on save. Repeat this procedure for every piece of your model. Congratulations! You just exported your model!

And now we'll exit Rhino and continue with the mysterious: 3dobuilder+ 2.1!

Let's start 3dobuilder. First we got to build an "Object tree". I tried to describe that to you in the last lesson: We got to tell 3dobuilder what objects the unit has got, and what objects are attached to other objects. this is such a "object tree":

"Base" is always there. I don't import an object to it, it's only the groundplate (The groundplate is the green selection-rectangle around a unit. It's a simple, untextured face). That's why I made an aditional object called "body". Other modellers import the body & the groundplate to be the "base", but I don't suggest that because, especially if you're a beginner, you can fix problems with the groudplate easier. One of these problems is VERY common: The "weird climbing" problem. If your unit moves very strange in the game, especially when climbing hills, your unit's groundplate is screwed. You can solve the problem via selecting the groundplate, then selecting "inverse face" out of the "special" pull-down menu and then saving. If that doesn't work, you got to import a new groundplate, and if you then got the body also stored in the base object, all the texturing of it is lost...

Okay, but now back to 3dobuilder: You can make such a object-tree with selecting the object the new part shall be attached-to and then pressing:

- The "New Object"-button

Left-click: Make a new object.

The best way is to try & expriment at first.

Now when you made your object-tree, we import the objects. Select the object you wanna import on the tree and use the

- The "Import Object"-button

Left-click: Import new object.

Select the .lwo file you stored your object in. Now the 3dobuilder imports the piece and you can see it in the viewports. Now repeat this procedure for the other objects. When you select one of the objects on the tree, you see a small dot in the views. That's the origin point.

Now you've imported the objects, but they are still in the weird positions you've exported them, right? Look at the lower-left corner:

Click on the register "Object" You can change the positions of the objects there. It's more exact with the numbers, but it's more comfortable with the "crosshairs". You can find a button with crosshairs on it in the upper right hand corner. If you click with it in one of the viewports, the selected object will move to the position you clicked on.

There are a lot more options in the menu, it's the best to experiment with them, 3dobuilder also got a good readme, it should be no problem. In the next lesson, I'll only talk a bit about texturing.

Have fun while playing around with 3dobuilder!

 

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