Subtitles of the Movie

Double-click any model in a World View, or in the Project Window, and you get the Group Info Window. The Group Info Window shows location and basic shading parameters of any model. Let's look at the tabs. The X-form tab shows the Position, Rotation, and Scale for the model. If you move the model, for instance, it's noon position will appear as X, Y, Z data here. You can input any value into these live fields. If I input 100 into each of the position fields X, Y, and Z, the model will move 100 units away from the Origin in all three directions. Let enter negative 100 into these fields, and now we have our model moved down and away to the other side of the Origin but by the same amounts. Let's zero these Position values again. Likewise, you can enter positive or negative values in the Rotation fields. I'm going to make the Manipulator Tool bigger so that you can see what I mean. Let's go up to the Edit Menu, select Display, then Controllers, and I'm going to adjust the Size and the Thickness to make our axes more obvious, and I'll Orbit Camera around so I can see all three arrows clearly. The tip of each arrow points in a positive value for each axis. If you look at the tip of any arrow so that it's pointing toward you, you'll see that the positive Rotation value spins the model in a clockwise direction around that axis, so from the Top World View you can see when I enter a positive value in the Y field for Rotation, let's say 50, my model spins clockwise 50 degrees. Let's zero that. From the Side, and we're looking at the X-axis arrow tip, and I enter a value of 50 degrees, the model spins 50 degrees clockwise around the X-axis. Back to zero. Now, the tip of the Z-axis from the Front View is pointing away from us, so entering a positive 50 value from the point of view of this Window looks like its spinning counterclockwise. But if we look at the Camera View, which is looking the other way so that we can see the tip of the Z-axis arrow, we see the object has really spun around clockwise along the Z-axis. We can also change the Front View to become a Back View by clicking on the Projection Button, and you see the same thing, that the model has indeed spun clockwise around that Z-axis. So, don't get confused by this. If you want your model to look like it's spinning clockwise in the Front View Ð change that back to Front Ð or your Camera is pointed in that direction also, you need a negative value in the Z-axis Rotation field. Scale is pretty obvious. If you click the Auto Edit Y-Z button, then any value you type into the X field will replicate into the Y and Z fields. Like this. This is simply a time-saving feature so you don't have to type the same value three times if you want to scale your object proportionately. Of course, if you have Auto Edit Y-Z turned Off, then you can stretch your object like this. Let's reset the scale and get a little bit closer. The next tab is the Shading tab. This tells Electric Image how you want to shade this particular object. The values in this tab are not global. They do not affect any other model in your scene, just this model. Let's look at some of these options. Shading defaults to Ray Trace, which is EI's highest level of rendering. It is the most accurate and realistic in most cases. It also can take the longest to render. If your object does not have a need for realistic reflections or transparency, say like a glass vase, but is more diffuse like a brick building or a car tire, then you may want to switch the Shading to Phong. Of the other options you may want to render a Wireframe view of your model, say for a high-tech schematic or heads-up display. Let's do a Snapshot. You can see our Teapot in Wireframe Mode nicely Anti Aliased. You can change the thickness of the Wireframe lines by typing a higher value in the Lines field. Let's change that to 2. Another Snapshot and the Wireframe Lines appear thicker. Changing the Line Thickness may help you if your Wireframe animation looks too flickery. Next, we'll click the Shade Lines button and render another Snapshot. Now you have your Wireframe interacting with the lights in your scene Ð very cool. For now, let's skip the other Shading options. We'll return here when we get to the lessons on Texturing and Motion Blur.