This tutorial shows how to create behaviors for interactive textures: scrolling, blending textures on the faces of a cube. We will work on one face of the cube with its specific material-shader and one texture “mountain.jpg”. Part 4 of this tutorial covers setting up an orbital camera.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial explains how to export a 3D Studio Max scene from 3DS Max version 3. Before you start this tutorial, ensure you have installed the Virtools Exporter plugin for 3DS Max. The Scene in 3DS Max Load the sun_room scene located in the scenes folder for this tutorial into 3DS Max. When the file is opened it may indicate that certain textures are missing. If so, simply find the path to the textures in Map_RT. Here is what you should see: Activate Display, Polygon Counts - you will see that the scene contains 474 faces. Note a certain number of specific characteristics before exporting this set: - The vertex lighting: Select the wall_Small object, for example, and you will see the attributes of the Vertex
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial shows how to create behaviors for interactive textures: scrolling, blending textures on the faces of a cube. We will work on one face of the cube with its specific material-shader and one texture “mountain.jpg”. Part 4 of this tutorial covers setting up an orbital camera. Part 1- In Maya, exporting a cube with textures Before exporting to Virtools, make sure that all faces inside the cube have their normals facing towards the inside of the cube. Go to Modeling, Display > Polygon Components > Normals Normals are represented with colored lines sticking out of the faces of the cube. The red arrow shows the way one normal should look like.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial covers ways to create a terrain and control a flow of particle moving on the terrain in Virtools. Textured dunes: download at http://www.tinkering.net/sciviz/terraindune.cmo The landscape is created With Dune color, for texture and with Dune black-and-white, for displacement map. Please note that the pictures can be created in Photoshop or from a digital camera. You can use the same image for a texture and for a displacement map. You may end up using a black and white image for the displacement map because sometimes you want to have more control over the topography.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial explains how to export a Maya scene including animated objects with simple keyframes. It uses the Virtools plug-in directly loaded in Maya. The Scene in Maya Load the “mountains.ma” scene in the tutorial’s “scenes” file into Maya. To do so, place “mountains.ma” directly in your Maya “/scenes” directory. Then place the 4 textures in “/sourceimages”. Here is what you should see: Activate Display/Polygon Counts to see the number of faces in the scene, i.e., 474 (quads or triangles). Note a certain number of specific characteristics before exporting this scene. - the vertex lighting & the triangulation.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial shows you how to get around in Maya by creating a textured box from a polygonal primitive, how to export the box to Virtools and how to smooth the box into a sphere. Part 1 - Creating and texturing the box in Maya Part 2 - Maya to Virtools export Part 3 -Turn the box into the sphere
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

This tutorial shows how to create behaviors for interactive textures: scrolling, blending textures on the faces of a cube. We will work on one face of the cube with its specific material-shader and one texture “mountain.jpg”. Part 4 of this tutorial covers setting up an orbital camera. Part 1- In Maya, exporting a cube with textures Before exporting to Virtools, make sure that all faces inside the cube have their normals facing towards the inside of the cube. Go to Modeling, Display > Polygon Components > Normals Normals are represented with colored lines stickin out of the faces of the cube. The red arrow shows the way one normal should look like.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments