----- Club : IMPULSE, INC. Sec: 2 Date : 12/26/90 19:08 Num: 84 Theme: IFF MAP, WRAP AND OTHER SUNDRI To : ALL By : IMPULSE Title: IFF WRAPING WITH IMAGINE ----- TO all who have Imagine: For those of you have Turbo Silver some of what is found here may be a bit redundant. For those of you new to this stuff, may I suggest that you down load this text and refer to it when you get stuck. First off there are three basic kinds of wraps and they all have to do with the axis of the brush itself. These types are: Wrap X and Wrap Z, Wrap Z Flat X and Flat X Flat Z. You may notice that It seems that I have left Flat Z Wrap X out, I hardly ever use this type because I can do the same thing with Wrap Z aand Flat X. The brush that is loaded when you tell it to assign a brush to an object is brought in at the center of the axis. IT is mapped in from the center and moves outward in the positive direction of the Z and X axis. The Z is the vertical of the picture and the X is the Horizontal of the picture. The simplest wrap that you can do is the Flat X and Z. It truly is the easiest of them all. Assume for a moment that you want to put a picture on a flat object, this object could have depth to it or it could be a single pixel in depth, it makes no real difference. You assign the brush ( IFF picture) that you want in attributes reqeuster, then go to edit axis. The frist this that you want to do is move the axis of the brush to the lower left corner of the object. This assumes that the object is a simple flat object that is oriented as the axis is, by this I mean that it looks like a wall in the front view as opposed to lying down like a plate on a table. The Z axis of your brush should run right up the left side of the falt object and the X axis should be just below (two or three pixels.) the flat object. Now you must scale the Z and the X axis to be slightly larger than the object itself. If you had a square that was 100 by 100 units then the brush axis might be 105 by 105. In this manner you can be sure that when you palce the brush axis at the lower left hand corner of the flat object that it will cover it like a blanket. All of this can be done from the front view. When you scale an axis in Imagine you must be in the LOCAL mode not WORLD mode. Repeat,,,,, LOCAL, get to this mode after you choose, scale and then choose local. Only the aixs will grow when you do the scale and the bounding box will just hang out and look stupid. From the right view you must move the axis negative in Y, just a couple of pixels. THis moves the brush off the face of the object so that it dosen't get stuck on the objects face plane and look just horrible. In Turbo Silver you never had to worry about the size of the Y axis. In Imagine you DO. The Y axis defines the depth of the brush or map. If you want to make a decal on something that has more than one side or depth, say the side of a truck. You want to put your companies logo there, but you only want it on one side. No [r No problem (sorry about the goof up above) position the brush axis where you want it to appear and then decrease the size of the Y axis to be smaller than the depth of your object. It will appear on one side of the object and not the other. This is also where it seems that many folks are getting all horsed up when they try to make what I call, World and Can wraps using the wrap Z option. To make a world wrap (make a sphere look like earth from outer sapce) you first need a good map image. (even if you have a bad image the same applies) With the brush assigned to your object move the axis to a couple of pixels below the sphere, scale the Z axis in LOCAL mode to be just a bit larger than the sphere itself. From the fron view it should look like a line from the bottom of the sphere to the top right in the middle of the sphere. OK now scale the X axis to be from it present location just slightly larger than half of the sphere. It should be a couple of pixels larger than the radius of the sphere. NOW Pay attention my friends. If the Y axis is larger than the sphere what do you think will happen ? Of course, you just learned that the Y axis has DEPTH and if you make it larger than the sphere it is going to do something that you won't be able to see. It is going to wrap the image at the end of the Y axis and if the axis is larger than the object, it is going to put the picture wrap outside of the object, in no wrap land. To make this go away all you have to do is make the Y axis smaller than the object. I just make the axis 1 or 2 untis in size and forget about it. Make sure that you choose Wrap Z Flat X or Wrap Z Wrap X. YOu can decide which you like better for planets and other heavenly bodies. The last kind of wrap is the CAN wrap as I call it. You know where you want to wrap the coke logo around a tube or can like object. Do the same thing for the CAN wrap as you did for the sphere or global wrap. Position the brush axis in the same place and make sure that the size of all the axis are the same as in the sphere wrap. The only real difference here is to make sure that you only choose Wrap Z Flat X, all other wraps will look real spooky. See now that wasnt so bad was it. I hope this will help you in your journeys through your own imagination. The best answer to all questions that pertain to Imagine is ...... EXPERIMENT, EXPERIMENT and do it again. Like you I have learned the same way that you are now learning. I tried and tried and then did it again. I dont think much about it anymore cause I have found what I like. You need to do the same. Have Fun and ENJOY ----- Club : IMPULSE, INC. Sec: 2 Date : 12/24/90 11:29 Num: 70 Theme: ATTRIBUTES FOR IMAGINE OBJECTS To : ALL By : IMPULSE Title: HOW CAN I MAKE GOLD AND CHROME AND OTHER STUFF ----- It seems that after all this time the message on how to make Chrome, Gold Silver, Brass and other attributes that have a real world quality, has gone either unoticed or we have done a poor job of telling you how. So here is a quick quide. In no way should you use these numbers to be a holy grail, they are just numbers that I use and find that they meet my needs. First things First. These attributes of Gold or Silver (chrome) and other shiny metalics have almost more to do with the environment that they are in than the color or refelction of the object. Try to imagine yourself in the real world and understand that gold and chrome are most noticeable when they are shown in an environment of Bright sun with lots of colors and other items to help the attributes in a sense take hold. For GOLD. I make the object color Red 205, Green 205 and Blue 80. Refelctive settings are Red 180, Green 160 and Blue 125 I use hardness at 255 and specular 255 on all guns Red Green and Blue. If you add a intersting dithered Global brush to the Globals in the Action editor the effect is even better. Now the enviroment of tthat Gold likes seems to be the use of pastel or lighter colors for Horizon and Zenith colors. It is best to try several objects in a scene with different attribute numbers you will then get a much better feel for what YOU like. The one problem with Attributes is that you must decide for yourself what is GOLD or SILVER. One mans Gold is another mans (or womans) Brass. Chrome is almost the same. Object color: Red 120, Green 120, Blue 160 Reflective Red, Green and Blue 140 on each Specular 255 all Guns and Hardness 255 Last but not least, Glass. Make the object color Black or Red Green and Blue set to 0. Filter 255 on all guns, no reflectivity on any guns and Hardness 255, with Specular at 255 on all guns. So I hope this helps, or at least gives you some idea of what I use to get the effects that many find hard to conqure. Remember I have spent many hours trying several sets of attributes to get what I like. Chances are that if you do the same you will find yourself with results that you appreciate. On to more tracing.... Mike