home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
-
-
- Glossary of Terms:
- ------------------
-
-
- 3-D :
- 3-D stands for Three-Dimension. First, imagine a piece of paper. On a
- piece of paper, you can draw in 2 dimensions, up-down and left-right.
- These two dimensions can be called height and width. Now, 3-D is just
- like 2-D, with the added dimension of depth. So, in 3-D, everything has
- height, width, and depth. Example: A painting is generally 2-D (flat),
- while a sculpture is generally in 3-D. (a sculpture has width, height,
- and depth).
-
-
- Coefficient:
- Another word for MULTIPLIER, usually in the range of 0 to 1, including
- anything in between. The diffuse and specular values for a surface are
- set by coefficients. If you want a surface to reflect all the diffuse
- light that hits it, use a value of 1. A value of 0 will reflect no
- diffuse light. Fine tuning the diffuse and specular coefficients will
- make the surface look shiny or dull.
-
-
- Edworld :
- An A-Render support program.
- See A-RENDER.DOC for more information on using the Edworld program.
-
-
- Define :
- One of the core A-Render programs.
- See DEFINE.DOC, and MORE_DEFINE.DOC for more information.
-
-
- Diffuse Lighting :
- See LIGHT.DOC.
-
-
- Digitizer / Extruder :
- A core program of A-Render, it helps us build objects for display.
- For the best description of this, see DIGI.DOC.
-
-
- Entity :
- An entity is the attributes associated with an object. An object is
- simply a geometric description, it has no location in our 3-D world,
- it has no rotation, no color, and no lighting parameters. An entity
- refers to one (and only one) 'parent' object for its shape, and
- contains the parameters just listed.
-
- So, to put an item in your scene, you must first build an object.
- Then you make an entity that places that object in space, and specifies
- the entity parameters as desired. Many entities can refer to one parent
- object for their shape description. Each entity can have it's own
- location, rotation, scale (size), color, and lighting parameters.
-
-
- Global Lighting :
- See LIGHT.DOC.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- HAM :
- HAM is the Hold-and-Modify mode of the Amiga, giving the capability to
- display more than 32 colors at a time.
-
-
- Image :
- Generally, just another name for a picture.
-
-
- Lathe :
- A core program of A-Render. See LATHE.DOC for my best description.
-
-
- Object :
- An object in A-Render is the description of an item you want to put in
- a scene. The object data consists of the X, Y, and Z points for all the
- corners (verticies) of an object. Object data also includes a vertice
- list for each polygon. This list is simply an ordered list of the points
- required to describe each polygon.
-
- An object is not a complete description of an item in a scene. See the
- glossary entry 'entity' for more information on those.
- Sometimes, in the early sections of this manual I used the word object
- where it really meant entity, to try and limit confusion during your
- introduction to A-Render.
-
-
- Ray :
- A ray is another name for a line with a specific direction. A ray is
- specified by direction, in X, Y, & Z. A ray can also have a start or
- end point.
-
-
- Ray-tracing :
- For my best description of ray-tracing, see RAY_TRACING.DOC .
-
-
- Render :
- The core A-Render program is called render. Also the process of
- calculating an image can be called 'rendering'.
-
-
- Scene :
- The complete environment we have described to the computer. (aka world).
-
-
- Specular Lighting :
- See LIGHT.DOC.
-
-
- Pixel :
- A pixel is normally considered to be one dot on the screen. In A-Render,
- to speed up the image, we may calculate less rays and blow up the size
- of the displayed dot to occupy many screen pixels. This creates a
- picture with a 'blocky' look. These calculated blocks, although they may
- consist of many screen pixels, can also be called pixels.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- View Pyramid :
- The view pyramid is the description of the view parameters. Some of
- the most important view parameters are the position and direction.
- This is like placing a camera in a scene, and then aiming it.
-
- Another parameter is the view plane, (your monitor screen). The size of
- the view plane can be specified, along with it's distance from your eye.
- This is like changing the lens on the camera for a different field of
- view, or zooming in or out on a subject. When a scene is rendered,
- render will generate the image as seen from the current view position.
- (The current view is the one listed in the .world file for the current
- frame.)
-
- The name view PYRAMID comes from the imaginary pyramid drawn with 4
- lines from the eye through the four corners of the view plane. Define
- will display the view as a pyramid.
-
-
- World :
- The complete environment we have described to the computer.
-