Sculptor is a 3D free-form modeling program that is compatible with virtually every commercial 3D rendering program. With Sculptor, you can make many objects that would be difficult or impossible to create with traditional modeling programs.
When using sculptor, choose a tool from the tear-off menu. This tool can be moved around in either the top, front, or right view by dragging the mouse. Holding down the shift key allows you to resize the tool. If you hold down the option key, the tool with leave material behind, like a paintbrush tool in three dimensions. Holding down the command key will make the tool act like a 3D eraser.
Use the Save and Save As commands in the File menu to save a sculture if you want to work on it again at a later time. If you want to use the sculpted object in a 3D program, use the Export DXF File command. The 3D program you are using must be able to import DXF files (most have this capability). The 3D programs I have found to be compatible so far are: Ray Dream Designer 3.0, Studio Pro, Infini-D, and Alias (on Silicon Graphics machines). I don't expect that any 3D programs should have trouble reading Sculptor's DXF files.
The Export Mirage File command allows you to export an object in Mirage text format. (Mirage is a 3D modeling and rendering program I wrote, probably available wherever you found this) In Mirage, to load a Sculptor object, choose the New Object command and create an imported text object. When prompted for the text file, choose the file you exported from Sculptor.
When working on a sculpture, you can turn views on or off by clicking the check boxes in the main window. Press the render button to see a better (but slower) preview of the final object. Note that the final object undergoes a smoothing process and will look much better than you see in the standard "blocky" preview.
Special tools:
• The cylinder tool acts like a drill. It only appears in one view at a time as a circle. This circle, if you draw or erase with it, will create a pillar or a hole going all the way through your object from the point of view of the circle.
• The lathe tool also appears as a circle, but with this tool, you can make objects that have radial symmetry, like glasses or vases. Try it out and see how it works. The lathe tool does not work with rotations, so if the object is currently rotated, choosing the lathe tool will reset the rotations.
• The rotation tool doesn't show up in any of the views, but by dragging the mouse, you can rotate your point of view and work from any direction. Dragging in different views produces different effects. Holding the shift key constrains rotation to 15 degree increments. Note: rotate your object only if you need to - all operations on a rotated object are slower than on a non-rotated object.
Modifications to Sculptor (as of 4/27/94):
• When user chooses New from the File menu, the resolution of the
object may be specified, from 5 to 22 (default 10).
• Sculpting tools leave behind a "trail" when you're adding or
removing material so that you can see where you've drawn
before the actual update occurs.
• The Undo command in the Edit menu works.
• Old object files with fixed resolution of 10 are fully compatible
with this new version.
Tips:
• Try to use the minimum resolution needed to make your object
• When using resolutions above 10, move the tools slowly across the
object to keep the sculpting smooth. Especially with a
resolution of about 20, the tools can become "jerky"
• Also for resolutions above 10, use the rotation tool at your own risk.
It will still work fine, but the tools will respond extremely slowly.
• For high resolution objects, consider turning off either the right
or the top view. Having only two views active will speed up the
redraw process.
• For some complicated objects with high resolution, the program may run
out of storage when rendering or generating DXF files. I've tried to
minimize this event, but if it happens you'll see a cheesy warning
message. The program will still work, but the final object will be
missing some triangles. In version 1.0, this caused Sculptor to crash. Now
it won't crash and will go longer before failure.
That's it for documentation, but hopefully after playing around with Sculptor a little bit, you'll find it easy to work with. I appreciate any comments you might have, so send them to:
