Tips for designing your garden £ £Lay your foundations first £Plants are much easier to position than 3D objects. Generally, lay down the manmade features first. Bridges and flights of steps are fiddly and are best done early on. £ £Selecting objects £Sometimes, when there are many object close together, it is tricky to outline the object you want. Switching off the surrounding features will help (see features panel). Another idea is to use PLAN view. This is almost always the best method for positioning anyway. You can also try moving so you are closer to the group of objects. £ £Hotspots £Each object has a spot on it where it is held when dragging around outlined. In unrotated PLAN view, for example, the house features have a hot spot that is on their bottom left corner. If you double click and use the position bar to rotate the house you will see that the house moves relative to the hot spot, so for rotated houses, the hot spot is no longer in the bottom left corner. If you are unable to get the wireframe outline to come up for any feature, move slowly around its edge until it becomes visible. £For walls, and houses the hot spot is at their bottom left corner. For plants the hot spot is at their base. The best way to check where an object's hot spot is it to outline it then left click and hold: The position on the object that is pointed to by the mouse is the hot spot. £ £Placing features next to other features £Occasionally features can be drawn in the wrong order. This is most likely to happen when two objects, for example a house and a garage, are adjacent. To reduce this problem consider: ~Lean to: works best with the tallest rectanglar side adjacent to the wall. ~Blocks: make the side that will be next to your other object longer (even if only slightly longer) than the other side. £ £Using textures £When painting panels of objects, you will get the most pronounced 3D effect if you make the textures slightly different shades. You make like to try alternating shades (see the hexagonal greenhouse as an example). £ £Flat objects £If you need several flat features to be drawn in a particular order, consider making the ones that are on top slightly higher (say 0.1 of a metre) than those underneath. £ £Planting on raised beds £The best method is to switch to PLAN view. Move downwards so you get a clear view of the bed. Switch on AUTO height. Then position your plants. The planting height will be found automatically. If you have the position bar down, you will be able to confirm that the plants are going in at the correct height. £If you wish to move an object in LEVEL view that is not at ground level, remember this rule: the outline always shows the location that the object will be inserted. The mouse will point to the place on the ground that is immediately beneath the object's hot spot. £ £PLanting on Slopes £AUTO height cannot work out the height at various points down a slope. The best method is to first arrange the plants at ground level in their correct x,y positions. Then, using LEVEL view, double click on each plant and, using the Oz increment on the position bar, gradually raise each plant so that it is visible on top of the slope. £ £3D objects don't look right planted directly on slopes. You should put the slope next to a block as a foundation if you want to place a building half way up a slope. £ ******************************* Performance considerations £ £Too fast? ~Reduce your movement increments (see menu DISPLAY\OPTIONS). ~Increase the Delay between frames (see menu DISPLAY\OPTIONS). £ £Too slow? ~Close all windows you don't need. ~Close the HELP window. ~Don't have realistic shadows switched on (see menu DISPLAY\OPTIONS). ~The larger your viewpoint windows (GARDEN EDIT, GOTO, CAMERA), the more that needs updating. Keep these windows as small as practical. ~Increase your movement increments (see menu DISPLAY\OPTIONS). ~Reduce the Delay between frames (see menu DISPLAY\OPTIONS). £ ******************************* Getting Started £This information can be found in HELP by searching for 'Getting Started'. £ £ £Activate a panel (title bar turns blue) by clicking anywhere in the panel once. £ £Positioning ~. Right click and drag to insert a feature. ~. Outline a feature then left click and drag to reposition. ~. Outline a feature then press DEL to delete. ~. Outline a feature then double click (or CTRL I), it will become the current object and will copy the object to the object editor. £ £Precise positioning and rotation ~. Open position bar, outline a feature then double click (or CTRL I), then use precise position controls (Ox, Oy, Oz, Or) to alter the feature's position and rotation. £ £Movement ~. Move to a location by clicking in the GOTO panel. ~. Move your viewpoint by using the MOVEMENT panel. Click once for small movements. Click and hold, the movement will speed up. Right click for a single step. £ ******************************* Goto panel £ £The Goto panel shows a plan view of the garden reflecting the current rotation. When the Garden Editor panel is active, a circle in the Goto panel indicates your position in the garden. £ £To move to a particular place in the garden, make the Goto panel active and then click the mouse in the required spot. You will immediately be moved to the new position in the garden, keeping your current rotation. £ ******************************* Camera panel £ £The Camera panel has two purposes. You can either use it to capture your favourite views of the garden, so that you can easily return to them, or you can create a moving video sequence. £ £The camera stores position and time information, but not plant information. If you remove a particular plant from the garden which has previously been recorded by the camera, when you next examine the recording, the plant will no longer be present. Similarly, if you move a plant within the garden, the camera shot will show the new (current) position. £ £A row of buttons below the title bar are used to control the camera. Many of these can also be operated from the keyboard (hot keys). Move the mouse to each of the buttons in turn to display context help in the Help panel. £ ******************************* Movement panel £ £The movement panel contains 20 buttons which allow you to move the viewing position of the garden. As the garden appears to move, your position is updated on the position bar. The actual distance moved each time a button is clicked can be altered from the Display Options panel where you can increase or decrease the movement increment for each direction, and rotation. £ £Context-sensitive help is available on the Help panel for each of the buttons; just position the mouse over the required button when the Movement panel is active, and the relevant help will appear in the context box on the Help panel. £ ******************************* How to move a panel £ £Any panel can be moved to a different position on the screen, in the following way: ~1 Click on the panel to make it the active panel.~2 Move the mouse cursor to the title bar and press the left mouse button. You will see the border change to a dotted line. ~3 Now drag the dotted outline of the panel to the new position and release the mouse button. ~4 The panel will assume its new position. £ ******************************* How to size a panel £ £Any panel with a maximize/minimize button at the right-hand end of the title bar can be resized in one of two ways: £ ~ By clicking on the maximize/minimize button. This toggles the panel's size between full screen and its former size. ~ By 'stretching' or 'shrinking' the border of the panel. Place the mouse cursor on the border of the panel and press the left-hand mouse button. The border will change to a dotted line. Now drag the dotted outline of the border to increase or reduce the size of the panel. When you release the mouse button the whole panel will assume the new size. £ £Each panel has a minimum and maximum size, beyond which it cannot be reduced or extended. £ £The Garden Edit panel can be maximised by pressing the F8 key.
