If you are already familiar with 3D modelling, you will propably not need to follow this tuturial step by step. You might leaf through it to get some idea of the program's capabilities, but please go and just try it out yourself. For you newbies: I'll get you going making your own 3D graphics in just a few minutes.
For the sake of completeness, an AoI scene file called "hourglass.aoi" is distributed with this tutorial that you can simply open with the modeller. However, if you want to learn from this tutorial, you should try building the scene yourself.
To the left you see some icons. Clicking them selects a tool and a single line of help is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The icons are:
move object | ![]() |
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rotate object |
resize object | ![]() |
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move/resize/rotate object |
create box | ![]() |
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create sphere |
create cylinder | ![]() |
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create spline mesh |
create polygon | ![]() |
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create curve |
create camera | ![]() |
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create light source |
move view | ![]() |
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rotate view |
The bulk of the screen displays four views on the 3D model: Front, Left, Top and Camera1. For each view the user can set a camera or standard viewpoint (front, left, top, etc.), perspective or parallel viewing mode, display mode (wireframe, shaded, etc.), and a zoom factor (default 100). These viewpoints can be changed using the two appropriate tools for movement and rotation. You will often change the scale and position of these views but not the viewpoint. The standard views are quite sufficient for most modelling sessions. Only the lower right view, Camera1, will be changed often because it's very useful for checking out the model.
On the right is a (now empty) space for showing a list of objects (shapes) in your model. From this list you can select or deselect objects by clicking on their names. Also, double-clicking will bring up the edit-object dialog.
Before getting started, you need to know about one more thing: coordinates. The positions and dimensions of objects are determined by a coordinate system with three axes, named X, Y and Z. The X axis is considered to be pointing to the right, that is: the greater the X coordinate of a point, the more to the right it is in the model. Likewise, the Y axis points upwards and the Z axis points out of the screen towards you. (In jargon this is called a right handed coordinate system)
The first box is the bottom of the model. The top looks exacly the same, so create a box for it by copying.
Now we have two boxes, symmetrical about the origin. Note that both boxes are still named Cube1. You can change the name of the selected object in the Properties panel. Proper names could be 'Top' and 'Bottom'. Now it is easier to keep them apart when selecting from the list.
Using the techniques above we can also create the four poles between the top and bottom boards. Use the 'create cylinder' tool to create a cylinder of the following proportions:
Now we have a frame for the hourglass. Now use the 'move viewpoint' tool and the
'rotate viewpoint' tool to change the lower-right view (camera1). Now you can see the model from any angle you like. The result should look something like this:
This is an approximated curve, meaning the curve does not pass exactly through all the points. You can also create interpolated curves, where the curve does pass through all the points. Double-click the create curve icon to pick which kind of curve to create. The approximated curve is less intuitive, but produces a smoother shape than the interpolated curve does. The direction of the curve at the beginning and end of the curve is determined by the only adjacent point. The curve is vertical at point 5 because points 4 and 6 are both vertically displaced from this point. In general, the curve at any point is determined by the immediately preceding and following definition points.
As the central axis of the glass bulb, we will use the line running though the endpoints of the curve. In our drawing, this is the y axis, but by using the first line results in a solid object. To create the lathe, first select the curve and then select Tools->Lathe from the menu. In the lathe dialog, select the Line though endpoints as the lathe axis (see figure below).
The lathe shape is automatically centered at (0, 0, 0). This is exactly where we want it, so leave it. (Of course this is no coincidence. I planned it that way!). The spline curve that we created first is now redundant. You may delete it, but you don't have to since it won't show up in the final rendering. To delete an object, select it (from screen or from list of objects) and press delete on the keyboard. You may also use the menu option Edit->Clear.
First, determine the position and orientation of the camera. This is easily done using the camera preview in the lower right corner. Translate and rotate the view using the move view tool and the
rotate view tool. Hold Control while moving the view to zoom in and out. And you may roll the view over by holding Control and using the rotate view tool. You may also position the camera using the
move object tool and the
rotate object tool or with the Properties panel. The camera is an object just like any other. A good position might be one where you can see the top and two other sides of the object.
Next we should illuminate the scene. As you can see there is already a light source in the scene from the beginning of the session, Light 1. The light source should be positioned so that it illuminates the side of the object we are looking at. Light 1 is probably not positioned correctly given the position of the camera. Since this light source is also far away, we'll delete it and create a new one. AoI supports three types of light sources: point lights, directional lights and spot lights. We'll use the simplest of them, the point light. Follow the next steps to correctly illuminate the scene:
Rather boring isn't it ? Everything is a dull white. We want wood and glass, we should add textures.
3D procedural textures determine color, roughness, reflection and other surface properties as a function of 3D coordinates. For any position in space, the texture defines what a shape's surface looks like, as if we had cut the shape out of a solid block of this 'material'. However, for objects of which we can actually see the inside, transparent objects, we should use a material to define the inside, not a texture. Textures only determine what the surface of an object looks like.
A function mapping 3D coordinates to the values of texture properties is created by graphically connecting functional components. There are six categories of components:
When you've created a new texture, you'll be presented with a dialog in which you may specify the texture. There's a large empty white area, in which we'll add functional components. And to the right there are blocks with names like diffuse, specular, transparent, etc. These are properties of a texture which will be connected to the components we've added in the empty area.
The following components are added to the procedure to make a wood texture:
The texture doesn't really look very realistic but it will have to do for now. To create more complex textures, read the section on textures of the the Art of Illusion manual.
This texure will be assigned to the top and bottom boards and the sticks in between that we've created earlier. Select all the shapes that should be assiged the Wood texture. Then select Object->Set Texture and Material from the menu. Now select the Wood texture and press OK.
Now select only the Top and Bottom objects. Again call up the set texture dialog. Now click on the button labeled Edit Mapping. In this dialog, you may scale, translate, and rotate the texture to fit the object. We'll only rotate the texure to get the following result:
Now for the sticks. Select them all and edit the mapping mapping again. Create a mapping like this:
Now let's look at the result. The rendered image will look something like this:
First we'll create the glass texture, and then the glass material.
Select the bulb. From the Texture option in the Properties panel, select New Uniform Texture. This texture will make the surface transparent, so the inside material will be visible, and it determines the amount of specular reflection. The image below shows what settings to use for the new texture. Transparency is controlled by both the Transparent Color and the Transparency value. The red, green and blue fraction of the transparent color determine how much of each color component remains when light passes though the surface. It is a filter color. White, the default color, means that light of any colors passes the surface. Black means no light passes. The transparency value determines the total fraction of the light that passes though. A value of 0.7 means that 70 percent of the light is let through the surface. This also means that the transparent component determines the color of the surface for 70 percent. The remaining 30 percent of color will be determined for 100 percent by reflection, so the Specular value will be set to 1.0. Shininess determines the brightness of reflected highlights. In most cases, specularity and shininess should be set to the same value. The surface's diffuse component does not affect the total color with these settings. We'll use the object's material to color the glass.
To create a new material, select New Uniform Material for the Material option in the Properties panel. The new material may also be named Glass. You can see the parameter settings in the image below. The color of a material is affected by three parameters: Emissive Color, Transparent Color, and Scattering Color. Emissive color is the color of light given out by the material. Use this for glowing materials like fire. Our glass shouldn't glow, so this is set to black. Transparent color affects the light passing through the object, and also colors the shadows cast by the object. It specifies the fraction of red, green and blue that passes through. Scattering color is the color of light that gets reflected from inside the object. How much the light is attenuated is determined by the Density value. A value of zero results in no attenuation. For this glass material we'll specify a green scattering color that only shows on very massive objects.
Finally, to improve the image quality, set Antialiasing to Maximum in the render dialog. And if your light source is near the object, checking Soft Shadows will result in a more realistic image. Both options cause the raytracer to cast multiple rays per pixel. The results are averaged to create a smoother image. Setting the minimum and maximum number of Rays/Pixel to higher values results in better image quality and slower rendering speed. For a quick image, don't use these options. Good quality is achieved by setting minimum and maximum to 4 and 16 rays respectively. More rays may be needed for large soft shadow areas.
Raytracer settings and the resulting image are shown below:
Using the basics from this tutorial you can now start modelling the worlds of your imagination. Gradually, as you learn to master all of the program's features, you'll get better and better... and more addicted.
Good luck.