Mortem Vetus: SceneScapes X6 - Castle Creator Thank you for purchasing SceneScapes X6 - Castle Creator. We hope you enjoy using this product, and this User Guide is intended to just help you get the most out of your purchase. Mostly, this guide will be covering the basic operation of the items included in the pack. This pack is intended for use with Poser8 and newer. It will work in Poser 6 and 7, but we feel the results are not as good as Poser 8 and higher. For the purposes of this guide, we'll be using PoserPro 2010, but there is nothing we'll be doing that can't be done in Poser 6 and above.  And initially, pretty much everything is in default, except Render settings. Once you've installed the product, your new Castle Creator items will be in: Character:MortemVetus:SceneScapes:CastleCreator: Props:MortemVetus:SceneScapes:CastleCreator: Before we do anything else, we need to get Poser set up so that SceneScapes works as intended. Anyone that has already used previous SceneScapes packs will be familiar with this, but we recommend still having a look over this bit, as we're using different piece sizes in this pack. The most important thing is our Poser units. SceneScapes has been built so that you move a piece a certain distance, and it seams in perfectly with the piece next to it. To do this, we've used unit settings in Metres (Meters in US English), because it makes life easier for everyone than feet and inches. Image1 below shows setting up our units. We need to click Edit, then General Preferences. In the dialogue window that opens, go to the Interface tab and select Meters under Units. Poser is now working in Metres. So that you don't have to repeat this every time you want to use SceneScapes, go to the Document tab and click "Set Preferred Scene". Poser will now open a new document in exactly the state it is now in.

Image 1: Setting Poser Units

We mentioned that we're using different size pieces for this set, with the purpose of making larger scale constructions. The majority of the pieces in this pack are 5m x 5m x 5m. However, the towers are 7m x5m x 7m, that is to say they're 7 metres wide and deep and 5 metres tall. The three Gatehouse sections are 7m x 5m x 5m, or 7 metres wide, and 5 metres tall and deep. This affects the distance each piece needs to be moved to be in correct position.

Image 2: Castle Creator in the library	Image3: First piece loaded

In image2 above, we can see our CastleCreator folder in the Figures library. To get started, we're going to load L1-Gatehouse. NOTE: All the pieces have a prefix, either L1, L2 or L3. This is the level that they open at, so L1 is floor level, L2 is 5 metres above that, and L3 is a further 5 metres above. Because this is an L1 piece, it's opened on the floor as we can see in image3. So we have our first piece loaded and we've pulled the camera back a bit so we can see the whole scene. Now we can see that two of the faces appear to have no texture, on the side and the top. These are the faces that will join to neighbouring pieces and so should never be visible. These are all on the material 'NON-VIS'. Next we want to load another piece. We'll use L1-Wall3, and once it's loaded, we can see that it occupies exactly the same space as the first piece we loaded. So we need to move it so that it forms an unbroken surface with it's neighbouring piece. This is where our unit setup makes life easy. Because both pieces are on the same level, we only need to worry about movement on the xTran and zTran dials. And we want to move it to the side, so we'll use the xTran dial. If we click on the value, an entry box opens, and we want to enter 6 and hit enter. And as we can see in image4 below, the new piece has moved exactly to the side of the first piece. TIP: If you're unsure about the value to enter, dial the piece to roughly where it needs to be, then round off to the nearest whole number.

Image 4: Loading and positioning a second piece

Add more L1 pieces to extend your wall out. Next we're going to add some height to our Castle wall. So now we need an L2 piece, and we're going to load L2-Gatehouse. As we can see in image 5, it has loaded on top of L1-Gatehouse. Everything starting L2 will open at this height. Lets load another piece (we're using L2-Wall1) and move that the same as we did for the first level piece, so 6.000 on the xTran dial. In image6 below, we can see our four pieces all neatly arranged in relation to each other. Let's finish this section off with some top level walls.

Image 5: Adding upwards	Image6: Filling gaps

Because we've gone up another level, we want an L3 piece, and because we're building up the Gatehouse first, we're going to load L3-Gatehouse.. As we can see in image7 below, this appears another level higher. The floor of this top piece is 10m (~33ft) above floor level. To finish this section, we're going to load L3-Wall1, and move it on the xTran dial the same as we did for the lower level pieces under it. In image8, we can see all six pieces loaded and positioned.

Image7: Top section	Image8: Full width top

Now that we have a section of wall, let's take a look at the rest of the pieces. We'll start with the Walkway. First, we're going to load L2-Wall3, and move it to the left of our block, by entering -6 in the xTran dial. We can see in image9 below, this piece has a doorway type arch. This is for a smooth transition from Walkway to Wall. Because we're on level 2 at the moment, let's load L2-Walkway, and we're going to position it at -6 on the xTran, and 5 on the zTran, as we can see in image10 below.

Image9: Walkway join	Image10: Walkway extending on L2

Let's add the level 1 and level 3 pieces of the walkway, and position them to suit. So we're adding L3-Walkway and L1-Walkway, and positioning the same as L2-Walkway previously, so -6 on the xTran and 5 on the zTran. Now we can see in image 11 below our completed walkway section. And in image12 below, we've added a couple more pieces to fill that end out. NOTE: L3-Wall4, L3-Wall5 and L3-Wall6 all have an intersection to join with the Walkway pieces.

Image11: Additional walkway pieces	Image12: Filling gaps

Next is our tower pieces. These are the largest pieces in this set, at 7m x 7m. Again, everything is created according to level, so we have L1, L2 and L3 pieces for a Mid-Tower, and for a Corner-Tower. A Mid-Tower goes in the middle of a wall, for example, on either side of the L1-Gatehouse piece, while the CornerTower pieces take us round corners. So let's load a L1-Corner Tower and move it into position as shown below in image 13. We can see in the image that the wall will now be coming towards the camera, the same as the Walkway we added earlier. To come off this CornerTower, we will need to rotate our next piece and position it on both the xTran and zTran dials, as we can see in image 14 below. REMEMBER: When positioning and rotating objects, it can be easier by dialling the object into roughly the right position, and then entering the exact number. If it's almost in position, this is a case of just rounding off the number already there, up or down to the nearest whole number.

Image13: Corner Tower	Image14: Coming from a Tower piece

Almost there now, all that's really left to cover is the Moat and Drawbridge. To take a look at this, we'll need to be looking at the outside of the walls, since a moat is no good on the inside of a castle. So we'll start a new scene, and load L1-Gatehouse. All the walls pieces have the inside facing the camera, as all the interesting stuff is on the inside, so on the yRotate dial, we'll need to enter 180, to turn it round so that the outside is facing the camera. Next we need to load a Moat section and position it so that the back edge is adjacent to the front edge of the Gatehouse. Note: The Moat piece is a 9m square, consistent with the size of the updated Ground Fills product. We'll come back to why this is relevant in just a minute. On the body part 'Ground' there is a selection of morphs under 'MoatMorphs'. Because this section is directly in front of the Gatehouse, we want the morph 'Moat-Drawbridge' and we'll dial this full strength to 1, which we can see in image 15 below. As the morph name suggests, this is intended to be used with a drawbridge. So if we go to Props:MortemVetus:SceneScapes:CastleCreator, we have two drawbridges to choose from. In this instance, we need L1-Drawbridge-Open, which we'll load and we can see in image16 below. NOTE: All three props in this folder are smart propped to the L1-Gatehouse piece, so ensure the L1-gatehouse is selected before loading. Please be aware, all opening doors and gates on all pieces that have them are poseable. Select the door or gate on the pieces that have them and open or close using the dial marked 'Open-Close' which is in the Transform group node of those body parts. Also, the portcullis on the L1-Gatehouse is a seperate bodypart and has a morph to enable raising and lowering.

Image15: Gatehouse and Moat	Image16: L1-Drawbridge-Open loaded

Those who own our Ground Fill product have a little bonus included in this pack. In November 2014, we updated Ground Fill so that it is consistent with our SceneScapes range of products. If you haven't already done so, you should re-download the Ground Fill product and install it. It is now the same size as the Moat piece in this product and has a new water plane layer, as well as expanded morphs. When you installed this Castle Creator product, it will have added a new folder in your Ground Fill poses library called Expansions. In this folder are two  INJ and REM to add the moat morphs to your Ground Fill. Poser 9+. To take advantage of this, load the updated Ground Fill object, which is in Figures:MortemVetus:Scenery folder, called Ground Fill2. With the Ground Fill 2 object selected, go to your pose library where the Ground Fills MAT poses are, then into the new Expansions folder, and load the CC-Moat-INJ pz2. This will add the moat morphs from this product to the Ground body part in a new group node called 'Castle Creator - Moat'. This then allows you to use Ground Fill instead of the Moat piece, allowing for use of all the Ground Fill morphs. Poser 8/PoserPro2010. Do the same as above, but use the pz2 file P8CC-Moat-INJ.pz2. If you try to use the CC-Moat-INJ pz2 it puts the new morphs in their correct group node, but puts all the existing morphs under group node 'Morph' When you use the P8 INJ, it will put the Moat morphs under 'Morph' and leave the existing morphs where they should be. Rename the Morph group node by double clicking the group title, entering a new name and hit Enter.

To help get you started, we've included a number of pz3 scenes. These all have various combinations of Castle Creator pieces, as well as camera positioning to focus on intersting shots/angles. These pz3 scenes are intended to provide a starting point, from which you can expand on the loaded pieces to create larger more extensive scenes, although several of them can be used just 'as is'. That's the beauty of SceneScapes, it can be as large or as small as needed, you decide. Obviously once these scenes are loaded you will need to populate them with characters and additional props, as well as adjusting lighting to suit the needs of your desired image. You may also wish to expand on them by loading additional pieces and positioning them. See the images below for how each scene will look upon opening. CastleCreator-Scene1. A simple straight on scene, looking towards the Gatehouse, which is flanked by Mid-Towers on either side. A zeroed character will load between the procullis and gates of the L1-Gatehouse piece. CastleCreator-Scene2. The same pieces as Scene1, but a different view, looking down on the top of the Gatehouse where it meets the archway into the right hand Mid-Tower. A zeroed character will need to be raised 10 metres (10.000 on the yTran dial) and a positive amount on the xTran dial to be in view. CastleCreator-Scene3. A small scene looking at the gatehouse, which has been turned so the portcullis is facing the camera. Includes the open Drawbridge and a section of moat. A zeroed character will load behind the portcullis. CastleCreator-Scene4. A very small scene looking through an L2-Walkway to an adjoining L2-Wall3 piece. A zeroed characetr will need to be raised 5 metres (5.000 on the yTran dial) to come into view. This scene would suit being lit by our Flame Torch. CastleCreator-Scene5. A larger scene with the camera pulled quite far back, looking downward on the inside of the gatehouse and a section of courtyard, with the drawbridge and a bit of moat visible through the main gate. A zeroed character will load in the middle of the gatehouse, between the gates and the portcullis. CastleCreator-Scene6. A corner scene utilising various pieces from all three levels. A zeroed character will load central, in front of the open gate.

We hope you enjoy using this product and we look forward to seeing what images you make with it. Happy Rendering Andrew and Tracey :)

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