SceneScapes X2 - The Vault.

Welcome to SceneScapes. This is a modular construction set for building custom architecture for outdoor scenes. This is an ongoing and evolving range that we will be adding more to yet, amongst all the other content we make.

To install, copy the Runtime folder from the zip archive and copy it to your Poser folder that already contains a Runtime folder. Once you have unpacked SceneScapes, your new props will be located here:
Runtime:Libraries:Character:MortemVetus:SceneScapes:The Vault:

Please note, if you bought any of the SceneScapes packs up to and including X5 - Paved In Stone, the props will be in different folders, for which we apologise, but SceneScapes came into being before we became Mortem Vetus and indeed before we even got together. X6 - Castle Creatot does have the correct library structure. With this re-packing for Renderosity, we've taken the time to update all the libraries to properly place them where all further packs will go.

Ok, so let's get started. The very first thing we need to do is set our Poser units to 'Meters'. Please refer to Chapter 1 to recap on doing this. We will be continuing with the scene from the last chapter and we'll be using that scene all the way through this guide up to X5. Again, we'll be using PoserPro2014.

Once our units are set, we can start bringing some props in. Unlike the two previous sets, these are in your library as 'figures'. This was to facilitate easier operation, keeping things as easy as possible for using these sets.


Image 2.1: Loading props

Straight away we can see that all the props except the 'Vaulted Section', have a reference to either 'door', 'wall', or 'arch'. These refer to the outer walls. As you'll know by now, SceneScapes is about outdoor settings, but this one also features a degree of 'inside' too. While the primary intention of The Vault was to allow for depth in constructions, it also serves very handily as an interior setting in it's own right. Like many of the SceneScapes range, it is part of the series and integrates with that, but several of them are quite comfortable as effectively stand alones and don't require the rest of the series. In fact, apart from the first two packs, which are very closely related, the rest of the series can be treated as stand alone and does not require any previous packs.


Image 3.2: The Vaulted Section

In image 3.2 above, we've loaded what will be our central 'base' prop, for which we're using the Vaulted Section. As in the previous chapters, we'll parent everything to this piece. This would be a good point to decide whether we want to use it as an indoor or an outdoor setting. Using a zeroed Vaulted Section as our base prop makes sense if we're going to be using this block for inoor scenes set within The Vault. If however, we were creating a block to add to the scene from previous chapters, then it would make more sense to use one of the other pieces. We will add some of The Vault to our ongoing User Guide scene.

But first we'll take a look at this set from the inside. So we have our Vaulted Section, and for indoor scenes, this one is the piece you will use most. All the pieces in The Vault set are 3 metres cubed, so every side in every direction is 3 metres. So if we look at the Vaulted Section above, we can see some large grey areas, and what appears to be bits missing from the front pillars. These are all areas that are non-visible, ever.

Now, that one little section is not going to get us very far, so we need more. The quickest way to do this, is to use Edit>Duplicate. This has been a useful feature since Poser7. This crteates a clone of our Vaulted Section, BUT please be aware, when you duplicate a figure, it names the new figure just 'Figure 1', 'Figure 2', etc. When duplicating props, it keeps the name and adjusts the suffix accordingly.


Image 3.3: Duplicating the Vaulted Section.

In image 3.4 below, we've duplicated the Vaulted Section, and moved it -3 on the zTran. We then duplicated that and moved it left, then same for the right. Again, if you have units set to 'Meters' everything moves in multiples of 3, in all directions. And always in whole numbers.


Image 3.4: Extra instances of the Vaulted Section

In image 3.5 below, we can see the Hierarchy Editor, which looks a little different because we're using figures now. We've collapsed all the figures just to save space and keep everything nice and tidy, so it's easier to work with. To parent them, drag and drop the duplicated figure names onto VSection, and this will parent them to the Body of that figure. Normally, we'd collapse VSection too, but we've left it open for illustration this time. So as we did in previous chapters, we want to parent all the new objects to the original one.


Image 3.5: Parenting together.

Once all the pieces are parented, select the VSection and click Add To Library. This time, there is no option for selecting a subset, so fill in the new name and click ok. You'll be presented with a dialogue box telling you the figure is part of a compound grouping, and asking if you'd like to save the whole group or the individual figure. Click 'Whole Group' and we now have a block of connected Vaulted Sections ready to load up, nice and easy.


Image 3.6: saving grouped figures to the library.

While we're still inside The Vault, one thing we really need to mention is lighting. Because it is so menclosed, lighting can be a problem. We did bring out an add-on with various lighting options to make life simpler and that is also available at Renderosity. However, lighting can be quite simple, depending on what you want to do. So let's take a look at some basic lighting within The Vault.

We like nice dark, atmospheric scenes, so we're going to delete all the existing lights in our scene with a utility Python script, deleteLights, as shown below.



Image 3.7: Delet5ing all lights with Python script.

We're now in total darkness. To create a new light, go to the Light Controls and use the Create Light symbol on the right of the light globe as we can see in the image below. TIP: If you left click this button an infinite light is created. If you right click it, you get the choice of light type.


Image 3.8: New light in the darkness

We've selected a Point light, as this is very much more usable than the others in this situation. Unlike the other kinds of light, a Point light has an origin that can be determined by it's co-ordinates in Poser space. So we're going to set the x,y,z trans dials to zero, and this places our Point light right in the middle of the floor in our base Vaulted Section, as we can see below.


Image 3.9: Point light zeroed.


Image3.10: Changing the display properties of the light.

In order to see our light better, we've changed it's display properties as shown in Image 3.10 above. This is because we're also going to change the background colour to black, and lights displaying in outline can be very hard to find in a scene. By setting it's display properties to cartoon, we giver ourselves a visual reference point in preview, which won't show in our render.

Next we're goiung to move the light up. Here, we are constrained by the height of the ceiling and ideally, we want it a bit below the ceiling to avoid any overly bright patches. 2.35 height on the yTran dial is pretty good, so we'll go with that, and we've given it a quick render to see what's happening, as shown in Image 3.11 below.


Image 3.11: Bright point light

First thing we notice is that the light is to bright. We'll lower the brightness and then move it, where it may need further adjustment to the intensity. In image 3.12 below, we've turned the intensity down to 50% and we've changed the Dist Start and Dist End dials. These control how far the light reaches, and the rate of falloff once it starts to decay. Dist End is the overall reach of the light, which we've set to 8 metres which is around 25ft. Dist Start is the point at which the light starts to decay.  Our setting here of 5 metres means that for the first 5 metres, the light is at full strength. Between 5 metres and 8 metres, the light is falling off until at 8 metres, it's effectively zero. And in Image 3.13 we've moved the light 3 metres to the right.


Image 3.12: darker light.


Image 3.13: Positioned light.

That's using The Vault from the inside, but as with all SceneScapes, the primary purpose is outside. So we'll create a new scene and we're going to load 1Arch and duplicate it twice so we have a row of three, and we'll parent the two clones to the original.

We created a block of VSections earlier and saved it to the library. Let's reload that now, and as we can see in the image below, because the parent VSection was at zero when we saved it, the two blocks collide, both the parent pieces are occupying the same space. So we're going to select our parent VSection and move it -3 on the zTran. Once it's moved, we're going to parent the VSection block to the Arches block, by dropping the parent of the VSection block onto the parent of the Arches block in the same way we did for previous pieces.


Image 3.14: Parenting the figures together.

From there, we can now load the block we saved during the previous chapter about the Roofing. After positioning it to suit, we've parented the roofing block to the Arch. That is now the parent to everything. If we save this back to the library now, we'd save the 1Arch figure and after we tell it to save the whole group, this becomes just one library entry, everything included.

We're going to sav this scene as a new pz3 this time, and use it for the next chapters of the User Guide. We'd suggest using just a few pieces to begin with, to get used to how it all slots together.
We hope you enjoy using this pack and as always, we look forward to seeing what you render with it.

Best wishes and happy rendering,
Andrew and Tracey
(MortemVetus)