Scenescapes. Welcome to Scenescapes. This is a modular building construction system for making versatile outdoor scene settings, with precision positioning. Ideally suited as building backgrounds, from quite small sections to much larger constructions. Easy to position props mean you can have a unique building, or part of building, for your background, quickly and without difficulty. As time goes on and I add more pieces and styles, the options and versatility will grow exponentially. Ok, so lets get started having a look around it. Before we do, one essential thing to do is set our Poser units to 'Meters', as shown in image 1 below. Select Edit > General Preferances, then the Interface tab. Once Poser's units are set to Meters, all the props will position exactly in all three dimensions to an accuracy of less than one tenth of a millimetre. |
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Image 1
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Image 2
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So let's start with a prop. I find one of the 3m x 3m Flagstone sections to be a good place to start. Highlight the required prop and either click the single tick symbol (Apply Library Preset) or simply double click it. We now have a patch of flagstones that is 3 meters square, divided into 9 one meter square sections. The centre is positioned at Poser's zero point, in other words where the x,y,z trans dials are all zero. This is true of all the props included, except the Inverse Corners, which have an offset centre, but we'll come back to those when we need them. I tend to leave one of these props without any movement, so that when i open a figure, I know it will appear on the centre slab of this prop. Let's repeat that for a wall section, and start moving things around. For this I'm going to use Plain Wall -A. You'll notice almost all the props have suffixes (-A, -B or -C). Props with -A after them have footstones attached and are primarily intended for use at ground level. Props with -B have fascia stones and are primarily intended for use at first floor level and higher. Props with -C are plain and are intended for use at any level. That said however, they do all work at any level, and can be used to build variation and interest into a large section of wall. So when both our props are open in their default positions, we see them positioned on top of each other, as shown in image 3. With the wall section selected, we want to move it back along the z-axis. Now, everything is intended to move in whole units on the x,y,z trans dials. So everything will end up with a figure in the x,y,z trans dials settings that is always a whole number. |
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Image 3 -Defauly opening positions (from left)
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So how far do we want to move this wall? Well we can see in the preview that the wall section is a meter deep, sitting half a meter either side of zero. It's effectively occupying the same space as the centre row of slabs in the flagstone piece. So if we take it back one meter, it would be in the same space as the backmost row, and it we take it a further meter back, it will be adjoining the Flagstones section that we started with. So we want to go two meters back on the z tran. If we click on the number next to the dial, a type in box appears there, enter -2 and press return. Image 4 shows us the prop in it's new position, and the type in entry. Now that actually forms our most basic scene, a patch of floor and a wall behind. But really, that's not very satifactory is it? Lets give it a bit more interest, and in doing so, deal with more positioning and some rotations. |
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Image 4 - Wall moved back 2 metres.
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Let's take a corner on one end of the wall. I'm going to use Corner2 -A, and it's going to the left end of the wall we already have. So bring in the appropriate corner to the scene, in the same way we loaded the wall and flagstones. The corner pieces are all 1m x 1m and 3m tall. This illustrates perfectly about the centre square. Before we move the corner, we can see that it has opened right in the centre of the space occupied by the flagstones. So we want to move it back 2 meters on the zTran, to match the facing direction and depth position of the wall we're attaching it to. Now it's right in the middle of theat wall...if we move it 1 meter left, it would then be at the left hand third of the wall, so an extra meter will get us beyond the wall to out intended position, so enter -2 in the xTran dial. Ah, now out prop is in the right position, but is turned wrong. There are only three rotations that are essential, 90 degrees, -90 degrees and 180 degrees, and all on the yRotate dial. A positive yRotate value will turn it anti-clockwise (as you look down on it from the top), while a negative value will result in a clockwise rotation. And 180 effectively just turns it right around. Looking at our corner, it needs to turn through 90 degrees clockwise, so we need a rotation of -90 degrees to bring it to it's correct orientation. And image 5 shows the corner in it's correct position and the settings of the Translation and Rotation dials we've used to get it there. |
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Image 5 - corner rotated and positioned.
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Earlier on, I mentioned that the Inverse Corners have an offset centre, let's go and take a look at those now, and we'll add one to the right hand side of our wall. We open up our prop, Inverse Corner -A, (note, we're using the -A one to keep it matching the footstones we already have on the existing pieces), and now we have an odd shape, as we can see in image 6. Now if we look at the prop in the highlighted preview, we can see it forms an L-shape, from the centre, then one meter right and one meter forward. The centre is set at the same position as the centre of the flagstones, Poser's zero. This means the end swings around further than the other props. So lets move it about and see what happens. Again, we want to match the position and orientation of the wall, so we'll move it back 2 meters on the zTran dial, and this time, we're going the other way side to side, so we want +2 in the xTran dial, instead of -2, to take it the opposite direction from our first corner. Now in image 7, we can see the inverse corner neatly tacked onto our wall section. |
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Image 6 - Inverse Corner start position.
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Image 7 -Inverse Corner rotated and positioned.
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So now we've moved stuff forwards and backwards, and side to side, and turned it around. The only other essential movement is up and down, on the yTran dial. Now as we've already seen, front-back and side-side movements are done in one meter increments, depending on the pieces you already have in and the layout you want. The up-down movements on the yTran dial are all done in three meter increments. In image 8, we can see I've added two additional props, to extend the corners up, and the dials setting on the highlighted corner now has 3.000 for it's yTran. An entry of 3 will take you up one floor, an entry of 6 will take you up two floors and so on. Zero in the yTran dial is always at ground level. I've also switched the shading in image 8 to better show the individual props. For the first floor level props, I've used type -B props, with fascias. And from there, you just build it up, adding as much (or as little) as you need for your scene. |
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Image 8 - Going up.
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So using those basic principles of manipulating the objects, we can build scenes from very small, with just 2 or 3 props, to as big as Poser (and patience, lol) will allow. It's really just as simple as remembering to have Poser units set to meters, and then just using whole numbers for Translation movement, and the three setting we discussed for yRotaion movement only. Start rotating it on x or z and strange things start happening, Pisa has nothing on it! If you put a section together, and you like it, but want it somewhere else in your scene, rather than move the props individually, parent them all to one, and move that. This is done by going to Window > Hierarchy Editor. In this window, you can see all the componants of your scene. Pick a prop to be the parent, then drag and drop the props that you want to move it, onto that prop. Once you've dragged all the props you need onto it, select it and all those props move and rotate with it. It effectively become the centre for the whole block of props then. Now, suppose you'd like to use that section of props in a different scene. Make sure everything is parented to just the one prop, select that prop, and add it to your library, the + symbol. A window opens asking you for the name you wish to save it. On that box is a button labelled 'Select Subset'. Click this and another window opens, which looks a lot like the Hierarchy Editor. Check the boxes of the parent prop, and all the props attached to it, and click ok. Fill in the name of your saved section, and add it to library. When you then open this library entry in another scene, the
parent prop is selected, and the attached props retain their parenting
to the primary prop. Move the parent prop around and the whole lot will
go with it.
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Image 9 - Saving a parented sub-set.
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I would suggest playing around with a small number of props, getting used to the way it all works. Once you're familiar and comfortable with the positioning and rotation movements, your imagination, or your PC's resources, are the only limit. And there is a lot more to come for this yet. At the time of writing, before the first Scenescapes pack is released, I already have bits coming together for pitched rooves, feature doorways, floors, loose walls, stairs, additional window styles, and further ideas for enough stuff to keep me modelling for the next couple of years or so at least. And bits and pieces of all that will be regularly finding it's way to Freestuff. I hope you enjoy using Scenescapes, and if you have any questions or comments please either send me a site mail at RDNA ....or...email me: andi3d-3dmodelz@hotmail.com Thank you for your interest in Scenescapes, and I look forward to seeing what everyone does with it. Very best wishes, and happy rendering, Andi |
All images and content ©Andrew Rolfe 2009-2010
Logos and additional images ©Eric VanDyke 2009
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SceneScapes in action - Hostile Ground by Andi3d
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