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from Page 1
Colours are applied by going to the gallery toolbar at
the bottom right of your screen and selecting a colour
that suits and dragging it to the object on the stage.
An object can have different colours applied to different
faces if it has depth.
It is not possible to import textures as these would
create very large files and the idea Swift 3D v2.0 is
to produce something with as small a size as possible,
especially if you are using it for making a web page.
You can import .AI Illustrator files or .EPS files, so
an image created in Illustrator, CorelDraw!, Zoner Draw
or other vector based drawing program can be imported
to be used. This opens many possibilities.
Editors
In addition to the main Scene Editor there are two more
drawing views that must be investigated. One, the Extrusion
Editor will allow you to draw flat shapes using vector
drawing tools with bezier curves, and the other is the
Lathe Editor. I am not sure how this works but it is wonderful
to play with. By drawing on one side of the green line,
axis of rotation, which runs up the left side of the page
you can create a 3 dimensional object that looks as though
it has been turned on a lathe. The difficult thing here
is to work out how to draw the half that then creates
the whole.
This shows the Extrusion Editor with the points placed
with the pen tool which creates straight lines between
them. The right hand object has been selected and then
the curved point icon selected, making the points into
nodes with handles (bezier points) which have then been
adjusted to create a rounded effect to the outline.
This looks just like the Extrusion editor and drawing
is done in the same way. But the difference is when you
go back to the Scene editor when this is treated as though
it has been turned on a lathe. See the wheel image below.
This shot shows several things at once. Firstly, the way
that the two images drawn in the editors look when brought
into the Scene editor, and secondly, how a scene that
looks right in the left pane can be situated in different
spaces in the view on the right. This takes some getting
used to.
Primitives
Most of the objects that you will work with in this program
are the primitives to be found along the toolbar at the
top. These consist of a variety of shapes such as cubes
and spheres and pyramids etc. These are the basic building
blocks of most 3D objects, and are able to be re-shaped
to make the exact shape you are trying to achieve. If
you have learned drawing you will know that circles and
squares and triangles are the basic blocks of most illustration,
they are just manipulated to fit, and it is so with Swift
3D v2.0 .
Here is one of the primitives (torus) having been selected
and imported into the viewing pane. Other primitives are
the red shapes along the top. Note the different views.
It has been selected by clicking in the left pane and
is shown on the trackball at the left. On the lower right
is the Gallery Toolbar with your choices of colours ready
to be applied to the object.
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