3D Paint Help Contents
3D Paint Help - Table of Contents

Help Topics:

The 3D Paint User Interface

The 3D Paint Object-Drawing Environment

Creating 3D Objects

Positioning and Rotating 3D Objects

Lighting

Surface Textures

Loading and Saving 3D Paint Files

General Tips


3D Paint Help UI
The 3D Paint User Interface

(click on any part of the diagram below for an explanation of its functionality).


3D Paint Help Environment
The 3D Paint Object-Drawing Environment (OE)

3D Paint provides a way to create pictures of simple 3-dimensional objects.  It is designed to be similar to the Microsoft Paint applet which ships with Windows 95 and Windows NT.  Drawing in a 3-dimensional environment introduces a certain degree of added complication versus working in a 2-dimensional environment.  For this reason, it is helpful to know a little about the 3D Paint drawing environment before you begin drawing.

The 3D Paint object-drawing environment (OE) is a right-handed coordinate system with the XY plane coincident with the display, and the positive-Y axis pointing ‘UP’.  Below is a coordinate map which describes this.

The edges of the viewing area correspond approximately to the lines described by the following formulae:

x = -2000 	(left)

x = 2000 	(right)

y = 2000	(top)

y = -2000	(bottom)

It is important to notice that the Z-axis is positive coming out of the display.  This makes the coordinate system consistent with normal Z-Order definitions (ie. higher z-ordered objects are in ‘front’ of lower z-ordered objects).


3D Paint Help Create
Creating and Editing 3D Objects

Creating Objects

Objects in 3D Paint are created using the toolbox on the left-hand side of the viewing area.  3D Paint provides tools for the creation of the following drawing primitives:

Triangles

Rectangles

Disks

Pyramids

Boxes

Spheroids

Cones

Cylinders

Text

To create a pyramid, for example, press the pyramid button on the toolbox.  This will bring up a property sheet for a new pyramid, with three property pages that specify the attributes of the new object.

Objects whose vertices are all co-planar (i.e. flat objects) have blue toolbox button icons.  Objects whose vertices are all not co-planar have cyan toolbox button icons.

Selecting Objects

•	To select an existing object, click on it in the picture view.

Editing Objects

•	Double-click the mouse pointer on the object in the viewport.  This will bring up the property sheet for that object.


3D Paint Help Lighting
Positioning and Rotating 3D Objects

Positioning

To position an object, select the object, and then click on the Position tab.  You can then position the object using the slider bars or by typing values for the x, y, and z coordinates.

You can then rotate the object using the slider bars or by typing values for the θ, φ, and ρ coordinates.  These rotational coordinates are defined as follows:  θ is measured as degrees rotated about the X-axis; φ is measured as degrees rotated about the Z-axis; ρ is measured as degrees rotated about the Y-axis. Use the following diagram for reference.

X (red), Y (green) and Z (blue)                    θ (red), φ (green), and ρ (blue)


3D Paint Help Light
Lighting

In 3D Paint, there can be up to five light sources enabled in a scene – four source lights and an ambient light.  To change the lighting, press the light button on the toolbox.

Source Lighting

Source lighting is controlled using the property-pages labeled Light 1 ... Light 4.  To turn on a light, press the on/off button.

Each light has two properties which can be controlled, Position and Color.  By repositioning the lights, you can control which faces on a particular object are lit.

Ambient lighting

Ambient lighting has only one property, namely Color.  The ambient light has no position or direction, and is meant to simulate light that reaches the eye after bouncing off of many surfaces.


3D Paint Help Texture
Surface Texture Mapping

To enable surface texturing for an object, click the enable radio button on that object’s Surface property page.  A texture can then be chosen from the texture list by clicking the up and down buttons next to the texture preview box.  There are four default textures in 3D Paint which can be chosen.

Texture / color combinations

The object’s texture is combined with it’s color using a multiplication algorithm.  For colorful textures, it is highly recommended that you chose white as the objects color.  This is because each pixel that is mapped from the texture map to the object’s surface is multiplied by that objects color using a CYMK color scheme (where higher values are darker).  In other words, if you make the color very dark, your object is likely to turn out black.

Loading your own textures

To add your own textures to a 3D Paint picture, choose Add New Texture from the Options menu-item.  You can then load any valid BMP file and use it as a texture


3D Paint Help File I/O
Loading and Saving 3D Paint Pictures

3D Paint supports saving pictures in either of two file formats, .3DP and .BMP.

3DP format

The 3DP format is unique to the 3D Paint application.  A file picture saved 3DP format can be loaded in 3D Paint for further editing.

BMP format

BMP format is the native, Device Independent Bitmap (BMP) format for the Microsoft Windows operating system.  It represents a bit-rasterization of the 2-dimensional drawing produced in 3D Paint.  Pictures saved in this format cannot be reloaded by the 3D Paint program, but can be opened by other graphics/drawing programs, such as Microsoft Paint, which support this format.


3D Paint Help File Tips
General Tips and Tricks

If your video display card supports it, run Windows in 16-bit color mode (65,536 colors).  This is very important.  If you use a lower setting (like 256 colors), you will not be very impressed by the graphics output of 3D Paint...  That is not good.

Speed is very important.  Be aware that the more objects you put in your picture, the slower it will be to draw.  In particular, surface textures really hurt in the speed department, especially if you add your own textures and set the quality to “high”.  There are two things you can do to improve performance:

•	Do most of your work in WIREFRAME mode (click the Wireframe button   to switch to wireframe mode).

•	Apply textures last.

There are a lot of nice textures on the internet that people use for home-page backgrounds These make great 3dPaint textures as well.  For the most part, however, they are in JPG or GIF format, so you will have to convert them to BMPs before you can import them into 3dPaint.

have been wrestling with this one as long as people have known that the Earth is round).

Thanks for using 3dPaint.  Have fun.


3D Paint Help Triangle
Triangle:

A planar section bound by three line segments.


3D Paint Help Rectangle
Rectangle:

A planar section bound by four line segments, with four right angles made by adjacent segments.


3D Paint Help Disk
Disk:

A planar section whose bounding polygon is an ellipse.


3D Paint Help Pyramid
Pyramid:

An enclosing 5-sided surface made up of four triangles and a rectangle.  You’ve seen ‘em in Egypt.  (Sorry to all those who demand mathematical rigor).


3D Paint Help Box
Box:

An enclosing 6-sided surface made up of six rectangles.


3D Paint Help Sphere
Spheriod:

A sphere is a 1-sided object which is the union of all the points equidistant from a central point.  A spheroid is a sphere which is modified by an eccentricity value.  The eccentricity is the ratio of the magnitude of the (x = 0, z = 0) points on the surface, and the magnitude of the (y = 0) points on the surface.  For those of you who prefer English, this means that an eccentricity factor of 2 yields a spheroid which is twice as long as it is wide.


3D Paint Help Cone
Cone:

A 2-sided surface which is the union of all the connecting segments between the points of the bounding ellipse of a disk, and a single point that is not co-planar with respect to that disk.


3D Paint Help Cylinder
Cylinder:

A 3-sided surface which is the union of two parallel disks, and all the connecting segments between the points of the bounding ellipse of one disk, and the points of the bounding ellipse of the other disk.


3D Paint Help Text
Text Object:

A string of character glyphs.


MenuButton
Menu:

The menu bar provides access to all 3D Paint functions.


Toolbox
The Toolbox:

The Toolbox contains all of the drawing tools:

Triangles Tool

Rectangles Tool

Disks Tool

Pyramids Tool

Boxes Tool

Spheroids Tool

Cones Tool

Cylinders Tool

Text  Tool

Lighting Tool


Viewport
The Viewport:

The Viewport is where your 3D pictures are rendered.: