I see that you want to learn a little about how to use bCAD...
Part One: "Where to Start...The Basic Sphere" is a simple tutorial on things I have learned while using bCAD for more than a year now. The tutorial that comes with bCAD can be a little complicated to understand if you have never used a CAD program before, so I have compiled some information for you to use to get started.
Well, the first thing you need to do is download bCAD (see link at bottom or my links page), the Samples files, and the tutorial file. The tutorial has been somewhat helpful in my getting started, and I would like to share some information about how I've done most of my drawings. I am including some drawings (link is below) that I have done with bCAD to get you started. They will help you become familiar with bCAD features and how they work.
If you have already downloaded bCAD and installed the program, then let's get started.
As with any program I get, you need to "Play" with it to get to understand it.
First, I suggest starting by drawing a simple 3D object....lets say a sphere. Go to the 3D modeling toolbar and select the sphere button. You will see a dialog window that prompts you to give info on latitude and longitude lines for the object. These numbers will dictate how smooth the sphere will be. The more lines you have as latitude and longitude, the smoother the sphere will be (caution: the more lines you have latitude and longitude, the longer it takes to render). I suggest starting with about 15 - 20 each way. Click OK. This will take you to the drawing grid and you will see two perpendicularly intersecting lines. The intersection of the lines is where the center of the sphere will start.....align it to the middle of the grid and left click. Now you will give it a radius. Move the mouse pointer from the center to a distance you feel comfortable with, matching the size you would like the object to be. Again left click and the sphere is drawn as a wire mesh. The intersecting lines will stay and allow you to draw another sphere if you so choose, but for this exercise, just right click the mouse and it will leave the object drawing tool.
The next thing you will want to do is give the object some type of color or texture. This is where the fun begins!
Click on the colorize object button on the studio toolbar. This will activate a small square pointer. Place the pointer on the sphere and left click. This action will open the color dialog window. Here you will notice some action tags at the top of the window. They are: Color, Surface, Texture Map, Reflection Map, and Bump Map. We will start by just giving the object a color, then rendering it.
Pick a color to your liking, and click the mouse on it. Then click OK. Again it leaves the square pointer activated in case you want to either change your choices or color another object. Right click to deactivate it. Now choose the render button on the studio toolbar. Once again it brings up a rendering dialog window. If you were just to click ok, you won't really see the sphere rendered as a 3D object....We need to put some light on the subject! On the render dialog box there are some tabs at the top, they are: Render, Animation, Color, Background, and Environment. We want the render tab to be selected....usually it is the default tab that is selected, but if it is not, select it. There you will see some areas to make decisions of how the object is to be rendered. The first is Method. If Phong is not selected, select it. The other methods we will cover later; Phong is the fastest method of rendering.
Next we move to the area where there is a cube with astricks at certain points on it....that is our light indicator. Choose one of the astricks that you want your light source to come from. (Hint: For now choose one of them towards the front of the cube and to the top.)
Now we will look at the next area to the right of the light source area. It does not have a title, but there are choices that allow how the object will be rendered. Choose the lines: Show textures and Perspective for now. On to the way the object will be viewed. That is the box that says
You can save the rendered sphere by clicking File at the menu bar, then Save As. It allows you to save in a number of ways. Choose GIF, JPG, BMP or other by using the dropdown arrow at the Save As Type box. Give it a filename and click save. Once saved, you are back at the rendered picture. You can close that window by clicking on the x at the top right of that window. That will take you back to the mesh sphere drawing.
Ok, lets try some different effects on the sphere. Let's say that we want some other texture on the sphere. Open the colorize object window and choose the object to colorize. That opens the color object window...choose Texture Map tab. There you see a drop down box that gives you a list of program internal texture maps. Choose one from the list. It shows you approximately how the texture will look on the rendered object. If you have a texture that is other than in the program, you can also import that one into bCAD. Just click the import icon at the pattern area. You can then browse your computer (i.e. hard disk, floppy disk, CD ROM) for the texture you want. (I suggest getting additional textures from the internet, or buy a graphics CD that is for web design) Choose the texture and you will return to the color object window. Re-render the sphere. Try other textures to get different effects.
Now lets look at the Reflection Map tab. This allows you to have a texture reflected instead of a direct texture on the object. Also on the Surface tab, you can adjust the reflection, brightness, roughness and transparancy for different effects.You can also import reflected textures. Render a few different times adjusting the Surface tab settings with different textures.
The Bump Map tab changes the effects of the surface of the object. Once again, render the object a few times changing the Bump Mapping and Surface settings.
You have just opened up to a new world of creating graphics. This has been the beginning of creating wonderful 3D graphics. Please read "Part Two: Cameras and Lighting" for information on how to create cameras and lighting effects for your graphics (Coming Soon!).
CLICK HERE
to see some rendered images of the sphere!
NEW!
CLICK HERE to go to
Part Two: Camera Set Up.
Go here to get bCAD!
bCAD Web Site
Download the demo version (if you are using Win95/NT) or the DOS version for Win3.xx.
Well, I recently visited the bCAD site and found that they are no longer are offering the DOS version of bCAD...I'm downloading the 3.4 version to check it out.
NEWS!!!
The demo version for Win95/NT as far as I've seen is almost a fully working version. The program is limited in that you can SAVE ONLY 32 of the same type of object. This may hurt if you have a big project in mind. You can create more than 32 of the same types of objects, but you cannot save the drawing in the demo mode.
It is suggested that you regester the Win95/98 version. The cost is around $275 US. Not bad for what you can do with it.
