A Tutorial for 3-D Canvas Modeling

3-D Canvas has tools for modeling, animating and texturing virtual objects.

Amabilis Software's 3-D Canvas is a program for creating virtual 3-D objects. Both the program's free and professional editions provide functions for shaping objects and tutorials showing you how to apply those functions. With the program's material palette you can apply colors, images from graphic files and other textures to a model's surfaces. You can also make 3-D films with the program via its animation component. One type of object you can animate is a character, which the program has tools for rigging (i.e., setting up for posing). 3-D Canvas' cost, fairly intuitive user interface and thorough help file make it an attractive introduction for beginning modelers.

Instructions

1. Open 3-D Canvas and click the third tab from the right on the Construction pane at the left side of the screen. This action will display the Component panel, which contains the cube, sphere and other 3-D primitives.

2. Click the "Cube" icon, then drag it onto the checkered drawing area. If your mouse has a wheel, spin it to zoom into and out of the viewpoint. This will make the cube appear to draw closer and further from you.

3. Click the vertical green bar at the bottom left of the drawing area, then drag left or right. The viewpoint will rotate around the cube, allowing you to see each of its faces.

4. Click and drag on the blue bar, then the red bar, at the bottom left of the drawing area. These controls rotate the viewpoint around axes that are parallel to the checkered ground. (The green bar's rotation, by contrast, rotated the viewpoint around an axis perpendicular to the ground.)

5. Click and drag on the gray vertical triangle spanning the green and blue axes. The viewpoint will raise and descend vertically, making the cube and ground appear to go up and down. Click and drag the gray area between the blue and red axes to look from side-to-side in your present position.

6. Click the cube to select it, then click and drag left or right the lower dark gray triangle at the bottom right of the drawing area. The cube's width will shrink and grow. Click and drag on the upper dark triangle adjacent to the lower one to make the cube grow or shrink in height.

7. Click and drag either of the lighter triangles to move the cube, then click and drag on the red, green and blue axis bars to rotate the cube around the different axes.

8. Press and hold the "1" key, then click on any of the cube's points. Drag the point to move it. You can also click the light-colored triangles, described in Step 7, to move the point.

9. Press and hold the "2" key to enter edge selection mode. Click any of the cube's edges, then rotate, scale or move the edge using the instructions from Steps 6 and 7.

10. Press and hold the "3" key to enter face selection mode. Click a face, then try the transformations you applied in the previous step.

11. Click the Construction pane's "Material" panel, then click one of the materials in the Material Library pane.

12. Click the paint bucket icon in the toolbar at the right of the drawing area. This action selects the Fill tool, which applies textures to objects. Click the cube to apply the material you selected to it.

References

• "Polygonal Modeling: Basic and Advanced Techniques"; Mario Russo; 2005

Resources

• 3D Canvas Plus/Pro
• 3D Canvas Plus/Pro hierarchy animations