Introduction
Once I had to do a drawing of a structure
made up of several columns. The columns were in sets of five and sets
of three. There were three levels and the whole thing was five sided.
I made it in CorelDraw so that the lines would be nice and sharp and
I could add perspective. It took me about a day and a half to finish
and I was quite pleased with the end result.
I sent it off for approval and when the corrections came
back one of them was to show the structure "at a slightly
different angle." What that meant was that I had to redraw the
entire thing! Such is life for an artist. But I got to thinking, "There must be
a better way!"
After
praying about it, the Lord showed me to make a model in Bryce (a
3D program principally used for creating landscapes). I made one
column, duplicated it, grouped the various sets, and, there it was!
After it was done, I could rotate and view it from any angle I wanted! "Now this is
the way to go for a project like this!" I thought.
And so began my experimentation with integrating
3D models into my work. I soon discovered that there were
tons of free 3D models available for downloading on the internet
and began to download all I could find. They have become my "3D
Model Clipart" so-to-speak, always available on my hard drive
any time I want to see how something looks from a certain angle.
Getting and Viewing 3D Models
To find models on the net, just go to
Google, type in "free 3D models" and follow the links. One
site is called 3D Cafe and
they have quite a few. If you are going to get into this big time,
I would suggest downloading and storing your models by category.
3D Cafe separates their models into some pretty good categories so
you can adopt those, if you like.
For downloading, I use Download Accelerator Plus.
It has a feature whereby you can download all the downloadable files
on a web page all at once. This saves a lot of time and is better than
having to click on each link to download.
Once
you've got your models and they are in categories, you'll
need a program to view your files. The best one I've found is called Alteros
3D. It can view almost all of the 3D file types there
are. You can open your model for viewing, rotate it to the angle
you want, and then copy it to your clipboard. Then, open up Photoshop,
or whatever program you use, open a new file and paste. Save the
pic and use it to do your drawing from.
Making Line Drawings of 3D Models
Sometimes
you'll want to make a little set—a room—with a couple of
couches, lamps, bookcase, etc. My first method was to import the various
pieces of furniture into Bryce and then take snapshots of the set from
various angles. That worked okay, but it was still difficult to "see" the
lines of each object. I wondered how I could produce a black and white
line drawing from my 3D set?
In comes Lightwave a professional-level
3D program. 3D programs can do a lot. You can make your own models,
animate them, etc., etc. They are also very difficult to learn!
But for what I wanted to do, it wasn't too extremely hard—but
it wasn't easy either—ha! I had to have a friend who knew the
program explain how he did it (thanks Chris!). So here goes. (Note:
LW is case sensitive for shortcut keys. So if an uppercase C is written,
don't try c.)
1. Open
Lightwave Scene Editor.
2. Set the backdrop color to white by
pressing Ctrl+F5. Next to the words Backdrop Color, click in the black
box and select white. Close the Effects menu.
3. Go to File/Load Object and select
the model you want to put in the scene. By default, Lightwave only
shows LWO files, so just click the File Type box to show all files.
4. Once you have your model in LW you'll
need to select it and make some changes. Open the Item Properties menu
(p) and go to the Edges tab. Select the five edge types. You can experiment
with these to see what gives you the best results.
5. Open the Surface Editor (Ctrl+F3),
select all the parts of your model and change the settings to Color-
White, Luminosity - 100%.
6. To render your model, press F9. A
little window will pop open and show the completed drawing. To save
it, click on File and select the file type you want. I usually use
JPEG. Save the pic and there you have it!
—If
you have more than one model you will need to change the edges and
surface properties of each model by following steps 4 and 5 above.
—To change the angle, select the
camera (C) and move it around or select the model and move it. So that
it's easy to see what I'm doing, I usually open a new window so that
I have two open, a perspective view and a camera view. To do this,
open Layout/Options/Display Options (d). Then Viewport Layout/Double
Horizontal.
—You may wish to get a higher
resolution in the final image. To do so, select the camera (C) and
Item Properties (p). Change the Antialiasing option (default is off)
to a higher setting. Experiment around until you get the sharpness
you need.
—You will probably want to redraw the final picture,
but it will be much easier to do so with a clear black and white line
drawing to work from.
SketchUp
Well, all things change, and I have been contemplating on deleting most of what I have written on this page. The reason being, I have found a much simpler and better way to create, view, and use 3D models for making sets. The program I discovered is called SketchUp and it is just terrific! Not only is it easy to use, but it also comes with lots of 3D objects you can use to make your scenes. It has furniture, plants, vehicles, people, etc. You can easily and quickly create a scene and then view it from any angle you want. Its default view shows the outlines of the objects so you can skip all the above rigmarole in Lightwave.
I will leave the info above about 3D models and Lightwave for those of you who are interested in going that route. It is still valid and useful and may come in handy in some cases. But for speed and ease of use, I recommend SketchUp. You just can't beat it!
In Conclusion
Using 3D models in your
artwork can be a big help. A word of caution though, perfectly drawn
objects can be perfectly boring,
so try to use them sparingly or only as reference. Cartoons especially
need to have life, a bit of distortion and lack of adhering strictly
to the rules of perspective in order to be fun and interesting.
