Ed Obermeyer's 3D World

The Black Anemone

This piece was created entirely in Ray Dream Studio 5. With all of the options available in Ray Dream 5, I had to focus on just one at a time to explore the program. The purpose of this piece was to teach myself how to create an image with "cross sections".

The program uses what is called a "Scene" that is a collection of objects, light sources, and cameras that are saved together in a file. Each scene has two windowsÐ"The Perspective window" and the "Time Line Window".

The program uses four main windows for illustration:

The Perspective WindowÐA 3D box where objects are made with the various tools in the tool palette. Here I used a simple "Free Form" modeler to create a circle. This window shows the object in a 3D workspace where you can arrange objects, lights, and cameras. It is also called "The Universe". The main area of this 3D Universe is known as the "working box". It has three intersecting planes that provide you with a framework for creating your scene.

The Time Line Window-Where links are made to other objects and controls for animation can be done. You can also set up a Hierarchy where sections of a finger for example can be linked together to flow in a specified direction. All of your objects, cameras, and lights are listed here.

The Browser Palette ÐThis is a visual catalog of all of the elements you can use to create a scene. It has eight tabsÐShaders, Objects, Lights, Cameras, Deformers, Behaviors, Links, and Render Filters.

The Properties PaletteÐControls the properties of any element that is selected in the perspective or time line window.

The Drawing Plane-Where you can view your images on a 2D plane and add curve points and corner points.

How It Was Done

1-I first drew a circle in the perspective window using the free form modeler.

2-A point was added to the sweep path about two grid squares from the first.

3-I chose, Sections, Menu, Create, and with the selection tool, went to the view menu, Preset Position, Drawing Plane. I chose no preview and then Sections, Menu, Next.

4-An oval was drawn and six more ovals of a smaller size placed inside the larger one. I then chose view, menu, Preset Position, Reference, and got the selection tool.

5-On the ground plane I clicked the last point on the sweep path and took it to the end of the working box. I then went to Sections menu, Create.

6-The next step was to use a process known as shape numbering on the various cross sections I had created. This way the numbered shapes would link up to each other when going through the 3D planes or sections. Think of the cross sections like layers that are facing each other and the shapes on each layer can be given assigned numbers that relate to the first cross section. The way you decide to number them determines where they connect. The individual numbering of all of the shapes took several hours and more steps than I can illustrate here, but hopefully, you get the idea.

7-Once several sections were made I used the Geometry menu to Extrude the forms out and converted all of the points on the objects to curve points.

8ÐI then saved a scanned image of one of my paintings in PICT format and brought it in as a Texture Map (most 3D programs prefer the PICT format). I was then able to apply this in the shaders browser under the texture map option. My painting was then applied to the surface of the anemone and duplicated and resized to get what you see here. After lights, cameras and rendering choices were set I opened it in Photoshop and saved it as a JPEG and also one as a GIF for use on the web.