 | Click on the Customize Panels tab
 which is located along the left side
of the 3D Canvas Window.
Push
to display the available primitives.
Drag and drop a cube, cylinder, sphere and cone, as shown. |
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| Push
to display the Material Palette.
Click
to reset the Material Palette to its default settings.
Click
to display the available textures. Select a texture by clicking on it.
Click  on
the
Edit Toolbar to
select the Fill tool. The Edit Toolbar is located on the right
side of the 3D Canvas window.
Click on each of the primitives to fill them with the selected
texture.
Notice that most of the primitives show distortion of the texture.
This is particularly evident with the cube and the cylinder. We are
applying a 2-D texture to a 3-D object using a process called a
"wrap". This wrapping of 2-D on to 3-D inevitably results in
distortion.
A "wrap" is a projection of a texture on to an object. Here we are
using a flat wrap which is the simplest projection possible.
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| This tutorial uses a specific texture which can be
downloaded
here.
Click the texture selection tab on the Material Palette:
Then select the downloaded texture by clicking the open texture
button. |
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| Click on each of the primitives to fill them with
this new texture.
Notice that the cube and the cylinder look less distorted now. This
is because the edge of the texture is black which resulted in the edges
of the objects being painted an even black. But notice that the sphere
looks more distorted now.
Sometimes a few changes to the texture can make the difference between
a distorted wrap and an undistorted wrap. |
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| Click
on the Material Palette to select a cylindrical wrap.
Click each object to apply this texture using a cylindrical wrap.
A cylindrical wrap is projected on to the object as though the texture
is bent into the shape of a cylinder and then projected from all angles on to
the object. |
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| Click
 to select a spherical wrap.
Click each object to apply this texture using a spherical wrap.
A spherical wrap is projected on to the object as though the texture
is bent into the shape of a sphere and then projected from all angles on
to the object. |
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| Create a new scene and drag and drop a cube on to
the scene.
Click
to reset the Material Palette to its default settings. This will
re-select Flat Wrapping
 .
Click on the cube to apply the texture using a flat wrap.
With this texture and object the distortion of the wrapping process
is very obvious.
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| Select the Paint
tool from the Edit Toolbar which is
on the right side of the 3D Canvas window.
Click on each of the faces that show a distorted texture.
This removed all distortion, but there was no magic to it. The Paint
tool simply applied a texture wrap to faces clicked. The Paint tool automatically oriented the texture along a path that would
likely remove distortion. |
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| Create a new scene and drag and drop a cylinder on
to the scene.
Click
to select a cylindrical wrap.
Click to
select the Fill tool.
Click on the object to apply the texture.
Notice the significant distortion on the top surface of the cylinder.
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| Select the Paint
tool.
Click
to select flat wrapping. Flat wrapping is usually the best choice for
the Paint Tool since it is normally used for painting relatively flat
surfaces.
Click on the top face of the cylinder.
The distortion has been removed, but the scale of the texture on the
top does not match the scale of the texture on the sides. |
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| Select the Operation Adjustment
tool on the Edit Toolbar.
The Operation Adjustment tool can be used to adjust the effect of
operations. Painting with the Fill Tool and the Paint Tool are just
simple ways of applying 3D Canvas operations.
Since the use of the Paint tool resulted in an operation being applied,
its effect can be adjusted. Click on the object to select it and then
scale the effect of the operation using the
Edit Control until you get a texture scale that matches the sides.
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| Create a new scene, and drag and drop a cube on to
the scene. Double-click the cube to show its current detail level.
Change the resolution to 5 and click OK. This will create made from 150 faces. That is 5 horizontal
faces by 5 vertical faces per side times 6 sides.
All primitives can have their detail level changed using this method. |
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| Paint the faces along the corner as indicated. Do
not click on the faces individually, but as though you are painting
with a paint brush.
3D Canvas oriented the texture wrap in order to produce the least
distortion. |
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| Paint the faces shown.
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| Now paint the faces immediately above as shown.
Notice again that the scale of the texture does not match the
other faces on the sides. 3D Canvas always applies the entire texture
when painting regardless of the size of the area being painted. In
this case the area painted is not square so 3D Canvas squashed the
texture so that it would fit. |
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| Scale this using the Operation Adjustment
tool. The texture is now the right scale, but because the texture is
not a texture suitable for tiling there is a line between the two texture
applications. |
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| Paint the entire side of the cube as shown.
This texture does not entirely line up with the texture on the other
sides of the cube, but this is mostly hidden by the fact that there is
a crease between the texture joints. This is a common technique for
minimizing the effects of textures not lining up. |
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| Select the Fill
tool and
click on the cube. |
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| Select the Operation Adjustment
tool on the Edit Toolbar.
Click on the object to select it and use the rotation axes of the Edit Control to
rotate the texture wrap on the object.
Sometimes a simple reorientation of the texture wrap can improve the
wrap dramatically. In this case the texture looks exactly as one would
like it to look. At least from this direction. This
technique can often make a large difference in the appearance, but
it does not completely eliminate the distortion. |
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| Create a new scene and drag and drop a cube on to
it.
Right-click on the cube and select Scale->To Size from the
popup menu. Enter values of 10, 10, and 1 for X, Y and Z respectively.
Click OK. |
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| Reselect the texture you downloaded previously and
use the Fill tool to apply the texture using a Flat wrap. |
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| Select the Operation Adjustment tool and scale the
texture as shown. This is called texture tiling. Tiling can be created in a
number of ways but the easiest way is using the Operation Adjustment
tool. |
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| Select a texture with a large grain such as this
one and use the Fill tool to apply the texture. |
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| Use the Operation Adjustment Tool to scale the wrap
as shown. Again this is an example of a tiled texture. Tiling is a good way to use a
small texture to cover a large area.
Many web sites provide tile-able textures for download.
For more information on textures see the
Texture Decaling and Object
Unwrapping tutorials. |
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