Learning Pangolin BEYOND 3D - chapter 1: Basics of Pangolin BEYOND 3D

Pangolin BEYOND comew with mighty 3D visualization features. Due to the intuitive user interface of BEYOND these features can easily be accessed and used.

Pangolin made a video showing how to get started with using Pangolin BEYOND's 3D features:

This is what the video is about:
welcome to the beyond 3d tutorial on basic features in this tutorial we'll be covering the basics and beyond 3d. In the future tutorials we will cover more advanced features. Beyond 3d is actually quite complex and so much so that it's impossible to cover in a single tutorial session. In fact, just the 3d portion to be on the loan is over million lines of code. As you'll see, Beyond 3d is quite a capable program to get started.
You move to it MTQ in the grid, right click and then say create new 3d animation. When you do that, the three portion a beyond is launched and it takes up that large area the window so we'll start out by describing the toolbars and the various areas beyond 3d at the very top is what we call the command toolbar this really controls most the features the top level will be on 3d the next to a bar down as the modeling tool bar this is where you actually create solid models curves compound objects which create multiple surfaces and where you deal with the lighting cameras on the left there is the object manipulation tool bar this if we create and move and rotate resize objects as well as manipulate the on the bottom portion there's the time slider which can also be called the frame slider in the largest area here there's the viewports is the front view top you side view and 3d view and on the right hand side there's the object manager this is a list about checks as you add objects to be on 3d they will appear on a list and down here is the properties of the objects when we select an object you'll see that the various properties appeared out here so I'll go ahead and added object to be on 3d see could see sorta how all this works and fits together if you just click on an object in the list up here you automatically be added to the scene as you see the object appears in the Object List and the various properties have those object appears down in this area right here what are the things that you'll notice in be on 3d which is very similar to the main beyond program are these icons up in this area here might notice this icon here which if you click and drag it will move object around in that view and this one here is not in the main beyond program but if you click this one and drag it you'll be able to move closer and further wait this is just moving the camera closer or further away from the object this next but no over here allows you to kinda orbit the camera around the object an object this next button here also orbits the camera but from the standpoint of where the cameras looking is sort of like you're nodding your head left then right or perhaps upward and downward and this last icon here will rotate the view back and forth as though you wrote in your head one other things about all the icons in be on 3d is that you can quickly get back to your main view let's say we have this of a little bit we Cairo Kate this around and we can to get of the track a little bit if I right click on one of these icons it will automatically restore my view and this icon over here which I hadn't quite talked about yet actually enables laser output for this view if I click this button you'll see that I actually get laser output I'll this object I can in fact have laser output follow the top view where the front view where the side view where the 3d viewed most cases you're gonna be just having the laser output at the 3d view in beyond 3d which you're really doing is working in a solid modeling environment and then turning the solid models into a laser output we have this cube here which I added to the scene just by clicking on this button by default this button right here is selected which is the move which means that immediately after adding and object to the scene I could just click on it and move it in the view I can move it left and right ground as you can see here I can go into the top view and move it there front view and move it there and so forth lotta cases you just be moving and operating just here in the camera view because in fact you can do a lot in the camera you we have the objects that will appear in this list here just to illustrate that further I had another object a click on the spear in our click and drag it over here see can see that I'm just clicking in moving and now you see over here in this list I have the cube and the spear down in this area here we have the properties I'll these objects here's the properties of Q here's the properties is the spear and one other things that you'll notice is that we have the scroll bar here up here we have the basic properties next we have transformed all describe all these little bit further what happens with the surface of the object if it's smooth surface worth it has more about rough texture to it lb much more visible here in the sphere as you see it changing over there the sizeof object what we call the number of segments in the object and down here some laser related parameters so in most 3d programs they require you to do a lot of scrolling in be on 3d what we've done is we give you quick access to the areas just by clicking on the air is right here so if I click on this button I can go all right to the translation that means the position of the object the rotation angle the object and the scaler the size of the object just by clicking on this button if I click here I can go immediately to the parameters the are related to this spear and clicking here I can go immediately to the laser related properties up this tier I don't have to do whole lotta scrolling now if you want to you can enable one or more of these things by holding the control key and clicking the mouse button so we can enable them all if we want to but that will require some scrolling so throughout the tutorials you're gonna see me clicking just on the buttons ago exactly where I wanna go each object has properties to it every single object has these basic properties the basic properties or the name the caller and whether it's visible in the render war visible in the laser now we'll be covering this one little bit later but sometimes it's handy to create an object that you don't actually output to the laser let's do this or click on this subject right here we'll just call this box will call that marks click on this one will name this ball just illustrate you can name things so that the names that are up here analysts may be more meaningful to you and the next thing will do is change the color of the object which we do pretty simply is by clicking the left mouse button on this area alert dialog box comes up and you can choose a color you want and either click okay or what you could do is simply double click on the collar like that so these are the the basic parameters color whether it's visible and the name transform what that is is the position and the rotation angle and the size have the object one other things you'll notice is that if you click here you have a very precise control.

we can also directly enter a number we want to to if you click the left mouse button on here and just drag it you can have very fast access so that's really how these controls work you can either click up and down for a very precise control click and drag prove very quick control and you can type in a number for direct control and another thing you could do is a few right click on wanna these it will reset it to its default values so that's a really quick wave getting back to you specific default value just by right clicking on it so this is a really just another way of getting to these tools right here so when I click on this pay close attention to this translation XY and z. as I grab this and move it you'll see that those are moving around in there and likewise if I click rope a as I rotate around on this you can see the rotation angle changing to get it back I'll just right click on that this scale tool here allows me to change the size in the same way as I could doing it down here in this transform Skeel portion of the program once again to get back all dis right click on each of these and it will reset it to its normal full-size so one other things that you might be noticing here is that all illustrate this in the move tool if I click on an object I can't move it around as I'm moving my mouse downward you see that the spear is moving downward in fact it's moving two different ways at the same time it's moving down where you can see a descending through the creative and it's also moving more forward more closer to S and as I move my mouse upward one other thing you see is is moving up where you can see ascending through the grid is also moving more rearward see here is some operating this in the 3d view two things are actually happening whereas if I operate only in one of these use here the top two you can see it's not moving up and out now the spears only moving closer to us and further from us I come over here to the front view I can say that the spirit moving upward and downward through the grid but not really closer to him further away from us the reason why it is that when I grab this and move my mouse upward and downward two things are happening is because if you look at here here's the camera view hear these icons again this one here i click and drag it will allow me to move view just like it did up in here see here you can see my little camera and my camera is looking at this area here the triangle represents help be good that the you the camera has and this line here really represents the plane the cameras viewing and says I grab this and move this up and down you'll see that really what's happening is I'm moving this up and down in the camera's view as I was showing you earlier these icons around here allow me to kinda were built around the scene and now you can start to see that here's the camera years with the camera viewing I grab this and move it downward now the cameras really looking more car-like from a front view if I grab this fear and move it upward and downward now what you see is it really is moving pretty much just upward and downward so that's why the view that you're looking at here with camera also controls how it is that you're moving the state let's say we wanted to worry at both this Q and the spear precisely on the face of this grid there's a couple ways to do it one way would be simple way perhaps be here in the front view you can see here's the central line at the grid I can just grab this and move it upward grad the SPIE remove it upward that's one way of doing it this is kinda like the old fashion way doing it the newer way this to do it right here in this 3d view that as I was showing you if I just grab this and move it forward session moving in two places at the same time well that's where these little helper come in 10 things you notice is that when I have move selected there's a red arrow here and a green arrow here a furrow cases lil bit you see that is a blue arrow here that's because we haven't x-axis a y-axis and easy access in beyond 3d just like in regular beyond and mostly their programs the x-axis is horizontal it representing left to right the y axis is vertical as representing up and down and the z-axis is representing depth into the page so as you move your mouse button over the object and over these lil helper tools you'll notice that they turn yellow so this greenlaw all the sudden turn yellow with that means if I click my mouse button down and move it it will move only in that one direction that I've selected the UCI I can move my mouse left and right and it's not really moving left or right because types indicated to the program that I only one upward and downward motion like selecting their helper tool likewise here on the x-axis represented by the Red if I click while its yellow I can move the object left to right and not have to worry that I'll be moving it upward and downward at the same time by moving around the view here little bit using this orbit and by using these lil helper tools I can corriente the object pretty precisely left to right up and down and so forth now be taken even closer look one other things that you'll notice is that in addition to their being individual directions i cant actually access multiple directions at the same time this might be easier to illustrate using the resize tool scale and I'll turn the sphere maybe a she did great to make that easier to see see here if I move the mouse over the Red you can see I can change it in this direction if I move the mouse over the blue I can change it in the death direction change it movie over the green naked change knife direction but you'll notice that i click in the center I can change it all directions and you'll notice these diagonal views as well this diagonal here will change only in these two directions and not in the death direction the diagonal over in this side I can change in the height and death direction but not in the with direction see could see that these little helpers enable you to access either two dimensions or a single dimension were few move here into the center the whole thing turned yellow all three dimensions at the same time with rotation it's a little bit different we have circle that and circle the object a green circle here that enables you to rotate the object only in this one axis a blue circle here which will enable you to rotate the object only in that one axis and a red circle here that enables you to rotate only in that one axis if we don't click in a circle then we can rotate about all axis simultaneously just with left to right and up down motion and a circle it's on the outside here that if we move the mouse here and grab it we can rotate in that direction and as I said getting back to normal view just right click here so what we covered so far is adding object to the scene moving those objects around either in one dimension.

Were in multiple dimensions you covered changing the color the object change in the name of the object some basic properties you can select the object either in the list here were simply by clicking on it. we've covered how to move around in each one of these views left to right: motion here in and out here each one of these views were can exactly the same way just click and drag here to make it you bigger we click on this one here and Izumi now just drag the mouse downward the button over here allows you to make that one single view consume the entire workspace so we can quickly go from working in the top you working in the 3d view and if you want to you could change the layout at the view you can have three panels like that you can have two panels one on top of each other to panel side by side so be on 3d allows you to work in a number of ways to let's take this a demonstration a little bit further what I'm gonna do is say file new and the neat thing about beyond 3d is that you can work with multiple files at the same time even though I said File New if you come here to the Window menu you'll see that now we're working on project to I can get back to project one very easily just by clicking here let's go to the new project and will repeat that sequence a little bit and take this demonstration a little bit further I'll enable laser output click on my cube cool and with the cube up here click on a sphere and move this fear here and more click on a cone and we'll move this view little bit so that we can the cone into decision I liked hats and now we've got is a scene with three object we will make the Huber red just as we did once before make this fear green and make cone blue in be on 3d you work in a solid environment and what happens is you tell beyond 3d how you want that's all environment interpreted on the laser by default beyond 3d will interpret this as were less if an outline drawing so we see the outline at the cone we see just a like a circle for the spear but what we can do is we can tell beyond 3d exactly how we want to see this on the laser we do this with the laser portion of the parameters down here to Aldis will click on the spear up here and will say the on the laser we want Customline types and specifically the line types that we wanna see are the edges that speer in other words in the beyond 3d user interface you see these little yellow edges at the spear and so we want to put that on the laser that's what that means by object edges know we did that one other things you might notice is the delays are starting to flicker so what we could do as we can reduce the complexity at the scene by clicking up here on spear and saying that we want fewer segments in the spear we still want to look like a spear but we just don't want too many lines up there will create a lot of liquor on the laser so now that's looking pretty cool so we can see that we got a cube there and now we can see that our sphere is definitely spherical doesn't look like a circle anymore and the make this cone look last like a triangle a more like a real 3 car loan we can click on the cone were selected up here in the list and on the laser we can say that we want to see what we call contour lines around the cold now we're starting to get a little bit more Flickr but we can reduce the number contour lines on the town something like that so now you can start to see that this is a real 3d scene has real solid objects and as I move my camera around by clicking and dragging on this icon around here you can really see that this is a 3d object where object can block other objects you see that that colin is actually intersecting that cuba little bit so we could see the intersection line is this really starting to look pretty solid and now I'll cover how you actually get this stuff into the main beyond program and that's where the three buttons up here come in the first button tells the scene how many frames that has it by default each scene has a 100 frames and you can change this to whatever you want 100 is not a bad number especially the start out with so would just simply close this window the next button over here actually renders it what we've got here is a really a real time 3d laser view with it actually didn't turn it into laser frames yet and the main beyond program need to relieve their frames to work with the second button turns this 3d scene into real laser frames when I click on it you'll see it's generating 100 laser frames this case all under the same and weighs press this last button here this is the button that sends it to the main beyond program now when I'm gonna do next is minimized beyond 3d but before I do that and with turn of the laser output from beyond 3d is if I don't turn it off here then what will happen is this will be generating 3d laser light and also the main beyond program will be generating 3d laser light well psalm minimize this and there's the scene that we created if you just click on the Q then you could see that.