Painting course from 9 – 13th June 2008

 

How to create a 3D virtual Gallery of art pictures in

3D Game Studio

 

 

I have followed a 5 days painting course in my country (the Netherlands) to learn the basic techniques of painting.

 

I am going to make a 3D virtual gallery of these paintings and all pictures belonging to the experience.

 

If you are a painter or a digital artist or a photographer and you would like to learn how to make a nice portfolio for yourself, read on :).

 

In order to be able to make such a gallery one needs the software program 3D Game Studio. A free trial version can be downloaded at: http://www.3dgamestudio.com. 3D Game Studio comes in 4 versions, which all differ in price. Please look at the different versions at the mentioned website.

 

For this tutorial I have used: Game Studio Pro 5.203/WED V 5.26.1. This is already an older version but the basics remain the same, also in the newer versions.

 

After installing it and starting the 3D World Editor (WED) you receive a screen like this:

 

 

Click on the button “File” in the upper left and choose “new” from the drop down menu. Your screen now looks like this:

 

 

Next click on the button “Object” (4th button to the right from the File button). From the top down menu choose: “Add Primitive” : “Cylinders” : “8 sided”. Then your screen looks like this:

 

 

The object appears with a red colour, this means that it is selected for further editing. When you click in one of the four windows, the object changes to white; when you click in the object again, it changes to red.

 

To make this hexagon into a real room, you click on the button “Edit” (next to File) and from the top down menu you choose: “Hollow block”. Be certain that your hexagon is red (is selected). Your screen now looks like this:

 

 

By making it hollow we have created some space in the hexagon and now we have to enlarge it in order to be able to make a real room out of it. We need two buttons for this: a scale button and a direction button. Both can be found on the second menu row at the top of your screen:

 

 

First you can scale it in all directions in the Top view window. Click on the scale button, click on the hexagon, hold down your left mouse button and move the mouse forwards, backwards, sideways, till you think the hexagon is large enough:

 

 

Then click on the “Build” button:

 

 

 

You see the standard options and when you click on OK, a window appears that tells you that there are untextured blocks and if you want to replace them by the default texture; just click on OK and  you see a window that lets you see the progress of building your world:

 

 

 

Click on Ok, and you will see a rather small room with the basic texture. Just use the arrow down key to move backwards in your room to see the space emerging:

 

 

Click on the cross in the upper right of this window and you are back in your editing screen. First save your world by clicking on “File” and from the top down menu: “save as”: you can then choose a directory or make a new one and save your file with a suitable name. It is advisable to make a directory before you start with your world and have all the picture files you want to use in them too. You need a so-called “Player” to be able to move around in your world. 3D Game studio comes standard with a few player objects and you can choose one and copy it into this directory too. I will explain later on how to add a player and assign a so-called “behaviour” to it.

 

Now you can adjust your room by making it bigger, higher or lower, broader or smaller. You can use the direction button at the far right of the second menu row (see here above). By clicking on it you can choose the direction you want to scale your hexagon. Try out the different 3D views when scaling. Just practice a bit with this in all 3 views and look in the 3D view at your results. In the top view you can scale in all directions, in the back and side view you can scale upwards and side-wards. You do not even have to use the direction button for this.

 

When your object becomes too large to be viewed in the views, click on the SHIFT key and click on the object with your right mouse button. Hold both SHIFT key and right mouse button down and move your mouse backwards. Your object vanishes a bit into the z axis and you create more space to scale it even more. In the end you should be able to make a room that is suitable as a gallery room:

 

 

Regularly, after making changes, save your world.

 

Perhaps at this moment it is a good idea to add a camera to your world and place it somewhere strategically. Click on “Object” and from the top down menu choose: “Add Position”. The camera will always appear in the middle of your room and you can move it and rotate it to any place you want to. In the top window you can move it in a corner, in the back window you can move it down on the ground. The move button is standard pressed down when the “Position” is added. When you click on the camera (position) with the right mouse button, a menu appears and if you choose “Properties” (almost at the bottom of the menu), you receive a window with some more possibilities for the camera:

 

 

Here you can move and rotate the camera to any position you want by clicking on the up and down arrows in the different x, z and y positions.

 

 

Now you have one room, and you can make a nice gallery of this already if you give a different texture to the floor, the ceiling and the walls. 3D Game Studio comes standard with a texture file, called standard wad. You can add this to your environment by clicking on the button “Texture” (5th button in top menu row) and from the top down menu: “Texture Manager”. Then a menu appears with a button: “add wad”:

 

 

You click on “Add Wad”, from the menu window that appears, choose “standard wad” and then click on OK.

 

Now you will have to find the button that can divide your hexagon into the different parts, like the ceiling, the floor and the different walls:

 

 

The red dot here shows which button you need. Click on it with the hexagon selected (red) and you are given another window, where the hexagon is white. If you now click on a part within the hexagon you can see that you have selected for instance the ceiling (best seen in the 3D Window):

 

 

Next you click on “Textures” in the menu row of the window to the left of your four editing windows.

 

               

 

You will be moved to the Textures window, there you click on standard.wad and the coloured pictures contained in it will be revealed.

 

Just try a few textures on the ceiling by selecting one and double clicking on it, then building your world to see how it looks like and if it is not to your liking, try another one, until you are satisfied. Then you click into another part of the hexagon and the floor will become red. Find some suitable texture for the floor and build your world to see if it is to your liking. You can do this with all the separate walls (8) too. But for a gallery it is perhaps better to keep the walls in the same colour.

 

There is also a great possibility adding atmosphere with lights. But then you will have to buy at least the commercial version of 3D Game Studio. You can add a light by going to: “Object” and from the top down menu choose “Add Light”. A little lamp will appear in your edit windows and you can move it around by using the “move” button that is already pressed when the light appears:

 

 

By clicking with the right mouse button on the light you receive a properties screen that lets you choose the intensity and colour of the light. You can achieve all kinds of shadows:

 

 

When you are satisfied you can start adding your paintings or pictures to it. You can easily add pictures into your room by clicking on “Object” and from the top down menu “Add Sprite”. You will have to make sure that all your pictures are in the same directory where you have saved your world.

 

So now, let’s add a sprite picture. Click on “Object” and from the top down menu on “Add Sprite”. You will see it appear like this:

 

 

Just ignore the square that you see here around your hexagon room. It is only suitable as an outdoor area which is not needed here for the tutorial.

 

Click on or in the space of the red object and select: “properties”:

 

 

Click in the white space of passable and in the white space of Overlay. In this way the image will stay fixed to a wall to which you move it and you can pass it while virtually walking into the room. Then click in the upper menu on position:

 

 

In the first column Rotate, rotate it back to 0.000 with the down arrow and then in the column above it (position) move it to the wall just as you see here on the picture (the red line).

 

As you can see in the above picture in the second view window (back) the picture is still too big to fit on the wall, so click on the scale button and scale it until it matches the wall, move it a bit down so it is also aligned to the floor. Then build your world:

 

 

It depends on what spot you have placed the camera (position) if you are able to see it right away, if not just use the left or right arrow key to turn around in the world until you see it. In this way you can hang all kinds of pictures on the walls but you can also make borders around them or picture frames or whatever you fancy to make them more appealing. You have to do this in a paint program and save the pictures as a bitmap. In newer versions of 3D Game studio you can also use jpg files.

 

If you want to walk around in your standalone virtual gallery, you will have to add a so-called “player”, a 3D object of a human being (male or female). A few of them are already added to the software and they have already a lot of behaviours assigned to them. One that is a very flexible object is the “guard”. Just copy him from the “Work” directory to your gallery directory and load him in your 3D world by clicking on “Object” and from the drop down menu choose: “Add Model” : guard.

 

Move the guard to a proper place in your world and be sure that you put him on the ground in the back view window:

 

 

His face is looking to the right and if you want him to look to your picture, click on him with right mouse button, click on properties, his properties window appears and by clicking on position you can turn him into the direction you want and perhaps move him too. Then click on build to see if you can locate him in your room.

 

Now you need to assign a behaviour to him, so that he can walk around in the room in the third person, so that you do not see him but he is changed into you who is able to virtually walk around :). The first thing you have to do now is click on “File”, from the drop down menu choose: “Map properties”, then click on the middle button that says: New Script, when you move your mouse over it. When you have saved your world as for instance “Gallery”, your script will read the same name. Click on the X in the right corner to go back to your edit screen. Then, with the guard selected (red), click with right mouse button on it and choose properties, click on the button “behaviour”, then move your mouse over the button: “choose action” and click on it and from the menu choose: “player_move”. Click on the cross in the upper right to go back to your edit screen and click build to integrate this action into the world. Then click “File” and from the top down menu choose: “Run level”. If you use the arrow keys you should now be able to move and turn around in your room.

 

Save your world.

 

You can add more pictures to your room and perhaps more attributes. Hereunder a picture of my first 3D Gallery with Nature pictures in it:

 

 

I am now going to make a 3D Gallery of my paintings and experiences during that painting course and will post them within short as the follow-up of this tutorial. I will explain furthermore how to add more rooms and a sound file to complement the whole.