Macro Sweep Tutorial : Create pipes, vines and snakes.

tuorial created by
T.J.Fennel

page created by
Theuns van Onselen

Okay, folks. I've thrown together some images here straight from trueSpace 4.3.
I'm hoping this will help you guys out, 'cause if we help each other out,
the only thing that can come out of it is the advancement of all our talents.

Okay! Let's start the tutorial.

First things first, I'm assuming you know at least where some of the basic tools in trueSpace are. By default, the toolbar should look very similar to this:

Whenever I show you a small bar that looks like this one:

you'll find that set of icons where one of the icons is displayed on the tool bar.

For example, to find the Macro Sweep tool, you'll have to locate one of the icons displayed on the tool bar, click and hold it, then locate the tool on the icon set that pops up.

The tool highlighted by a black square is the tool I want you to select.


I realize that most of you are proficient trueSpace users, but I figure I'd lay that down before I said anything else so that beginners won't be confused.

Now onto the Macro Sweep!

1.) Locate the Polygon tool. With this you will be drawing a round shape on the floor of trueSpace's work area.

2.) Using the left mouse button, click, hold, and drag along the floor of trueSpace's work area. You should see a semetrically shaped polygon form on the floor. Release the button when the polygon is the size you want.

3.) Now you're going to locate the Path tool and select it.

4.) Upon selecting the Path tool, a new window will pop up that looks like this:

You won't be needing this during this tutorial.

5.) To make things easier, switch to the overhead view. Click somewhere on the center of the polygon, and it will create a point at the location of the polygon's axis. Continued cicking on other places on the screen will create a curve. You can adjust the curves, but I'm not exactly sure how, since I don't exactly use this tool too much. Anyhow, it should look like this:

6.) After you have a path you like, you're going to have to open the Path Library. You'll find it here:

7.) A new window will pop up, and this window is the Path Library. In it you'll find presets created by Caligari, and you can add your own. It looks like this:

8.) You'll need to save the path you created. To add your path to the Path Library, click the large gray arrow on the window. Your path will be added as "Anim" as shown below.

9.) Now, you'll want to select the Macro Sweep tool. You'll find it here:

10.) Upon selecting the Macro Sweep tool, the path you created will disappear, and a new one will appear. It'll look like this:

11.) Don't worry, you didn't lose your path. As long as it's saved in the path library, you can get it back. Go back to the Path Library and select the path you created, "Anim". You should see this:

12.) Now right click the Macro Sweep tool. This window will appear:

13.) You can tweak the settings in this window to your taste, but for now, leave them as is. The only thing you'll want to do with this window is to click the Bend button so that it's highlighted:

14.) Now comes the neat part: the Macro Sweep execution. Now that you have your path set and your Macro Sweep settings in place, all you have to do is left click the Macro Sweep icon again. Voila! The sweep is executed, and you can change the parameters of the points you laid out on the path, which are highlighted along the newly created object.

Rendered

That's pretty much the basics of this operation. It's a complicated, irritating series of operations, but if executed properly, you can pull off some pretty interesting effects and objects. Hopefully you found this tutorial helpful!

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Comments will be appreciated. You can contact me  at
tvaonselen@openware.co.za
or Ninja Dodo at
Ninja_dodo@hotmail.com