tutorial #1

 

finish

 
 

In this chapter we will finish the background by muliplicating the cubes again, but this time with an even simpler but yet powerful method.

Goto & Label

First, insert another matrix hub module below the first one.

Then insert a label module (modules > matrix > label) between the two hubs.

Name the label "cubes" in the inspector.

Now, select the hub module and activate modules > matrix and modules > matrix > goto.

Enter "cubes" in the "label name" field of the goto module's inspector.

Then copy the matrix-goto-subhierarchy and paste it three times to the empty matrix out connectors of the lower hub.

Select one of the matrix modules and switch to object mode.

When moving the handle, you will see that you change the position of a copy of the three previously created cubes.

After entering different positions for all four matrix modules, you will recognize, that you got 15 cubes altogether.

Change the rotation of each of the transform modules as well to achieve a relatively even distribution of the cubes in the lower half of the space before the camera's eyepoint.

When you switch to play mode, you should see something like this:

For a background it is a little bit to defined, so let's change the appearance of the cubes.

Changing the Cube's Appearance

Insert an attribute hub module above the identity module (modules > attributes > attribute hub) and connect a color attribute module to it.

Set the values of the color module to a half transparent light gray (0.7, 0.7, 0.7, 0.5).

Finally, after adding a fog module and finding an appropriate value for it's "end" value (which depends on the positioning of your cubes) you should get a result similar to the following image:

Congratulation, if you managed to get this far. With the knowledge you got so far, you can already create a lot of interesting projects just by playing with the software.

Excuse me, if you tried but didn't get this far. It's certainly my fault. Feel free to blame me.

If you want, you can have a look at my version of the project which I created while writing this tutorial: tutorial1_background.kds

 

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I underestimated the amount of work necessary to create a tutorial like this. That's why I will stop here. If I get some feedback from you about the usefulness of the tutorial I might continue it.

But if you are interested, you may examine the project after the next step (foreground) is completed: tutorial1_foreground.kds

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