SLICE Stunt isLand Inhouse Custom Editor Operator's Manual by Dave Palmowski All material copyright 1999-2001 Dave Palmowski Since this program was orginally an inhouse tool not intended for public use, it is provided on the following terms: NO WARRANTY / AS-IS / LIMITED SUPPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS 0: Introduction 1: Overview 2: Tools 3: Advanced Usage 4: Things to Note --- SECTION ZERO: INTRODUCTION What is SLICE? SLICE is an editor for Stunt Island objects that I created for producing the props in UFO Command Act 2. It's more or less a front end for the old Stunt Island editor. In SLICE, you have access to a variety of tools with which to create your objects. You set up the basic structure of your object with vertices in SLICE, and then open the object in the old editor to finish it off with polygons and colors and the like. Objects from Slice are compatible with the old editor, but a file from the old editor MAY NOT be compatible with SLICE. Slice was made with Microsoft Visual BASIC 5.0 (believe it or not) over many many hours of coding. You can see how long the development actually took by examining the included .plan file. --- SECTION ONE: OVERVIEW Running SLICE will open the main editing window. At the left you see four viewports, which should be familiar to anyone who's ever worked in 3D before, and at the right is the control panel. Clicking on a viewport will highlight it and designate it the active view. Click and drag the left mouse button in the active view to pan around the editing space, and click and drag with the right mouse button to zoom in and out. You can also zoom by using the zoom slider at the bottom righthand corner of the control panel. For precision panning, use the arrow keys. Doing any operation in a given view requires that that view be active. You must not be in an editing mode if you want to change the active view. To escape from any edit mode, tap the right mouse button while the cursor is over any viewport. The bottom right hand view is the '3D' view. It's not REALLY 3D, it's just a cheap imitation, but it will give you a little idea of how your model is going to look, though. You can't zoom or pan as you can in the other views, but you can control the zoom level by using the zoom slider, and you can adjust the model's position using the arrow keys. --- SECTION TWO: TOOLS Along the right hand side of the SLICE window you'll see a bunch of buttons. Push one to activate that tool. Here's a listing of all the tools and how to use them: ADD VERTEX: Adds vertices manually. Click in the active viewport to add one at that position SELECT VERTICES: Marks vertices as selected. Selected objects can be treated as a group for certain operations DELETE VERTEX: Puts you into a mode whereby clicking on a vertex will delete it MOVE VERTEX: When in this mode, you can drag vertices around to different positions CCUBE (Centralized Cube) In this mode, click once to mark one corner, then move the mouse to the opposite corner of a box. When you click again, you will be asked for the depth of a cube. The cube will be centered on the creation plane. RCUBE (Relative Cube) In this mode, create the cube as you would with CCUBE, but this time the "bottom" of the cube will be resting on the creation plane instead of the center of the cube. CIRCLE: Click in the active viewport to define the center of the circle, then set the radius by moving the mouse and then clicking again. You'll be prompted to enter the number of subdivisions for the circle (higher=more points) and then a circle of points will be made where you directed it to be. LINE: Click once to define one end, and again to define the other. A dialog box will appear so you can identify the number of points along the line to create. CURVE: Click once to define one end of the curve, again to define the center control point and then again to define the opposite endpoint. The curve is created by inserting a number of points (you will specify that number in the dialog that appears) along a bezier path that lies between the two endpoints with one control point at the center control point. SPHERE: Created just as a circle -- the "pole" of the sphere will be perpendicular to the current view, so use the correct view to get the right look -- NOTE: Since Stunt Island will only allow 200 faces per object, and spheres QUICKLY fill that limit up, use the subdivisions setting sparingly. SPLAT: Click in the active viewport. A dialog will appear. Here, you configure the size of the "splat zone" and and enter how many points you will want. Once you accept the settings, points will be randomly thrown into the space you defined. FLIP: As soon as you hit this button, a dialog box will appear where you select an axis. All selected points will then be flipped across that axis, allowing you to mirror objects. ROTATE: When you hit this button, a dialog box will show up where you pick a viewport, then define an angle. The selected points will be rotated in the selected viewport by the angle you selected. LPIC: If you have an image of something you're attempting to model that you like to refer to, this button is for you. When you click it, a dialog will open and ask you for the location of your bitmap. Once you've opened it, it will be placed in a handy floating toolbox for you to look at as you go. BGPIC: The best way to model something after a picture. This allows you to load a bitmap in the background of the active viewport, allowing you to trace it with vertices. Since each view can have a different picture, you can get a shot of it from three angles. STRETCH: Use this if your model's dimensions are messed up. You can stretch it by different amounts on each axis. GRID: When you're in Grid mode, you can select a rectangular region like with the cube or select tools, then when you're done, two boxes will ask you for how many horizontal and vertical subdivisions you want -- then, a grid full of points with that number of divisions will be created for you. --- SECTION THREE: ADVANCED USAGE Remember, some of the tools in SLICE have VERY adverse effects and there is no UNDO so if you are making something major, be careful and save often! Most tools by default use a creation plane level of zero, which means that everything you create will end up with an X, Y, or Z coordinate of zero depending on which viewport you create it in. To change this, hold shift as you click to create something. Lines and curves can have each endpoint (curve control centers cannot be set to a level, they are automatically halfway between the two ends) and thus can sweep through the object space on all three axes. SELECTED mode is toggleable by hitting the button marked SELECTED near the bottom right of the window. In this mode, certain tools will function differently, as noted below: -the DELETE VERTEX button will instantly delete ALL SELECTED vertices -the MOVE VERTEX button will now move all selected vertices -the AlignX and AlignY buttons become active In general, the SELECTED mode will cause actions that would normally affect one point affect all selected points. Right click on the SELECT VERTICES button to configure the "selection zone" The size of this zone specifies how close your cursor must be to the vertex in order for a click to register as hitting that vertex. While in selection mode, hold SHIFT while drawing the selection box to keep all currently selected vertices selected and add the newly selected onces, or hold CTRL to "toggle" the selection state of all the vertices within the box. SNAP TO GRID will make all movement within the editing space confined to the grid as shown. This is useful for creating objects that line up properly. The grid can be set with the SET GRID button. The buttons AlignX and AlignY are ONLY available if SELECTED mode is enabled. When they are enabled, all selected points are aligned with the point you click on in the active viewport. By using the ROTATE function and checking the "Keep Originals" checkbox, you can rotate the selected points to a new location but leave the points intact, thus duplicating all the points. If you want to use the VERY useful MODEL PICTURE tool, you need to have the picture in BMP format!! --- SECTION FOUR: THINGS TO NOTE Like the initial planning for UFO Command 2, the first concepts for SLICE came to Dave while he was trying to fall asleep one night. Here's an interesting and amusing tidbit. The original name for SLICE was (this is the truth now!) PANSIE, which stood for Palmowski's Amazing New Stunt Island Editor! The name was abandoned for obvious reasons. SLICE was the next best choice, and so the Stunt isLand Inhouse Custom Editor was born.