Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved. ractal Design's Ray Dream Studio 4.1 installed easily from its CD-ROM and consumed about 40 MB of hard drive space. As a windows 95 application it also shows up on the list of applications that can be uninstalled by Windows 95. The upgrade price is about $190. Several pieces of documentation accompany Ray Dream Studio 4.1. There is a small booklet called the extensions portfolio that discusses the plugins and how to create them. There is a dream models booklet that has black and white thumbnails of the clip art that comes with Ray Dream Studio 4.1. There is a what's new booklet. There is a Ray Dream Animator booklet that has about 130 pages. It is a user guide and tutorial for Ray Dream Designer's animation capabilities. Lastly is the Ray Dream Designer 4 user manual which has about 366 pages and several chapters. The CD-ROM is crammed full of .avi and .mov files. It also has extensive Adobe Acrobat documentation, software developer kit information, samples, Photoshop files, etc. hapter 1 covers Ray Dream Designer's installation and chapter 2 provides an overview of Ray Dream Designer. Chapter 3 is a tutorial. I spent several days completing the chapter 3 tutorial and I must say that when you finish it you will have an appreciation of what Ray Dream Designer Studio 4.1 can do. The second page of chapter 3 has a black and white picture of what the finished image will look like. It is basically a castle inside an aquarium. After initially configuring Ray Dream Designer Studio 4.1, you create the castle. This is accomplished by dragging the freeform icon into the hierarchy window. A dialog box pops up and prompts you to assign a name to this freeform object. The tutorial instructs you to name the freeform object castle wall 1. A cross sectional plane is displayed within an area that looks like a cube with 3 of its 6 sides removed. You then go to the view menu and select preset positions/drawing plane. The view then changes to a 2 dimensional drawing plane that is criss crossed with numerous grid lines. You then go to the view/grid drop down menu. hen you set the displayed dialog box to 1.6 grid spacing and engage the snap feature. One side of the castle wall is then drawn on the drawing plane. The view is then changed back to the reference position. Now the thickness of the wall is adjusted so that it is 2 grid divisions thick. This is where I began to appreciate how clever Ray Dream Designer Studio 4.1 is. If you look closely at the image below you will see a reddish purple line on the far wall and another on the bottom wall. You simply click on the end of either one of these lines and drag until the castle wall is 2 grid divisions thick. You don't actually touch the castle wall itself. Those 2 lines are called sweep path lines and are used to set the extrusion depth. After the extrusion depth is set, you click on the done button. You then add the stone like shading by dragging and dropping the ball from the tutorial section of the shading browser onto the castle wall. You can also select the stone tutorial ball and click on the apply button on the bottom left corner of the shader browser. You select the icon for a better preview and you can then see what your wall will look like. The next few pages address object placement by using projections that are displayed on the walls of the view. You simply click inside these projections and drag your image anywhere you want. This provides precise placement control over all objects in all directions. The hot spot is also described. It is the dot that also shows up on the view's walls and is the pivot point of the object. This hot spot can be placed anywhere and can be quickly and easily centered via the arrange drop down menu. Next the castle wall is duplicated 3 times, rotated and positioned to create the castle. Each wall duplicate is named. The castle wall rotation is somewhat interesting. There are 2 rotation tools available in Ray Dream Designer Studio 4.1. One is a 3D virtual trackball and the other is for one axis rotation. The one axis rotation tool is used to rotate the walls around the hot spot. After the 4 walls are positioned, they are shift/clicked in the hierarchy window and then grouped. The group is then named castle walls. ext a tower is added to each corner of the castle. Step one for this procedure is to make the castle invisible. That way it doesn't clutter up the view. The tower object is dragged from the tutorial objects browser area and dropped on the hierarchical window. The tower doesn't include a dome so you have to create one. This accomplished by first drawing a circle then extruding it 2 grids to a cylinder. An editing point is then added to the extrusion line on the far wall and symmetrical is selected from the geometry window. The symmetrical selection means that whatever is done to one line will also occur to the other. The Bezier points are then edited to easily create an onion looking dome. The tutorial then requires the user to manipulate the dome using the numerical controls. This abstract, numerical manipulation was a little tough on a seat of the pants guy like me but I persevered. The roll is changed to 90 degrees and the X, Y, and Z values are adjusted to get the dome on top of the tower. Both the dome and the tower are then selected and alignment dialog box is displayed. The X and Y axis of the dome are both centered. The Z axis is set to contact the sides. This places the dome on top of the tower and correctly aligns it. The tower and dome are then grouped. The color of the dome and its reflection is then changed. The tower group in the hierarchical window has a plus sign. When the plus sign is clicked the group expands to allow the selection and editing of individual group components. The paint shape selection icon is clicked. The dome is selected then the shader editor is displayed via the windows drop down menu. RGB and CMYK colors are available and can be adjusted to 16 million different colors via the color dialog box that pops up when the shader editor's color ball is double clicked. Highlight, shininess, bump, reflection, transparency, refraction and glow can also be adjusted. After the various adjustments are made the color is then applied to the dome by clicking the apply button. ext a flag is added to the top of the dome. First the flag is dragged and dropped from the objects browser tutorial area to the hierarchical window. Then the user zooms in on the flag. Next a logo is selected from tutorial area of the shaders browser. Next the 3D paint icon, rectangle tool is clicked. Then a rectangle is drawn on the flag and the logo appears where the rectangle was a drawn. The logo's position is then adjusted as necessary with the paint shape selection tool. The hot point for the flag is centered on the flag's staff. Then both the flag and tower are selected. Next the align objects dialog box is launched and the X and Y axis of the flag's hot point is centered while the Z axis is set to contact the sides. The apply button is clicked and the flag is planted into the top of the dome. The flag group in the hierarchical window is then dragged into the tower group. Next the castle is selected in the hierarchical window and made visible. Both the castle and tower are selected, the align objects dialog box is activated and the Z axis of both objects is aligned to the same plane. The tower is duplicated 3 times, each duplicate is given the next sequential name and each tower is placed on a corner of the castle. ext a door and a window are added to the nearest wall. This is accomplished by double clicking the wall. This allows you to "jump in" to a specific object. If you don't do it properly you will perform a change that affects all 4 walls instead of just the one wall. You set the view to preset position, drawing plane with no preview. You are then greeted with the 1 dimensional grid layout like you had when the wall was first drawn. Four points are added to the bottom of the wall. The 2 inner points are dragged upward 4 grid spaces to create the door. The rectangle tool is used to create the window. Everything is selected then the combine as compound command is activated. You return to the preview mode and the castle now has a door and window. Next a gate is dragged from the tutorial area of the objects browser and dropped onto the scene. You are then instructed to place the gate into the doorway. Using the skills previously honed, this is a simple task. ext a second camera is added. The new camera defaults to the same location as the existing camera and is automatically named camera 2. The numerical properties dialog box is activated and camera 2 is placed in the absolute center by changing the X, Y and Z coordinates to zero. The camera is placed in front of the castle door. Then both camera and castle are selected and the point at command is invoked. Now the camera points at the door. Next the camera properties dialog box is activated. The camera dolly icon is clicked and a green box appears around the castle that shows the area that will be rendered based on the camera settings.The camera can now be positioned so that any part of or all of the castle may be rendered. more   All pages copyright © Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1997 Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.