Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved. back he render icon at the top of the interface is clicked which launches the render settings dialog box. A click on any of the 11 buttons on the left side of this box completely changes the right side to reflect the appropriate controls and options. A click on the change image size button launches the image size dialog box. This dialog box has a drop down menu that has presets for video output. The pixel aspect ratio can also be controlled here as can the image output size. The 1:1 (VGA/Mac/Print) option is chosen and the apply button is clicked. This changes the pixel aspect to 1.0 but does not change the image size. Next the keep button is clicked on the render settings dialog box which then closes. Then the lock to render aspect icon is clicked on the cam view control box. This is to ensure the camera view window will show an accurate preview. Next the motion button on the parameters module is clicked which launches the motion editor. The center X choice is made on the parameter list. The center X and center Y values are checked for accuracy. Since the X dimension is 720 then the center should be 360 and the center Y should be 240 which is half of 480. The map view is centered by clicking on the auto button on the map view control box. Next the map view parameters/position/camera drop down menu is activated. A click is made in the map view window to place the camera. After the click, the input request dialog box appears requesting altitude information. A value of 30 is entered which places the camera 30 meters above the surface. Next the map view parameters/position/focus drop down menu is activated. A click is made in the map view window to place the camera focus point. After the click, the input request dialog box appears requesting altitude information for the focus point. A value of 5 meters is entered. The camera and focus points may also be dragged about in the map view window. Navigation is easy. The auto button on the map view control box can always be selected to recenter everything. The map view may be zoomed in by clicking the zoom button on the map view control then selecting the area in the map view window to zoom. Camera elevation may be changed by dragging with the right mouse button in the cam view window. The appropriate choice must be made in the motion editor dialog box. The focus point elevation can also be changed by dragging in the cam view window provided it is first selected on the motion editor. The horizontal camera width can be easily adjusted. The selection is made in the motion editor parameter list box. Then the manual advises the user to click on the high button. This action causes the sensitivity number to change to 1000. This makes the horizontal camera width to change in 5 degree increments when the arrow head at the top of the motion editor dialog box is clicked. This is the X line and its label changes to horizontal view arc when the horizontal camera width selection is made. The low button will cause the arc to change in .05 degree increments and the medium button will cause it to change in .5 degree increments. The user can also manually enter any number to several decimal places. When the camera width is changed the yellow lines in the map view window change immediately as does the view in the cam view window. Of course the cam view may be rendered at any time by clicking the ecoshade preview button on the cam view control box. The lighting is adjusted by first clicking on the out button in the map view control box. This causes the map view window to zoom way out so the sun image (large circle), moon image (small circle) and the sun light interactive object (large circle with 4 spokes) may be displayed. The clutter of several small objects together is the world that was created. The sun light interactive object may be dragged about. When this is done the illumination in the cam view window changes assuming OpenGL is working. A specific date and time may be entered for sun light. The user must click on the sun button which is in the motion editor control box. When this is done the sun position dialog box is launched. The settings in this box are fairly self explanatory. Changes can be made and those changes will be immediately reflected in the cam view window if OpenGL is used. The image can even be rendered if desired and if the effect is not what is desired then the cancel button can be clicked and no changes will occur. One of the many interesting and powerful features of this software is that many different settings can be made in the various modules and renderings then made to see the effect. However nothing is permanent until the keep button is clicked. Haze can be easily added by accessing the parameters/position/haze start and haze end drop down menu selections in the map view window. A click anywhere in the map view window will determine where the haze starts and ends. The effect is immediately noticeable in the cam view window. The haze shows up as 2 rings around the camera in the map view window. Each ring can be dragged in and out to set start and stop points for the haze. The motion editor has haze start and haze range on its parameter list and when selected access is provided to set these distances numerically to several decimal places. Haze color can be accessed by clicking on the small color swatch that appears in the motion editor box, selecting the color editor module from the modules drop down menu or by clicking on the color button in the parameters module. Any of these actions will launch the color editor. The color editor has a long list of all the various things that the user can set the color for. It has sliders for both RGB and HSV. Any of these sliders may be accessed simultaneously. Various colors for various objects may be set here and the cam view window can be rendered if desired to view the effect. The cancel button may be clicked if no satisfactory results are obtained. Next the picture is rendered to the hard drive. The previously discussed render settings dialog box is launched by clicking on the right most icon at the top of the interface. I changed the image size from 720 X 480 to 360 X 240. The save images radio button must be checked. The preview window button may be checked if the user desires to watch the rendering process. The images button is clicked and a file name is typed in the window at the top if the control box. An image type is selected via the radio buttons and the render button is clicked. After a few seconds the rendered image is written to the hard drive. ext an animation is created. First the camera and the focus point are placed where the user wants the animation to begin. Then the parameters/key frame/camera drop down menu in the map view window is selected. This launches the input request dialog box where the user is prompted for a frame number. Zero is already displayed so the OK button is clicked. This action launches another dialog box that asks the user to decide if a key frame is desired for the focus group. The yes button is clicked. The user then moves the camera and focus point to the new locations that will be at the end of the animation. The procedure is then repeated only this time the number 149 is typed into the input request box. The animation may now be played. The key frame button on the cam view control box is clicked and the play button is depressed. The cam view window shows the camera moving about as the unrendered animation is played. The map view window shows the focus point and the camera moving about as the user specified. The frame slider may be used to step the animation through frame by frame. The timeline control box is launched by clicking the timeline button in the cam view control box. The timeline control box has a drop down menu that provides access to all the various adjustable parameters that World Construction Set possesses. The altitude parameter is selected for examination. The red line shows the camera altitude and the green line shows the altitude of the terrain the camera passes over. This feature provides ready assurance that the camera won't crash into the dirt anywhere along its flight path. The small triangle shaped knot on the left end of the red line is dragged up and down. The cam view window shows the same effect as the previously discussed right mouse button dragging. The altitude changes. The altitude readout in the upper right corner changes. If the motion editor is open its altitude readout changes and has the exact same reading as the readout in the timeline box. If the knot at the right end of the red line is clicked the map view and the cam view both jump immediately to frame 149. The slider in the cam view control key frame box jumps to its end and the frame readout jumps to 149. There are nearly 3 dozen parameters that can be manipulated via selection from the drop down menu. The keep button must be clicked to retain any changes. Any key frame may be changed by moving to that key frame, making the changes then clicking the update button in the cam view key frame box. For example the start or finish may be instantly changed by simply going to either the first or last frame respectively then dragging or otherwise moving the camera or focus point then clicking the update button. Next the render settings are adjusted. The render settings editor is launched with the right most icon at the top of the interface. The render and save button is clicked and zero is entered in the start field then 149 is entered in the end field. The step field is set to one. The save images button is checked. Next the images button is checked and a path is selected along with a generic type file name for the sequential images. The #### part of the file name is important so that the images are sequentially numbered automatically. I didn't do this correctly the first time and so I had to rename 150 files with the .tga extension and manually number them sequentially. Next the fractals button is clicked. The depth maps checkbox is clicked and then the create fractal maps button is clicked. This causes World Construction Set to create fractal depth maps. According to the manual this should be done anytime the camera or focus point is changed. This causes terrain that is close to the camera to have more detail and terrain that is farther away to have less detail. Next the render button is clicked and rendering begins. The rendering process was somewhat dismaying because it seems so slow. There are many things that cause it to be slow. For example if the preview draw button is checked the rendering process seems to slow down. If any other work is being done then this also slows the rendering process. As it was it took nearly 11 hours on my Micron. My computer is not the fastest on the planet nor does it have the most RAM but this just seemed entirely too slow. I even made the output images half the size they were originally. Down from 720 X 480 to 360 X 240 but it still just seemed very slow. (Since this review was first published I have been contacted by Questar and they assure me that people with high speed Pentium Pros and DEC Alpha computers don't have this slow rendering situation. It should not be surprising to anyone that World Construction Set appears to render slow considering all the stuff it does and looks at while rendering.) When the rendering process is completed the user has 150 still sequentially numbered images that then must be imported into another application such as Premiere. I really hate it when an "animation" application does not output an .avi file. 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.