Today I am giving away a simple Flash VR file. You will need to create images at the various angles of your subject. Then simply import all of your images into this Flash file, adjust the speed to your tastes, and you will have a simple VR effect for the web or wherever.

Move you mouse to the right and the model will rotate counter-clockwise. Move the mouse to the left and the model will rotate clockwise.

Plan for further development include:

• adding vertical rotation
• smoother rotation
• on the fly updating (no need to have Flash to edit the content)
• a simple GUI

Model taken from 3dtotal.

All the ActionScript is on the first frame. It is as follows:

stop();

// Edit topSpeed to modify how fast the VR can rotate

var topSpeed:Number = 2;
var frameSpeed:Number;
var frame:Number = _root._currentframe;

// Functions, no need to edit these

onEnterFrame = function () {
 frameSpeed = Math.round(topSpeed*(_xmouse-Stage.width/2)/(Stage.width/2));
 newFrame = _root._currentframe+frameSpeed;
 if (newFrame>_root._totalframes) {
  newFrame = newFrame-_root._totalframes;
 } else if (newFrame<=0) {
  newFrame = _root._totalframes+newFrame;
 }
 gotoAndStop(newFrame);
 frame = _root._currentframe;
};

Download the source code! [ 1.5M ]

Below are PDFs containing helpful shortcuts to many common design programs. Some of these were developed by the folks over at Computer Arts, the rest were created by yours truly.

The shortcuts here are the defaults. Most of these programs will allow you to customize these to suit whatever needs // wants // quirks you may desire. Hope you find them helpful!

• 3D MAX [ 49k ]
• Acrobat [ 546k ]
• AutoCAD [ 2.7m ]
• Cinema 4D [ 62k ]
• Flash [ 115k ]
• Freehand [ 42k ]
• Illustrator [ 41k ]
• InDesign [ 42k ]
• Photoshop [ 41k ]
• VIZ [ 124k ]

Nope. You can snap to guides and grids, but there will be no snapping of one object to another. Not in CS2. No sir. You can go ahead and do that all you want in Illustrator, but InDesign will not let you bring that trash into its home. Playa!

This is a side-by-side comparison to the available filters for basic rendering in Cinema 4D V8.2.

Each image is rendered with the default values. Model found at 3dtotal.

With just a few simple settings (and a lot of extra time) you too can create much more realistic lighting in your scenes. I am working in Cinema 4D release 8.2, and have found the setting below to produce results that I am pretty happy with in a fair amount of time.

You can download my file [ 613k ] and mess around all you want. Try adjusting the values to suit your needs, or just to experiment with how it effects the look or render time. Model found at 3dtotal.

There have been occasions where I have needed to just dump some files in a hidden directory of a website for internal use or to preview to a client. I don’t want to create a whole preview site for just this instance, and I want to keep directory browsing off for the rest of the site.

ASP offers some simple tools to list all the files in a specific folder and any sub-folders. The following code wasn’t written by me, credit goes to Mike Hall. I did however make some modifications to his original code. He had it set up in such a way as that you needed to manually enter which folders would be listed. I wanted something simpler. Something you could just drop in a folder on your site and it would automatically load and list all the files. I also didn’t want the index file to appear in this list.

Here is an example of the code in action (with some additional formatting).

View the source code!
Download the source code! [ 1k ]

Check out the updated version as well.

This is a side-by-side comparison to the available filters for scanline rendering in VIZ 2008.

Each image is rendered with the default values.

All sizes are in inches and approximations. The size shown is for the screen and does not account for the frame, which will differ by brand and model.

Autodesk VIZ has different sets of keyboard shortcuts depending on what you are doing. There are the main set of hotkeys, as well of unique hotkeys for areas such as the Material Editor, NURBS, etc…

Hitting “B” in the main GUI will give the bottom view, while “B” in the Material Editor toggles the background. This is only if the Keyboard Shortcut Override toggle is turned on.

To ensure that it is on (it is by default) Make sure the T key icon is down. This icon can be found in the Extras toolbar, which can be toggled by right clicking anywhere on the toolbars.

Working of several dozen projects a year, I need a way to archive older files to a DVD but still find them quickly when I need them again. Here is a little trick that I have put into practice. I find it is useful when coming to a new project or back to one after a lengthy absence.

After burning a DVD for archiving older project files, I make a text file with the name of every file on that disk. That way I can do a search in the text document and quickly see which disk to pull out for the file I need.

Here is the process: In the Start Menu, go to Run and type “cmd”. Browse to the directory you want to index, say the D drive (type d:). Then type “dir /s >> document.txt” (the “/s” will get all sub folders too, if you don’t want this, just leave it off).

This will list everything into a new text document named “document.txt” There are other options you can do to this, such as “dir /s /b >> document.txt” which will list only the filename, none of the date modified or size information. For more on these options, see Microsoft’s Documentation (or type “dir /?”).