University of Oregon - Department of Architecture - ARCH 424/524 Cheng - Advanced Design Development Media
Layers & Groups Workshop
Objective: To understand why and how to use layers, objects and compound objects.
- Copy house-blank.fmz from the Course Disk to your Guest folder. Open the file from your Guest folder.
- From the Palettes menu, open the Objects, Layers, and Surface Styles palettes.
Organizing Objects, Groups, and Compound groups
Examine the Objects palette. Check and uncheck in the first column to select objects.
What objects could be joined together? Highlight them and click on the Join icon. (row 8 with Union)
What objects could be manipulated more easily as a group? Highlight them and click on the Group icon.
Do the same for Compound objects.
Organizing Layers
Examine the Layers palette. Check and uncheck the first column to change the active layer.
Toggle the on/off state of all layers except the active one by clicking on the top diamond. Examine what is on each layer.
What items are misplaced? Select objects which belong on another layer, make that layer active and click on the Layer icon. (row 12 with color). Where necessary, create new layers by clicking on "Layer Name".
Using Layers to set material properties
Turn off all layers except the Roofs. Select All Unghosted from the File menu to highlight all roof elements.
Pick a color in the Surface Styles palette and click on the Color icon (row 12).
Set the Topological Level to Face, and pick a ceiling faces. Choose a different color, double-click on the color icon and make sure "Keep Current Color of Faces" is checked, and then click on the Color icon to set only these faces.
Adjusting the Lights
Set the window size small. Open the Views and Lights palette. In the Views palette, check the view called "intpersp". Set the window size small and from the Display menu, choose Renderzone. In the Light palette, toggle the lights on and off, rendering to see the results.
For the ambitious:
edited July 1, 1998 by nywcheng