LESSON 3-1

INTRODUCTION TO 3-D

LESSON 3-2

ISOMETRIC DRAWING

LESSON 3-3

WORKING IN 3 DIMENSIONS

LESSON 3-4

VIEWING 3-D OBJECTS

LESSON 3-5

BASIC WIRE FRAME MODELS

LESSON 3-6

LINE THICKNESS

LESSON 3-7

REGIONS AND 3-D SURFACES

LESSON 3-7a

MORE ABOUT EXTRUDING & LOFTING

LESSON 3-8

REVOLVED OBJECTS

LESSON 3-9

ADDING MATERIALS

LESSON 3-10

PRIMITIVE SOLIDS

LESSON 3-11

BOOLEAN OPERATIONS

LESSON 3-12

THE USER CO-ORDINATE SYSTEM (UCS)

LESSON 3-13

MAPPING MATERIALS

LESSON 3-14

CREATING NEW MATERIALS

LESSON 3-15

EXTRA PROJECTS AND BONUS TUTORIAL

LESSON 3-16

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER - MODEL A BUILDING

LESSON 3-17

INTRODUCTION TO RENDERING AND LIGHTING

Notes about these lessons:

Most regular text is in burgundy on these pages. Anything you see on AutoCAD's command line is in blue Courier font. Important terms are usually highlighted in red and will also have hyper links attached. Whenever you see a icon, click on it for more information.

Topics covered in this Lesson:

Creating New Materials | Adjusting Materials

CREATING NEW MATERIALS

Once you start working with AutoCAD's materials, you'll soon realize that you don't really have a large selection. What is you need a white stucco material for a wall? Or grass for the lawn, or brushed aluminum, or... well, you get the picture. What you need to do is create your own materials.

But what if want something totally different? Then you have to make a new material.

The first step is to locate an image that represents the material you want in your drawing. There are a number of sources available on the internet. Check out the links page for some. Below are 3 samples you can try for this lesson.

Metal Sample	Brick Sample	Wood Sample

Pick on any of the images above and when the new window opens, right click on the large image and select "Save image as..." and save it in a folder where you can find it easily.

Now start the MATERIALS command to open the Materials Palette.

At first glance, this will look very different if you are used to previous versions of AutoCAD. If you have used 3D Studio MAX, then it may look familiar. Palettes are used in AutoCAD in much the same way as dialog boxes. A big difference is that they can be left on the screen while you are drawing. You can expand or collapse a palette by clicking the < or > buttons on the bottom left. Close it by clicking the X on the top left corner. In the top section of the palette is the materials used in the drawing shown as balls in default view. Below are buttons you will be using to work with the material, and at the bottom is a section for editing the material. I will take you through the simple process of creating a material from an image file and applying it to an an object in your drawing. Then you will learn how to modify the material. Other lessons will give you more information on mapping the material to an object.

To create a new material from one of the images from above (or another texture) open the materials palette and click New Material button. This will open a dialog for naming.

Give it a good name and description (start with good habits) and press OK. Now you are back in the Materials Palette. Click on the Select button in the Diffuse map section:

You should notice a new ball in the top section that has the material mapped to it. The clarity of the material will depend on it's contrast in the image and the size of the ball in the top section.

Now is the east part. Draw a solid object of some kind. Highlight your new material by clicking on the ball. Next click the Apply Material to Object button . Finally, select the object.

If everything looks right, great. If not, you may have to use the mapping tools you learned in Lesson 3-13 to adjust the material to your liking.

Another option to get the materials set in scale to the object is to use the "Scale to Object" setting in the Materials Palette. This is found after you have created a new material next to the Select... button which will open up the Adjust Bitmap dialog (formally found in the SETUV command).

This will help get the scale close to what you want it to be, of course this depends on the size of your original image file (as a rule, larger files are better as you can scale them down and retain clarity). This dialog box also allows for more settings, but each will apply to your own specific needs and image files. Try different settings and check the results.

To make the material transparent or translucent, move the opacity slider on the Materials Palette to about 50 - making the material 50% transparent. You can adjust other options as shown in this dialog box.

This is just an introduction to the world of creating new materials. If you have a photo editing program like Photoshop, Gimpshop (it's free) or another, you will be able to adjust the image files to fit your needs.

For practice, here is good way to get graphics into your renderings. Draw an octagon (POLYGON command) and turn it into a REGION. Then create a new material using this image of a stop sign and apply it to the region. You will most likely have to adjust map settings to make it look good (or use the scale to object option shown above). For even more fun, add a wooden pole to it and use 3DROTATE to make it stand up properly.

For more practice, try downloading some images or using ones that you already have and apply them to objects. Use the mapping tools to adjust them.