Download the D3Edit files used in this lesson.

Lesson 3

Modifying Your Room

For this lesson you will need the completed room from Lesson 2. If you don't have it you can download it here, or you can take the previous lesson (recommended). This will be the case with every tutorial - you will need the completed files from the previous lessons in order to complete the next one properly.

Open D3Edit and open up your room (room1.orf)

ex. a

 Your room should look like ex. a. Let's study this a little. In lesson 2, we extruded our room 40 units along the Y axis...let's verify this. The Y axis is visible in both the Front and Side views. Note I have the grid set to 5 (bottom of ex.a). There are 8 grid squares between the floor and ceiling of the room, and there are 5 units per grid square, therefore our room is 40 units tall... 8*5=40 ...perfect!

Notice the face that is current (in green) and see how it is shown in all the 2D panes. Now look at the row of letters and numbers at the bottom of ex a. The part that reads F: 6/10 refers to the face number of the current face. Out of a total of 10 faces, face # 6 is current. 

If you press the F key the green outline will cycle through all the faces in your room, eventually coming back around to face 6 again. Shift-F will cycle the opposite direction. Since the faces are numbered beginning with 0 and ending with 9, and since there are 10 faces, face 9 is actually the 10th face. Don't let this confuse you too much. These numbers are mainly used in fixing problems with your level - we don't need to worry about them yet, so relax :)

Right-click in the 3D pane and select textured with outline. There's that ugly multicolored texture...if we don't change it soon, I'm gonna puke! But first we're gong to do another extrude. We are going to extrude the ceiling face in the same direction as in lesson 2. This will make the room taller by "raising the roof". First we need to make current the face that we want to extrude. In ex. b this face is highlighted green. Make it current by clicking on the face in Top view repeatedly. Since the floor and ceiling are the same shape, you can't tell which is current by using the Top view. Use the other 3 panes to verify that the correct face is current. You can select between the floor and ceiling by repeatedly clicking on Top view. If there are several faces on top of each other, every click will cycle to the next face in the layer. 
ex. b

ex. c                                                         ex. d
                      

Another way to select the face is to use the F key, as mentioned earlier. In ex. b the correct face is current. The status bar at the bottom reads F: 9/10 which means face # 9 is current. Your screen should resemble this example. Notice that the normal on this face is pointing down, or inside the room. When we did our first extrude, we had the normal of the original face pointing up. We need to flip this face so that the normal points up so that when we extrude, all the normals will point the way we specify in the extrude function menu. Just trust me on this one for now :)

Once you have this face current, open the Geometry toolbar by clicking the R button at the top of the screen.
In order to flip a face, the face must first be marked. All marked faces will be flipped with this function so we need to be cautious. To mark a face, we need to be in face mode (ctrl-F). With face # 9 current, go to Mark and select Mark/unmark. Click in the top view outside the room a few times, or select a different face and you will see that face 9 is now outlined in blue. A face or vert that is blue is marked. Make sure this is the only marked face on the room, then hit the flip button (ex. c). The result will look like ex d. The little purple normal line is now pointing up and the face is still marked. Click in any of the 2D panes and hit the U key - the face will be unmarked (black outline). Remember to use your D3Edit HotKey List to assist you with the keystrokes. U will unmark all faces and verts in their respective modes. You can see the flipped face in the 3d view with textured with outline on.

We are ready to extrude. Make sure face # 9 is current again, then click the extrude button at the top of the geometry toolbar. Fill in the blanks as in ex. e.

ex. e

We will only extrude 5 units up the Y axis this time. We want our normals to point in as before, but this time we do want to delete base face after extrusion. If we don't then our original (now current) extrusion face will still be our ceiling and the room won't look any taller from inside - our new 5 unit area would be separated by the face, like an attic in a house. Click the extrude button. Ex. f is the finished product.

ex. f

Our ceiling has been raised 5 units, and some new faces have been created. Extruding didn't stretch our existing faces upward 5 units, it created a new set where the old ceiling used to be (note the F: 17/18 now). Extruding in layers like this has many benefits, one of which is related to texturing, which will be covered in the next lesson. Save your room as room1.orf. Right click in the 3D view and choose textured with outline.

Speaking of texturing, I don't want to leave you with that ugly texture in your room...let's change it quickly! In face mode, go to Mark/Mark all. Now all of the faces are marked and outlined in blue. Click R to close the Geometry toolbar and open the texture toolbar by clicking the Tx button. On this bar you see the texture of the current face, the infamous multicolored mess! We need to select a texture to replace it with. Click the Available Textures button, and in this window select large, then select Metal Textures. Move this window so that you can still see the texture toolbar underneath. Click the custom tab near the bottom of the texture toolbar. Now select the top right texture in the texture palette and drag it into the custom area. The name of the texture will show in the custom area as AdvMetalPanel1. Close the texture palette window. Click on the AdvMetalPanel1 text in the custom tab and that texture will appear in the current texture window. We will add this texture to every face in our room using the To Marked button just below the current texture window...that's why we marked all the faces. Click the To Marked button.

ex. g

 Your room will look like ex. g - much nicer don't you think? The walls are easier to see in the 3D view with this texture.

Things are starting to look pretty good already. And you thought this was going to be difficult! Well it may not be the easiest program to use, but now that you are seeing results, the learning will come much easier and will be more satisfying.