iClone Building Sets

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BUILDING SETS

When I first purchased iClone I was concerned to read that sets and props could be built in other packages or could be purchased ready built. I soon found you can build sets and props within iClone itself. The key is in the manipulation (dimensions, orientation, position) of blocks and shapes and the diffusing of textures onto them.

I knew that to open my project I would need a 3D coastal scene featuring the twin towers of Reculver on the Kent coast of England. Although Reculver no longer has spires atop it's towers, it would have done in the days of smuggler Bill. In addition the coast line in this area erodes quickly, so in Smuggler Bills day, the towers would have been further from the cliff edge than they are now. For dramatic purposes the height of the cliff has been exaggerated.

I started by building the Reculver twin towers. This was done using Tools/Props/3D Blocks. I build the individual towers and main section using boxes and a pyramid shape. The spires were also built using a different pyramid shape. Each shape can be manipulated using the modify feature. This allows shapes to be moved, rotated and resized - resizing can be done of each axis independently.

Of course these blocks look quite boring, so they need to have textures diffused onto them. iClone comes with a library of textures and you can add your own.

In the modify tab for the selected prop the textures are browsed and a suitable one selected.

In this case I was choosing a texture for the roof spires. I liked one of the tile shapes but didn't like the colour so I had opened the iClone texture in an art package and applied a colour filter to it, before saving it back in the iClone directory. Having diffused the texture onto the shape, iClone allows you to modify the scale, dimensions and orientation of the texture. The roof tiles you see immediately above are the ones I applied to the Reculver spires in the picture at the top of the page.

Since the spires are so far away you can't see the tiles in the picture, so this may seem to have been a waste of time. However in iClone I can zoom my camera to anywhere I like in the scene and could place my camera a few feet from a spire, in which case the tiles would be clearly visible.

When setting up iClone or later using the Preferences option, you can give it a path for the art package you wish to use. I use Ulead PhotoImpact. Some people use Adobe Photoshop and there are many others which can also be used.

For the blocks of the main building and towers of Reculver, I wanted to diffuse textures taken from actual photos of Reculver itself. By selecting the "Launch" option under diffuse in the prop modify panel (see second picture above), the art package is launched and an image of all of the sides of the selected prop is opened in it. The photo images are then cut and pasted onto images of the prop sides and then saved. These can then be selected as the images to diffuse onto the blocks.

The various blocks with the correct textures diffused onto them are now opened and positioned correctly in relation to each other. Once they are all in place they are merged (another option in the modify tab), so that they all remain together as one prop. This can then be saved using the +Add button at the bottom of the modify panel.

Having built the twin towers, I could not find a ready made piece of coastal scenery which suited my purposes. I built the scenery in exactly the same way as I built the towers, though this time I used shapes from the iClone Prop 3D surface library instead of the 3D block library.

You may think this sounds like a lot of work to produce the picture above. The point is my actors can now move about in this set as can my cameras. If I fly a camera towards the towers, as we get closer you will be able to make out the stone work. If you are an expert on Reculver you may even notice that the individual stones are the actual ones as found on the real building. If we were to zoom into the boat sitting off-shore, you would be able to see the knots in the wooden planks. Thus the set can be used for many different shots, both close up and distant. Lighting can also be changed to represent dawn, day, dusk, night and various moods, both realistic and fanciful.

If you are not satisfied with the provided or separately purchased sets and props, you can build your own vast range of alternatives. I recommend you quickly start experimenting with diffusing textures onto the shape and block props.