The scene files in this folder demonstrate a variety of Infini-D’s features as well as some basic modeling techniques. As you examine these scenes, you'll notice how to create surfaces, set physical restraints, and define object hierarchies to make models that behave like real objects.
• Animated Book
Since this is an animation, be sure to open the Sequencer (command-4) while examining this model. Notice how many more event marks were needed to animate the curling pages as compared with the animation of the stiff covers. The curl of the pages is a subtle form of object morphing (the shape of an object changing over time.)
• Chair
This model is similar to the one pictured in the User’s Manual. All of the objects in it are hierarchically linked. For example, if you pull up on the back-rest, the entire seat rises. It also demonstrates how you can set minimum and maximum boundaries to the parameters of objects in the model. The seat lifts up and down and spins in a circle, but it cannot be pulled off of the base of the chair. Open the Object Floater (command-2) and click on the arrow button to see the Object Parameters Panel. Then try rotating and dragging various parts of the chair and notice how the parameters have been constrained to make the model mimic an actual chair.
• Desk
This model also demonstrates parameter boundaries. Try pulling the drawers out. Notice how far they can be pulled out, and that they cannot be pushed through the back of the desk.
• Spiral Staircase
This staircase was created with the DUPLICATE AS CHILD (command-F) command in the MODEL menu. The first step (an extruded object,) its railing and railing pole were first positioned and locked together using the LOCK tool. The step was then duplicated by option-dragging the step with a rotation tool. Once this new step was rotated and lifted far enough away from the first, it was locked to the first step. (Since objects rotate around their center points, the center point of the step’s silhouette in the Extrusion Workshop was moved, causing the step to rotate in a spiral. You can also change the center point by control-dragging an object.) The second step was selected and DUPLICATED AS CHILD. This created another step, the same distance (position-wise and orientation-wise) from the second step as the second is from the first. By repeating the DUPLICATE AS CHILD command, the steps were created in a matter of seconds.
Models and explanations created by Daniel Sroka.
Some surfaces in the models were created by Kelly Ryer.
All models Copyright 1992, Specular International.