LEV EL | EASY
HOLD DOWN THE Control (Ctrl) key and press Z to undo (remove) both circles. Now, to replace them with smaller circles, roll the pointer up to the Size slider at the top and drag it to the left. Move the pointer back over the sphere and draw another circle. This time keep going round the circle until it has been drawn 20 times. Then stop. Next, right- click on the sphere and, still holding down the mouse button, move the mouse up and down to rotate the sphere. Notice that by drawing the circle multiple times we have actually created two raised circles.
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NEXT, CHOOSE THE CREASE tool at the very top- left (hovering the pointer over each button reveals a description of each one) and experiment with that. Here we have used it to created a sort of mouth. Then try the Inflate button on the ‘chin’ underneath the mouth to produce a sort of bulge. Then have another go with the Draw button to produce a sort of nose. To finish, here is a neat trick that will always centre the sphere – hold down the Shift key and right-click on it. ▼
NOW LET’S MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE will recognise: a lemon. Select New Sphere from the buttons on the left (it has a little sphere on it) and when the dialogue box appears, click New Scene and then click OK. Now we are going to use a new tool – Grab, which has an icon with a four-headed cross on it. Use the sliderto increase the size to about halfway and then move the pointer slowly in from the left about halfway down the sphere and stop when the orange circle appears, as shown in our picture. ▼
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ROLL THE MOUSE POINTER over the left half of the sphere so that an orange circle appears around it. Hold down the left mouse button and dragto draw out a circle. Sculptris creates a soft, raised circle underneath the pointer. Because the Symmetry button is active – that is the one with the two horizontal arrows pointing left and right – Sculptris creates a duplicate on the other side of the sphere. This simple control makes it easy to sculpt broadly symmetrical shapes of all description. ▼
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CLICK AND THEN – still holding down the mouse button – drag left to elongate that section of the shape. It may be necessary to do this a couple of times and also experiment with the size of the Grab tool using the slider. In the end it should look like our screenshot. Next, choose the Crease tool (top-left on the button bar) move the Size slider to halfway and then begin to single click around the left side of the sphere to produce a series of dimples. ▼
BECAUSE THIS IS a 3D sculpture, it will be necessary to roll the sphere round and do the rear side. To finish off, click on the Material icon (top-middle of the screen) to open the materials palette. Experiment by choosing different textures to ‘colour’ the sculpture. The one we would suggest using is JGSpecial_01, which will complete our 3D drawing of a lemon rather nicely. Sculptris takes care of all the lighting effects automatically. ▼
SCULPTRIS CAN SAVE FILES in its own unique format to retain the full 3D shape but it is also possible to save a 3D drawing like this as a flat,
two-dimensional image, which is useful for showing off your work outside of Sculptris. Click the Options button at the top and then, when the dialogue box opens, click the small Save Image button (at the top-right). Navigate to where the file is going to be stored and then open the ‘Save as type’ dropdown menuand choose JPEG. Give the file a name, click Save and then click OK. Here is the same file opened in an image editor. ▼
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CLICK THE SAVE BUTTON on the left and type a memorable name for the image file. Now we will show just how easily one sculpture can be turned into another – by making a fish, say. Choose the Grab tool again and move the Size slider all the way to the right. Find a point at about two o’clock on the lemon, left-click there and drag inwards. There will come a point when the shape begins to burst through itself. When that happens just drag back up a bit. Next, rotate the sphere until it is sideways on, then grab the front and elongate it, as shown here. It looks a bit like a radioactive turkey crown. ▼
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WORKSHOPSPROJECTS
CREATE 3D SCULPTURES
LEV EL | EASY
PULL THE OTHER END out in the same way to form a sort of ellipsoid shape. Then reduce the Size slider again and draw out some spines down the back of the shape. Then using the same tool (and Slider size) grab one of what used to be the ends of the lemon and tease that out to form two small flippers. Here we have returned to the front of our shape and then angled it slightly to create a better look. ▼
KEEP THE SAME SIZE tool but switch to Draw and create a couple of raised circles for the eyes (see Step 3), then roll the shape so the underside is visible. Switch to the Crease tool and create a shark-like mouth for our developing sea creature. Finally, click the Material button at the top again and this time select JGDrink-01, which gives a balloon animal- style effect. Save the sculpture, then click the Paint button and then click OK in the dialogue box. ▼
ONCE IN PAINTING MODE, you can’t go back and sculpt, but there are plenty more effects available here to explore. For example, click the Material button again, scroll down and choose Strong Rim. Next, try clicking the Texture button and then clicking New. Navigate to where the Sculptris program is stored – it will be inside the My Programs folder, inside another folder called Pixologic. You will find the Textures folder there. Choose one of the rock textures and click Open. Then select it from the palette to return to the main screen. ▼
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MAKE SURE ENABLE is active under the Textures thumbnail by clicking it and then start to paint the texture onto the shape. We will end up with something that looks like a statue that could sit happily next to a garden pond. This workshop has barely scratched the surface of what this extraordinary free program has to offer and we would heartily recommend that you experiment further, watch some of the videos on the Sculptris website and check out the example
artworks. ●
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LAUNCH A WEB BROWSER and visit
www.snipca.com/7222, home to Rainbow Folders. When the site appears, scroll to the very bottom of the page and click the Download program link there. Follow the instructions to save the file to the Windows Desktop – in Internet Explorer 9, for example, this involves selecting Save As, choosing the Desktop and clicking Save. When the download finishes, right-click the ‘rf.zip’ file icon and choose Extract All to expand the contents of thecompressed Zip file. Now double-click the Rainbow Folders.exe file and follow the installation wizard. Click Finish at the end. ▼