II. Creating a Personal Library

You can create you own materials by editing a current material and saving it to a personal file. Always remember to store custom materials in your own personal

library which will be located in the Flamingo Materials library. The personal library

you will create is an empty library where you can store your own materials.
 

1. Command: Properties (Edit>Object properties)

2. Select the ring.
3. Select Material from the Properties pull down menu, click Plug-in, and then click the Browse Button.
4. We will not change any of the materials. Select Library from the top left hand corner. From the pull down menu, click New.
 

5. A Name dialog box appears, type your first initial, underscore, and your last name. Click OK.

 

You have now created a personal library to save all of your own custom materials. Never replace existing Flamingo libraries. Place all edited materials in your personal library. We will now learn how to edit materials to place in your personal library.

Editing Materials

1. Command: Properties (Edit>Object properties)

2. Select the ring.
3. In the Properties dialog box, select Material from the pull down menu, click Plug-in, and then click the Browse button.
4. From the Material library, select Plastic/Smooth/Black, and then click OK.

5. While the Properties dialog box is still active, click the Edit button, located under the Browse button.
6. A Material Editor Dialog box will appear with four tabs: Main, Transparency, Maps, and Highlight. Click on the Transparency Tab.
7. Change the Transparency to 0.518 and the Transparent Finish to Frosted.

Note: With this dialog box your can change a materials transparency, luminosity, texture, etc. Later take time and explore the Material Editor dialog box.


8. Click on the Highlight tab, Change, R: to 30, G: to 36, and B: to 181.

9. Change Sharpness to 36.040 and Intensity to 0.920, click OK. An Overwrite Warning dialog box will appear asking if you would like to replace PLASTIC/SMOOTH/BLACK.

Never replace the existing Flamingo libraries!

Select Save As.

 

10. A Save Material As, dialog box appears, scroll down to your personal library name.
11. Select your personal library and rename your material. Click OK. Remember always save all edited materials to your personal library.

You now have your own edited material to place in your personal library.
We now have to change our material back to Chrome/Polished/Plain

12. Command: Properties (Edit>Object properties)                                                 

13. Select the ring.
14. In the Properties dialog box, select Material from the pull down menu, click Plug-in, and then click the Browse button.
15. From the Material library, select Metal/Chrome/Polished/Plain, and then click OK.

Accessing a Personal Library

You have created your own personal library and your own materials. We now will learn how to access your personal file in the Flamingo Libraries to save onto your disk for use between your home computer and school.


1. Minimize out of the CAD I website.
2. Double Click on My Computer on the Desktop.
3. Select Local Disk C.
4. Select Program Files.
5. Select Rhinoceros.
6. Select Plug-ins.
7. Select Flamingo.
8. Select Libraries.
9. Scroll down until you find your personal library file.

It will look something like this: J_Theokary.mlib. All Flamingo Material Library

files use the file extension .mlib

10. Copy, Drag, and Drop your personal library file onto your disk.

You now have your personal library on your disk to use on any computer with Rhino and Flamingo. To access your personal  libraries from your disk on another computer, open your disk then follow steps 1 through 8. When the Flamingo Libraries are open, drag and drop your personal libraries file into the Flamingo libraries. Your personal library is now on that computer.

 

Add Lighting

The lighting used, when rendering without lights, is default lighting. The invisible light comes from over your left shoulder. The light is enough to light a model and is only active if there are no other lights in the rendering. This light cannot be controlled so we will create our own lights.

There are several lights used by Flamingo inserted with Rhino. Spotlight, directional light, point light, linear light and rectangular lights all appear in the wire frame display but do not shade or render. In addition to the virtual lights, you can turn on the sun.

Spotlights let you control the lights placement, direction, and hardness.
Point lights allow you to shine light equally in all directions from the center of the light.
Directional lights: This light icon only gives a direction for the light to shine, not a light source.
Rectangular lights shine in one direction and if rotated the direction of the light rotates with the source of the light.
 

1. Command: Spotlights (Render> Create Spotlight)
2. At the Base of cone: prompt, create a large base of a cone.
3. At the End of cone prompt, make the cone large that is facing your ring.
4. Duplicate the light  twice so that there are two more lights.   You may want to rotate the angle of the light so that it is pointing at your ring. This can be done with the Rotate command. Move your lights according to the picture.                              

5. Create a rectangular light: Rectangular light (Render>Rectangular light). Place the light according to the picture.

Tip: Create Rectangular light in Top viewport. Adjust using the Move command. Make sure the tail of the rectangular light is facing up.

6. Create a dome in the Top Viewport, that will encompass the entire setup, which includes the lights, ring and table top. Command: Sphere (Solid> Sphere). Make a Sphere with a radius of 25.843.

7. Cut the Sphere in half using the example below. Command: Cutting Plane (Surface> Cutting Plane). For further instructions on creating a Cutting Plane, refer to the beginning of this exercise: Creating a connection between two elements, numbers 1-4.

8. Then Split the Sphere. Command: Split (Edit>Split) At the Select objects to split command prompt: select the Sphere and press Enter. At the Select cutting objects prompt: select the cutting plane and press enter. Delete the bottom half of the dome. It should look like this:

9. Select the Dome.

10. The Properties dialog box should be active. If you previously closed it, select Object Properties. (Edit>Object properties)

11. In the Properties dialog box, select Material from the pull down menu, click

Plug–in, and then click the Browse Button.

12. From the Material library, select Car Paint/ White, and then click OK.

Next, adjust the color and intensity of the light.
 

1. In the Right Viewport select Spotlight 1. Command: Properties (Edit>Object Properties)
2. A Properties Dialog box will appear. Select Light in the top pull down menu.

Note: In this dialog box you can change the color of the light. You can also adjust the Shadow intensity, Spotlight hardness and Light intensity by using the appropriate sliders.
3. Set Spotlight 1 properties to:
Light: On
Color: Purple, Follow example:

              R: 80

              G: 54

              B:125

    Shadow intensity: 81
    Spotlight hardness: 78
    Light intensity: 100
    Keep the Light Properties Box open.
4. Select  Spotlight 2. Command: Properties (Edit>Object Properties)
5. A Properties Dialog box will appear. Select Light in the top pull down menu.
6. Set the light properties to:
    Light: On
    Color: White
    Shadow intensity: 61
    Spotlight hardness: 87
    Light intensity: 80
    Keep the Light Properties Box open.
7. Select Spotlight 3. Command: Properties (Edit>Object Properties)
8. Set the light properties to:
    Light: On
    Color: White
    Shadow intensity: 52
    Spotlight hardness: 87
    Light intensity: 45
    Keep the Light Properties Box open.

9. Select the Rectangular light. Command: Properties (Edit>Object Properties)
10. Set the light properties to:

Light: On
Color: Light purple, Follow example:

              R:183

              G:178

              B: 229

    Shadow intensity: 61
    Spotlight hardness: defaults to 100
    Light intensity: 100
    Close the Light Properties Box.

III. Set up the Rendering Properties

When setting up the Rendering Properties you will learn how to change the size of your rendering and create an environment for your ring.
Creating an environment can include background color, image, clouds, sun light, sky color, haze, ground plane, plants, reflection, transparency and ambient light color. We will be using the background color, Resolution, Antialiasing, Ambient light, and Bounces.
Background color – This options allows you to set the color of the background in your rendering.
Resolution- Allows you to set your renderings pixel resolution.
Antialiasing- Allows you to control how slow or fast your rendering will take. The slower the rendering the smoother your rendering. Always use the highest Antialiasing number.
Ambient Light- This option will set the overall ambient color in your scene and will represent the color in the darkest spot on the objects in the rendered image.
Bounces- Reflection- This option controls how many levels of reflections are calculated.
Transparency- This option controls how many levels of transparency are calculated. The setting of 3 lets you see through three transparent surfaces.

1. Command: Render Properties (Render>Properties)

2. In the Flamingo Properties dialog box, set the following parameters for  rendering:
Resolution: 800 X 600
Ambient Light Color: Black
Ambient Light Intensity: 90
Antialiasing: High
Bounces Reflection: 3
Bounces Transparency: 3

3. Click the Flamingo Environment Settings button to bring up the Environment dialog box. This will change the background of your rendering. Select 2 Color Gradient and follow the example given. The colors should be black and dark gray as shown in example. Make sure to change the Upper, Middle, and Lower gradient numbers according to the numbers given in the example. Click OK.

4. Compose the image in the Perspective Viewport. Zoom in or out to establish size of object and rotate to get a point of view. Follow example. Click Render.

5. When the rendering is complete, click Save As in the Render window, File menu Command: (File> Save As> Save As Type) Select JPEG.


    NOTE: This tutorial is based on rendering a silver ring, however it may be used for any object.