Craft 4-wheeler with Academic Discount at Studica.com

Using Craft 4-Wheeler

Optimizing the scene
It's wise to optimize the scene before starting to recording the animation. The scene is optimized by decreasing the amount of polygons shown during the recording. This is achieved by hiding objects not crucial to the part of the scene to be animated. Another tip is to use Craft Bounding Poly, which temporary lowers the amount of polygons for selected objects and allows for a smoother recording.

The first time Craft 4-Wheeler is started, the license agreement system will be launched to verify the license:
- Select Standard License. Enter the license number under License Number then click Ok.
- If the program is only to be evaluted, select Demo License and the program will be fully functional for seven days. Click Ok to continue.
Configure the controls for Craft 4-Wheeler (using a steering wheel or some other analog input device is recommended).
- The first time Craft 4-Wheeler is started a warning will notify of the need to configure the controls for Craft 4-Wheeler. The input settings window will then automatically be opened.
- Click on the Configure button in the Craft Director Tools window to open the Configure window. In the Configure window, click on Input settings under the Object menu. This will open the input settings window for Craft 4-Wheeler.
Import the high poly model to the scene.
Use Align to place Craft 4-Wheeler's chassis (C4Wheeler_01_CarBodyMesh) at the position as the high poly model's chassis. It might be wise to use wireframe mode so that only the outlines are visible. Keyboard shortcut for wireframe in 3ds max is F3 and 4 for Maya.
Move and rescale Craft 4-Wheeler's chassis so that it is placed in the same position and has the same size as the high poly model's chassis.
Use Align to align Craft 4-Wheeler's wheels (C4Wheeler_01_WheelMesh_00 to 03) to the wheels on the high poly model. Make sure that they are centered in the middle of the high poly model's wheels.
Rescale Craft 4-Wheeler's wheels so that they're the same size as the high poly model's wheels.
Link/parent the high poly model's chassis to Craft 4-Wheeler's chassis.
Link/parent the high poly model's wheels to each of Craft 4-Wheeler's respective wheel.
To make sure that the recording runs a smooth as possible, hide all the high poly model's parts.
Link/parent the arrow under Craft 4-Wheeler (C4Wheeler_01_GravityDirectionMesh) to the surface. The vehicle will then follow this surface.
Please Note: It can only be bound to one surface.
To get a better view when maneuvering Craft 4-Wheeler, change viewport to one of the following cameras:
- DriverCam which is placed approximately at the height of a drivers head in an ordinary car. Its position can be changed if needed.
- TopCam follows the car 25 scaled units above the roof helping the driver to perform pinpoint navigation in tight spaces.
- FollowCam follows the car smoothly from a third person view.
Click Record (Keyboard shortcut in 3ds max is Ctrl+Space and for Maya it's Shift+Space) in the Craft Director Tools window to start recording. Maneuver Craft 4-Wheeler with the input settings configured earlier and drive the desired route. Craft 4-Wheeler's movement will be saved during the duration of the recording. Click Stop to stop the recording.
- If the recording is not satisfactory drag the timeline back to any position desired and continue to rerecord from there. This way the entire recording does not have to be redone.
- By using the Countdown feature, it's possible to grasp the input device and get ready before the recording starts.
- To make it easier to maneuver tricky parts in the animations, use the Slow-motion factor in the Craft Director Tools window.
Unhide the high poly model.
Render.