Biosphere

Biosphere are made up of energy charged polygons, which respond to one another according to their energy. When their energy is positive they are visible and attracted to one another. When their energy is negative they are invisible and repel the continuity of positive charged biosphere.

All Positive Biosphere

Left Biosphere is Negative

The initial Biosphere is made in Composer, when two or more biosphere objects are made in Composer they do not respond to each other with their unique properties, they are treated as two normal mesh objects in the Composer environment. It's when new biospheres are introduced to the initial biosphere in the Biosphere workspace that their unique properties come into play.

2 Biospheres made in Composer

1 Biosphere added in Biosphere Workspace

Biosphere can be used as foundations for custom modeling shape, then converted to mesh for further shaping in various workspaces.

Custom Shape

Converted to mesh and deformed

Biosphere properties can be keyframed and animated.

Animation

The Add and Delete biosphere tools can not be keyframed so when spheroids are added or deleted from a biosphere object, it is for the entire duration of the animation.

Editing Biosphere

Biospheres are edited in the Biosphere Workspace using the various tools. They all have an edit point in the middle of the biosphere which is used to select them. Depending on which tool is selected there will be an edit handle used to control the properties of the selected tool. Selected biosphere are indicated by the point and handle being red.

Selection Point

Biosphere Selected

Biosphere Edit Handle

Biospheres can be selected and moved or deleted in groups, but tools that use edit handles can only be edited one at a time.

Selecting Multi Biospheres

Moving Selected

Editing with handle tools

One at a time

Biosphere Tools

Select Tool: used to select biospheres, by clicking on the edit point, or multi selections can be made by clicking and dragging an outline over all spheroids to be selected. A keyboard short cut for selecting biospheres is to hold the Shift key, then select.

Add Tool: used to add more spheroids to the initial biosphere.

Move Tool: used to move individual spheroids, or multi spheroids by preselecting them.

Radius Tool: used to adjust the over all size of spheroids.

Energy Tool: used to control the energy generated by the spheroid. Positive energy settings is when the handle is to the right of the edit point, negative energy settings is when the handle is to the left of the edit point. Higher positive setting attract the spheroid to other spheroids. Higher negative setting make the spheroid invisible and repel or subtract from other positive spheroids.

Oblateness Tool: used to adjust the roundness of the spheroid. All spheroids start with a default of 20% oblateness. Settings greater than 20% stretch the left and right sides of the spheroid, setting lower than 20% shrink the left and right sides of the spheroid.

Orientation Tool: used to adjust the rotation of spheroids. The handle can be adjusted to all directions, rotating the object along all axes.

Numeric Tool: used to precisely adjust all the attributes of spheroids. All the tools that alter the spheroids properties are found on the menu. The position options replace the move tool, and rotation options replace the orientation tool. Negative values are indicated by placing a minus sign in front of the value.

Delete Tool: used to delete spheroids by clicking the edit point. Multi deletions can be done by preselecting the spheroids then clicking the tool in null space in the modeling window. Spheroids can also be deleted by selecting them then using the Delete or Backspace key.

What is supported by Biospheres

Biospheres support all the material channels, but have limitations for mapping. Only the Planer, Cylindric, and Spheric mapping tools can be used for mapping materials. They also have paint limitations, they can only be bucket painted a solid color. None of the paint brushes or paint FX tools are supported by biospheres. They also do not support masking of any type or any distortion from Brush tools, FX tools, or HeightShop tools. They can not be Morph, but they can be used as morph targets. Biospheres can be use in a hierarchy, but if the hierarchy is flattened they will be converted to mesh even if all the objects in the hierarchy are biosphere objects. When a boolean function is done using biospheres they are converted to mesh even if all the objects in the boolean function are biospheres. Biospheres can be converted to Mesh, Wax or Tin objects.



This interface tutorial is written and provided by : Stephen Ray