Ground Settings

The Ground Settings dialog enables you to specify the type of Ground to be inserted.

The primary color of the ground is set by clicking on the Ground Basic Color swatch and then choosing a color from the Windows color dialog. The Texture Color swatch is used to specify a second color that is needed for ground patterns such as a checkerboard.

Ground Reflectivity - The ground is made partially reflective by entering the percentage. A maximum value of 60% is permitted. The Sky is not reflected, but other Actors are. Reflections are calculated using a buffer that requires a lot of memory.

Ground Types

Plain Color - A single color is applied to the ground. Set with the Ground Basic Color palette.

Texture - Choose a texture type from a list in the Ground Texture dialog. There are some animated textures such as waves that simulate the surface of a liquid in motion. When the ground Actor is selected, a rectangle is drawn in the Top window. The rectangle represents the basic repeat unit for the texture. If, for example, a checkered texture has been selected, the rectangle represent the size of one of the checkered squares. You can scale, rotate or move the repeat unit by adding Movement, Rotation and Scale timelines. These textures can only be applied to the ground plane. There are several parameters which can be set, some of which can be tweened. These textures animate only if movement, rotation or scale timelines for the Ground Actor have differing keyframes.

Image Maps - To align ground image maps, the ground Actor is given movement, rotation and scale timelines. When the ground Actor is selected, the yellow rectangle in the Top view window shows the position, orientation and size of the map. The height of the vertical line in the front and side views is used to indicate the height of a bump or wave texture, and has no significance for image mapping.

Single - An image is used once and positioned to lie inside the ground's bounding rectangle.

Tile - Image is repeated in tiles over the whole ground plane.

Mosaic - Image is repeated using a flip-and-rotate pattern that will match up the seams, giving an image the appearance of being continuous.

View Button - View the specified image map.