Adding a Character

Bring your landscape designs to life with 3D animated characters who stand, walk, run, and more. A variety of ages, clothing styles, and ethnicities is included. You can add as many characters as desired.

To add a character:

1.   Click the Add Character button, which is found near the top of the screen under the Utilities tab.

2.   Click the picture of the default character that appears to the right of the screen, and then select the one you would like to add.

3.   Click on your design where you want to place the character.

4.   Click the Animation property and select the desired animation.

5.   If the animation involves movement (such as walking or jogging), click Edit Points and set the path you want the character to follow. See Editing Points for details.

The following shows just a few of the characters included with Realtime Landscaping Pro.

Previewing Animations

Animations will normally only play when creating a movie or during a Realtime Walkthrough. To preview a character's animation, click the Preview animation checkbox. The animation will only play when the character is selected.

Adding Pedestrians

You can easily add people walking or jogging around your landscape design. Their start time can be delayed, making their appearance seem more natural. This is especially useful when designing parks, housing developments, and other large designs.

To add pedestrians:

1.   Add one or more characters to the design.

2.   Set each character's path. (If you want them to all use the same path, use the Copy/Paste Shape commands to quickly copy the path from one character to another.)

3.   Set each character's Start delay to a different value. For example, suppose you want multiple characters to appear to walk through your design at 10 second intervals. Set the first character's start delay to 0, the second to 10, the third to 20, and so forth.

4.   If you want the character to only appear once, uncheck the Loop at end of path option. Otherwise keep the option checked, and the character will reset to the beginning of the path once they reach the end.

Tips:

•      When using the Start delay option to add characters that won't appear right away, place their start positions out of view so they won't simply pop into existence when they appear.

•      For animations with paths, you can optionally set the elevation at each point. This is useful when you want the character to walk on surfaces that don't have elevation information, such as pond bridges, custom models, and so forth.

•      Characters can be added in either the Top-Down view or the Perspective view, but are easiest to create in the Perspective view.

See also:

Character Properties
Setting Object Properties
Selecting Objects
Selecting Points
Editing Objects
Saving and Loading Shapes