Connect To The Internet

Probably the most common reason people buy a personal computer these days is to connect to the internet. I seems as though everyone is getting wired these days. Having an e-mail account is almost as important as having a telephone. Online shopping is sweeping the country (make that the world), and changing retail sales in ways we are only beginning to understand. Online stock trading is a phenomenon with world changing implications. And pretty soon, we will all be voting online.

Business and Personal Finance

A great many people us personal computers to run business or personal finance applications, such as Quicken and MS Money.

Personal computers can take much of the drudgery out of bookkeeping. Beyond simple number crunching, they can improve your accuracy, present date in more meaningful ways, allow you to change numbers and categories with a mouse click, and even help you prepare and file your taxes.

Education

More and more parents are buying personal computers for their children with an eye toward their educational uses. The shelves are fairly creaking with computer programs that help children learn to read, write, and think critically. Computer encyclopedias combine text, sound, and moving pictures to create rich learning resources. More and more schools are teaching with computers. Kids, from grade school to college, go online to find information for their research papers. And chances are, virtually every student in school today will be using a computer after he or she graduates and starts working.

Games

Computer games, of course, draw many people to the personal computer, especially with the advent of online gaming. Most computer gamers are younger, but you'd be surprised how many over 40 gamers there are out there. Some of the more cerebral games, such as historical simulations and puzzle type games, draw almost exclusively from an older audience. One of the industry's true blockbusters, Myst, appealed primarily to older players.

Computer Graphics and Publishing

Artists, both professional and amateur, are turning to computers, for a new form of self expression. Universities offer classes in computer related art courses. The graphic design industry is positively dependent on computers, as are book and magazine publishers. And the artistically challenged are turning to graphic design and publishing programs to add color and design to their church and school newsletters, holiday letters, and personal Web pages.

Digital Photography

The proliferation of digital cameras has created yet another reason to own a personal computer. A digital camera stores the pictures you take in computer files inside the camera's hard disk or special memory cards. These files can then be transferred to a personal computer, where they can be stores and organized for easy access, and printed out later on special paper. Digital pictures are also easy to send across the internet to far friends and family.

Now that you can view hidden files/folders open your flash-drive's drive. For me it's “F:”( F = drive letter). When you open it you should have a file named Autorun.inf (sort of greyed out a little bit), or no greyed out files. Delete the file named Autorun.inf because you will be remaking another.

Here's a listed instruction

1. Right click on the folder and go to New>Text Document
2. Rename the New Text Document.txt - Autorun.inf
3. Now right click on Autorun.inf and click Open
4. It should come up in notepad on the first line type “[Autorun]” (no_quotations)
5. Next line type Open=“$”
6. Next line type Icon=“$”
7. Next line type Label=“whatever you want the drive to be name”

It should look like this.

(NO_QUOTATIONS)

Now then you are probably wondering what the $ stands for. Well that's the icon file path. You can find icon all over the Internet. Just find one and put it on the flash-drive.

Now then let's hide the Autorun.inf and your icon file, if you got one. Right click on the Autorun.inf and click Properties then check the Hidden box at the bottom. If you got a icon do the same. Hit apply and you're done.

If you want to take the show hidden back off. Go to Control Panel>Folder Options>View and check the “Do not show hidden files or folders”. Well your Done.

I assume you have read my past tutorials and know where the tools that I have mentioned in the previous tutorials are located

Well, why don't we get started? Fire up AutoCAD and start up a new drawing. I'm going to start with the most complex pieces of the model, first off is the handles on the draws of the desk.

Well, create a circle anywhere in the drawing with a radius of, let's say 10:

If you don't have the object snap toolbar on, turn it on now. This toolbar is very important. You can turn it on by right clicking the space above the AutoCAD drawing, going to ACAD and clicking on Object Snap:

Once that's sorted, select the line tool which is underneath the Line tool by clicking on it OR by typing “_line”.

Then on the object snap toolbar which you should be able too see since you activated it, click on “Snap to Quadrant” which is the circle with the 4 smaller circles around it:

Now click on a quadrant on the circle (preferably the one I have clicked in the picture below):

Once you have clicked there, go back to the object snap toolbar and click on “Snap to Quadrant” again. If you make a mistake and click the wrong one, press ESCAPE and start over from creating the first line.

Move your mouse down and click on the quadrant below the previous quadrant as shown in the picture below:

Create another 2D circle with a radius of 9 using the centre of the last circle as a snap:

Now activate the press pull tool, click on the inside of the outer circle but outside of the inner circle and to the left of the 2D line (see picture below). Then for the height input 1.5 and press ENTER:

Good, now we have our desk handle. Delete all of the 2D lines and circles, we don't need them anymore. Adjust your view so it's similar to mine in the picture below:

Create a 3D box using the top right corner of the handle as a snap, for the length input 25 and press TAB to input width. For the width input 5 and press ENTER:

The height can be whatever, but just make sure it goes DOWN:

Activate the 3D rotate tool. Select the handle itself and press ENTER. For the base point, use the same corner as you did for the starting point of the rectangle. Pick the blue rotational axis. Then lastly for the angle point, click on the same spot as the base point.

Now the handle should be rotating with your mouse. This time holding shift isn't going to work so we are going to rotate the handle the hard way. Zoom in and get a closer view. Adjust your view so it is comfortable and easy to work with.

Now take your time and move your mouse until the other end of the handle touches the box and seems align with it. This part can take a long time but don't rush this. Once you are satisfied, click to finalize it. See the picture below if you are unsure where to place it:

Once it is aligned, delete the 3D box as we don't need it anymore. The handle though we DO need so don't delete that.

Adjust your view so you can see the inner curve of the handle and create two 2D lines crossing as shown in the picture. This will give us an intersection snap to work with:

Activate the copy tool located under erase tool by clicking on it OR by typing “_copy”. Select the two 2D lines plus the handle itself and press ENTER.

For the base point, it doesn't matter at all; just click anywhere close to the handle.

Now there should be another handle that is moving with your mouse. Just place it close to the original handle, doesn't matter as we are going to move it again later:

Create a 3D box relatively close to one of the handles with the dimensions as shown in the picture below:

Remember this step's location; you are going to come back and repeat these steps. Select the 2D line tool and click on the "Snap to midpoint" snap located in the snap toolbar:

Then click on the left side of the rectangle midpoint, a red triangle should appear in that place:

Once you have clicked there, activate the "Snap to midpoint" snap again, and click on the other side of the 3D rectangle's midpoint. You should end up with a line looking like this:

Then draw a 2D line from the above left corner down to the midpoint:

We are going to draw another 2D line, but first activate the "Snap to midpoint" snap. Click in the middle of the newly drawn 2D line:

Then activate the "Snap to perpendicular" snap as circled in the picture below:

Then go to the other side of the rectangle and click at the 90 degree sign as shown in the picture below:

You should end up with another line like this:

Then find the centre of that by drawing 2 lines intersecting each other from the corners of the 2 lines going across the rectangle. I have done this a lot in my tutorials and the picture below shows what you should have:

Great, remember how I told you to remember a certain step's location? Well we are going to repeat from that step to the one before this step, but this time on another 3D rectangle with dimensions as shown below:

Once done, you should have something that looks like this now:

Now it's time to join the handles up with these rectangles. Adjust your view until you can see your handle's X formed by the 2 lines.

Then select the 3D move tool, select a handle (doesn't matter which one, but make sure you only select ONE handle), press ENTER and set the base point as the intersection of the 2 2D lines of the handle.

Now your handle should be moving with your mouse, adjust your view so you can see the intersection of the lines of the first 3D rectangle that you drew earlier.

Then click at the intersection:

And now your first rectangle should look like this:

Do the same and join up the second handle with the second rectangle. You should have something like this now:

Now select the fillet tool. Input "t" and press ENTER and press ENTER again for TRIM:

On the first rectangle (the bigger one) select the bottom edge:

Even though the entire object was highlighted, only the edge will be selected. For the fillet radius, input 3 and press ENTER.

Now select the 4 edges on the rectangle that surround the handle (be careful that you don't select the 2D lines that we drew before):

Then press ENTER to execute the tool. Now your rectangle is nicely rounded off:

Fillet the other rectangle exactly how I showed you just now.

Now you should be left with this:

Moving on, activate the 3D move tool; select both the handle and the panel of the smaller desk draw.

Now for the base point specify one of the lower corners of the panel, but that corner cannot be a filleted corner:

The smaller panel + handle should be moving with your mouse. For the next point click on top corner of the bigger panel. That corner cannot be filleted as well. It also must be on the same side of your smaller panel's base point (if you chose the bottom left corner, you would choose the top left corner of the bigger panel, don't worry it will snap into place):

Now you should have something like this:

Adjust your view so you are facing the back if the panels if you aren't:

Select the 3D box tool once again, click on the top right hand corner (the one in the picture below):

Input the width of the rectangle as 50 and the length 100 then press ENTER:

For the depth, click on the bottom left corner (the un-filleted one) and it will adjust itself:

Now we have something like this (I've adjusted the view):

Create another 3D box using the top left corner of the desk:

Make the width 105 and the length 150:

For the height, specify 10 and press ENTER

Currently we should have this (don't mind the 2D lines):

Next, use the bottom right corner of the newly created rectangle as a snap and create a 3D box that is 105 wide and 10 long:

For the height, just use the bottom corner of the rectangle (NOT the filleted one) and click there. It will adjust itself to it's level:

We should have this so far:

We are almost there, adjust the view so you see the back of the desk:

I'm going to create a panel for the back. The length will be 90 because 150 - 10 - 50 = 90. For the width input 5 and press ENTER. Use the top right corner of where the 2 rectangles touch:

For the height input 35 and press ENTER.

Now you should have something like this:

Ok, pull out the fillet tool and trim the edges pointed out in the picture below with a radius of 3 like we did with the panels (NOTE: You cannot fillet them all in one go):

Once you filleted all these edges, fillet these ones as well:

Now we should have something that looks like this:

Well, I guess there is one thing left to do, open the materials panel by right clicking at the top of the tools palette and selecting “materials”

Here is my desk:

This is the second project in my AutoCAD tutorial series. This time we will be making something more simple using new time-saving tools.

We are going to make a soft-drink cup with a rounded lid (so it doesn't look too plain). The cup will consist of 3 parts, the cup base, the lid and lastly, the straw. Here are some rough dimensions I quickly drew in paint:

With that in mind, let's get started. I'm going to start on the base of the cup. Open up AutoCAD and using the 2D circle tool, click and create a circle anywhere in the AutoCAD drawing window and input 5 for the radius (since radius is half the size of diameter) and press ENTER:

Now select the 2D line tool and click at the centre of the newly created circle to start off a line:

Now it gets a bit tricky. For the height, input 12.5 but DO NOT press enter or click:

Now press the TAB key to adjust the angle of the line. Now look closely, HOLD down SHIFT and move the mouse so that the line appears to be standing up. NOTE: Look for the +Z, if you can see it you know you got it right. When you are happy finalize it by clicking:

Now you have a line going up from the centre of the circle. This line will be used as a drawing aid. (Press ESCAPE to stop the 2D line tool if you already haven't). Now select the 2D circle tool again, this time clicking at the end of the 2D line you just created (the snaps should automatically highlight the end in red):

For the radius of the circle, input 6.5 and press ENTER:

So far you should have something that looks like this:

Select the LOFT tool by clicking on it at the 3D make panel OR by typing “_loft” and pressing ENTER:

This tool in short, creates surfaces between 2 or more cross sections; it's sort of a “filler” tool. Anyways with the loft tool selected, first click on the base of the cup (the bottom 2D circle) and then click on the top of the cup (the top 2D circle):

Press ENTER and you will see this:

Press ENTER again and a settings window will appear. Make sure “Ruled” is selected and press OK:

Now we have our cup base:

With that done, we are going to make the cup lid. Now move away from the cup by using the pan tool (don't move away too far, we just need some space to work with). Now select the 2D circle tool again and draw a circle with a radius of 7 and press ENTER:

We are going to draw another vertical 2D line, so select the 2D line and click at the centre of the circle:

This time, for the length of the line, input 4:

Press TAB, hold shift and move the mouse until the line looks upright and you can see the “+Z” then click to finalize your line:

Press ESCAPE to de-activate the line tool. Activate the 2D circle tool and draw a circle on top of the line we just created, for the radius, input 5 and press ENTER:

Now, activate the loft tool again. Click the 2 2D circles we just created:

Now press ENTER and then select “Cross-sections only”:

Now the loft settings screen will once again come up. Change the settings to match the picture below:

Press OK and you should have something similar to this:

Activate the cylinder tool. Move your mouse to the endpoint of the 2D line we created before we lofted the circles and click there:

For the radius, input 4 and press ENTER:

For the height go down, we want the cylinder to pass through the lofted object because we are going to subtract that. The height doesn't matter, as long as it passes through the lofted object:

Activate the subtraction tool. First select the lofted object FIRST and press ENTER. Then select the cylinder we just made and press ENTER. You should be left with this:

Great! That's the second piece done, time for the last. Move away from the cup lid to give ourselves some room to work with. Activate the Polyline tool by clicking on it OR by typing “_pline”:

Firstly, click anywhere (not too far away from the cup lid) to create a starting point. For the second point, input 20 and press TAB and for the angle, input 90. Press ENTER:

Like the 2D line tool, we can continue and draw another line. For the length of the next line, input 5 and press TAB and for the angle, input 60 (since 180 - 60 = 120), once done, press ENTER:

Then press ESCAPE to stop using the tool. Unlike the 2D line tool, the 2 lines we created are joined together. Next activate the 2D circle tool and draw a circle next to the line we just created with a radius of 0.5 and press ENTER:

Create another 2D circle and click at the centre of the circle we just created:

For the radius, input 0.3 and press ENTER:

You should have something similar to this:

Moving on, activate the sweep tool by clicking on it OR by typing “_sweep”:

Now while the sweep tool is active, select BOTH circles we just made and press ENTER:

For the sweep path, select the line we made earlier (the Polyline):

Now you should have something like this:

Change your view using the constraint orbit tool so you can see the end of the straw (either end, doesn't matter):

Select the subtraction tool, firstly select the outer round object as the source and press ENTER. Then select the inner object and press ENTER and you should have something like this:

Great! We have something that resembles a straw! All we need to do now is to put the pieces together and “colour it in”. Firstly let's deal with the cup lid. Adjust your view so you can see the cup lid:

Select the 3D move tool and select the cup lid with it and press ENTER:

Now the 2D line you created at the cup lid should be still there. Move the mouse cursor to the bottom of the 2D line's endpoint and click:

Now the cup lid should be moving with your mouse. Move your mouse so that it goes over the cup base and place it over the cup base's 2D line's endpoint and click:

Now we have something that looks like this (yes, the lid is meant to be bigger than the cup base, otherwise how can you put it on?):

All the cup is missing is a straw. Adjust your view so you can see your straw again:

Zoom in at the bottom end of the straw (the side without the bent end) you may need to use the pan tool to adjust your view:

Select the 3D rotate tool and click on the straw then press ENTER:

For the base point, click at the centre of the circle shaped end of the straw:

Then select the red axis (the one that is highlighted in yellow in the picture below):

For the angle starting point, click at the same spot as the base point (should have a snap):

Now the straw is freely moving! Hold SHIFT and move your mouse until the straw is standing upright, then click:

Just a few more steps to go, adjust your view so you can see the bottom part of the straw clearly:

Select the 3D move tool, and select the straw and press ENTER:

For the basepoint, select the centre of the straw end (or endpoint, if the 2D line is there):

Now the straw is freely moving. Here's a tip if you haven't already figured it out. While using other tools, you can use the view tools and change your views. Once you finished changing the views, press ESCAPE to stop the tool and resume using the previous tool.

Anyways, back on task move the straw and click at the centre point/ endpoint of the cup base using the tip I showed you above if needed:

So far, here's your cup:

Do you know what's wrong with it? The straw is standing upright. We are going to fix this. Select the 3D rotate tool and select the straw and press ENTER:

Now zoom in until you can see the outline of the highlighted straw clearly. For the basepoint, select the centre of the straw end OR, if the 2D line is still there from the first few step, use that:

For the rotational axis, select the green axis (the one highlighted in yellow in the picture below):

For the angle starting point, make it the same as the base point:

Now the straw is rotating with your mouse. Now move your mouse so that the straw appears to be touching the side of the cup lid. You may need to adjust your view to get a better look. Once you are satisfied, click to finalize it:

Anyways, once done select the explode tool by clicking on it OR by typing “_explode”:

This tool will break down an object. Once you selected it, select the cup base ONLY and press ENTER:

Now the cup base is now 3 different objects. Why did I explode it? Now that the cup base is in 3 parts, I can colour each part separately, the top part of the cup base could be coloured as the liquid that the cup contains so I don't have to draw another object and the other 2 parts could be the colour of the cup itself. Confused? Well in a moment I'll show you my cup and it will become clear.

Open the materials panel by right clicking at the top of the tools palette and selecting “materials”

Here you can “colour in” your cup with the different materials available. I'm not going to hold your hand and tell you which materials to select, you should decide that yourself. Anyways, here is my cup in render mode (I have never been good with colouring in):

For example I have a model that looks like this (this is just an example, nothing too flash):

Here I have set up 4 viewports, one monitoring each corner of the model. By doing so, when I want to work on another part of the model I don't have to keep adjusting my view to see, I already have a viewport monitoring that area. Of course, you can edit the model in any of the viewports making it very convenient. The only downside of multiple viewports is that the ports are smaller than having just one ort (of course):

Now let's see how we can enable multiple viewports. Click on View > Viewports. Here you have the option of selecting multiple viewports from 1 - 4. If you select 2 or 3 viewports, AutoCAD will prompt you to select an alignment option. For example if you selected 2 viewports, AutoCAD will ask you if you want them horizontal or vertical. Once you made your choice, AutoCAD will create the viewports according to your choice:

Right now, I have chosen to have 4 viewports:

Each viewports currently is identical. In order to edit a viewport, you must select it by clicking it. You can tell which one is selected by the highlighted outline of the viewport. Here I have created a box in the top left viewport:

As you can see, all 4 ports have the same box. Here I have adjusted the views of each viewport to face a different corner of the box by using the constraint orbit tool as you would normally:

Now here I have created a sphere on one of the corners of the box:

As you can see, each viewport displays the sphere in its own perspective. Another neat thing is that you can zoom in with viewports:

Another feature of viewports: You can split a viewport into more viewports. To do so, simply select the viewport you want to be split and create more viewports as I showed you above:

Each of these smaller viewports could be used for displaying certain features of that particular area. You can further split these smaller viewports into even smaller viewports. You can have a LOT of viewports, here I have 32 viewports. That is 32 views of a single model:

Here are the main points if you were too bored to read through my tutorial. Sorry if this tutorial seems a bit vague and hard to understand:

• Viewports are mainly useful for LARGE and VERY detailed drawings where you would be very time consuming to keep adjusting views to edit the model.
• You can have more than 4 viewports.
• You can only make changes to the model in the viewport that is currently active.
• You can adjust the view in each viewport.
• More viewports result in smaller viewports.
• To create viewports, go to View > Viewports.
• To join 2 viewports and create one, go to View > Viewports > Join. Then you select the 2 viewports you want to join.
• You can only join viewports that are beside each other and not diagonal.
• For a small and simple model, it would be best to use just one viewport.

Firstly select the “Frustum Cone” tool from the modelling tab at the tool palette:

This tool is a little shortcut for making a cone with a flat top. Now click anywhere on the drawing and input 10 for the base radius and press ENTER:

And for the top radius, input 4 and press ENTER:

Lastly, for the height input 20 and press ENTER:

This is what we should have so far, a nice cone with a flat top:

Next select the cone tool in the 3D make control panel:

Move your mouse towards the center of the first cone that we just finished making and using the center snap (which should be activated automatically) click at the center of the first cone's top:

For the base radius of this cone that we are creating, enter in for and press ENTER:

And the height, we will make it 14. So input 14 and press ENTER:

This is what we should have so far:

Let's move aside that for a moment and create another part of the pencil. There are 3 parts to this model, the pencil tip, body and the end. Once we create all 3 we will then put them together.

Moving on, select the polygon tool in the draw tab at the tool palette:

For the number of sides, input 6 and press ENTER:

Now click anywhere to the right of the pencil tip and select “Inscribed in circle” when the options come up:

For the radius of the circle in the polygon, enter in 10 and press ENTER:

Now select the press pull tool or type in “_presspull” and click inside of the 2D hexagon we just made:

Now enter in 100 for the height and press ENTER:

This is what we should have so far:

Now it's time to create the last piece of the model. Select the cylinder tool and to the right of the hexagon we previously made click and input 10 for the base radius and press ENTER:

For the height, input 20 and press ENTER:

Now we have an end, all we need to do is create the rubber on the end. Select the cylinder tool again and look for the center snap on top of the cylinder we just created and click on it:

For the base radius, input 9 and press ENTER:

For the height, input 10 and press ENTER:

Select the fillet tool from the modify tab at the tool palette:

Now input “t” for trim and press ENTER:

Select “Trim” if it isn't already selected and press ENTER:

Now select the edge of the last cylinder we just created:

For the fillet radius input 3 and press ENTER:

Press enter again since it asks for an edge and we already selected one:

Now we have a nice rounded off cylinder:

Now that we have all 3 pieces of our model, we are going to do some assembling. First though draw 2 lines which join 2 points that are opposite each other on top of the hexagon tower so that they intersect, forming a middle point:

Back to the pencil tip, activate the 3D move tool and select both cones of the pencil tip and press ENTER:

Adjust the view using the constrained orbit so that you can see the bottom of the pencil tip. Then move your mouse so it snaps with the center snap of the bottom cone and click:

Now the pencil tip should be moving with your mouse now. While it is, use the pan and constraint orbit tool to adjust your view again to view the top of the hexagon tower. When you have finished adjusting your view, press ESCAPE on the keyboard. Doing so stops your current action and since you are still using the 3D move tool, you resume using it again. Now click at the intersection point where the 2 lines on the hexagon tower cross.

Now it should look like this:

As you can see, the pencil tip is bigger than the hexagon tower. We will fix that with the slice tool. Now activate the slice tool (you may need to click on the double arrow to expand the 3d make section to see it):

This tool lets us slice objects. Firstly specify the object we are going to slice by clicking on it and pressing ENTER, in this case it is the lower cone of the pencil tip:

Now click at one of the points on the hexagon tower to be like a starting point:

For the second point, click on a point next to the first point we selected. This will tell us which direction the slicing tool is going to cut:

When you slice an object you are left with 2 pieces, the object itself that has been cut and the cut piece. We can choose to keep both if we wanted to but in this case we only want to keep the object itself. Pretend there is an imaginary line where we cut it; the picture below it is the red line I have drawn. If we click on the side where the object itself is, then we will keep the object and discard the cut. If we click on the other side of the line then we will discard the object and keep the cut. We want the object so click above the imaginary line (you won't see that red line in AutoCAD) to keep the object itself:

Currently it should look like this now:

A hexagon has 6 sides. We have already done one side. Using the constrained orbit tool to adjust your view, slice each side as I showed you before. It should look something like this now:

Back to the hexagon tower, adjust your view you can see the bottom of it. While you are there, draw some 2D lines to create an intersection point at the bottom of the hexagon tower to use as a snap (be sure the lines go to opposite ends of the hexagon):

Time to put the other end onto the pencil, re-adjust your view so you can see the last pencil object we made (the other with the chamfered end) then activate the 3D rotate tool, select both cylinders of the pencil end and press ENTER:

Move your mouse and let the cursor snap to the center of the bottom cylinder end and click (You may need to move your mouse around to get the snap to appear):

For the rotational axis, click on the one highlighted in orange in the picture below:

For the angle starting point, once again click at the center, letting it snap (you may need to move the mouse around to make the snap appear):

Now hold SHIFT and mouse the mouse around until the pencil end is facing downwards like the one in the picture and click:

Now activate the 3D move tool and select both cylinders of the pencil end and press ENTER:

Now move your mouse and let it snap to the top of the bigger cylinder center using snaps then click:

Now the pencil end should be moving with your mouse. Using the constrained orbit tool to adjust your view, adjust it so you can see the bottom of the hexagon tower and press ESCAPE to resume using the 3D move tool then click at the intersection where the two 2D lines we drew earlier intersect. (They may be hidden from view by the pencil end that is moving around with your mouse but still search for it by moving your mouse around):

Now we finished putting the parts together. It's starting to look like a pencil:

Let's lay it facedown using the 3D rotate tool. Activate it and select all 5 pieces of the model and press ENTER (there should be 5 pieces excluding the 2D lines):

Zoom in at the bottom of the hexagon tower and click on the intersection point we previously used or the center of the pencil lid (doesn't matter):

For the rotational axis, select the one highlighted orange in the picture below:

For the angle starting point, click at the intersection point at the bottom of the hexagon tower or the center point of the pencil lid (doesn't matter):

Hold shift and move your mouse until the model is lying down and then click:

Open the materials panel by right clicking at the top of the tools palette and selecting “materials”

Now, using this panel you can “colour in” your pencil, giving it texture and fill etc. You can experiment, and see what will go together good etc. This is my pencil in render mode:

Well, I've hoped you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I have when writing it.

One way of creating a model is to directly make the model on the spot. This way is often hard and tedious if making complex models. So an alternative method is to make parts of your model first then putting them together. The best tool for this job is the 3D move tool.

EXAMPLE 1

In this setup, I have 2 objects like so:

I want them both joined together at a corner. To do so, I use the 3D move tool:

I want them joined together at a corner, so I click on the 3D move tool OR type in “_3dmove” and then I click on the object that is going to be moved and press ENTER:

Now move the mouse cursor to the bottom right corner (in my perspective) and using the snaps, click at that point. This will be our first alignment point:

Now your selected object should be moving with your mouse now. Align it up with this corner of the second object using snaps and click:

And now, you have successfully moved your object:

EXAMPLE 2

In this second setup, I have the same 2 objects from the last example, except one is rotated:

I want them both together, intersecting to make a cross. So I use the 3D move tool, here I have changed the view of the model to get a better view:

Now I activate the 3D move tool and use snaps to assist me. Notice there is 2 “+” signs indicating centre snaps. I click on the own shown below because it is the centre snap to the circle closest to me. The other one is the further circle:

And here's another picture if you didn't get what I said before:

Back on task, I click on the snap that I showed you before and now the object should be moving with your mouse. I now click on this snap on the second object, notice there are once again 2 snaps available:

Now I am left with this:

Object 1 is perfectly aligned with object 2 in the centre of both holes; here it is in render mode:

In this little setup I have 3 rectangles formed by 2D lines:

The first rectangle I'm going to leave it as it is. The second I will give a fillet and the 3rd I will apply a chamfer to it. The chamfer and fillet tools are located here under the “Modify” tab on the tools palette:

I'm going to start with the fillet tool. First I activate the fillet tool by clicking on it OR by typing “_fillet”. I now type in "R" to specify a radius for my fillet:

For the radius, I'll make it 6 (There's no specific reason for this):

I then click on the 2 lines joining at a corner (doesn't matter which order). In this case it is the top right corner of the 2nd rectangle:

And now I have a fillet:

Here's another picture to explain it:

Here I just filleted the other 3 corners of the rectangle. The top 2 corners of the rectangle have a 6 radius fillet and the bottom 2 have a 4 radius fillet. (NOTE: When I say something like 6 radius, the unit does not matter, it could be 6 centimetre radius, 6 metre radius or 6 kilometre radius, it doesn't matter as AutoCAD doesn't have units for these things and doesn't need them. It is up to you to choose the units for yourself):

Now I'm going to move onto chamfer. First I activate the chamfer tool by clicking on it or by typing “_chamfer”. I then type in “a” for angle and press ENTER:

I now specify the distance from the edge of the line that will be chamfered; in this case I will enter 4 and press ENTER:

For the angle, I will enter 40 and press ENTER:

Now I click the 2 lines that join together at a corner to chamfer them. In this case it will be the top right corner of the 3rd rectangle. The FIRST line selected will be the top line of the rectangle and the second line will be the one to the right of it (it does make a difference):

And now I have a chamfered corner:

Here's another picture to explain it a bit more:

Now I just chamfered the rest of the corners in the 3rd rectangle:

Now with the press pull tool, I've raised each one to a height of 5 and rendered it:

Sure, you know about the 3D box, wedge and even the cylinder tools in the 3D modelling panel. You've got a wide range of pre-made shapes ready to use. But what if you wanted to make something else… like a hexagon with a hole through it? There you would use the 2D tools and create one from scratch and extrude it. But there still remains one vital issue, it's still lying down! Well this is a job for the 3D rotate tool.

In this example I have… well nothing at the moment. First off I'm going to use the polygon tool OR type _polygon in the command window:

Next, I input the number 6 for the amount of sides (since a hexagon has 6 sides) and I press ENTER:

I would then click again and select “inscribed in circle”:

Now I draw a hexagon, doesn't matter about size since this is only a demonstration. Next I draw a 2D circle in the middle of the hexagon; again size doesn't matter too much but make it smaller than the hexagon itself. Be sure to use two 2D lines to mark out the centre of the hexagon to create an intersection for the circle to snap at:

Delete the 2 lines because we no longer need them, then I'm going to use the press pull tool

Great, we have a nut that is lying down. We want it standing up, how do we do that? Well we select the 3D rotate tool from here OR type in _3drotate in the command window:

Once the tool in activated, I would click on the object(s) I want to rotate and then press ENTER:

Now a sphere with coloured lines should appear, place the sphere over this corner and click (remember, the snap should automatically help you):

Now I would place my mouse corner over a certain rotation axis and it should turn yellow. Select the vertical one as shown and click:

Now I specify the angle starting point, in this case I would just click at the same spot as the sphere, doesn't matter too much:

Now you can rotate the object freely on your selected axis:

Here's a tip, hold shift to snap it at 90 degree intervals. Once you are done, click again to confirm the spot:

Now we have an object that has been rotated!

NOTE: You may need to rotate more than once to achieve the wanted rotation.

First off, I'm going to create some 3d boxes and arrange them like so:

Next, I've given the walls a “Plaster.Stucco.Trowled.White” material under the “finishes” tab on the materials panel.

Now I have my 3 walls, I'm going to give the walls a floor by using a planar surface. This basically gives me a flat surface to work with. The tool is located here as shown:

Now I'm going to give a flat surface to the area enclosed by the 3 walls to act as a floor. Just use the planar surface tool as you would with the 3D box tool except you don't need to input the height. (Don't forget to use snaps):

Now lets give that flat surface a good wooden material as shown below:

Great we now have this:

For one last finishing touch before I show you lighting, let's add a box in the corner:

Now give it a “Concrete.Cast-In-Place.Panels.Square” material under the Concrete tab.

My room currently looks like this:

Next, draw two 2D lines on opposite corners of the walls, using them for snaps to create a point where the 2 lines intersect:

Now that you have your 2 lines, make sure they actually intersect. You can check this buy using a tool like the 3D box tool and move the cursor over the 2 lines. If a cross appears, then the lines intersect, otherwise you've done something wrong.

Usually when the lines don't intersect, one side is higher than the other like in my drawing right now. (I've done it on purpose, honest ;P):

To correct this, I would have to find out what side is taller:

And I would correct it (Just re-draw it):

Now that's settled, I can draw the two 2D lines:

You will notice that the intersection point is not completely in the middle of the room, that doesn't matter because I just want a point to work from.

Open up the lighting panel by right clicking at the top of the tools panel and selecting “Lights”:

Now for the lighting effects! First off, select the first light which should be “Default Point Light”:

This is standard light that emits light from all directions. We will place it at the point where the 2 lines we drew earlier intersect:

You will notice that parts of your model have lightened up. This is what your model would look like in render mode without the point light:

And now, with the light:

Great isn't it? You can adjust the lighting by clicking on the “Light list” as shown:

Here it will display your lights that you have in your model, right click on your desired light and click on properties:

Here you can adjust specific properties of your light, but to change the strength of your light, you would change the intensity factor. If you wanted a nice and darkish lighting, I would recommend you set it to 0.2 or 0.3. Otherwise, experiment around with it:

Ok next light I'm going to show you is the spot light:

This spotlight enables me to focus a light onto a specific object(s). To apply this, I would first click onto the place where the light is going to be shown FROM, in this case, it's the intersection that we created:

Then I click on the object I want the light to focus on:

Now I have my spotlight, in lights menu as I showed before you can change the properties of the spotlight as well (like colour of light, how big the light it etc.):

Note: You can more than light

The last light I'm going to show you is the distant light:

This light works differently. This light shines evenly throughout the model and it goes in ONE direction. Think of it as a powerful spotlight shining in only one direction. To apply the light, click any spot and move your mouse and click at your specified direction. You may not see it but here I've clicked on the intersection and moved my cursor up to specify that the direction that I want my light to be going is up:

And now, here it is with the light applied in render mode:

Let's do it again, this time with the light going the opposite direction:

It's very dark, why? Let's look at the other side of the wall:

The wall is blocking the light! Well, light doesn't pass through non-transparent walls so it is quite expected that this will happen since the light is coming from this direction. Like the other 2 lights, this light can also be edited in the lighting panel I showed you earlier.

Congratulations, you have gained knowledge on lights in AutoCad 2007.