Getting Started
with VNS 3: Getting
Started
Part 1E. Land Cover
1. Terrain always has Ground
Effect covering it. Open the Island Ground Editor by double-clicking it in the Scene-at-a-Glance. You can also open a Component by double-clicking
it in a preview render.
2. Go to the Material
page.
3. Click the Diffuse Color
color well to open the Color Editor.
We could choose a new color or pick one from one of the Swatches,
but we're not going to. Close the editor.
4. We'll load one of the prebuilt
Components that come with VNS. Select Load Component
 from the titlebar.
5. The Component Gallery will open to the Ground Effect section.
Scroll down to Mars Ground and double-click the thumbnail
to load it.
6. Save the project and render
a preview.
7. It's starting to look more
like real terrain, thanks to the new Ground Effect. Now when
we click on the terrain, the Diagnostic Data tells us it's covered with the Mars Ground
Component.
8. We'll use a simple Ecosystem
from the Component
Gallery to add trees
to our island paradise. Right-click the Ecosystems category
in the Scene-at-a-Glance and select the Add Component from
Gallery option.
9. When the Component Gallery opens,
make your way to the last page and load the Spruce-Fir Forest.
10. When the Load Ecosystem box pops up asking if you want to scale
the Elevation Line to the current DEM, answer Yes.
You may also get a Project Updated window describing significant changes
to the program since the last version. If you are a VNS 2 user,
this window will contain important information. If you are new
to VNS, you won't have to worry about it.
11. We'll look at Ecosystems
more in an upcoming tutorial. For now, let's just look at the
Rules page. We use the Rules-of-Nature to tell
VNS which terrain polygons to render the Ecosystem on. For now,
let's just note that the Ecosystem is set to render on all polygons
between a Minimum Slope of 0º and a Maximum
Slope of 45º. For more information on these and
other Rules-of-Nature, use the F1 key to open
the Interactive
Reference Manual.
12. Save the project and render
a preview.
13. So where's the Spruce-Fir
Forest? Just having an Ecosystem in the project does not add
it to the scene. An Ecosystem has to be attached to a Vector,
Color Map, or Environment so VNS knows where to
place it.
14. We don't want to limit the
lateral extent of the Ecosystem, so we'll add it to the default
Environment, which has a global effect. Expand the Ecosystems
category in the Scene-at-a-Glance, select Spruce-Fir Forest, and
click, drag, and drop it on the Island Environment.
15. When asked, confirm that
you want to add the Ecosystem to the Environment.
16. Open the Environment Editor to the Ecosystems page and you'll see the
Spruce-Fir Forest.
17. Save the project and render
a preview.
18. The Spruce-Fir Forest Ecosystem
is made up of 24 Image Objects of grass, weeds, and trees.
You may have noticed them added to the Scene-at-a-Glance Image Object category as the Ecosystem
was loaded from the Component Gallery.
19. The best place to find them
is in the Image
Object Library  , which you can open from the
Icon Toolbar. Here you can add and remove Image Objects and edit
image properties.
20. To optimize image loading
and render time, go to the Keep in Memory section above
the thumbnail, select Load Fast and Apply to All.
This will create fast loading versions of the Image Objects.
Close the Image Object Library.
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