How to make a Chess Board

The object of this tutorial is to make a realistic looking chessboard with realistic colors and textures.

1.) Open trueSpace 3.  Do this by clicking on the “START” button, selecting “Programs, then selecting “Caligari trueSpace 3,” and finally by clicking on “trueSpace 3.”

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2.) When the program starts, you will be provided with an empty place with which to create your chessboard.

 

3.) Place a cube in the scene by clicking on the “Add Cube” button.  A cube will appear in your workspace.

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4.) Right click on the “Object Tool” button, and you will see a table displaying the information about the cube.

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5.) Change the size of the “X” axis to 22, the size of the “Y” axis to 22 and the size of the “Z” axis to 0.5.  Press enter after you enter the last number.

 


 

6.) Next, add a top view to your workspace.  To do this, click and hold the “New Perspective View” button.  From the menu, select “New Top View.”

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7.) Select the zoom button, and then click on the small top view and drag the mouse down.  Do this until you can see your whole cube.

 

8.) Now it is time to make the squares on the board.  To do this, click and hold on the “Point Edit” button.  When the little menu pops up, select “Faces.”

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9.) Click on the top face of your square until it is highlighted in green.

 

 

10.) Next, click and hold on the “Smooth Quad Divide” button.  From the little menu, select the “Quad Divide” button.  You will notice, from your top view, that the board is split into four squares.  Keep hitting that button until your board is eight squares up and down, and eight squares across.  It should only be three hits of the button.  When you are done, hit the “Object Tool” button.

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11.) Next, we will color in the chessboard.  Select the “Material Library” button.  Then, select “Wood1.”

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12.) Change the little view to “Side View” by clicking and holding the View button.  Then, click the “Paint Face” button.  Ignore the boxes that appear, for now.

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13.) Using the paint tool, click on the side of the chessboard.  It will look black for now.  You can change the view if you need to.

14.) Then, in the regular window, switch to a top view and zoom out until you can see the whole board.  By pressing the “Paint Face” button again, you will bring up the little paint menu.  Click on the “Use Texture Map” button to get rid of the wood.

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15.) Select a color by moving the little thing on the color wheel around.  You can make it darker or lighter with the slider next to it up or down.  Let’s pick a dark color, like blue.  Using the “Shader Attributes,” make it shiny by moving the “Shininess” slider to wear the arrow points to.

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16.) With the paintbrush, paint every other square with the blue color you have.  Going back to the paint area, select white as your next color, and paint all spaces that are not blue white.

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17.) Go back to the perspective view, then click and hold the “Render Current Object” button.  From the little menu, select the middle button (“Render Scene.”).

You are finished!