Introduction to Primitive shapes

New version of Clip Studio has in disposal to the digital artist five 3D primitive shapes in the material section of the software window, viz; Plane, Cube, Sphere, Cylinder, and Cone. Each of them when dragged into the canvas creates realistic depth to the 2D illustration when used as reference guide using camera, object, and other viewport controls to achieve the desired result.

Clicking on the primitive object in the canvas is a cluster of rotation, position and scale tools for each axis XYZ. The red transform tools for X axis, green for Y axis, and blue for Z axis. Manipulating the selected primitive shape using any of the transform tools shows the amount of the tweaking in the ‘display object lists > allocate’. Adjusting those values manually affect the object in the canvas as well. Still on the ‘display object lists > Primitive’ you can increase or decrease the subdivisions using the desired XYZ sliders if the wireframe checkbox is turned on.

You can save time if the same primitive shape is needed by selecting it then go to Edit > Copy then Edit > Paste or more conveniently using the Ctrl + C for copy of the selected object and Ctrl + V for paste. The duplicated object is not recognized as it is aligned with the original object in the same layer. Use any of the transform tools to position the object where desired. You can align two objects edge to edge activating the snap tool icon among the camera and object controls in the viewport then using the position transform to snap the selected object to the other. Orange boundary lines along the edges in contact build showing joint positions. The thunderbolt that appears below the snap tool shows the tool is active.

Other controls can be used to center the selected object to original position, place on ground, and resets to its original position, rotation, and scale.

What are 3D Primitive shapes for?

Depending on the illustrator’s need, 3D primitive shape can be stacked with other primitive types by tweaking their sizes, positions, and rotations to make a meaningful object in 3D space which acts as a reference to his line art in the 2D space canvas provided the camera is locked.

To lock the camera, go to the Display object lists > Object list > Camera. Hit the square button in the right of the visible icon. A lock icon replaces the square button. Again, with the object selected go to Tool property > Selectable object. Hit the square button next to the visible icon. A lock icon replaces the square button. Now, the transform controls disappear in the viewport canvas.

Having in mind the elements of the background to illustrate using the 3D primitives such as reading section in a library an easy procedure in achieving this is by employing a reference sketch drawn on purpose.

Stacking 3D Primitive shapes

1. Volume of background

Before we begin let’s talk about PROPORTION. We drag and drop the human figure and a primitive plane from the material section into the canvas.

It is a custom in architecture; ‘The height from the floor to the ceiling in a standard room is at least 3 meters or 3 units. We take 100 to be 1-unit plane geometry.

So, we adjust the plane size by scaling the Y axis to a value of 300.0, the height of the inner room.

Though affected by the fixed ratio check box, we can also extend the width - X axis value - to a desired scale enough to cover the area of interest of the background by unchecking the checkbox to a value of 560. That should serve as the extreme wall of the room.

We do some couples of copy and paste to create the side wall, floor and top – that comes later.

To see through, we move the reference layer above the stacking layer. We then do some transformations and camera adjustments in respect to the sketch. We can also adjust the Perspective slider value in the camera section in the Display object list to achieve the most out of the reference layer. Also, the wireframes are valuable assets in obtaining a good background as they help to achieve parallelism with the reference objects in the sketch thereby preventing errors in achieving the natural perspective during stacking of other primitive objects.

Once done, we create a folder and move the 3D layer in it and adjust the opacity of the overall layer to a value of 40 to see the rough estimate of the 3D draft to the reference sketch.

2. Stacking 3D objects as CSP files

An easy approach to stacking 3D primitives is concentrating on each element one at a time as a CSP file in reference to the human figure in other to get approximately the right sizes of the library objects. First we concentrate on the figure in reading corner. We drag and drop a material pose defining the intended state of the figure.

Then relative to it, we employ the various primitives for stacking to meaningful objects for the background starting with the reading articles.

Follow us on further stacking processes.

3. Merging CSP files to Background

In our current background file, we move to File > Open and select ‘Girl studying.csp’ which opens as a separate window in the same workspace.

We select a primitive piece and click on Display object list (button) > Object list and select all the elements that make up the stack by holding the shift button to support numerous selections. In the canvas, the selected objects are highlighted in red.

After all are being selected, we copy the selection and then click on our background file and paste the selections. Here while all selections are active (red), we carefully use only the position transforms and their values to position the stack in respect to the reference drawing.

Once achieved, we close the imported file. We repeat the same procedure for the rest of the primitives’ CSP files.

As everything is now set, we need to adjust the background camera angle for better view by selecting an element then going to Display object list > Camera and try values for the perspective, camera position, and focal point position. We enter these values for our result leaving Link camera advancing\retreating box unchecked.

Hacking the Background Primitives

We bring the reference drawing layer below and into the 3D primitive folder giving us a clear view of our background. Above the 3D layer we create a vector layer for our inking process. We then select and hide the planes for the roof and the side wall by clicking on the visibility icon in the tool property of the selected object.

Next, we lock the viewport 3D controls and camera controls in other to avoid accidental selection when working on the vector layer. We then reduce the opacity of the folder making sure the vector layer is above it.

We then activate the ruler in the 3D primitive layer by clicking on the ruler icon in the layer property. Among the list select ‘Show in all layers’.

Select the vector layer and then choose the Operation tool. Click on the rulers in the canvas and deselect the grid button in the tools property.

Once done, select the Pen tool adjusting to suitable Brush size and color. We begin to trace the primitives guided by the rulers.

Feel free to introduce to the working layer other special rulers such as parallel rulers and concentric rulers for misleading edges and cylindrical shape objects. Delete them when done.

A wonderful aspect about 3D primitives is that it gives an edge to the artist to implement his imagination outside the 3D reference guide as in the case of the entry – exit point and drawing details to the hacking process.

Other details are drawn in respect to the Primitive blocks and other 3D models.

The overall hacking is now complete withdrawing the 3D layer from the canvas.

Final Rendering

We comlete the background piece by coloring the illustration, adding more details and employing other materials like the trees outside the building.

Work is done!