This game will deal with the following

• Changing the appearance of objects with surface styles—rendering at different scales—mixing surface properties—making objects transparent.
  
• Setting lights—using them to cast shadows—simulating the sun.
  
• Setting up the rendering engine and using its effects—especially shadows, anti-aliasing and fogs.
  
• Placing symbols in the form of trees (via importing or placing symbols).

Quite a large proportion of the form•Z commands, palettes and options relate to creating renderings. Learning and using these commands and options is an important part of this game. Most of you have experimented with many of these already—in this game you should seek to gain a more systematic understanding than you have at present.

An equally important part of the game is creating views that position the viewer within the place. Setting viewing parameters as close approximations of what a person would see can produce startlingly convincing and communicative effects. The main options are the display options found at Display—>Display Options. The commands and palettes include the following:

Surface styles—colour, reflection, transparency and bumps.

Rendering—colour, smooth shading, rendering attributes, texture mapping, decals, setting and getting attributes.

Views—creating experiential views

Symbols—placing, creating and exploding (we will leave editing for now).

Symbol libraries—loading, unloading and using.

Lights—emulating the sun, ambient light