Before You Start
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Before you continue further into this tutorial, please consider the following:

1.      Have you ever used a painting program on computer?  If you have never used such programs, you may want to consider working on Painting project for There, instead of jumping straight into a Builder project.  You can download a 3-month trial version of Paint Shop Pro for free from Jasc Software.  This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with a painting program.  We will be using Paint Shop Pro as a painting tool.  Other painting programs such as Photoshop can also be used.  Ideally, you would use a program that supports multiple layers.

2.      This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with 3D modeling concepts.  We will use gmax from Discreet, which you can download for free from here. You can use other 3D modeling software, as long as you find a way to convert your model file to a file that gmax understand.  You will eventually need to use gmax to export your model to .model format which There uses.  If you have never used other 3D modeling programs, you may want to stick with gmax, as you can simply take the .gmax template files provided by There and start to work on your model.  You don’t need to worry about recreating helper object and linkage relationship.

3.      You should have already read the There Builder and Developer Guide included in the dev kit.  You can download the dev kit from There Developer site.  This tutorial assumes that you have already installed the There Developer Kit (including the previewer).  If the Previewer fails to launch through the automatically created shortcut (it says something like "choosing pixel format failed" or "video card problem"), then delete the shortcut and recreate it from the original executable.  The shortcut probably has incorrect working directory.  If you are using gmax, remember to install gmax first, before you install the dev kit and the There gamepack (see dev documentation).

4.      You should go through the various tutorials that come with gmax to familiarize yourself with the gmax user interface and its capabilities.  Pay special attention to Getting Started, Modeling a Head and Modeling an Airplane.  After this, you should briefly go through Help | User Reference.  Quickly page through all sections of Contents so that you know where to find information when you need it later.

5.      I have written and used my own 3D modeling programs in my early days of programming.  I have never used a professional package.  So far, I have created one Common Dolphin Hoverboard for There, using gmax.  This tutorial and the Great White Shark Hoverboard is the second model I create using a professional package.  Please feel free to contact me to correct my mistakes and suggest better ways of modeling for There.  My There avatar is freddie.  Please don't contact me for general modeling questions.  Writing this tutorial isn't equivalent to volunteering for free (and often erroneous) modeling consultation.  Please post generic modeling questions to the Developer section of There Forum.

6.      Also consider this: are you willing to spend 10 hours on your There hoverboard model?  20 hours?  30 hours?  Modeling objects for There is no small feat.  Creating an initial model which looks good is only the beginning.  You then need to worry about reducing vertex and polygon counts to satisfy hoverboard constraints.  You need to create 3 separate LODs (levels of detail).  You need to unwrap UVW vertices onto a 2D bitmap and manually adjust all vertices, for every LOD.  You need to paint the hoverboard skin.  Thank you for spending time reading this document, and goodbye, if you are the faint hearted type.

7.      And please, don't just take this tutorial and crank out yet another shark hoverboard.  I mean, I didn't spend all this time creating the tutorial, so that dozens of people can copy the shark board.  Be creative.  Model something else.

OK, you have made it to this sentence, which indicates to me that you are prepared to dive into the exciting world of Shark modeling.  We will start with Creating Background Images.  And, remember that throughout the tutorial, you can click on most thumbnails to see original screenshots.