Tutorials BimCraft help Walkthroughs
The live view
A panel beside the model that shows it in the real-time look, with sun, shadows and bounce light, and follows every change you make; walk through it and set the time of day and the month.
Written for BimCraft 0.7.1. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
The live view shows the model in the real-time look: the sky and the sun from your site's place and date, the sun's shadows, the paints and materials you gave the elements, lamps, and light bounced off walls and floors. It follows what you do: turn the 3D view and it turns too, change the model and it shows the change a moment later. Nothing is uploaded.
It draws the same scene, paints, lamps and sun as Render a picture; for a finished picture use that.
Open it
- Open a model and choose Live view in the toolbar. The panel opens over the app, bottom right.
- Drag its title bar to move it, pull its corner to make it bigger.
- Live view in a new window (the button beside it) or New window in the panel moves it to a window of its own, for a second screen. If your browser blocks pop-up windows, it opens as the panel.
- Close closes it.
The controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Follow the view | On: the live view looks where the 3D view looks. Walking turns it off |
| Walk | Walk through the model (below) |
| Gravity | While walking: stand on floors and climb stairs. Off: fly |
| Time | The hour of the day. The sun moves as you drag |
| Month | The month, so you can see the sun in winter and summer |
| Quality | For this computer, or Low, Medium or High |
The line at the bottom says what draws the view (WebGPU or WebGL 2), the quality, and the bounce light.
Walk through the model
- Turn the 3D view to where you want to stand and choose Walk. You stand on the floor below the view's eye point, 1.6 m tall.
- Click the live view, then use WW AA SS DD or the arrow keys. Hold ⇧Shift to run. Drag to look round.
- Steps up to 40 cm are climbed (stairs); anything higher is a wall. Walls stop you and you slide along them.
- With Gravity off you fly: EE goes up, QQ down.
- EscEsc stops walking.
Bounce light
Light that bounces off a sunlit wall onto the floor, and the darker inside of a room, are worked out in the background on every processor core. While it works the bottom line says Bounce light: 40 %; when it is ready the view takes it in. After a change it starts again.