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At this fictional company, Advanced Telescope Design Corporate (ATDC), several design engineers work daily in 3D graphics. Their problem is explaining the construction of their latest design to the advertising group, the manufacturing team, and especially their managers. Lucky for the engineering team, a bright Web designer has set up a corporate intranet, and now the engineering team can create a Web site to get the message out. This chapter examines the process involved in creating such a Web site; along the way the following topics will be covered: Starting with a plan for implementation, which you should discuss with both those creating the designs and those receiving the information, outline your site and goals. Creating your content by using the techniques learned in the last four chapters and following the plan to generate the images and animations needed. Writing out the HTML file after practicing with the embed tips learned in the preceding chapters. This really shouldn't be too long of a chapter because you're already a pro at HTML and you've just learned all the techniques. However, it will give you a close look at how HTML is used to deal with 3D elements. Step 1: Plan Your Web Site Just because this material is easy doesn't mean you shouldn't have a plan. Designing your Web site before you create any of the content saves a lot of extra work later on. Also keep in mind that this site may grow, and plan accordingly. Start by asking questions. Who will create the information? Who will access the information? Who will update the site? How many cookies did I bring for lunch? Once you have all the questions, go find the answers. Talk with all people who will be involved. Find out what kind of 3D content your design engineers can supply, then talk with each of the groups who will browse the site internally. What kind of information do they want to see? A Web site plan doesn't have to be complex. A simple flowchart sketched on a piece of paper will do. Circulate the plan to the various groups and ask for feedback. Be open to their ideas. Note In such a situation, you will probably start the Web site, but you really should get the different teams involved in creating the content and updating the site. The entire idea behind the Web is that it makes it easy for anyone to publish. Step 2: Creating the 3D Content For this scenario, creating 3D content will be a breeze because all the design engineers use advanced CAD systems. CAD systems typically work in 3D and usually have some sort of shading method available. For the two most recent telescope designs, the design team has been asked to create a shaded image of the design and another image with all the parts separated, as shown in Figure 7.1. Figure 7.1: 3D images of the latest telescope designs for your Web site. Another handy piece of content you want to use is a simple animation that shows the telescopes separating into their different parts. When it comes to embedding these animations, you should try to present the animations in a couple of formats to handle a wider array of browsers. A key advantage to an intranet is that the browser environments will be fairly consistent throughout the company. Companies typically have MIS departments that supply the software for the entire company. If you don't want to have to worry about loading any plug-ins, use AVI video files for Internet Explorer and GIF animations for Netscape browsers. One of the animations is broken down in Figure 7.2. Figure 7.2: A frame-by-frame look at the parts that make up the latest telescope. Step 3: Building Your Web Site Once you have the 3D images, you can build your Web site. Following the plan, include all the standard elements that define a good Web site, including a home page and a what's new page. When using graphics and animation content, it's important to remember to include thumbnails and warnings for low bandwidth viewers, as shown in Figure 7.3. Figure 7.3: Thumbnail images give viewers an idea of what the image looks like before spending time downloading it. The company name and department are positioned at the top of all the Web pages on the site, and navigation links are placed at the bottom of the page. Enhancing the Web Pages with 3D Elements Now that you have images, animations, and text in the site, most people would call it a day and throw it to the Web, but not you-you've learned plenty of tricks to enhance the site and make it a place worth visiting. Start with 3D navigation buttons. Using 2D tools, you can quickly create some raised buttons to be placed at the bottom of each page. Since this is an intranet, you really should have the company logo displayed. But who says you can't give it a special look? You can enhance the logo, which is normally just black 2D letters, by extruding the letters and adding some colors and lighting effects. Finally, try using a 3D background. These elements, shown in Figure 7.4, give the site a 3D look and are pleasing to the eye (maybe advertising won't think the engineers are so square, after all). Figure 7.4: Your thumbnails Web page enhanced with 3D elements. Workshop Wrap-up If you're curious to see how the site turned out, you won't find it on the Web. This was developed for the corporate intranet (you didn't think we'd throw our latest telescope designs out to the world, did you?). Well, don't despair; the complete site is included on the CD-ROM for you to examine. I think the site turned out OK, but you should see it after the marketing staff got involved. Next Steps Before you say sayonara to this chapter, look at what's up ahead: The next chapter moves into the advanced arena. Chapter 8 covers "Creating Advanced 3D Rendered Images for Your Web Page." Another real-world example can be found in Chapter 12, "Real-Life Examples: Creating a MYST-like Adventure on the Web." VRML still awaits. It begins in Chapter 13, "Exploring VRML Browsers and Development Tools." Q&A Q:How is a corporate intranet different from the Internet? A:Corporate intranets use the same tools as the Internet, but they are limited to employees within the company. You know the Internet as a wonderful place to share information, but there's a dark side of the Internet that looms with viruses, crackers, and other evils. Corporations across the world have the same goal of sharing information, but the Internet holds too many threats for many of them. Many companies who worried about these threats have started up their own Web domains that run across the company's network. These intranets are confined to the company and separated from the Internet's threats. Q:I've traditionally built Web pages using a text editor, but now many new HTML editors are beginning to appear. Are these tools any good, and which one is best? A:As the Web has grown, many large software companies have stepped into the realm of creating Web tools, such as HTML editors and site-management suites. Which tool is best really depends on your individual preferences. These tools are all top-notch and will help you build sites quickly. Here are several to consider: Netscape's Navigator Gold Adobe's PageMill and SiteMill Macromedia's Backstage Microsoft's FrontPage Use of this site is subject to certain Terms & Conditions. Copyright (c) 1996-1998 EarthWeb, Inc.. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of EarthWeb is prohibited. Please read the Acceptable Usage Statement. Contact [e-mail] with questions or comments. Copyright 1998 Macmillan Computer Publishing. All rights reserved.