Tutorial Lesson 3: Changing plant parameters

1. Place your mouse over the line between the plant list and the top section (you will see a special drag cursor), then click and drag down to give more room to the parameters.

2. Now click on the Parameters tab. In the parameters panel are two major parts: the sections list and the parameters. The 200 or so parameters that make up a plant are divided into the sections you see here.

3. The General parameter section is probably selected now. Click on a few other sections to see what happens.

4. The small panels to the right are called parameter panels. You can open them by clicking on the arrows on their left sides. Try opening and closing a few parameter panels now.

5. Also notice that if you hold the mouse still over the parameter panels they produce a hint about their parameter. [If you don't see parameter hints, check the Show Parameter Hints option in the Options menu.]

Get help on parameters and parameter panels
You can get help on each parameter section by right-clicking on the section in the sections list and choosing Section Help from the popup menu that appears. You can do that now if you like, or just look at the popup menu.
You can get help on using each type of parameter panel by right-clicking on a parameter panel and choosing Parameter Panel Help from the popup menu that appears. You can do that now if you like, or just look at the popup menu.

Change some parameters

1. When you are finished looking around, click on the Inflors (F) section, which describes female inflorescences.

2. We can make a few small changes here that make our plant look better. See the dark panel labeled Architecture? That's called a header panel. Click on the right arrow to open all the parameter panels down to the next header panel.

3. Now you can see some parameters under the Architecture header. In the Number of flowers panel, click on the blue slider and drag it all the way to the right, so it says 30. Your plant will redraw to show more flowers. When you drag a slider, it only affects the plant after you let up on the mouse button.

4. Actually, we are making a composite flower here, and the simulation isn't really correct. A composite (head) inflorescence has flowers both on the inside and around the edge. The inside flowers are called disc flowers and the outside flowers are called ray flowers. But we only simulate the ray flowers since the disc flowers are very small. Just so you know that.

5. Now let's fix the Green-eyed Susan. Look down a few more parameter panels to the one labeled Pedicel color. A pedicel is the little stem that connects a flower to its inflorescence. In our simplified model of a head inflorescence, the middle part is the pedicels. Click on the three sliders for red, green and blue values and change the pedicel color to a warm dark brown. That looks more like a Black-eyed Susan.

6. One more change. The flower looks too spread out, so let's tighten it up a bit. Click the down-arrow to close the Architecture panels, then scroll down to the next header panel, labeled Size, and click on the right arrow to open it up. Find the parameter in that group called Pedicel (flower stalk) length. Drag the slider down a ways and let go. Look at your flower to see the effect. Keep moving the slider around until the center of the flower looks the right size.