ggaliens

Scaffolding ...

Looking for someone to explore Instances via .OBJ import ... Andrew implemented an extension to .OBJ which is currently supported in most recent version of 3DCoat. I was wondering if I am the only person utilizing this trick for adding bulk instances from another program. Currently ... I'm using Wings3D for this and I think it is probably the only avenue. I think this would be most useful for maybe City-Scapes, Bio-Mech lizards, odd snake-like creations ... but use your imagination. I thought I would have had a few inquiries about how it all works by now .. buy I think this is so smoking-room only skunk works ... people will be scared. Well ... if you use Wings3D with 3DCoat ... is fairly cool. That's probably a very small audience.

There is a HIDDEN way of doing this ... Use ManifoldLab/Wings3D to export an overloaded Wavefront file (.OBJ) which contained INSTANCES by way of comments and matrices. 3DCoat honors this overloaded .OBJ file. ManifoldLab/Wings3d is a great way to rig up a scene full of things to import into VOX tree.

Hi all. I'm Mark Whittemore ... using handle of ggaliens for about 13 years now. Been doing 3D graphics since BattleZone and PC-Man were new arcade games. I started very young playing with Vector graphics and learning the required mathematics. Apple I and Apple II were my first graphics machines. HPLOT did all the work. I'm mostly a 3DHobbiest, but spend a lot of time writing odd plug-ins for Wings3D. I'm a huge fan of mathematical & procedural methods for texturing and surface deforming. Nice to meet you all.

Link to my rock house ... Are there any procedural / hands-off , volumetric deformers for things like maybe the tile shingles on the roof ? I'd like to scratch them or pit them up a bit in the voxel space.

3DCoat still bails if minimized during a turn-table render ? I tabbed out to see how busy my CPU would be ... I was next going to check my GPU ... but could not get that far ... I saw CPU take a nose dive when watching with TASK-MANAGER. I once understood 3DCoat was a SCREEN-HOG in that it wanted the display all to self. I'm not sure how true it is still ... but seems like 3DCoat died because I minimized it. Am I mistaken, correct ?

Another instancing test. Love the super-fast import / setup times.

My first test of 3.5.11a. Seems to work with the importing many instances (array and bags and gobs of them).

I already tried it. It was very fun. Thanks guys.

Andrew ... I will be able to encode some odd-ball things like these in the OBJ plus format ... http://www.josleys.com/show_gallery.php?galid=334 Will be fun to try and set these up in Wings3D. Who would have thought it possible. Then export to 3DCoat. A bit like Incendia maybe.

ManifoldLab has EXTENSIVE unique instancing support. So let's see how it can work with 3DCOat. I'm excited about it.

Twitter announcement re: Wings3D ... Please Andrew ... if you could QUALIFY / Correct that statement ... it would be great. Wings3D itself does not create the modified OBJ format. ManifoldLab plug-in for Wings3D does. If this works well enough ... we might get the devs to fold some kind of instancing into Wings3D proper. Sorry for the confusion. Let me test that new release right now, with Wings3D and ManifoldLab. Visit ... www.ggaliens.com How can I get 3.5.11 BETA ??? Is there a special place for such links ??? Please advise. Contact me by e-mail if necessary.

What does that mean ... "MERGE W/O voxelizing" mode ??? Can you or anyone else explain that to me ???

Thanks Andrew. I can't wait to try some cool instance stuff in the VOXEL room.

CavinBill, Where was I talking about any VOXELS other than 3DCoats ??? Definately didn't talk about anyone else's VOXEL engine. CavinBill ... The voxel mode sculptor in 3DCoat will be able to import instances in some not to distant release, I'm hoping (there's talk). The problem is that the instances (Nothing to do with Voxels) have to be represented in a common file format. Instances are just lightweight references to shapes that say ... Make a copy of shape such-and-such and scale,rotate,move it to OVER-HERE. We were not talking about VOXELS AT all ... it's only maginally significant that we are importing them into a VOXEL sculpting room in 3DCoat. I did not. And I was specifically referring to 3DCoats voxel editing mode which from discussions ... does and will support instancing. I'm confused about who is confused here. LOL. I just want to import from my ENGINE to Andrews Engine ...

Been working hard on all my instancing tools in hopes of a compatible workflow with 3DCoat.

I did send Andrew a message. We have a few ideas going back and forth. Seems like the PROXY objects I make in Wings3D are still TOO HEAVY even though they avoid core ERLANG/Wings3D data structures ... still is some structural residue needed to hold what becomes the display list for OpenGL. I have to work with the Wings core devs to try understand their drawing code a bit better. I'm thinking maybe I just draw only SHARP edges for proxies. No chord edges with faces at 180 to each other. Anyway ... I'm making good progress. GOT proxies working when exporting to RIB/Renderman. So is very fun to play with that. RIB/Renderman has Include files an matrix transforms to apply to them. So that's a good proxy/instance implementation. But no good for sharing with 3DCOat. RIB/Renderman is a SINK format, AFAIK.

Format for Object/Instances Import ??? I have read about upcoming Object Instancing in VOXEL Mode. I'm very very interested in this ... having created an instancing plugin for Wings3D. I'd like to think I'd be able to rig some instances and their positions/MATRICES in Wings3D and export them to 3DCOAT into VOXEL mode. Andrew ... can I do this ??? What format can I use. Please advise.

Please for XMAS ... Multi-select ... apply shaders In Voxel Tree, has been requested before I'm sure, really really need to be able to SHIFT or CTRL click to select multiple shaders for the purposes of applying shaders. If you can't afford to program what happens with merge and multi-select ... maybe a new dialog with extra multi-select shows up JUST IN TIME for shader application and only shader application.

I assume you got your answer. Looks like a binary file format specification to me. I might even try to write a read/write/parser for it. Looks detailed enough spec. Certainly won't look nice in a text editor. How uptodate is this document ??? Anyone ???

OK ... I want to be first to say ... THAT IS SO DARN COOL. Now just need it on a cheaper device, I'm cheap. Sitting on couch, sculpting ... how ridiculous would that be.

ManifoldLab Polyhedral Tools need Beta Testers Goto ManifoldLab Site Why post here ??? I'm a 3DCoat user ... very excited about the VOXEL sculptor as a destination for my Wings3D generated shapes. ManifoldLab adds odd polyhedral tools to Wings3D with the intent on allowing Wings3D to make more organic, higher density meshes. Includes procedural approaches. Bridges to QHULL / Voronoi project as well as added CARVE CSG Boolean support directly to Wings3D. I basically consider 3DCoat to be my destination of choice for my Polygons these days. I used to play with RenderMan as a destination ... but have shelved that for a while. My plugins are donationware. Trial period is TWO weeks. Updates a few times a week. React fast to bug eports, and cool feature suggestions. Beta-Testers get free registration. Only serious beta testers need apply.

OK ... I know what I asked for is simple and possible ... but perhaps mis-communicated. Let me say this ... there does not have to be ONLY 1 handler/importer for a format like WaverFront OBJ. But for the sake of simplicity ... I'd like to revise the feature request request to something simpler ... Why not allow for random application of shaders to a pool of voxel object in the VOXTREE ??? I want to pick say 4 or 5 shaders and apply them to a pool of 40 objects, randomly. Easy concept I think.

Pass Shaders to Voxels OBJ Import. Why not have an OBJ import where material-name is mapped to shader to Use. This would be very very cool for me as I send a lot of stuff from Wings3D to 3dCoat and I'd love an automatic way to set Shader on import.

Yeah man ... thanks a bunch for the video. You sure make 3DCoat look awesome. Luv the robo-mite.