Feature Request: texture swimming / texture editing

[paulrus]

Andrew,

We briefly talked about this by email, but I thought I would post it here to get more input from everyone.

There are times when I'm using textures that are not organic - they're logos, text, etc., for things like package design. When using 3D brush the textures can become distorted or moved where they don't belong.

I would love to have 2 features. The first would be texture swimming - the ability to move geometry while the texture remains in place.

Secondly would be the ability to manipulate textures without affecting the geometry. Essentially this would be like UV editing, except you'd be working on the model directly rather than working on the UV map.

I hope this makes sense. Anyone else care to comment?

Paul

[lc8b105]

1.Yes,you can move geometry while the texture remains in place now,just click the "unlock"button on the top when you are using the material.(in the "characteristics of preview" menu)

2.Yes,you can manipulate textures without affecting the geometry,just "Shift texture pressing right key of the mouse,rotate with CTRL,scale with SHIFT,change aspect ration with CTRL+SHIFT"

Every steps you do,please notice the hint below,it will help you much more.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Is it something like smudge tool in Photoshop? By the way you can use transform tool to move geometry and color independently. You can turn off color chanel and transform only depth for example.

[wailingmonkey]

Actually, I think paulrus is referring to something like XSI's texture swim feature (from XSI's help files):

"Swim checks to see whether the current projection is reading somewhere in the modeling region of the operator stack and, if so, moves it to the very top of the operator stack.

As a result, the texture is applied after all deformations, including enveloping and shape animation, have been completed. In other words, the texture will always appear to slip over on the surface when the object is deformed. This is especially useful when doing camera projections (see Camera Projections)."

So this would probably be in direct relation to a camera projection (which might also bring up another feature

request to save camera positions ) and would be AFTER you've applied a material and want to be able to then

move that texture over the surface...kinda like if you used the Transform tool over an area, but with an entire

texture layer instead of a rectangle-selected section.

In terms of the second request, I think it would be similar to how CrazyBump allows for sliding the texture over the mesh

with the middle-mouse button (so you can check for seams)...check crazybump.com...or if you actually drag your

UV's as a group over the image background in XSI's texture editor. But it seems the request is for a way to slide/move

the texture around on the model itself and not on the 2D map. I can see the desire to also re-scale areas as well

as just slide them based on a radius or something.

Anyhow, maybe paulrus can clarify further...

wailingmonkey

[paulrus]

That's funny wailingmonkey! How'd you know I use both XSI and Crazybump?

You hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what I was talking about.

Paul

[Swine]

http://www.softimage.com/products/foundati...spx?video_id=18

[paulrus]

<a href="http://www.softimage.com/products/foundation/videos.aspx?video_id=18" target="_blank">http://www.softimage.com/products/foundati...spx?video_id=18</a>

Thanks Swine! You can't get a much clearer example than that.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Now at least I have understood what is it. I think that the best place for it is int sculpt mode - moving vertices with picture preserving.