kbartlez

Sweet! Love how the reflections fade off. I always end up doing this in post. Is there a setting where it would render like this? Sorry if this is a stupid question, as I'm obviously too lazy to look into it myself right now.

It's great to see the history. I've been using EIAS since the late 90s. Though I don't have much mad skillz to show for it, since my media has always been in print. I remember the by-gone days of meeting up at the EI User Groups at New Media in Hollywood. Really happy the program is in very capable hands. Ken

Great interview, Tomas!

I'm not any where near the skill level of the experienced folk that are on this forum. But I do work in LA. Well, sort of. I live in LA but work in Irvine. So I'd love to make some connections. To show my age and also just how little I've improved, I used to belong to the EI user group way back in the 90s that met in Hollywood.

I don't have an answer, but I'm just chiming in here. I get the same issues under Mountain Lion 10.8.1. This is odd, as I just assumed it was because of that OS. Other that this odd little behavior, I haven't had anything else happen to me.

KB, For the most part, Method 1 works just fine. Although, oddly, I remember having to always horizontally flip the texture, map it to the opposing side, and move it forward. I don't need to actually do the taking screenshots part since my texture file is basically the print mechanical for the box itself and so dimensionally it matches my model. I was just hoping from something more magical like Method 2 where I wouldn't have to keep prepping and aligning all these textures. And since my source is an actually Photoshop file, something like Hexagon, where you do direct painting isn't an option either.

Thanks, Tom. Second approach sounded perfect until I found out there's no new MacOS version. And I don't have ready access to a Windows machine. Wawawaaah. I couldn't find a workable alternative after a quick search. Guess I'll try the first method. Which seems like a refinement of what I do now. Ken

My apologies in advance for the incredibly N00b question here. I've been using EI3D to make simple packaging comps for around 10 years now. That I haven't really progressed much in skill level is very lamentable, I know. Hey, at least I'm loyal. At any rate, what I've pretty much been doing is making IMG of each face, flipping them in Photoshop. Then mapping onto each surface with negative Z turned off. Can't really use the map to polygon feature (I think) because I like putting subtle bevels on my boxes. So I spend a non-zero amount of time adjusting positioning and size. Is there a better way to do this task? And "it will be much easier in version 9" is a totally acceptable answer for me. Thanks, as always. I think one of the reasons why I remain loyal is the great support community here. That, and I don't really have the time to learn a new piece of software. Hard enough staying current with updates. Ken

Thanks Richard. Glad just knowing it's not just me. I thought I was going mad. Encouraging to know it opens well in v9. Looking forward to that.

I can import the model just fine. It's just that when the default file type of "FACT" is set, all FACT files exported from VIACAD are grayed out. So I have to set to "All Files" to be able to select it. More of an annoyance than anything.

What? Gahhh! I thought I did it right. POP_r2.fac.zip

Thank you, Tomas. Here's a typical model file exported from VIACAD Pro 7.

Sure. Except that I can't seem to figure out how to get that file into "My Media" so that I can post it here.

Oh. Duh. I just realized that all a master material is a holding device for various attributes as well as texture maps and shaders. Now it's all so clear. Thank you! Also, thank you for the link to the samples. From the first reply, I went there, downloaded every jpg, and then made a handy contact sheet of them.

So we purchased MForge, and I have to say it's impressive in it's complexity. But I am starting to figure it out, having gone through all the tutorials and manual. But one question still persists, and I'm sure it's a really stupid answer. How do I access any of the presets that I've downloaded? Thank you.

I've discovered the source of this problem. Seems like it only happens with the FAC models I export from VIACAD 7 Pro. Since the file extension and associations are correct, I'm assuming that there must be something in the FAC file header that EI doesn't recognize. Switched to "ALL" it opens just fine. I discovered this resolution because FAC files that come from other sources (samples, tutorials) are available to open.

Thank you, Tomas (and I corrected my post with the proper spelling of your name). I've asked my superiors to purchase MForge for me. Which is great, since I've been jonesing it for some time. Now I can justify it by billing it to a job. My appreciation as always.

Hullo everyone. I'm trying to find some information on how I may achieve the look of metallic car paint, the kind with speckles. I'm wondering if there are presets or a shader library I may be able to purchase to create the look. Me futzing around with Bumpy Noise isn't quite cutting it. I found this great example at a Lightwave forum. And basically, down to the color, this is what I'm looking to achieve. Any suggestions would be very, very welcome. (I guess this is where Tomas says, "oh, that's the default texture in EI 9" heh heh) http://www.foundatio...94&d=1220386344 Thanks, all. Ken

Thanks. Yeah, I thought it might just be an odd quirk. I've repaired permissions (often) but it never affects this. Perhaps if I associate (again) the .FAC filetype with EI.

I'm not sure if this is an Apple Finder issue or an EI one. But when I go to import a model, none of the files are selectable under the variety of file type choices (FACT, OBJ, etc). That is, unless I select "All Files." So no issues actually importing models, just that one extra step I always have to do to select "All Files" gets a little tiresome. But seeing as how I don't see anyone else here mentioning it, I'm wondering if it's an issue with only my setup. EIAS 8.0.0 running on MacOS 10.6.8 Thank you!

Whew. I'm glad the spam issue has been addressed. I had this forum on RSS feed and one day, opening it at work I was, uh, caught unawares with a screenful of nude women. The forum visual tweaks look nice as well, btw.

Thanks for looking at this, Tom. I played around with settings with Dicer and in the end, I figured it was just more straightforward to increase the polygon count of the model from the modeler side (using VIACAD Pro 7). I really like how your can turned out. Sigh. If mine had come out that way, I wouldn't have to be doing this mapping and doing refractions by hand that I now have to do with every flavor of this product. I'm not licked yet, however, every now and then, I come back to this project to see if there's any permutation I may have overlooked in the settings. Short-term, if I need a Superman Fortress of Solitude to be made, I know the settings for that. :P

Hello all. As requested, I'm showing here my completely unsuccessful attempt at creating dewdrops in EI, using the Dew shader. I spent days of my own time on time (because we didn't want to bill the client for my experimentation) and ultimately went with a fake I created using a photograph of actual dew. None of the 3D versions passed muster with the art directors citing that it wasn't natural enough. I counted about 150 test renders I did over that time and spreadsheet with every tweak of the settings within the plugin as well as for transparency and reflectivity, etc settings for the material itself. The render you see has two sets of cartons with different dew settings to get both the small and larger drops. I usually persevere in EI and produce something everyone is happy with but this time I had met my match. Among the many things I learned was that object scale matters a lot (for the displacement settings on this plugin, anyway) I'm including one of the better renders, a render that's very spikey before I figured out the scaling issue but amusing nonetheless, and the eventual one I ended up using with fake dewdrops. I was still able to use the 3D minus any dew effect. http://gallery.me.com/kenmurayama#100936/Drink_test2-13&bgcolor=black http://gallery.me.com/kenmurayama#100936/Group_driptest_r58&bgcolor=black http://gallery.me.com/kenmurayama#100936/Trio_Group_HR_r10simp&bgcolor=black If anyone's got some magic formula or great tool to more easily arrive at the look I got in the faked version, I'm all ears (and eyes). Thanks for looking!

These look great. My apologies for the dumb question, but is there a fur shader for EI? I'm assuming that's what these were done in. Thanks.

Thanks, Tomas. Maybe I will. There's a packaging project where I was trying to use Dew for days and days.