Juanxer

There is an issue which could be solved in a similar way, even if it would be quite inelegant. When one is browsing Materials, the file dialog window lets us select .MTR files only. If it would let us click on other types of files, such as .JPGs, we could use all those Material preview JPGs some kind souls have provided us with in recent years, putting them into the same folders the Materials reside in, with the same Material names so that they get paired when sorting them by name. When selecting .JPGs, both Win7 and OS X' File Dialogs can show us a preview. An advantage is that one could have several previews for the same Material: say one has Bumpy-Gold.mtr, plus Bumpy-Gold_BALL.jpg, Bumpy-Gold_CUBE.jpg, Bumpy-Gold_SCULPT.jpg, etc. I'll admit that it is a rather messy way to solve it. As an alternative, in OS X I could copy those .JPGs and paste them as icons for the .MTR files, but that's going to turn my hair gray (perhaps some Applescript could help there). Well, just me thinking aloud :)

Yes, YES, YESSS!!! And it doing zooming in/out in any 3d viewport and the Function Curve editor (perhaps one ought to be able to disable it for the Camera View window, in order not to accidentally create more keyframes).

I have several cheap modelers: EI Modeler, ViaCAD, Hexagon and Silo. I gravitate towards Hexagon, in spite of it being terribly buggy on Macs (the Daz guys say they have a beta of a UB version which solves most bugs. We'll see), and EIM, as it has the only decent Bezier curve UI of them all and it lets me do neatly flowing shapes… when it works (a bit explodey on Intel Macs). I really really want to learn Modo, but I can't seem to get it: I see what is capable of, but every time I try it I end up banging my head against its UI. I understand the ideas behind it, but some things are a bit too convoluted.

Fantastic!

Thank you anyway :). I suspected there could be obstacles. Now I see some of them are quite enormous.

This is about a little nuisance that hopefully implies a small modification in Animator. When one opens file dialogs for importing models or texture maps, their filetype filtering defaults to EIAS' typical ones: FACTs and IMGs, out of tidiness, probably. The thing is, these are becoming rather less than primary filetypes when one is importing elements into a new project. Today we are dealing with .3DSs, .OBJs, .TGAs, TIFs, .JPGs, .MOVs, etc. far more than with .FACTs and .IMGs. Yes, the objects end up becoming FACTs, but by then we usually are finished with the importing. Things would be a bit faster if these dialogs would default to filtering, say, all 3D model and image formats EIAS admits, or to "everything" if that's not possible. Oftentimes one has to import a model made out of lots of separate parts files, and having to pull down the filtering menu everytime feels a bit like the Spanish Inquisition.

OK (it's a biggie, though: 3.5 GB. Does anyone know any QT lossless encoder better than Animation 100%?). Happy you all enjoyed watching it :blush:.

If you like hardcore geeking :cool:, this was the original sci-fi meshes thread I presented that ship in. You'll notice it is very old, and some attachments didn't survive some server collapse from time ago (please don't post there: those guys really frown upon "necroposting"). Lots of treknobabble there.

I think I used some, but it could be the result of combining the RT reflections with a couple global reflection maps, plus the motion blur from getting so near the hull with the camera movement. The music is something I cooked in Apple's Logic Express (the prosumer version of Logic Pro).

Well, outing myself as a Trekker here :blush:, so rockets and spaceships it is (please don't shoot me :D). I did this ship in EIModeler and the hangar was my first ViaCAD project. At work I had to test Youtube's transcoding quality for a project, so I rendered and edited a few shots and came up with this. I should have put more effort into it, but I was feeling impatient. I think Youtube messed the gamma and things got darker than intended. Have fun. Another one: this was a Xpressionist test (the blinkies, perhaps you remember that discussion at the EITG forums) plus importing camera movement into After Effects via MoCon (the blue vortex thing is a precomp floating in AE's 3D space). There was no attempt at better integrating the ship and the vortex. I leave that for when I try to develop that into a more interesting sequence of shots.

Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear: What I meant is a shader able to produce text as a texture map. Let's say one has to populate a scene with several duplicates of an object, nearly everything in them being the same except text in their texture maps (say, numbered doors, labels in folders or books, announcement displays in an airport, etc.). It would be great to be able to create and edit that text directly in EIAS instead of via Photoshop, specially if it is subject to change. By simple I mean rather basic text formatting features, sort of like some very basic titler in videoediting software. Richard's UI mockup shows exactly what I had in mind.

A very simple text shader, with Font Selection, Font Size, Left-Right-Center justification and Text Colour. Able to accept carriage returns plus some way to keep the text origin fixed if one retypes centered text without changing the number of lines. One could add Photoshop-like features, such as kerning and leading, but those basics could cover for the 90% of cases, really. My guess is the differences between OS X and Windows' font rendering techniques could be a problem for multiplatform setups, if the shader relies on them. But this is one of those things that could save us a lot of thankless Photoshop work.