Phungus

I doubt it. Either you get a piece of software that is worth alot more than 10 or 40 bucks, or they´ll refund your money if their goal isn´t reached. Not much of a risk there. I find it quite clever from a marketing POV. A lot of buzz about Messiah, x amount of licences sold if they reach their goal. And people are more likely to upgrade (when that happens) than making a first time purchase....

Seem to remember someone mentioning GoZ and EIAS. Maybe worth looking into 3D-Coat and their applink as well?

Maybe this will do the trick? PC only.... http://www.vuescripts.com/_A/index.php?id=1,0,0,1,0,0

Just wondering here, does anything of this bring you around the problem that alot of Poser/DAZ content (characters at least) comes with multiple UV maps? One for the head, one for the body, etc.

Who do you put your faith in? Luxology or ChaosGroup? Seems like there are others going that route to. http://www.chaosgroup.com/en/2/news.html?single=294

I did not have any texture on it, but I made one (just plain grey) and attached it just in case. As far as the animation goes, I just sculpted a few quick strokes with radial symmetry on a layer. It should work in the same manner as a morph target. Will be interesting to see what you guys find out....

Here is the OBJ and MDD exported from ZB: http://www.mediafire.com/?cu9jj5acok2xaqw

I am using Silo to convert the model to FACT

Used a basic sphere, and made a quick sculpt on one layer, exported it on the first frame. The MDD is exported automatically by running the preview....

The error message that pops up in EIAS says "Invalid time values in MDD file". Will have a look in ZB if there is any ways to adjust the time settings. Any clues as to what is happening?

No, it exports MDD too. I have yet to get it to work with EIAS though. Must be doing something wrong, because it exports fine, but I get an error message when I try to use it in EIAS. The "magic button" is the ExportName button found in the Movie-Timeline tab. Pick a location/filename (here you will see the .mdd file extension) and now when you preview your animation in ZB it will bake out and save.

You don´t have to refine the mesh. In the Edit Menu/File Format Settings you can turn on Export Subdivision Mesh. There you´ll also find Import/Export Scale Factor. Edit:You´ll find it in the File menu, not the Edit menu. Sorry.

Sorry for being dumb here, but where do I find the Win 64-bit Camera you mentioned in your post?

Maybe a good idea to make one available for us all? :)

Excellent work, Michael. I downloaded your file to pick it apart and now I would like to replace the Noise Factory (you used in conjunction with a gradient) with a texture map. How would I go about to do that? (Just to be clear, I want the texture map to only appear at the peaks.) And yeah, the results from the Hot Toolkit are nice. Now, if we only could get it in EIAS ;).....

Thanks a lot, I´ll have to try it out :)

I would think you could bring in animation data from most applications using MDD. I don´t know what other application you have access to/ have experience with or can afford but there´s probably tutorials and plugins for most of them out there. A quick search: Max/Maya/XSI/C4D: Vehicle Tools Lightwave: Vehicle Rigger

Stumbled upon this, which someone had made into a Maxscript and it got me thinking maybe it could be ported to EIAS either as plugin or an addition to the parametric plugin.....just an idea.... http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/VirtualFlowersWithCrispatePetals/

Nice one, Thomas:)...I figured caustics would be to taxing for my system so I left them out. Now all we need is some foam. Think there is some possibilities in the LW HOT toolkit for bringing out map sequences that would help with that, just have not had time to play with it yet. Been to busy trying out Bullet in the Carrara 8 beta and exporting FBX to EIAS..... The material I used was one that came with EIAS, found in the Glass folder (think it was "Lagun"). Just tweaked it a bit to serve my purposes. The file was pretty much as I rendered it, except the reflection map I mentioned.

Uploaded the file to Mediafire, we´ll see how that works out. A couple of notes: The MDD folder goes into the Sockets folder. And I removed a reflection map from the Reflectivity tab in the Ocean shader, so that would have to be replaced to match up to my render. Looking forward to seeing your results :) http://www.mediafire.com/?knzm30jyjdd

Hi, Thomas. Sorry, should have said so. Exported from LW as MDD, rendered inside EIAS, rendertime 28 min 34 sec, average frame 11 sec, It could probably be optimised a bit, since I mostly don´t know what I am doing in EIAS :-/

Just had to do a quick test on the LW export. Nothing fancy...... http://www.home.no/veehoy/OceanT.mov

Just FYI: You can do this with Lightwave too. :) http://code.google.com/p/hotocean4lw/

Hi, David. Been using Max before, and I really liked it but lately I have been using mainly Silo. I also decided to buy Lightwave a while ago and like it alot since you mentioned it. You have v6 I am not shure if LWCAD is available for it, maybe you can get a hand on some previous version of it, but it really extends the LW modeling toolset to new heights, definately something to consider if accuracy is your thing. Just take a quick look at some of the demonstration videos in the manual or tutorials (like Real-Time Booleans) and you´ll see: http://www.wtools3d.com/manual/manual3/