And that, Michael, is one of the reasons why MOI is such a treat. Many software packages (especially Open Source) just add the functionality with the UI thrown together at the last second. When a feature comes to MOI, we can be assured that it also be easy to use.

Hi DesuDeus,

> Maybe before coding all this, having the code but not the
> UI part and using scripts?

Sometimes that can work, but not always.

Often times what is exposed to script is guided by what the UI needs to have available to it.

So it often helps to have a good script interface by also having a good UI design thought out at the same time that will make use of it.

It's also harder to do things like actually test the script interface without having a UI set up to exercise it.

- Michael

Hi vodkamartini,

> Would it be possible to load this precalculated map from
> disk, so that we could simply replace it with our own until
> you have time to flesh out the style system and UI a bit more?

Not very easily - the image in this case is not just a simple bitmap but a cube map that has 6 different image planes associated with it.

So that needs to have some kind of special tools set up to read and write it, it would take too much extra work right now to try and find or create those tools and also test them.

- Michael

No problem, Michael.

BTW, there are tons of programs out in the wild that handle that sorta thing from the end-user perspective (e.g. http://www.outerspace-software.com/bixorama.html). The last time I played with cubemaps was years ago, but I remember there were free utilities included in the directx sdk and I believe nvidia had some as well. Anyways, thanks for the consideration.

It's not well known, but Rhino 4 already has an excellent utility for converting image maps from one projection to another. For example, inputting a sphere map and outputting a horizontal or vertical cross map :

1. install the RDK plugin from the Labs wiki page
2. in the RDK's Texture Pallete, create a new "Projection Texture Changer"
3. assign your sphere map to the bitmap input
4. set the input projection to "lightprobe"
5. set the output projection to your choice of output (rectangular, h-cross, v-cross, etc)
6. Save as Image

Might be a handy tool for Rhino/MoI users, once MoI uses reflection maps...

jonah

Oh I didn't knew that Rhino could do it :)
Cinema 4d can also convert cross and spherical I think.

DesuDeus wrote "...look at http://auxpecker.blogspot.com/ its for Rhino and its OH MY GOD (free) awesome for viewing freeform with T-splines. And you can still model while having the environement maps. Maybe speak to auxpecker coder because he has very very good environement maps pictures that he use in Auxpecker. That would save you some time rendering environements maps..."

I think there is a misconception of what Auxpecker is. It's really just a browser that hooks up to Rhino's object material properties. It doesn't actually add display functions to Rhino. But Auxpecker made it much easier for many people to get up and running with using reflection maps. From what I know, they were all rendered in Maxwell... Also there is a new UI browser called Blackbird RT which is under development by an Italian user. This one will have a price tag, though. Combined with V5's real-time shadows, reflection maps can make some pretty convincing results... But essentially is the same as Auxpecker (which as you mentioned is free!)... Personally i accomplish the same results with a single macro on a toolbar button. Which incidentally was also free... :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNGqvLqED5s&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jewelslab.com%2Findex.php%2Fe-jewels%2Fblackbird&feature=player_embedded

jonah

@Jbshorty
"It's really just a browser that hooks up to Rhino's object material properties."

I know. I follow auxpecker blog from a long time
I said "Maybe speak to auxpecker coder because he has very very good environement maps pictures that he use in Auxpecker."
Because its not easy to model good environements for rendering env maps. Its better to ask someone who has already made a lot
of very good renders of environements. Maybe Michael doesn't have time to do a lot of them.

"V5's real-time shadows"

There's some videos on youtube that ive already seen, but I dont find it usefull for helping modelling.
Its good to show the model to the client but usually we have time to do renders.
Real time ambient occlusion like SSAO in video games would be better than real time shadows.

But I didn't know about BlackBird RT, the video look very good :)

DesuDeus wrote: "...Its good to show the model to the client but usually we have time to do renders.
Real time ambient occlusion like SSAO in video games would be better than real time shadows..."

It's VERY VERY much a WIP but... try this... TestToggleAmbientOcclusion ;)

I dont have rhino at home, will try it monday at work :)
Thanks for the tips.

Hi all here is miror object with sky refliction real time good time
just add sky picture under the mirored object

lyes - This effect looks great! :) So this is the basic setup?

1) mirror the object across the XY axis
2) make a big ground plane with hole trimmed in the center
3) place a sky image beneath the mirrored object

jonah

hi jbshorty yes like that and you can add transparent picture with a bit off color in the hole (big ground plane with hole)
as in the picture the big plane with hole will cover the big sky

lyes wrote: "...you can add transparent picture with a bit off color in the hole..."

Yep, that's what I'd been doing in Rhino. I set the ground plane material slightly transparent to control the "reflection" amount of the mirrored objects. But I hadn't thought to use an image of the sky beneath it. It's a nice effect. But it's hard to find good pictures for interior ceilings. I will need to walk around with camera and take pictures like a tourist... :)

And it could be taken one step further to use an alpha for simulating puddles of water on the ground plane too... :)

hi jbshorty good idea for water effect
i have an update material reflection i took marbel picture made it a bit transparent (200 from 255 not transparent in paint.net)
nice effect have a look

i dont know if Micheal can do some tune up for pictures like :

snape to pictures edges and corners when drawing and make it on or off in the snape setting
setting for each picture like transparency and position (above ,below,with) instead off globale that will make it easy instead off going to photo editing and back to moi
possible to select picture and see it as line from others views to move it
copying picture inserted
and edit directory for each picture (ex: if you move picture to another folder MOI will not see it any more only the frame is there) some how to look for it and keep the picture setting
like that when you open 3dm file in MOI with picture setting just point to the folder where the pictures are
and finaly a way to save the pictures inserted in a folder

Hi lyes,

> (ex: if you move picture to another folder MOI will not see it any
> more only the frame is there)

One way you can fix that is to move the picture to be in the same folder as the .3dm file.

If MoI cannot find the picture with the file path that was stored, it will also check in the same folder as the .3dm file to see if it can find it there.


Many of the other things you are requesting would probably also have a side effect of making the UI for dealing with images more complicated than it currently is... So it would likely take quite a lot of design effort to try and incorporate all that additional functionality without making things much harder to use for simple tasks, if that was even possible.

The current background images mechanism is intended not really for special effects like you're using here, but more as visual guides for drawing on top of.

Maybe it would be best to have something that was oriented for effects to be separate somehow from the current one...

- Michael

Experimenting with some other lighting stuff.

This one gives a kind of metallic feel:



Also when moving around it's a little different:



- Michael

HI Michael thanks for the tip , looking good

Hey I like this metallic one Michael :)
Not as good as a true env image map but its really close !

Hi DesuDeus,

> Not as good as a true env image map but its really close !

Well actually it is using a type of environment mapping to get that effect so yes - definitely very close to environment mapping since it is environment mapping... :)

- Michael