SkIndigo Progress Updates (Whaat's Development Blog)

Whaat · Post by **Whaat** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:13 am

Kram1032 wrote: Where is the real geometry???
I can't see it in the sketchup view.

It is saved internally in the Sketchup scene file. It does not have to be visible or even be 'in use'. If you have used Sketchup, you would understand.

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 8:36 am

I think, I understand, even without

ok.
That should be possible, in blender, too.
But it's not a ususal thing.
Standardsettings effect in deleting unused stuff, when Saving, but you can set things as "indeletable", which means, that they can't be deleted, until you deactivate this option.

Then, you can delete the (maybe hi-poly) mesh, but still use the mesh data for objects.

But I'm not shure, if you can "replace" the previewed mesh by an other one...
That may be the difference.

Whaat · Post by **Whaat** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:16 pm

First off, I want to thank Onosendai for not releasing a new version of Indigo recently

. This has given me time to work on what I consider to be one of most powerful (and most challenging) features yet to be implemented in SkIndigo. The problem: How do you implement multiple UV sets in a program that only supports one texture channel? The answer turned out to be easier than I expected (but still very difficult...

). However, the biggest challenge was creating a UI for the UV mapping that is relatively simple to use, yet does not give the user any restrictions. I think I succeeded in this.

A side benefit of the new UV mapping features is that the user will be able to switch between materials with one click. In other words, all entities assigned to a certain material can be assigned a new material with one click regardless if they exist inside multiple groups or components. I am not aware of any existing Ruby script that does this.

Clip maps will be much easier to use in the next release. Instead of manually creating a blend material of the clipped material and a null material, I have added a clip map channel for each material type (even blends).

One last thing I'll mention. I figured out a way to open the material editor by double-clicking the material in the Paint Bucket.

Whaat

Thanks to suvakas for the textures and the original material....

Post by **OnoSendai** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 4:56 pm

Wow, cool material!

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 4:05 am

That crazy blend is crazy!!!

kwistenbiebel · Post by **kwistenbiebel** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:28 am

Whaat wrote: The problem: How do you implement multiple UV sets in a program that only supports one texture channel? The answer turned out to be easier than I expected (but still very difficult... ). However, the biggest challenge was creating a UI for the UV mapping that is relatively simple to use, yet does not give the user any restrictions. I think I succeeded in this.

A side benefit of the new UV mapping features is that the user will be able to switch between materials with one click. In other words, all entities assigned to a certain material can be assigned a new material with one click regardless if they exist inside multiple groups or components. I am not aware of any existing Ruby script that does this.

Clip maps will be much easier to use in the next release. Instead of manually creating a blend material of the clipped material and a null material, I have added a clip map channel for each material type (even blends).

One last thing I'll mention. I figured out a way to open the material editor by double-clicking the material in the Paint Bucket.

You Einstein!
Amazing features...you even make it all sound so easy (must be a killer to code however).
I wish I had more time on my hands to start digging more in to indigo.
Excellent approach. i wish Thomasz would follow the same strategy for KT.
Be sure that I will test thoroughly from the moment I've got some decent free time.

Thanks for keeping us all updated.

crc · Post by **crc** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:01 pm

Hey Whaat-
When do we get to try all the new goodies?!?

A_Minima · Post by **A_Minima** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:06 pm

Miam, miam !!!

Whaat · Post by **Whaat** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:02 am

crc wrote:Hey Whaat-
When do we get to try all the new goodies?!?

....might release a new test version soon, but I still have some bug-fixing to do first. Can't make any promises...

Whaat · Post by **Whaat** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:12 am

Here are my first tests with positioning an environment map using the SkIndigo interface. You can input an angle of rotation for the EXR and the environment will be adjusted accordingly.
There is still no way to view the EXR in SketchUp although I have been experimenting with some ways to do it. One workaround method is to render the EXR with Indigo and then import the rendered image back into SketchUp as a watermark.

Question for the other exporter writers: Do any of the other exporters have this feature? I'm happy to share the method I used. It was surprisingly easy to implement.

suvakas · Post by **suvakas** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 8:57 am

You are rotating the entire scene, right?

Whaat · Post by **Whaat** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:48 am

suvakas wrote:You are rotating the entire scene, right?

Yep! It is done at export time so it has no effect on the user. The axis of rotation is the camera location. I think that is the right way to do it but I am not sure. Need to do more testing...

suvakas · Post by **suvakas** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:41 pm

Clever

For visual feedback it still would be good if indigo would support the rotation though.

crc · Post by **crc** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:53 am

I was wondering if it was possible to use the watermark feature in sketchup. I use it now to put skies in when I export images. I suppose that sketchup would have to be able to place something other than a .jpg as a watermark. Would it be possible to export the watermark and have it changed in the export process to an exr? hmm, sounds like some difficult coding.

thanks for looking into this, I think it would really up the exterior rendering shots, something i really want to use.

psor · Post by **psor** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:33 am

I'm not a SketchUp user, but I have to say --> Hats up Sir!

Great work you're doing here!

take care
psor

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