Hey, check out this seamless texture tool.

[sswift]

I edited my above post to remove the link because it has changed.

There is now a website for this tool at www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com
The site has a bunch of examples and informaton on how it works.

[brenly]

has anyone tried it out???

[chrisWhite]

This looks interesting, I would like to hear from anyone who's used it whether they like it and think it's useful for high end texturing.

[sswift]

There's a page full of comments on the product here (http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/testimonials.html), if that's what you're looking for.


(http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/testimonials.html)

[barbapapa]

cant acces the web page

[sswift]

The server had a hard drive crash. It'll probably be back up by tomorrow.

[sswift]

The website is back up again.

[onionringofdoom]

Whoa! That's awesome! I shoved a bark texture in there, and quite frankly, I can't tell where the seams went! And it's such a bargain too!

[Velmar]

omg !
This tool is without doubt the most impressive piece of software I've seen lately.
It created seamless textures of my photos in no time where I needed hours before.
I'll definately get this.

[capone_adam]

Just purchased it...

but apparantly you have to wait for a email and attachement which is due within 48hours...hopefully:sad:

[capone_adam]

Its now been 45 hours...not looking good...

[coolwizj]

Well, I just found out that Paint Shop Pro can make automaticly make a seamless texture. :thumbsup:

-Ian

[capone_adam]

...53 hours...:cry:

[capone_adam]

Ah...for some reason it didn't go to my non hotmail address (they ask for non-free email addresses due to attachment size limits). As soon as I emailed about it the matter was sorted out swiftly (pun intended) and in a freindly manner.

Now I can play with this promising tool:)

[ivanisavich]

Good to hear you got that sorted out!....thought we were being witness to a scam in the making for a second there...:P

[brenly]

Just purchased it .. very impressed!

[sswift]

Hey guys,

Just a note to let you know that the website is back up. It went down for a few days while it was moved to a new server.

Also, I thought you'd like to know that there's going to be a free upgrade for the program released in a few days which will add a bunch of features... including the ability to sharpen a texture using a new sharpening algorithm which is ideal for textures and does not suffer from the ringing artifacts associated with unsharp masking.

[EricChadwick]

This looks really great, going to try it out.

I'm wondering if I can save settings, for example to help process through a slew of similar photos? Also, any plans to include batch-processing, maybe a cmd-line interface?

What options do I get for saving? JPG compression levels available? Are the DDS options anything like those found in Nvidia's incredible DDS plugin?
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html

It would also be nice to save presets for the final width/height values. I like the way 3ds max allows me to use 6 width/height buttons for setting its rendering output, with it I can right-click on the buttons to change their settings, then the button text is updated to match. If this can't be done, at least it would be helpful to have presets at 128^2 256^2 512^2 and 1024^2.

Thanks for this tool!

[sswift]

I'm wondering if I can save settings, for example to help process through a slew of similar photos?

Each time you start the program, the settings go back to the defaults, but if you load one texture, process it, and then load another, the settings will stay the same.



Also, any plans to include batch-processing, maybe a cmd-line interface?


That was considered at one point, but when you think about it, batch processing doesn't seem like it would be all that useful. How often do you need to process 20 images that don't need to be cropped or transformed, and which will all look good using the same parameters?

It's been requested several times though. If enough people ask for it, and someone puts up a good argument for it being in there, maybe it'll get added.



What options do I get for saving? JPG compression levels available? Are the DDS options anything like those found in Nvidia's incredible DDS plugin?


The program saves only 24bit color images at this time, so your options are limited to choosing the file format, and the compression level for jpeg.

The jpeg compression goes from 0 quality to 100, and there is a dropdown menu for selecting Best, High, Medium, and Low quality.

There are no special options for DDS, as the program only allows you to load DDS, not save in that format.



It would also be nice to save presets for the final width/height values. I like the way 3ds max allows me to use 6 width/height buttons for setting its rendering output, with it I can right-click on the buttons to change their settings, then the button text is updated to match. If this can't be done, at least it would be helpful to have presets at 128^2 256^2 512^2 and 1024^2.


Yeah, that would be useful. Could either implement a button you click to skip through five different presets, or a set of four buttons that you can program with the current settings by ctrl-clicking them.

[EricChadwick]

Thanks for the answers, much appreciated.

Yeah, batch processing isn't all that applicable here.

I like the ctril-click idea for the preset buttons.

I played around with the demo, I like what I see. Some things bothered me a little, like the deform verts can only be moved one at a time, so keeping straight edges isn't easy, if I wanted that. Would be nice to be able to drag each edge.

The falloff curve for the blend radii seems exponential, such that there's little difference between 0.1 and 1.0. It would be nice to be able to edit the curve, for when I want a stronger/wider transition zone.

Symbiotic Studios' 3T has a cool preview mode where you can view the tiling at any angle. No perspective, it's only orthagonal, but it really helps see the tiling. I like the mouse controls they use, all except for the zoom which is way too slow. Would be helpful to incorporate something like it.
http://3t.lastchancemedia.com/

Thanks for listening!

[sswift]

Would be nice to be able to drag each edge.

That's something often requested, and which was planned from the start. It's definitely going in either the in the next update, or the update after that.



The falloff curve for the blend radii seems exponential, such that there's little difference between 0.1 and 1.0.
[quote]

It is, in a way.

[quote]
It would be nice to be able to edit the curve, for when I want a stronger/wider transition zone.


I'll give it some thought. The blending doesn't work the way you think it does though, so it's not as easy to implement something like that as it would be if it were a simple alpha blend between two points.

Also, I want to keep the interface simple, so I would prefer to keep the single slider, but with an increased maximum strength, or at most, a second slider for controlling the "curvature" of the blend.



Symbiotic Studios' 3T has a cool preview mode where you can view the tiling at any angle. No perspective, it's only orthagonal, but it really helps see the tiling.


I may implement something like that in a future release, where you could preview the texture on a cube or sphere, in a hardware acellerated 3D window.

[brenly]

Any news on the update?

[sswift]

I'm not sure when the next update will be released, but it probably won't be this month.

The program was selling great when I first started selling it, but sales are now trickling in at a rate of around 10 copies a month. As a result, I couldn't afford to continue full time development on it, and took a job writing a game for someone. That will take up most of my time for the next couple months. I'd need to sell two to three copies a day in order to keep working on STG full time, and I'm far from that figure at this point.

Don't worry though, development will continue, just at a slower pace. I am still supporting the product, and still plan to add many of the features I listed. Tabbing between text entry fields is already in for example, and though I'm not sure of what exactly will go in the next version, brightness/contrast and color adjustment are high priorities, and have been planned from the start, and are highly likely to be in the next release.

Also, if you're waiting for the next version because you don't want to be left out of new features, why wait? Upgrades are free. You'll get the leatest version when it's released. And, if you buy it now rather than later, you'll have the chance to offer suggestions for improvements that could make it into the next version.


Speaking of upgrades, I've got a texture CD I've been planning to offer with STG for a bargain price. For $99, you would get both STG, and this CD with 1,500 images suitable for textures, 150 of which have already been made seamless. Most of the images are 1280x1024.

This collection runs the whole gamut. For months I went around photographing anything and everything available to me that would make a good texture. The collection includes so many different types of materials that I couldn't possibly list them all here, so I've created thumbnails of them all:

Index 1 (http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/texturecd/cpic001x.jpg)
Index 2 (http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/texturecd/cpic002x.jpg)
Index 3 (http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/texturecd/cpic003x.jpg)
Index 4 (http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/texturecd/cpic004x.jpg)
Index 5 (http://www.seamlesstexturegenerator.com/texturecd/cpic005x.jpg)

I don't yet have this CD available on my website, but if anyone wants it, you can send me an email, and I can give you a Share*It link to buy it, or you can pay through Paypal.


Anyway, I hope this answers your questions about how development is going. You should see a new version with the big additions appear before the end of July, and I might release an intermediary version with the tabbing and some other small fixes in a few weeks.

[vkirchner]

I have just downloaded the demo, I have not tried it as of yet. From the threads you appear to have plans for upgrading the software, but I must have missed the plans for upgrading our software as new updates come out. Do you plan to charge for each upgrade, do we get free upgrades for a period of time, or will you base it on how much gas costs at the pump this week. :-))

Vince

[EricChadwick]

Re-read his last post, it's pretty clear.

"Upgrades are free. You'll get the leatest version when it's released. "

[sswift]

I guess I should clarify the upgrades thing.

Upgrades are free, but not neccessarily free FOREVER. I reserve the right to change the free upgrades policy at any time.

At the moment though I have no plans to charge for any upgrades. If sales were so bad that I could only continue development by charging for upgrades, I'd probably release the product for free and beg for donations instead. :-)

And as for getting the upgrades, everyone who buys the product is on a mailing list so I can automatically send them the latest version. I also will announce any new version here and on other forums in case anyone has changed email addresses. So you really have nothing to worry about.

[Velmar]

I just recieved my copy of STG and I am still amazed.
This is a must have tool for any game developer.
Thanks for all your work and the user friendly price, Shawn .

[sswift]

I'm glad you like the program!

I just released an update yesterday which dramatically increases the speed at which images are scaled when zooming into large textures.

Also, a while ago I added another feature which helps with making larger textures.

The tiled texture view will be disabled if the texture size is larger than 1024x1024. This prevents the program from attempting to create several 3072x3072 scratch images in memory. You can still check the tiling by using a lower resolution to test with of course.

If you were having trouble generating very large (4096x4096) textures before and that turned you off to the program perhaps you should try it out again and see if it now meets your needs.

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