Riptide - For Mac - comming soon...

[JIII]

Nice work man, developers for Cinema are always loved :-).

Just a question, this may sound naive but usually .obj imports just fine... what exactly does this fix that doesn't work with the regular import.

Thanks,

-JIII

[Keith Young]

Thanks for the loaded question ;). Here's an excerpt from the included readme file:

-------------------------------------S N I P--------------------------------------------

Background:
=============================

I guess I should start by describing some of the reasoning/issues behind writing this plugin... I primarily use C4D to produce clothing/props/models to be used in Poser. Poser supports several 3D formats, but I'm very familiar with the Wavefront .obj format, it's very flexible, it's ASCII (easily accessible) and it's become the somewhat de facto standard among Poser artists. However, C4D's implementation of the format leaves some things to be desired...


C4D .obj Export Issues:
=============================

- all 'materials' from a particular mesh are condensed and combined into the first material listed on the mesh. This is probably the biggest problem I continually ran into. I might have a dozen or more material selections defined on a single mesh (skinhead, lips, nostrils, eyesockets, innermouth, gums, skinbody, fingernails, toenails, nipples, etc), but when I export the model, I was LOSING all of those material selections and had to recreate them using some external application (UVMapper, for example). It's very easy to define these selections within C4D and can be quite a pain to do in other applications... so losing them all on export sucks.

- no real 'group' support and/or inflexible group support, where it exists. Basically, C4D creates ONE group record for each 'mesh' (a separate group of polygons) contained in the document and the group name is basically made up from all of the grouping hierarchy used within the C4D tree, so you might end up with something like:

Hyper_NURBS:Symmetry:Eye_Base:Left_Eye

...as a group name in the .obj file (note that the ':'s are added by C4D on import - they are spaces in the .obj file).

This is perfectly valid and probably a reasonable approach (C4D is a general-purpose 3D editor and not designed around the .obj file format), but the file format allows for MULTIPLE groups per mesh, which can all share the same set of vertices (see the import section below for additional issues related to this).

Anyway, a typical Poser humanoid character might have dozens of groups within the same 'mesh' (head, neck, chest, abdomen, hip, left collar, right collar, left shoulder, right shoulder, left forearm, right forearm, lots-o-finger-segments, you get the idea...). Short of creating separate 'meshes' for each of these 'groups', there's no way of defining them within C4D currently.

- normals are 'reversed'. This one is no big deal really... they had to pick a direction, but the one they picked doesn't happen to coincide with Poser's idea of which way they should face (or even C4D's, for that matter, so I guess they get a 'bonk' for this one as well ;). Anyway, the normals can be flipped around on import to Poser, export from UVMapper or prior to export in C4D, but the new plugin makes it easy to get it right to start with.

- no support for UVMapper 'regions'. As far as I know, 'regions' are something Steve Cox (author of UVMapper) came up with and implemented as an extension to the .obj format (using comment fields), so this issue is clearly not an omission with the C4D code, but I thought it would be handy to be able to define these while modelling, to help with UV Mapping and layout later on (these 'regions' are just another way of grouping polygons together, but they are separate from and can 'span' across group boundaries, which makes them very useful).


C4D .obj Import Issues:
=============================

- Material import... while C4D drops the ball on exporting materials, it actually does retain/recreate the proper polygon selections on import. I guess my only real issues/complaints here is the choice of naming of those selections ("Selection 1" .. "Selection 2" .. "Selection 3", etc.). Why not just use the material name(s)? And the fact that it makes no attempt to actually read the .mtl file and reproduce any of the desired material settings.

- Groups. This is a tough one and I can't really cast to much blame for this one. Programmatically, it's very difficult (very time-comsuming, at the least) to determine the 'intent' of how a .obj file should be broken up upon import into separate meshes. There are a couple of obvious choices...

a) create one big mesh, and create polygon selection tags for each 'group' record.
b) create a separate mesh for each group record.

...C4D chose option 'b'. Unfortunately, neither of those options is optimal in all situations, though option 'a' would have been less 'destructive'. By that, I'm referring to the fact that implementing option 'b' means creating new vertices at the seams between what used to be group selections of the same mesh. This can screw up vertex ordering, for things like morph files.

- Loss of UVMapper regions. Again, I'm not casting blame on this one, but an import filter could preserve (recreate) these as polygon selections.

- Lack of additional import options. There are no options to flip normals or textures or.. well, any options, aside from the scaling factor.

-------------------------------------S N I P--------------------------------------------

...so it was written to address those issues. In addition, there are lots of import/export options not listed in the above. You can get a lot of details from this link: http://www.skinprops.com/fr_c4d.htm and from the online documentation linked from there (or directly, here: http://www.skinprops.com/fr_rtdocs.htm ).

Also, while I primarily use C4D to model things for use in Poser, the plugin doesn't really do anything Poser specific... it's a .obj file format plugin more than anything else (useful for importing/exporting .obj files for a variety of apps).

Thanks,

- Keith

[Venkman]

Glad to see that lengthy thread from before became so productive. People really came together on thisp one, donating hardware and fronting cash for development.

nice work, guys. Way to support the devs!

[Other3DMaster]

Keith,

Once again, thanks for sticking it out on this... I'm very psyched that
Riptide is coming to the mac. Also, very heartened by all the support
that has been put forth to make it happen.

[flingster]

i have to add to this...well done to all those involved on this...great sense of community spirit and very generous by all concerned...so big pat on your backs guys...:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Keith Young]

Nice work man, developers for Cinema are always loved :-).

Just a question, this may sound naive but usually .obj imports just fine... what exactly does this fix that doesn't work with the regular import.

Thanks,

-JIII

Here's a link (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=159886) to a longer thread about the plugin with some more details.

- Keith
Red-i Productions

[Incarnadine]

One thing I have found with non-riptide obj imports is that muti-layer and noise driven shaders may not apply/function properly. It seems to be a scale issue but requires some serious experimentation and time to try and sort out. Import via riptide and it just works right, right away.

[Keith Young]

One thing I have found with non-riptide obj imports is that muti-layer and noise driven shaders may not apply/function properly. It seems to be a scale issue but requires some serious experimentation and time to try and sort out. Import via riptide and it just works right, right away.

Hmm.. not sure why that would be so, but glad to hear that it helps ;).

- Keith
Red-i Productions

[marcom]

donated.

how much more to go?

cheers
marcom

[Keith Young]

Thanks Marcom! So far, I've had 2 other similar donations, so still a ways yet to go, but we'll get there ;).


Thanks again,

- Keith

[flingster]

bumpy .. .. ..

[marcom]

bumpy .. .. ..

oh yes...

donate! or i will keep on bumping this thread to the top until you all run away screaming!!!
muahahahaha!

<edit>doctor? wassup with this new pills? doc?...</edit>


cheers
marcom

[ernia]

Just donated, Keith.

ernia (Arik)

[Keith Young]

Much appreciated - thanks! (check your e-mail)

A friend sent me a router to use (arrived today) and the machine should be arriving tomorrow...

- Keith
Red-i Productions

[Keith Young]

BTW, once I have something funtional, contributers will be sent a link to download beta version(s)... if you're not interested in testing early versions, just ignore the mail ;).

Thanks,

- Keith
Red-i Productions

[Keith Young]

Don't look now, but... (http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12400&Form.ShowMessage=2362910)
:)

[Rabbitroo]

Don't look now, but... (http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12400&Form.ShowMessage=2362910)
:)

Man, that was fast! :applause:
-K

[Keith Young]

Man, that was fast! :applause:
-K

The computer arrived this morning and so since I was up, I spent all day trying to get it set up, struggled some with the compiler and a few other things, but once I had all that cleared up, the port was unsettlingly painless ;).

I want to run a few more tests and need to update a few things, but I hope to have it available to the contributers (I mean testers ;)) tomorrow some time.

- Keith
Red-i Productions

[phexitol]

I won't be needing the Mac version, but I donated because you've given so much already :)

[Keith Young]

I won't be needing the Mac version, but I donated because you've given so much already :)

Thanks phex! Good thing I checked here first.. I was just about to send you the Mac version ;).

- Keith

[ooo]

This is all wonderfull news! I made my donation too :)

odo

[Akira]

Hello Keith,

I downloaded the Plugin Riptide v1.4 for C4D R9.102 and above (MAC version).
But after installing the Plugin is not available in C4D R9.62 on OSX 10.4.
Is there something special to do?
I would appreciate any help.
Thank You all.
Akira

[Srek]

Make sure that you use the PPC version of 9.6 if you want to use the plugin.
Afaik there is no UB version of riptide yet.
Check this thread http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=342422

Cheers
Björn

[Akira]

I just bought C4D and installed the latest update.
But iam using the G5 so there should be the PPC version installed.
What else can it be?
Thanks for the answer, anyway...

[Akira]

I think I have the PPC version.
I use a G5 Dual 2,7GHZ with C4D R9.62.
What else can be the problem???

[tcastudios]

The PPC version is called "CINEMA R9 PPC". UB is just called "CINEMA R9".

Mind you, if you open a document by doubleclicking on it, the UB version starts by default.
You either have to use "Open" in Cinema or drag the documant to the PPC app in Finder or to the Dock if you have it there.

RipTide opens fine here R9 PPC.

Cheers
Lennart

[Keith Young]

Thanks for pitching in folks (I was asleep :)).
I just downloaded the x-code compiler the other day, but apparently I need to be running Tiger (10.4+) instead of Panther (10.3+) to use that compiler... so for now, I'm waiting until I can spare some bucks for the update.

Keith

[Akira]

Ok, ok, ok. Sorry, was my mistake.
Didn´t know that there is a PPC-Version also.
Now everything is fine, except a little thing about materials.
When I import an OBJ with MTL, the textures are not correctly imported.
There are always just "-s" in the Bitmap-Slot.
The Materials are in place but missing the Bitmaps.
Is this a known thing?
regards
Akira

[Keith Young]

Ok, ok, ok. Sorry, was my mistake.
Didn´t know that there is a PPC-Version also.
Now everything is fine, except a little thing about materials.
When I import an OBJ with MTL, the textures are not correctly imported.
There are always just "-s" in the Bitmap-Slot.
The Materials are in place but missing the Bitmaps.
Is this a known thing?
regards
Akira

...yes and no :). I only recently found a complete '.mtl' file specification, so until a few days ago, I didn't know about options in the bitmap filename records. So I'm guessing that your .mtl file has records in it that look like this:

map_Kd -s 1 1 1 -o 0 0 0 -mm 0 1 chrome.mpc

...(the .mtl file is a simple text file you could load into NotePad). The good news is that I now have the spec available, so I know what that means. The bad news two-fold...

1. I hadn't yet updated my import code to handle any options there.
2. Even if/when I do, much of those options won't be supported.

...for example, in the above "chrome.mpc" is a "mip-mapped texture file" (not supported by C4D, as far as I know), so it would still fail to load textures.

I'm curious where you're getting your .obj files from.. Maya maybe? Is there some option you can set in there to use straight .jpg or .tiff files and not the mip-map files?

[Akira]

Hey Keith,

i used only psd or tiff pictures as textures.
Your work rocks so far.
Please go on and keep me updated.

Thank You ; )
regards
Akira

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