Format to import Realviz Imagemodeler docs

[Newstream]

Just a question,
I was interested on Imagemodeller (Realviz software), but I was curious to know if .lwo or .lws files can be imported with Cinema correctly. I know that Imagemodeler don't export directly in Cinema Format, but in lighwave's one. So I will know if exported texture from Imagemodeler (in lwo or lws format) can be imported correctly in Cinema ?

Thanks for any info
Julien

Hi Jddog,

I found the best export results to be with VRML 97 and Lightwave. It's not flawless and there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

1) About textures: It looks amazing when a 3D object is auto-textured inside of Imagemodeller, however its hard work getting them into C4D, They're usually always screwed up in some way.

2) Exporting via LW: Lets say your Imagemodeller scene contains 3 textured 3D object. The UV-and texture tags (for some unknown reason!!) all end up attached to the first object in the Attributes manager in C4D. You need to drag 2 of the tags from this object and onto the other 2 objects.

3) In C4D after export from via LW: The textures associated with the materials assigned to your objects are all "black". you need to open the color or luminance channel of that material and navigate to the folder containing the texture for C4D to "connect" and display the material correctly.

4) Exporting via LW: If you have 3 or more cameras in your Imagemodeller scene, only one will be exported into C4D. The way to get all your cameras into C4D is to export via VRML 97.

5) Exporting via LW: the lightwave scene may show up upside-down inside of C4D. Just flip everything 180 degrees.

For the current discounted Maxon price, I think the program is worth it but I wouldn't buy it at full price but if you're an architect in need a tool for measuring and placing 3D-objects based only on photo input, its an interesting tool (it's almost like PhotoMatch on steroids...)
Using the program also demands that you take pictures consistently i.e same aperture and resolution etc.

Hope this helps
/ Alex

[jddog]

Thank you Alex for your exhaustive answer...
I think that can really help what you wrote here.
At this time I have and use Photomatch and is for me an excellent tool. When I have a fixed camera PhotoMatch does all the work required, but sometimes I need to rebuild buildings in 3D. I was looking for a more advanced tool to recreate architectural elements for background buildings or environment 3D elements for a scene in scale or with correct dimension and capturing only with pictures, without taking measurements on place or using urban plans (more time consuming).

Of curse the dicounted realviz's price does now is really interesting... this was one of the reason of a so big interest on this software...

Julien

[jddog]

For the current discounted Maxon price
Alex, uh were they are the Maxon ones ?
jdd

[ooo]

here is the link for the discountprice: http://www.realviz.com/maxon/
And thanks to Badtastic for the explanation. I also bought this offer but still didn't have time to experiment.

odo

[jddog]

thanks for the link odo! I'm on time for the MAxon's discounted price !
jdd

[Newstream]

Thank you Alex for your exhaustive answer...
I think that can really help what you wrote here.
At this time I have and use Photomatch and is for me an excellent tool. When I have a fixed camera PhotoMatch does all the work required, but sometimes I need to rebuild buildings in 3D. I was looking for a more advanced tool to recreate architectural elements for background buildings or environment 3D elements for a scene in scale or with correct dimension and capturing only with pictures, without taking measurements on place or using urban plans (more time consuming).

Of curse the discounted realviz's price does now is really interesting... this was one of the reason of a so big interest on this software...

Julien

You're welcome!

Looks like odo beat me to it... You still have time to purchase Imagemodeller at the Maxon discount price. :thumbsup:

I forgot to mention one other cool feature with Imagemodeller which is especially handy in architectural projects: If you happen to know the distance between 2 points within your Imagemodeller scene, you can enter that distance data between the 2 points as a reference. All the other dimensions and distances within the scene will then be recalculated and calibrated according the reference distance you just set. Its great because as long as you know one or two distances within your photo input, you can pretty much determine (quite accurately in fact..) the size, length, height etc of most other objects within the photo-input without actually having measured them "live" on location.

Good luck /Alex

[guypapyrus]

Speaking of Imagemodeler, Eovia, of all companies, is selling deeply-discounted RealViz stuff... for a couple more days:

http://www.eovia.com/purchase/store/prom/ww_realviz.asp

[tcastudios]

Just got ImageModeller.

What might be wrong here?
When I export from IM in .lws I get "Incorrect File Structure" opening in Cinema (Nothing loads). Trying to open the .lwo I get "Unknown File format"

Trying wrl the scene opens but there is nothing in it.....

The scene in IM is -very- simple. A cube representing a table top.


Cheers
Lennart

[robotbob]

hi

offer looks good but i see they must recieve payment before 31st which is today.

lennart sorry i cant answer your question but did you purchase today per chance ?

pedro

[tcastudios]

Tried exporting to .obj and still nothing shows up in Cinema. It just sais myscene.obj but no objects are present..
There must be a fundamental step I don't get here...

robotbob:
If the site is still active you should be able to buy I think..
I bought it two days ago and got my serial/activation numbers yesterday.

Cheers
Lennart

[tcastudios]

I redid the scene in IM for the fourth or fifth time "doing the same".
The only difference I'm aware of was that I first saved the IM itself
before doing any exports.
I can now open wrl and lws, only thing being the scene is upside down in Cinema. I guess I can I can change that in IM, can I ?

The "Connect Object" by David OReilly (incl in the Goodies CD) seems needed when using wrl. This way all separate planes of a Cube can be -one- singel object with the texture intact. All planes first have to be children all the way down to the last plane for all selectiontags to be properly set when hitting "C".


Cheers
Lennart

[robotbob]

the upside down thing is because every 3d package has its own interpretation of the X Y Z axis, but i am sure you already know this - as you are an after effects wizard.

how are the edges lennart ? do they match ?

[tcastudios]

how are the edges lennart ? do they match ?

Well, not -that- perfect, but I guess it's up to the quality of the source and getting into IM a little more.

.lws is a real mess materialwise. Loads of UV tags and remapping is needed.(rename the IM tex folder to "tex" before opening in Cinema and the picts are at least loaded.)

wrl looks like the better option. But in this case take all the IM textures out of the IM texture folder and place them at the same level as the .wrl file and they load fine.

As of now I look at IM as a resource for quick and dirty jobs. Anything more accurate still need to be done the "old scool way" I think. That is "regular" modelling and applying textures via Camera mapping and/or with assistance of PhotoMatch. It is time consuming in an case.

Cheers
Lennart

[tcastudios]

Hm..I don't know. Struggeling with IM and then trying the same using AvK's PhotoMatch3 and BodyPaint does seem to work "better" in my case.

What I'm facing is to rebuild several buildings with no proper dimensions really(Bad photos).
These are then ment to be re-lit using FX lights, pre-viewing a real light "show".

(I don't need to put new geometry into the picts)

The main fundamental problem using any app I try is the lensdistortion. If that is catched properly, the rest is pretty easy. The de-lensedistortion option I have atm is AfterEffects.
Drawing lines along edges that are supposed to be straight in a AdjustmentLayer on top of the pict. I can then pretty well do optic compensation.

We'll see how it turns out....

Cheers
Lennart

[ooo]

Sorry to hear it's such a struggle! i didn't have the opportunity yet to try this out, but I do need a solution like this for a new project. Thanks for posting your workflow so far. I hope it's "usable" at least.

odo

[Zendorf]

Yeah, I also just bought Stitcher and Imagemodeller at the discount price....Unfortunately the only link I had seen was from the Eovia site, not Maxons so I paid an extra $50. Ah well, it is still a huge bargain! Must say that I am a bit disconcerted after after reading the import problems in this thread, as I haven't tried it out as yet....

[tcastudios]

Well life is a struggle in any case...

I've spent two days now with IM and it's plus and minus.
Plus.
It does get a very good camera placing.
Minus.
For this particular project I'm better of taking the pictures I have and stretch them in
PS and apply them to geometry done in Cinema. Eyeballing the proportions of the buildings, getting some initial guide by the ratio of the PS picture.(Representing each wall or structure)

A big minus is the inability to get "safe" export of wrl files. I can/must try one or several times redoing the project (in IM) to get a proper wrl file that Cinema can open.

Once a "good" wrl file is done it -seems- as if it keeps doing well.

On top of that I guess, as with any app, it is also getting "into" it, to get a flow.
So if you plan to use IM, take it for a ride a couple of days before committing a major job/deadline.

All in all it gets a very weak 3 out of 5 from me.

Cheers
Lennart

[robotbob]

damn - i brought the thing too.

A big minus is the inability to get "safe" export of wrl files. I can/must try one or several times redoing the project (in IM) to get a proper wrl file that Cinema can open.

this is alarming - a kind of random useful file generator ?

i really could have done with the cash right now.

anyway ill get the serials next week and share anything of interest i find.

pedro

[jddog]

I'm comming back a little later... I'm a bit sad to read what I read here, at the end I have to renounce to buy IM because I made another investement on the new nikon D200 and I had a choise to do. Reading via the Realviz web site forum (IM forum) I saw that different up-dates exist for IM, did you have the last version? or did you install all up-dates?, it looks that they have correct different problems.

jdd

[Newstream]

Well life is a struggle in any case...

I've spent two days now with IM and it's plus and minus.
Plus.
It does get a very good camera placing.
Minus.
For this particular project I'm better of taking the pictures I have and stretch them in
PS and apply them to geometry done in Cinema. Eyeballing the proportions of the buildings, getting some initial guide by the ratio of the PS picture.(Representing each wall or structure)

A big minus is the inability to get "safe" export of wrl files. I can/must try one or several times redoing the project (in IM) to get a proper wrl file that Cinema can open.

Once a "good" wrl file is done it -seems- as if it keeps doing well.

On top of that I guess, as with any app, it is also getting "into" it, to get a flow.
So if you plan to use IM, take it for a ride a couple of days before committing a major job/deadline.

All in all it gets a very weak 3 out of 5 from me.

Cheers
Lennart

Sorry to hear about the probs.

I also found IM to be somewhat inconsistent when exporting. Its definitely a good camera placement tool and with accurate photo-input, the measuring capabilities aren't bad either but that's pretty much all right now.

One bummer I discovered recently when modelling in IM is that one cannot snap or constrain the rotation of selected objects to 10 or 90 degree increments, forcing one to eyeball this step thus lowering overall precision.

I'm still experimenting with various camera focal lengths and subject distances to find an acceptable level of Photo input to minimize barrel distortion without loosing the resolution and texture quality of the subject to be measured / modelled. I really hope that future updates will iron out IM's current shortcomings.

/ Alex

[robotbob]

ok IM people

finding a few hours to go thru the tuts today - so ill post my findings for IM to C4D - one initial observation is that the tuts are odd in that when setting planar contraints the tut indicates that the locators share similar Z co-ordinates when they clearly do not.

very very odd indeed.

pedro

[robotbob]

ok for those interested in IM to C4D

findings thus far

a ) detail modeling is very difficult, it seems if you use the cut tool then the extrude tool you have a limited number of times you can do this. this is a bit crap if you want to make a wall of recessed windows. id be gratefull for any solutions to this.

b ) when you fix the XYZ orientation you seem to need to do the same thing twice - the calibratation that is. - then it works fine

here is an example of a building i photographed while in NY over the weekend. it looks quite flat but if i could push the windows in it would help alot.

cheers pedro


http://www.bitstate.com/friends/cgtalk/hardware3.jpg

[sunmade]

Very interesting Pedro.
Thanks for the tests.

Looking forward to see more.

[robotbob]

two more graphics

- i have rebuilt it several times but still get super flawed surfaces ( polys ) after using the split tool more than 3 times - so i cant extrude all the windows in - this is really anoying.

also stuff like hanging signage should be photgraphed seperately and probably made in c4d.

i am liking IM better now i have played with it for most of the day - still unsure about weather its worth it yet.

pedro


http://www.bitstate.com/friends/cgtalk/test01b.jpg
http://www.bitstate.com/friends/cgtalk/test01c.jpg

[jddog]

it looks quite flat but if i could push the windows in it would help alot.

Can SPD map helps to deform the mesh in your case without affecting the geometry ?

Jdd

[robotbob]

good idea ! - ill try that now. i have just figured a way to do it in IM - this requires alot of carefull point pushing and the extraction process takes a while. i really gotta get back to work tho'

p

[robotbob]

hi jddog

SPD is a V good idea but the long rendertimes complicate uses in terms of animation.

but worst of all the edges come apart. see red box am i missing something ?

using Sub Polly Diss - level 8 ( because the mesh is very simple from IM ) + keep original edges ticked.

http://www.bitstate.com/friends/cgtalk/test01e.jpgwould have been a good idea otherwise

[jddog]

Probably is better to have the base color set to 50% black (gray) to avoid deformation and windows in black. Yep SPD can require long render times... but eventually if you subdivide the meshes of your model a bit more probably you will obtain a good efect only with a subdivision of 2 or 4 ?

Probably here other siple ways:
in case just work using the cut tools and modify the window that your really need to modify
just palce some simple cubes and use a boolean obj to change the form of the architecture...

just some input... this problem interesting me too... when I got some times I will make some test too... Did you are agree to send me or share the model that you use in this time? (you can e-mail me...)

Julien

[robotbob]

hi

i have had more time to experiement with image modeler and like it more and more.

things i have found out -

• dont try to tag faces with plain colours till after you have extracted all the textures as IM extractes a texture from that face anyhow so you dont save any processing time.

correct me if there is a way to skip this.

• the colours come in as a global so thats good.

• add phong tags in c4D to get your 4 face curves looking nice

• model in sections - dont try and do the whole building as one mesh - because

- you can partially extract then save ( IM crashes a bit here )

- you get tider meshes

something else was a pain in the arse but i cant remember what it was . . .

pedro




http://www.bitstate.com/friends/cgtalk/CLISS2.jpg

http://www.bitstate.com/friends/cgtalk/CLISS3.jpg

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