Braider Beta

#1

Hello everyone…

Things keep moving along for us here at Paralumino and with the advent of Superlines, we thought it would be nice to provide new tools to take advantage of that technology. If you are not aware of what Superlines is…Superlines is a free shader which allows EI to render “Shade Lines” or “false geometry” based off of line segments imported into EI, generated polylines constructed with products like Trestle or any piece of geometry that you wish to render in wireframe mode. The shader reacts off the wireframe line width value and tells camera to render cylinders instead. The result is a better looking wireframe mesh that possess shading, falloff, and material capabilities.

Braider is the next step of evolution for this technology. Braider analyzes the geometry of the model parented to the plugin, and generates a series of line segments that can be transformed by the Superlines shader. Several of you are familiar with the wireframe mesh art of Meats Meier. Now that capability is becoming available for Electric Image. Imagine having the ability to take any geometry and construct wirelines along the surface of the model. Attempting such a thing manually would be exceedingly difficult and time consuming. Braider does the work for you…

We’ve already completed a fairly extensive Alpha test stage so Braider is pretty far along, but we feel its always important to include the community, so we are initiating a 1 week public beta phase for comments and suggestions to help us improve our product. Beta testers have already been assigned and they are free to post their results to this thread.

Here’s an example of Braider’s functionality:

#2

You sure you don’t have a slot for just one more guy to play with/ B-test Braider:-)??

Paul S.

#3

first quick test (actually a remake, more or less):

nice and quite easy to use - i just needed a few minutes wrap my brain around this.
this mesh is not really fine tuned right now, i can see a few spots where it breaks, but i have to say, very nice plugin!
i don’t think i have already understood what else is possible with this technology.

#4

This is an image I have made some time ago. A good client for this new plug. And the result would have been certainly much more cute. But Igors don’t like abstract :wink:

#5

well, Stephane, for me this plugin is mostly for abstract use.
there are only so many Meats Meier knock-offs you can do before it gets boring. :slight_smile:
i am sure the igors understand the need (and market) for abstract animation, even if they prefer photo-real stuff.
having said that, here is a little fly-by of the wire-girl:

WIRE GIRL MOVIE

i know this will not make it to the release date, but i have a little wishlist for v2 :slight_smile:

  • a way to limit the used polygons (e.g. like in wiremaker -> “id:*7”)
  • animateable wire coverage with seperate controls for U and V and three modes: sequence, negative sequence and complete

i am sure there is more to come as i dig deeper into this plugin.

#6

That was the first question Rob asked me when I showed him the plug-in.

I have some interesting animation ideas for this plug, let me flesh them out…
Ian

Also, very cool movie Uwe :wink:

#7

Since the plugin generates wires based off the model’s topology, having a way to decrease the poly lines without having the use a lower resolution base model would be a very good thing.

#8

The Igors may prefer realism, but the fact that they have come up with this plugin speaks to their versatility and their willingness to “hear” what users are looking for. Braider is capable of being used in an abstract way and it can be used in a realistic way. Let’s try to list some possibilities for the utilization of this tool.

  1. Straw or wicker looking objects
  2. Intertwined rope. Dont forget to combine the tool with standard deformation tools
  3. Vegetation
  4. Motion Graphics Imagery (Huge possibilities here)
  5. Inserting subtle detail into realistic objects, or more detail without the cost of geometry
  6. Cages or realistic objects that are dependant on a mesh like structure
  7. Combined with Scrim to create real geometry

Plus we have other tools still in the pipeline…

#9

speaking of additional plugins:
what i really want to see is a very simple way to generate REAL geometry, something like Superlines++. (for use with raytrace and GI)

hmm, maybe three stages:

  • Superlines - free shader just as it is now.
  • Superlines+ - simple plugin that turns wires into real cylinders (only cylinders, just one radius control)
  • Superlines++ - sweeps trestle cross-sections along wires (one or two for endpoints)

just an idea…

#10

One of my ideas for Braider was to use it as a foundation for a PaintFX type system within Electric Image… populating 3D objects and 2D objects along the wires something akin to Maya’s PaintFX. But the Igors beat me to the punch and tried. I’m told that isn’t quite possible due to conditions between Animator and Camera. If that’s the case, perhaps EITG and the Igors can have a little “chat” to work out that out…wouldn’t that be cool?

As for Superlines ++ well… patience is a virtue…who knows what’s out there…

#11

Well… I agree with you that those types of UV animation tools would be cool… however, don’t forget that we’re dealing with a piece of base geometry. Anything that modifies that base geometry will affect the wires. So using animated clipping maps could give the appearance of traveling wires… or perhaps you could combine it with DaVinci’s Tool or Tailor Tool… (haven’t tried it yet).

#12

Hi, Uwe

We really want to grab this movie for Braider gallery, but we ask you about 2 things:

  1. re-render with higher AA settings

  2. compress with Sorenson (or other) to reduce movie’s size (not all users have a fast connection to d/load 24M)

If you’ve any difficulties, please send us the prj or uncompressed movie, we’ll take care about all other

#13

i have to try clip maps, but some effects would be much easier with animation control. like always :slight_smile:

another thing:

LITTLE TENTACLE MOVIE

TENTACLE PROJECT FILE

the wires jump like crazy. i guess this has something to do with the break values, but i don’t see the reason why it acts like that. any ideas?

#14

Hi, Uwe

“If nothing can help, then it’s time to read doc”.

  • Activate “Use UV space to scan Paths” in the plug-ins interface.

  • Set ON “Use UV space” for child group (child should have UV coordinates)

  • Apply a transparency texture to child group

  • please read doc, it saves a lot of your time

#15

ok, i’ll do as you wish :slight_smile:

edit:

  • Activate “Use UV space to scan Paths” in the plug-ins interface.

  • Set ON “Use UV space” for child group (child should have UV coordinates)

  • Apply a transparency texture to child group

  • please read doc, it saves a lot of your time

ok, right, i am stupid. but why transparency map? wouldn’t any map do? it’s not used after all, right?

#16

Hi, Uwe

Uwe, “don’t run ahead train with red flag”:slight_smile: Be sure, you and we’ll talk about much more “actions along path” than sweeping 1-2 cross-sections only. But, of course, when time comes.

#17

Hi, Uwe

Camera removes UV coordinates if a group has no map uses them. Thus in Camera the Braider receives a child with deleted UV’s. During bitmap shadow pass Camera also ignores diffuse and other textures (except transparency) cause they have no effect for buffer shadows calculation. Summary: you need a transparency texture to “preserve” child’s UV space in Camera

#18

Hi, Uwe

There is absolute enough time to add more features, but, of course, all depends from how well they are formulated / founded. If a task is fully clear for us, it can be implemented fast and vice versa. Sorry, but up to now your propositions are very blurred for us

But what from WireMaker set is usable here? Nth-polygon? But Braider uses a sequence of polygons, so “use nth” = no output. Range of polygons? But they can be “scattered” here and there, so result = scattered/cutted. The banal reactive (as the plug-in does) looks definitely better.

Who is “animateable wire coverage”? Why the plug-in should assume a model has regular U/V? What is each proposed mode? Please be more concrete, provide schemes if needed, and, maybe, something interested can be done

#19

Hi, Stephane

Apparently not. And, Stephane, your hints are too subtle for us :slight_smile: Is there enthusiasm to re-render this old scene with a new tool and show us the result? Or what? :slight_smile:

#20

Hi, Ian

With Antiqua participation, right? :slight_smile: