Hey Guys…
I’m not trying to say one is superior to the other… I’m trying to suggest that combining the powers of Bebel and Invigorator and Vector Lathe would produce a superior product. You have the ability to do so in your hands. Why would you resist?
My familiarity with Invigorator isn’t my reason for choosing it over Bebel, if I was forced to choose. Invigorator wins, imho, because it can import splines from the outside quickly and very easily. I’m trying to suggest methods of reducing the EIAS problem of being an island and the fact that it has no modeling capabilities. Thankfully FBX is here…but I still think people want internal modeling capabilities within EIAS no matter how basic. Bebel could fill this need.
Its not about a plugin being too “simple”, but rather its about convience to the animator. Having the ability to lathe, extrude or loft an eps curve in EIAS is about convience. That’s the trump card. Being simple is the major selling point.
You stated: “Mrs cannot operate with EPS file(s) directly, need to import it inside EI, it’s not always fast and pleasant” … That’s the whole problem. Its not fast and pleasant.
If we go your route, what do we have to do? First buy a modeling package. Except for maybe Silo, most of them are going to be considerably more expensive than a plugin. Next, learn that modeling package. Then go into that modeling package, draw a curve, revolve or extrude whatever, bevel, export, (hopefully as a .fact if its supported) if not an .obj, consider potential UV coordinate problems, import into EIAS, texture and render.
The invigorator way. Draw a cross section in illustrator or any 2d program that can save out EPS files. Save. Launch EIAS, run plugin, instant model. Make it automatically generate UVs like Ubershape and there’s no fuss. Need more mesh resolution? Your way, go back to the modeler, re-tesselate or remodel and resave, then reimport into EIAS, copy keyframes if you have any animation already on the old object and the total time spent is considerable. Invigorator? Click the plugin and increase the number of faces. Done. No animation lost or needs to be copied. If you’re happy with the Invig model, you can always export out as a .fact, but part of the beauty of Invigorator was the fact that you could change the resolution with a click of a button. Uber shape follows the same principle. How annoying would it be if we wanted a sphere and we had to go into a 3rd party modeler to get one? Very annoying.
As for Northernlights, which plugin are you talking about? Im not aware of anything that NL offers that can do anything like Bebel or Invigorator/Lathe. Except maybe path plotter… so I guess that could handle lofting functions. I appreciate you wanting to be concerned for other plugin vendors and what other people have purchased, but we’re in a competitive market. You shouldn’t hesitate to create something better than what’s out there. You’re already competing with Northernlights by offering FlexPath. Its in direct competition with Contortionist. If Blair created Bebel, I’d be asking him to do the same thing.
Suggestions like these, I feel, are trying to increase the viability of the entire program. What’s one of the first major caveats of using EIAS? No modeler. That’s why we’re in the 3D Specialty applications section on CG Talk and not in with the “big boys”. (LW, Maya, Max, C4D etc) We’re competing against some seriously good packages out there and we’ve rested on Camera’s laurels too long. 3rd party plugin programmers like yourself are the key to keeping EIAS attractive until EITG can incorporate those missing technologies. If we make the mother package more viable, it sells more seats. More seats means more sales for you too.
and yes, it died with 2.9.2…though it should still work in OS 9 with any version of EIAS.