Public Beta: Trestle & Scrim

[Igors]

do you care to share this little secret with us? i have tried some things with different setups, but can’t find a way to generate this kind of geometry. really curious!

Sure, Uwe, but the project is 107K in zip, cannot be attached here.

Ian, please “publish” Button(simplified).prj if possible

[Igors]

sooo, you want some ideas?
you know, i still have some up my sleeves

1. Animatiable surface coverage for Scrim. like so:

pretty self-speaking, i think.

Yes, but, unlike MrRevolver, here the same thing needs more efforts (splines needs points outside output range).

2. (a little bit more advanced) Projected Trestle Wires
this means that if you link some geometry to Trestle, you can project the control points in +/- Z diection on this geometry. for better understanding i build a little mockup:

Clear-clear, BUT: why “Projected Trestle Wires”, not just “Projected Wires”? Or, even more, “Projected (flat) Shapes”? Let Trestle prepares a wire (or a flat shape) and let another one plug-in “projects” it in different ways. It can be interested.

And, of course, we’ve a classic question: for what it can be usable for?

[bronco]

if it can be done with another plugin, fine.
it just adds another layer of complexity, good for more flexibility, bad for more plugins stacking on each other -> more possible errors/slowdowns/linkage troubles etc.

so, what is it good for?

• always conforming contours. no need to use deformations to “eyeball”-align a wire to another object:
  

here you see the gap between tire and frontpanel of the car. right now trestle is bend with deformations. now imagine that the tire wasn’t just round, but some more complex form. or, for some reason its form would even be animated. you wouldn’t have much chance to achive a proper gap with just deformations. X and Y values are needed to define the profile of the panel, so the easiest way would be to project the z values of the control points, add an offset and you are ready to go.

if you want to extend external models (read: not build in EIAS), this will be huge time saver, because you don’t have to eyeball the contours.
add deformations, morphs or even skinned geometry in the mix, and this will be pretty impossible.
i am sure there are much more applications for such feature, this is just a simple example.

[halfworld]

Well, Uwe is a much better modeller then me, so he WILL come up with better examples but I just did this test really quickly in FZ.

Projected lines (or lines of intersection) would allow you to do this kind of thing

It would let you do things like attach a plane wing onto a fuselage to make them look ‘welded’ together. That kind of thing…

Also, for Uwe, here’s the button hole project: http://homepage.mac.com/cake_or_death/button.zip

Ian

EDIT: Okay, Uwe beat my post by 1 minute

[bronco]

good example Ian. blending objects together is an pretty common task. a sphere is quite simple, but try something more complex, lets say a human figure. now you’re out of luck.

sidenote: to keep animation and hierarchies simple, is it possible for a plugin to read the geometrie of something that is NOT its child? does the api allow this? i guess not.

edit: thanks Ian for the button!

[halfworld]

Yes, but would you really be modelling a human with trestle!?

Go on, i dare ya
Ian

[bronco]

err, noooo

i was speaking about conforming wires TO human shapes!

[Vizfizz]

Trestle Beta 4 seeded to beta team.

[Igors]

Hi, Uwe

Very interesting theme (even OT a bit), sure.

if it can be done with another plugin, fine.
it just adds another layer of complexity, good for more flexibility, bad for more plugins stacking on each other -> more possible errors/slowdowns/linkage troubles etc…

Uwe, thx for your tactful, but your worries are fully understandable (see “WaterBlobs” thread about how different tools work together. Grr…)

However, engineering laws are same strong as physical laws (as minimum). We would come to crash very soon if we try to violate them. We should not settle several souls in one body, it’s a way to numerous conflicts only (unfortunately (for us) we’ve checked this many times in our practice). The right way is to combine plug-ins as Stephane pointed out (btw: where is he?)

so, what is it good for?

• always conforming contours. no need to use deformations to “eyeball”-align a wire to another object:

That’s we understand well (btw: it fully corresponds to maya’s ideology )

here you see the gap between tire and frontpanel of the car. right now trestle is bend with deformations. now imagine that the tire wasn’t just round, but some more complex form. or, for some reason its form would even be animated. you wouldn’t have much chance to achive a proper gap with just deformations. X and Y values are needed to define the profile of the panel, so the easiest way would be to project the z values of the control points, add an offset and you are ready to go.

From this explanation we understood something, but (we guess) not all. Please explain again, more simplified schemes/examples would be wanted. Let’s switch to private discussion if it needs more time/details.

[Igors]

Hi, Ian

It would let you do things like attach a plane wing onto a fuselage to make them look ‘welded’ together. That kind of thing…

Hmmm… we heard this request from 3dsmax guys at least 15 times. Looks like they are very greedy to pay onlly $0.4K for Power Booleans

[Igors]

“Block” example (Scrim + Trestle)

[Vizfizz]

Path2Line v1.5 ultility tool seeded to beta testers.

[Igors]

Trestle example

[bronco]

Scrim example:

yeah, i know. it’s dirty, it’s ugly and it’s a teapot.
but i really love the beauty of chaos!

[Igors]

Scrim example:

If you want to show a caricature, please do it well too, otherwise it’s not a fun but only heavy and confused

[bronco]

If you want to show a caricature, please do it well too, otherwise it’s not a fun but only heavy and confused

this was no caricature. and it is actually scrim generating this geometry.
so, sorry if the headline was to similar to yours, but i don’t understand why you seem so upset. ???
screenshot:

[Vizfizz]

Very, very interesting Uwe… ala Meats Meier. Are you having Dante emit Trestle objects from a teapot surface emitter and then scrimming between everything? If there was only a way to get rid of that one connecting surface between the spout and the top of the teapot.

[Igors]

this was no caricature. and it is actually scrim generating this geometry.
so, sorry if the headline was to similar to yours, but i don’t understand why you seem so upset. ???

Cause we appreciate this as an irony at samples we posted. Ok, we are just programmers and amateur artists. You can do better than we are? Ok, very well, show us and we would be happy to provide more features for you. But if you post such images, so… where we are: inside Artists or in cheap show-booth? If you post an image please think it should be better at least what poor programmers can do. Clear?

[bronco]

Cause we appreciate this as an irony at samples we posted. Ok, we are just programmers and amateur artists. You can do better than we are? Ok, very well, show us and we would be happy to provide more features for you. But if you post such images, so… where we are: inside Artists or in cheap show-booth? If you post an image please think it should be better that should be at least what poor programmers can do. Clear?

hmm. i don’t really know what to say.
FIRST: this had NOTHING to do with what you posted! are you ok with this?
SECOND: i was pointing out something that i just tried. out of curiosity i linked Dante to Scrim. Bingo. Nice surface spanning over particles. 5 minutes later and this is what you see. a fast test of something i just discovered.
if you don’t want me to post tests, ok. i’ll stop. i am done with this.

btw: i think this is a nice feature , maybe not something you’ll use very often or at all, but in my opinion it really shows some of the great flexibility. but thats just me. sue me.

[Vizfizz]

Gentlemen…

Focus please… there is no reason for anger.

Uwe: Please continue your tests. The idea of using particles as the foundation for geometry generation is interesting. I wish to see more of this. (More on that later). However, for future tests, any unorthodox method of using scrim should come along with a detailed explaination of the process. The Igors need more “literal” implimentations of the plugin for testing purposes. However we are here to explore and push the plugin to its limits. Remember too Uwe that its impossible to read voice inflection in an email.

Igors: Trestle and Scrim are amazing products. They are going to be revolutionary for the EI community. I don’t believe anyone is critcizing your artistic talents. Certainly not Uwe. It does not seem indicitive of any of his previous behavior. We’ve got two non english speakers trying to communicate in english and in text format… ugh… very difficult.

Everyone has a different approach to art whether it be realistic and literal or abstract and lateral. Both have their place. Lets continue to work together to provide strong tools for our community.

Oh…and here’s a Trestle and Scrim image by Ian Waters!