Public Beta: Trestle & Scrim

#241

Hi, Uwe

EI Model plug-in is responsible for vertices normals calculation (that define smoothing). A plug-in can calculate them as it wants: by using one or all child groups.

Possible, but, IMO, in absolute different way. For basic primitives like wicker/straw we see no sense to use Scrim engine, they can be modeled much simpler. Generally, modeling of a single wicker is not a problem. But the problem is: how to “settle” multiply primitives on specified surface, how to control their orientation, density and many other things. Don’t forget about self-intersections. From your sketch plan it’s absolute unclear what tool would do this (main) part of work. Particle systems? Looks not convincing.

#242

no luck on my side either. dante generated line-particles work fine as wires for scrim, but trestles or EIM wires emitted as particles just don’t work.
in all the fuzz yesterday i missed the fact that the render and the screenshot are a few minutes apart. sorry.
so, back to the problem:
i don’t know if blair is reading this thread, but i think he should be informed.
igors, are you looking into brians project, too? whats your take on what is going wrong?

#243

sorry, but this was not about wicker things. it was basicly about NURBS-modeling. well, not really NURBS, but the workflow. stiching together several scrim surfaces, make them blend into one conplex surface. and i am not even saying that this is what i need. i just wanted to know if this would be possible with the current api.

btw: Very nice birds nest! how did you do it?

edit: a plugin which fills a volume (child_A) with some other objects (child_B, child_C,…) (in user controlable density - per child and no intersections) would be nice. :slight_smile:
i am aware that this is a very specific task and right now i can’t think of any other application that would benefit from such plugin.

#244

All is ok in Animator and Camera (Mac, Dante30), for PC - can’t check, we’ve no Dante

Hmm… don’t understand what is a “stiching together several scrim surfaces”. It depends from algorithm of stitching/merging, not from API. Please explain more details, without them we’ve not what to answer

BTW: we’ve a new experimental idea (a bit similar to yours). Rendering/writing…

#245

Hello, gentlemen

Here is an experimental idea for your consideration. The “key” is: find a way to build source wires automatically. The steps are:

  • create ubershape sphere

  • “scale and push” its polygons (we use Mrs to do this)

  • in Transporter transform polygons in wires

  • repeat steps above for several spheres

  • use them as array in Scrim

This scenario is a bit heavy (need Mrs + jumps in Transporter). It can be simplified with auxiliary plug-in. But does it make a sense? (i.e. how it’s usable?)

#246

All is ok in Animator and Camera (Mac, Dante30), for PC - can’t check, we’ve no Dante

hmm, wierd. this is how it looks for me:

brian has the same problem, and as far as i know, he is on a mac.

Hmm… don’t understand what is a “stiching together several scrim surfaces”. It depends from algorithm of stitching/merging, not from API. Please explain more details, without them we’ve not what to answer

BTW: we’ve a new experimental idea (a bit similar to yours). Rendering/writing…

imagine two scrim surfaces aligning properly on the U side (they “virtually” share one wire). master/child setups of trestle would make it easy to grand that they line up even when animated. in this case the new plugin would simply smooth the normals across the edge and provide a texturespace that spans acroos both surfaces.
the tricky part is alingning two surfaces that are in different directions. U edge to V edge. and keeping them together even when animated.
i have no clue how this would be doable, but you are the wizards :slight_smile:

this would allow for nurbs-like patch modeling. i am sure you know the concept.

#247

Please save Dante output as Fact and send us

Aha, clear now. As we understand, a merge of U-edge with V-edge of surfaces would be much more interested/usable. Note however that just smoothing/averaging normals is not what we need. IMO the correct solution is to add one step more to U-spline (by using adjacent V-surface) and do vice versa for second surface. Technically it’s possible but we can’t imagine this “conceptually” (now we understand your interest to API). Need to select several Scrims and “coordinate” them. Also we don’t know technique for 3 and 4 surfaces (need to read theory). In any case it’s too big and complex to be just a Scrim option(s). So, sorry, no way in near future.

#248

Yup… this is what I got too. Dante fires out a Trestle Object particle and everything works correctly in Animator. I can affect the particle results with various forces and deformations and get some really interesting variations… I just can’t get it to render in Camera. Interesting to know its not a Mac vs PC thing. The first trestle instance above dante is used as a lofting base or anchor. All the Trestle particles are then fired off and lofted as a sequence. Looks great in animator.

The same experiment with particle lofting in PPPro actually renders, but for whatever reason the resulting loft is twisted. I’ll try to post something soon.

So Uwe… just so I understand, you used Dante Wires to loft between with Scrim to achieve your effect? It looks like its emitting trestle particles and lofting between them. How exactly did you achieve what you got if Trestle particle sequence lofting doesn’t seem to work for you now…

#249

the dante output saved as FACT works. (???) attached below.

Aha, clear now. As we understand, a merge of U-edge with V-edge of surfaces would be much more interested/usable. Note however that just smoothing/averaging normals is not what we need. IMO the correct solution is to add one step more to U-spline (by using adjacent V-surface) and do vice versa for second surface. Technically it’s possible but we can’t imagine this “conceptually” (now we understand your interest to API). Need to select several Scrims and “coordinate” them. Also we don’t know technique for 3 and 4 surfaces (need to read theory). In any case it’s too big and complex to be just a Scrim option(s). So, sorry, no way in near future.

well, the smoothing across would be a first step as i see it. of course there would be much more work involved.
and i know that this is no simple addition to scrim, therefor the new plugin name -> commissure. or whatever :slight_smile:

some time ago we discussed the possibilities of multiple wires inside one trestle group.
so, again in theory, would it be possible to introduce Y-shaped forms with this?
imagine the lower end of the Y as one trestle circle and the upper end as two circles inside one trestle graph. all connected via scrim, of course.

a little note to all my suggestions:
i don’t want to squeez as much features into trestle and scrim as possible… ok, i do :slight_smile:
but the main reason for all of this is: it is a pleasure to have modeling capabilities inside EIAS and i think with Trestle and Scrim we have a great foundation on which many different workflows and other plugins can be build. just don’t stop here.

So Uwe… just so I understand, you used Dante Wires to loft between with Scrim to achieve your effect? It looks like its emitting trestle particles and lofting between them. How exactly did you achieve what you got if Trestle particle sequence lofting doesn’t seem to work for you now…

sorry, i mixed up screenshots. i made the render only with dante wires, posted it. then i wanted to test trestle, the discussion started and i simply didn’t render the project after that, but only made a screenshot to show that indeed Scrim was involved in generating the surface. i should have removed trestle to stay consistent with the posted render. again, sorry for the confusion.

#250

I’d take a look at it, but I ran off to quickly this morning and left my dongle behind…

So… you’re saying if you export out a trestle particle object and its resulting geometry and re-import it will render… hmm that’s unusual. Tells me that Animator is actually generating geometry but something isn’t getting properly passed along to Camera. I don’t know if its Scrim’s fault or if Dante is forgetting something. I’m tending to think that Scrim is getting confused because of the plugin api but I’m no programmer.

I’d really like to see this get fixed.

#251

I’d take a look at it, but I ran off to quickly this morning and left my dongle behind…

So… you’re saying if you export out a trestle particle object and its resulting scrim geometry and re-import it will render… hmm that’s unusual. Tells me that Animator is actually generating geometry but something isn’t getting properly passed along to Camera. I don’t know if its Scrim’s fault or if Dante is forgetting something. I’m tending to think that Scrim is getting confused because of the plugin api but I’m no programmer.

I’d really like to see this get fixed. I’ve also tried creating geometry with Placer deposit, Trestle and Scrim and the same problem occurs. I can place Trestle instances all over a surface and loft between them but I can only see the resulting geometry in OpenGL not in camera… So… either Blair has a routine that is being mimicked in Dante and Placer that doesn’t pass the info to camera or Scrim, being the top node is missing something.

#252

exactly.

i wonder, if for the igors it is all right, and they are on dante30, as i read it, maybe 31 is broken on that task.
edit: or all newer NL plugins, to include placer deposit. has anyone an older version to test?

#253

I had the very same thing with Bebel today, Animator showed one thing and Camera rendering something totally different… It was quite a complex bebel stack though.

So, it’s not just limited to Scrim…
Ian

#254

I’ve tried in Dante 3.0 and with EIAS 5.5… same results.

Maybe I should try EIAS 6.5r2 and Dante 3.0… but since the same problem occurs with Placer… I’m beginning to think its Scrim.

Uwe… can you do some experiments with instancing Trestle groups on the surface of an object with Placer and then attempt to loft between them? I works in Animator, but I get the same problem with Camera. (Or any other beta tester for that matter).

#255

no placer here :frowning:

now, why is it working for the Igors?

#256

Hi, Uwe

And it works here too (render shows left part of your screenshot).

It’s enough wide chapter in theory named as “branched lofting”. At least we’ve read this in 2 dissertations:) However, in practice it looks like very and very ugly alternate way to what Silo and other modelers do much more effectively. In theory lofting can be used to modeling fingers, but in practice SDS+extrusion sequence is much simpler and better IMO. That’s normal: every tool has its application area.

How about birail? We plan it as one of next 2 modeling plug-ins. NOTE: up to now it’s just a plan/idea and nothing more. The birail is a “specialized lofting”, it uses 2 rails paths and 1 or more curves between them. See more details in big maya’s handbook. How do you estimate birail’s perspectives/usability? What should be a set of options? There is enough time to think and discuss all this.

#257

Hi, Brian

This situation isn’t seldom/unique, almost any EI plug-in counts where it’s processed: in Animator or in Camera. That’s same true even for apps have no standalone render. However, a plug-in doesn’t count either its child group an another plug-in or a Fact file - in Camera a plug-in even can’t know this. Simply give us a simple prj with Dante30 (we’ve no 31) and 1-2 hours later we say you exactly what’s happened.

#258

Igors…

Without exporting a fact model of the Dante/Trestle project I uploaded, can you get camera to render. My renders are turning out like Uwe’s example. We’re not really sure if you’re getting a direct render using this process or not.

Edit: Ok… I’ll try to get you a project file later today… I forgot my dongle at home. I have EIAS 6.5r2 and I also have a copy of Dante 3.0 which will work for you.

#259

Sorry, forget to answer. 3 basic branches were modeled with FZ lofting. Then - Trooper

#260

a little something for the graphic designer among us. i am not, but i hope you get the picture:

geometric forms made easy. each model didn’t take longer than 5 min. to generate.
the steps:

  • add übershape
  • deselect “show faces”
  • set Balls: to “oriented lines”
  • try different shape types and size/teselation settings
  • link über to scrim
  • optional: add deformers to your linking

note: not all shape types seem to work, some will always show their faces and then there is no way scrim will work.
have fun.

edit: sorry igors, i simply don’t have the time for another photo-real project right now. these tests are fast and i have some fun doing them.