Public Beta: Trestle & Scrim

#141

Yup…it can do this now…

Thanks for the array loft Igors!

#142

It’s not hard surface realism, but I’m posting it anyway because it’s cool (apparently :wink:

http://homepage.mac.com/cake_or_death/scrim3.mov

Ian

#143

Cool, Ian. I can´t understand how you do this, but it´s very impressive and looks beautiful. I disagree with the Igors; this aplications of the plug are very appealing too! for me at last… nice!!

FelixCat

#144

very, very nice Ian!!!
looks like trapcode shine is involved, right?
great plugin, btw.

#145

Without trying to go off topic, yes, I did use Shine, It has unfortunatly become one of those plug-in effects you can instantly recognise (I see shine on TV so much!). I had edge outlines turned one to give it the inside out look.
I love all the trapcode plugs, and as I’ve said to Brian, I see Trestle as being Echospace for EI, amongst other things. This will be huge for motion designers.

More to come! I’ve brought audio/video into the equasion for my next one…
Ian

#146

Cool this or nope - that’s not our affair to judge. But this movie doesn’t answer for questions sorta “what this plug-in can/cannot do”, and “how can I rely on this plug-in in my work” - be sure each romantic user thinks about this too :slight_smile:

#147

hi,
two little things:

  1. i can’t stress out enough how cool non-modal windows would be for trestle.
    as you know i try to model a car with trestle and scrim. the process is to first lay out some rough trestle wires, add scrim and then fine-tune the control-points. it really bugs me to always close the plugin window to check the flow of the surface from different directions.

  2. can you add a shortcut to zooming in trestle? like the standart ctrl-spacebar? don’t know how often i tried to use this without effect.

#148

I totally second that! Indeed Trestle and Scrim have Apply buttons which work as update ones. So preventing to close the window should be great.

#149

Hi, Uwe, Stephane

Note: Scrim child groups can be reordered in project window (without making one a child of another). It requires a “precisious” dragging and result isn’t re-generated automatically, but it works.

Please specify concrete keys and a short, but concrete description of their functionality

There are “little” things that have big, very big consequences. A modeless is one of such things. Please be more serious and don’t hope that host’s plug-ins’ ideology can be changed easy, painless and just cause we want

#150

Note: Scrim child groups can be reordered in project window (without making one a child of another). It requires a “precisious” dragging and result isn’t re-generated automatically, but it works.

wow, never seen this. whoever build this into eias made the targetarea much to small. you have to a sniper to get it to work, but hey, it works. hurray!!! :slight_smile:

Please specify concrete keys and a short, but concrete description of their functionality

on pc press spacebar + ctrl key, click left mouse and drag left, right to interactive zoom in or out. try the same keycombo in one of EIAS ortho-views to see what i mean.

There are “little” things that have big, very big consequences. A modeless is one of such things. Please be more serious and don’t hope that host’s plug-ins’ ideology can be changed easy, painless and just cause we want

i am serious. this works. in eias. i have seen it.
i am no programer and i don’t know nothing about eias api, but it is possible. i can’t say if this is a serious hack (read: not documented in the api) or a real pain to implement, but if you are interested and need info about it, please contact Jens/Patrick. i know you know them :slight_smile:
if this feature is to big/complicated to build in, ok. i understand.
finishing v1 and polishing the current feature-set is more important.

edit: little update on the car. i am very pleased with scrim beta5.

#151

Hi, Uwe

Ok, we hope our little OT below would be quite pardonnable :slight_smile: Here is a class of workers (very narrow) that’s named here as “stayers” (very rough translate). They are typically very weak programmers, BUT: any programmer (even very cool) is really happy if he works together with a good stayer. They are elite over programmers elite. They are prophets, experts, their work is to analyze principal solutions in view of their perspectives/future. The typical confusion that’s “a knowledge of specifics/context is absolute enough to give advices to programmers”. That’s true but in very little bounds. For normal programmer an implementing of this or that feature is just more or less time to implement. But what would be the eventual effect of this feature - positive or negative - that needs a special talent to predict.

Ok, modeless window. How to “settle” it? It would be absolute natural (maybe) if a plug-in activate its window if it’s selected in project window? It would be “self-clear” if this window disappear automatically if a plug is deleted from prj? And if undone? If user opened 10 plugs step by step? All this headache is a work of stayer.

Please understand where you try to enter in.

#152

Uwe…

You never cease to amaze me. Nice work. You’re work will inspire several to realize that even though the fancy 3rd party external modeling programs are nice, you can produce fantastic stuff with just the basics. The fact that you’ve produced this car body with only lofting tools speaks volumes to your skill. As Trestle, Scrim, Revolver and potentially other plugins evolve, EIAS will have new powers and capabilities that its never had before. Imagine what you’ll be able to do when all these plugins start talking with each other and XP. There wont be much you won’t be able to create.

#153

By the way… I’d love to hear more about your process and how you are finding the workflow within the plugin and EIAS. Are you satisfied with the workflow? How about the plugin’s speed? What is it like for you to be able to model within EIAS?

(Just me milking it a bit…but seriously, I’m interested in your experience using the plugin.)

#154

thanks brian.
well, i am very pleased overall. workflow is as smooth as it can get with the current feature-set.
with the 2 things i mentioned earlier (shortcut for interactive zooming and the ability to navigate EIAS viewport with open plugin window) workflow will be even better. it’s all about visual feedback. i hope i can get the igors to this point.
splines in v2 will be a major benefit, too.

right now there are 193 plugins in this project (5 übershapes, 15 scrim, rest trestle and nothing else), but no noticable slowdown so far.
it took me about 6 hours so far, spread over a few evenings, and 3 of them were just playing with different forms. so, believe me, with a little planning beforehand it would be very much possibel to build a complete car within a workday, in EIAS. and i am not that great modeler.

the process is very simple. for each panel i start with a trestle wire at one end, give it about 7-10 control points and build the profil. i duplicate this wire 2 times and add scrim. this way i have better feedback. then starts the shaping. all additional wires will also be duplicates. always only for one side of the car. the other side is made of mirrored slave wires that follow my main wires (very cool feature!). the only tricky part is getting nice rounded gaps at the start and end of scrim surfaces. that is why the whole body is one surface right now, without doors :slight_smile:

modeling in eias is soooo great. for anything that can be done with trestle and scrim ( and i guess thats also true for revolver and bebel) this is a real timesaver. no more constant re-importing of changed models.

if there is interest i will compile a little tutorial (complete with project file) for the release of trestle and scrim. nothing to fancy, because i suck at this, but maybe it will help someone.

#155

Oh yes…because you suck so horribly…right. Come on now Uwe, surely you don’t think that.

And yes… a little tutorial showing your wireframe setup would be great. I’d appreciate that very much.

#156

Excellent thread, this one and the previous Mr. Revolver thread.

Makes me chuckle when I think back on the “Should there be Modeling Tools in Animator” poll from some months ago.

Should there be? Of course. Are there? There are now!

#157

at least that’s what my wife says when it comes to me teaching things. but maybe that’s only because she is a university lecturer and has an other level understanding what it takes to teach something :slight_smile:

#158

Hi, Uwe

But it looks like press and drag the zoom button left/right in Trestle, no?

#159

Hello, gentlemen

In context of Scrim plug-in we are thinking how to give user a convenience way(s) to round corners in different variations. Your propositions/ideas are welcome

#160

yes, same funcionality, but isn’t it better to keep the shortcuts as close to hosts as possible?
it’s allready hard to switch between apps, a plugin should stay consistent to host. thats what i think. besides this, you have to aim for the icon, which breaks the workflow (a little).
it is second nature to me to use this shortcut in ortho-views, so i try to use it in trestle as well, but nada.

In context of Scrim plug-in we are thinking how to give user a convenience way(s) to round corners in different variations. Your propositions/ideas are welcome

any examples? i am not sure if i exactly know what you mean? corners between U and V direction or U edges?