2.117 both English and French versions can be downloaded from:
http://www.seamless3d.com/download
The Bring Static Model to Life Demo is to show how a model made from any modeller can be imported into seamless taking advantage of seamless's build nodes to make things a lot easier.
This demo requires first that the contents of the files_for_demos.zip file be manually unzipped and put in the folder:
My Documents\Seamless3d\Application Data For Seamless3d\For Robot Demos Only
The static model is imported into a single part and then the vertices are transferred to the rest of the parts using a semi transparent cylinder to select the vertices. When this is done the pivot points are moved to the correct location for each part so that the parts can then be animated. Once the build nodes have been set up they can be re-used to import any static model that has the same basic shape. The Bringing Static Models to Life tutorial has been rewritten to accompany the demo.
Blue and White Parts
2.117 has undergone many minor changes to make seamless more user friendly but most of these changes wont be noticed.
The main change to note is there are different kinds of part nodes to make the distinction between parts to be used for building and parts for to be used for immediate editing clear.
From here on only use white part nodes for when you want to use build nodes to create the triangles and blue (immediate) part nodes for immediate editing or use a blue part when you want the part node to be used as a source of triangles for a build node (that was imported from a wrl for example).
Seamless will automatically convert any part node from a pre 2.117 smls file to a white part if it contains no data and a blue part if it does. For most old smls files this rule should work fine but for some old files this may not be as wanted, however a white or blue part can be converted to the opposite type easily if you right click on the part node and select convert and the old rule still applies that if you can not get a old file to open that use to open in a previous version, send it to me and I will probably get it working with a minimum of sweat
The distinction between white and blue parts should effortlessly direct newbies away from some of the problems that could arise from not understanding the significance of parts being automatically built or where the triangles were intended to be directly edited and saved. For example the user is prevented from tugging a vertex from a part that is also being built, so they will be spared from wondering later what's happened to all their lovely work soon as a build cycle takes place which was typical not to happen until after they had saved and closed down seasmless!
Another good example of this distinction reducing confusion, is the user will no longer be able to import from a wrl into a part that is also being built from build nodes (something you never want to do)
In short:
Only build nodes can modify the geometry for a white part.
Only humans can directly modify the geometry for a blue part.
Only the triangles get saved to a file for a blue part because white parts get built automatically.
Capture Made Automatic for Animation
The Anim node has been simplified for the better. There is no longer any need to press capture because a capture is now automatically done when ever a part's orientation control point is dragged by the user while the Anim node window is open. Because the interpolator and script instructions are automatically added when needed, there is no longer any use for a static part to determine what parts shall have an interpolator node added and so the setupAnimation feature has been made obsolete and so has been appropriately removed. The robot demos that demonstrate animation will show this small change.
These changes will make life simpler for anyone new or old to seamless.
Static Part nodes are now a thing of the passed because they are no longer needed but will automatically be converted to regular part node types from old files that contain them.
Static Part nodes were blue but are not to be confused with the new immediate part nodes because they had a different purpose but this is all now history and static parts were never documented much so most won't even need to concern themselves with this sentence.
Importing Blaxxun Avatar Studio Avatars Simplified
I have rewritten the tutorial Importing Blaxxun Avatar Studio Avatars because of some minor changes made to seamless to simplify this procedure and because I was not happy with how well this tutorial was written. Note the url for this tutorial has also changed.
Improvements made for outputting H-Anim and X3D
Much work has been done to improve output for H-Anim and X3D.
I have made it so that H-Anim files output from Seamless, can now open in XJ3D but XJ3D does not seem to be able to currently run JavaScript (but it will not abort if it finds it and give the OK message) and so most of my examples wont animate in this browser. However if only ROUTEs and Standard VRML/X3D TimeSensors are used (instead of Seamless Anim nodes) they have a chance of functioning in this browser without the need to edit the wrl using a text editor.
Field Tool-Tips Can Now be Translated to French
I have made it so that the tool-tips for the fields can now be easily translated to French.
A French translation for the new tips and messages in the global_strings.cpp file (from the seamless3d souce files). is wanted.
Any contributions will be much appreciated. Post here first to signal your intent before translating to avoid double translations.
Many thanks to Olik for helping me make seamless output H-Anim files that will open in XJ3D.
Many thanks to bumpy for helping me add transparency to the cylinder used for selecting vertices by the TransferBCyl node.
