11-4-2003 13:05 GMT
Seamless 2.020 Update **
**
New immediate transferVertex (Alt+T) function added to the main menu (f10)
I have modified the two functions splitTriangle and mirrorTriangle so that vertices are recalculated if needed in situations where triangles share vertices from different parts. Before in such situations it was confusing and annoying for the user when a vertex appeared to jump to a new location in the 3d scene.
Which part a vertex belongs to is relevant to how a vertex gets animated. I have added a new immediate transferVertex function. The immediate transferVertex function transfers the vertex from one part to another. This means the order of the vertex (the index) is modified. This function does not make any changes to the location of a vertex therefor we wont see any change to the vertex in the 3d window, it simply means after transferring the vertex we will see that it belongs to the part we transferred it to. When you press Alt+T the current selected part is the source part for the function and the destination part is the remembered part (press R to remember a part before u select the vertex u want to transfer) You can tell which Part a vertex belongs to if u control+click on a vertex and look at the title bar of the 3d window or by seeing which part is selected in the Scene Tree window
14-4-2003 02:51 GMT
Seamless 2.021 Update **
**
Converting VRML97 Group, Transform and Shape nodes to a Seamless skeleton of Part nodes for skin animation
With Seamless 2.021 a Seamless skeleton of Part nodes can now be imported from a file that contains a tree of standard VRML97 Group, Transform and Shape nodes. To use this new feature right click on the Seamless
node and select:
skeleton/import/Parts from multiple Shape nodes
Group, Transform or Shape DEF names will be used for the new Parts and scale, rotation and translation fields from the Transform nods will be used by the new Part nodes..
If a Shape node uses color per vertex this will be used to color the new Part's vertices.
If a Shape node uses only a material node to color it's geometry the Part created from this Shape node will be converted to color per vertex. The vertices will be colored to the same color as the Shape node's Material difuseColor field.
To put this function to the test I imported AnjaM's zappa avatar. I pasted just the Transform and Shape node tree into a new file and removed a TouchSensor node because Seamless does not have this node in its vocabulary yet so would cause a crash if it was left in. I found that because the av like many low poly count avs had non triangle polygons I had to modify Seamless so that it could convert polygons with more than 3 sides to triangles. Because seamless's main objective is to make complex organic curved shapes polygons with more than 3 sides are somewhat obsolete. So long as the polygons are convex which polygons usually are, they will be converted correctly to triangles true to the original geometry.
I also made it so Seamless's IndexedFacesSet loader can deal with coordIndices that end in non -1 values so seamless II should now be more robust when loading IndexedFaceSets generated from other programs or hand coded by human beings.
New Bug Related to Switching off isJoint field found and
fixed
Miranda found yet another bug related to switching the isJoint field. The bug
only occurred if the Part had children Parts. The bug corrupted the integrity of
the children's geometry. This bug has been fixed for seamless 2.021
Another bug not so serious but could mix up some of the colors for the parts when the isJoint field was switched from true to false has been fixed too.
Modifications to the part menu to make isJoint field more
friendly
The purpose of the isJoint field is simple, u have it true for any part that is
a joint and false for any part that is not. Typically accessories added to pre
made avatars that use a Template for gestures will have the isJoint field set to
false. Because it is easy to forget and ignore the setting of this field, I have
now made it so that when a new part is created in the scene tree from the menu a
choice of 2 selections for making a new part now exist which are:
Part for accessory (isJoint false)
Part for joint (isJoint
true)
So long as the appropriate Part is selected when a new part is made the isJoint
field should remain of no concern to most beginners. This does not mean any of
the rules have changed the isJoint field can be changed later to any state same
as before.
2-5-2003 18:54 GMT
Seamless 2.022 Update **
**
New Layout for the Main Menu (F10)
Seamless II started off as a program centering on the concept of using VRML
Seamless Nodes for building blocks to generate geometry. Since making it so that
seamless II can import blaxxun avatar studio avatars I have dusted off a lot of
the old code from the seamless one functions that were used for hand editing
vertices in the 3d window to make them work in harmony with the new set-up of
seamless II. As a result of adding a number of functions I have re designed the
layout and re thought the concepts for these functions to make using them strait
forward. In Seamless 2.022 I have tried to utilize the universal concept of copy
and paste. Copy and pasting the geometry from one part to another is easy to
grasp and so is the concept of pasting the color or position of a vertex to
another vertex. Expanding on this I have also come to the conclusion pasting the
ownership of a vertex (the part it belongs to) is an excitingly simple way of
manipulating vertex indices anyone can understand without needing to understand
what a vertex's index is. The recently added transferVertex function has
therefore been made obsolete in seamless 2.022 by this more user-friendly
approach. Instead of using the short cut key Alt+T please now use Alt+O as O is
more appropriate for ownership. The TransferVertex node has not been replaced by
this as this is used in a different way to immediate hand editing of vertices.
Instead of using Shift+J to join close vertices now press R first then Shift+J.
R = copy/remember like it always has but the standard windows short cut
copy Alt+C will now do the same thing as R. Shift+J now means
paste/onwership/close vertices then join. This in short just means join the
vertices between the 2 selected parts, the part that was copied and the part
that is currently selected. Therefore logically if we simply copy the
same part that is used for the destination we will achieve the same results as a
old joinCloseVertices function. paste/ownership/close vertices then join
may seem more long winded than joinCloseVertices at first but many more
possibilities are within easy reach with this new way and it's a logical
conclusion of all the simpler copy and paste functions so should become self
explanatory to the user with time. Many things are now possible to do in a much
easier way, for example, when making an avatar we often want one side to be
symmetrical with the other side. It can be a lot of extra work if we have to
make 2 matching sides vertex by vertex. With seamless 2.022 there are a number
of cut and paste functions that can make this a lot simpler. Please play about
with this new menu in particular the delete and the paste sub menus that branch
from the main menu.
For more info and examples please click on the link for my new tutorial:
Hand Editing Vertices and Triangles using Seamless3d
5-5-2003 16:42 GMT
Seamless 2.023 Update **
**
Due to Miranda making 2 worlds and now in need of some basic lighting and background control I have done some more programming on the control panels for the standard VRML97 NavigationalInfo, DirectionalLight and Background nodes so that some of the fields can now be controlled for these nodes. Not all the fields have been programmed in to work yet but enough to allow anyone to be able to turn on or off the headlight change the direction, color, ambientIntensity and the intensity for any number DirectioalalLights. The Background node has only one field in it that can be controlled, the start skyColor field but this is all we need to be able to change a world's background color. Immediate results can be seen in Seamless's 3d window as these fields are changed.
5-5-2003 18:07 GMT
Seamless 2.024 Update **
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Sorry, I just found out that i had the headlight off by default if no NavigationInfo node existed in the scene tree so I have fixed this simple mistake for Seamless 2.024.
7-5-2003 06:00 Sydney Australia Time
Seamless 2.025 Update ****
As a result of adding new code to make seamless able to set fields for
DirectionalLight nodes I messed up some older code that apparently was still
needed to stop shapes from getting darker or brighter when zooming in and out.
This has been fixed for Seamless 2.025 but Shape nodes still have similar
problems when scaled by Transform nodes. However parts nodes can be scaled
without any problem and none of this is a problem then the wrls are opened in
contact.
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