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Re: small problem that we can solve

by Joe Crawford :: Rate this Message:

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> ... if there's some small problem that we can solve in the short term
> for you, let's tackle it so you're finally using K-3D on a regular
> basis, even if it's just using the pipeline to automate some process
> with a script.  BTW, this is why I'm putting some effort into a
> render-engine for Daniel, so he can start generating some useful results.

Ok.  I can definitely go around and ask artists about what tool they
are missing, or if there's a particular problem k3d could solve for
them. Something that would get them using K3D, even if only for a
small part of the process.

Also, from my own experience, here's a thought relating to that. The
idea is fairly small in scope and UI, but the technical coding
challenge might be too much.

A while back there was a lot of talk on the list about quad remeshing.
 In the games and film industry, retopology tools are a *huge* need
right now, and most of them aren't very good.  Zbrush, 3D coat, and
topogun are all tools that help with it, but non of them work very
well.  Also, they have no kind of intelligence or automation.

So if we made the quad remeshing work well, and gave it a good UI,
we'd have something right away that people would want to use. (I'd use
it constantly... lol, and so would basically every high poly
modeler/sculptor.)    It could get lots of people immediately using
k3d, even if all they did was import a model, change it, and export
the model.  It would at least get the software into the pipelines.

I work a lot with artists who follow the common process of:

Model Low Poly >  Sculpt Highpoly > Retologize so it rigs well

This is pretty much standard at every game studio now, and well as in
most films featuring heavy CG work that isn't just backgrounds.

Some artists/studios even skip the low poly modeling part.  In fact in
some situations, people use scanned models, or voxel based models,
which means they start with the worst polygon triangle mesh to start
with.

Tim, what are your thoughts on this?  Do you know much about the very
math heavy ideas behind quad remeshing?  I know a lot about the
theory, but not at all how to code it. (As usual...  lol).


Anyway, the tool would have to:

- Import and understand multi-resolution geometry somehow  (see Footnote 1)
- Allow the artist to draw some key lines on the surface of that
model, to indicate important edge flows (see Footnote 2)
- Based on the high res model, generate a new model with good edge
flow, for which the highest subdivision level matches the original
surfaces.

Footnote 1:  Perhaps by importing muliple versions of the model at
different levels, since a standard format for multi res doesn't really
exist.  This might also be a place where k3d could help form a
standard.

Footnote 2: these could be nurbs curves, polygons, or even just
texture painting... anything that K3D could see to understand where
the artist wanted edges.  Its just a network of curves that the user
can draw and move around)


This might all seem kind of hard to understand.  I'll also see if I
can dig up some videos about this stuff.  I'm sure Blender has some.
Then, depending on how much interest there was, I could make a
screencast to explain it.  By the way, you can see a lot of the stuff
I'm talking about in Blender, though it has no real form of remeshing,
other than doing it by hand.


I don't know what the current state of our remeshing is.  I've never
been able to make it work. Also I don't think it accepts much in the
form of guidance.

Thoughts?


Sincerely,

Joe Crawford
___________________________________
Owner - Celestine Studios   and   Joetainment Enterprises
Cell: 604-866-3050
Email: joetainment@...
Web: http://celestinestudios.com

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