Scriptable Tools

[Joe Crawford]

>> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Timothy M. Shead <tshead@...> wrote:
>> This is a pretty good example of what I mean when I talk about interaction
>> - at this point we have a great pipeline, great data structures, and lots
>> of experience / understanding about how to solve problems within that
>> framework.  However our interactive tools are pretty crude and (more
>> importantly, from my perspective), the implementations are extremely
>> difficult to follow.  I see the big, strategic technical goal as one of
>> developing a framework for tools that makes it as easy to write a new tool
>> as it is to write a reader.

It there's even a remote chance.... can the tools API be scriptable?

I created a toolset for Maya called MmmmTools.  So far reviews have
been extremely positive.  I was able to do a lot of stuff and make
improvements to the UI far beyond what's typically possible in
software.  I was able to do this mainly because of how powerful the
python support in Maya is.

I did not however, make a "tool", (a mouse icons for clicking in scene
with interactive feedback in viewport etc)  but I could have if I had
needed too. Maya has some pretty excellent stuff there.

The speed at which 3rd parties can improve the Maya user interface is
astounding. It really is rapid application development.  When
something is really good and intensive, they make it part of the core
and port it to the compiled code.


Anyway, you can see my tool set here.  Many professionals are using
it, and so are a lot of students.  It makes a very significant
improvement, fixing some of the major flaws in Maya.  It would have
taken me years to do this in C/C++ with all the recompiling needed,
however, this only took a few weeks.

http://mmmmtools.celestinestudios.com
*More links are found at the end of this message.

It is not exactly done (what GPL software is ever done ;)  )  but it
is already super useful.

If I could do the same kind of thing with K3D, I would.  (Right now
there would be MmmmTools for K3D)  However, so far the limitations
have really held me back.  I think it could be made possible in K3D.
Doing this stuff in Maya was straightforward.  I would bet there's a
fairly easy solution / compromise even if we can't be quite as
flexible as Maya.



Sincerely,

Joe Crawford



** More links here!!

You can watch a tutorial video that explains the process on this page:
http://celestinestudios.com/mmmmtools/videos/

If you don't want to use flash to watch it, the video can be downloaded here:

http://celestinestudios.com/mmmmtools/videos/mmmmtools-demo.mp4

There is a page that shows some of the core reasoning behind why this
toolset is needed for Maya:
http://mmmmtools.celestinestudios.com/?page_id=29

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[Timothy M. Shead]

Joe Crawford wrote:

>>> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Timothy M. Shead <tshead@...> wrote:
>>> This is a pretty good example of what I mean when I talk about interaction
>>> - at this point we have a great pipeline, great data structures, and lots
>>> of experience / understanding about how to solve problems within that
>>> framework.  However our interactive tools are pretty crude and (more
>>> importantly, from my perspective), the implementations are extremely
>>> difficult to follow.  I see the big, strategic technical goal as one of
>>> developing a framework for tools that makes it as easy to write a new tool
>>> as it is to write a reader.
>
> It there's even a remote chance.... can the tools API be scriptable?

I took a glance at the MmmmTools features - I'd say that a couple of
items are probably scriptable in K-3D today; many are features that
don't exist in K-3D, but would already be scriptable if they did,
without any scripting-specific changes, and yes, I have it in mind that
full-on tools (i.e. interactive tools) should be scriptable, too.

This is the kind of high-level, strategic requirement that is helpful to
have in front of us as we start the design work, so keep 'em coming.

Cheers,
Tim

[tshead.vcf]

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fn:Timothy Shead
n:Shead;Timothy
org:www.k-3d.org
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title:Founder
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:www.k-3d.org
version:2.1
end:vcard

---

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[Daniel Scott Matthews]

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 1:11 PM, Timothy M. Shead<tshead@...> wrote:

> Joe Crawford wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Timothy M. Shead <tshead@...> wrote:
>>>> This is a pretty good example of what I mean when I talk about interaction
>>>> - at this point we have a great pipeline, great data structures, and lots
>>>> of experience / understanding about how to solve problems within that
>>>> framework.  However our interactive tools are pretty crude and (more
>>>> importantly, from my perspective), the implementations are extremely
>>>> difficult to follow.  I see the big, strategic technical goal as one of
>>>> developing a framework for tools that makes it as easy to write a new tool
>>>> as it is to write a reader.
>>
>> It there's even a remote chance.... can the tools API be scriptable?
>
> I took a glance at the MmmmTools features - I'd say that a couple of
> items are probably scriptable in K-3D today; many are features that
> don't exist in K-3D, but would already be scriptable if they did,
> without any scripting-specific changes, and yes, I have it in mind that
> full-on tools (i.e. interactive tools) should be scriptable, too.
>
> This is the kind of high-level, strategic requirement that is helpful to
> have in front of us as we start the design work, so keep 'em coming.
>

I've lost track of all the functions in the current version so please
excuse me if I reinvent any wheels but,  is it possible to deform a
mesh or the control point of any object by using other geometry. e.g.
I drag a sphere into another object and that deforms the target
object. i.e. the sphere becomes a sculpting tool. I'm not sure if the
required object collision code is in the API yet but obviously is
would benefit animation as well. Being able to define a field of
influence (linear or defined by a function) would be very powerful.

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