emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

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owei
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emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by owei » 02 Jul 2009, 16:35

Hi there..!

This is a small OGL-screencapture of the upcoming emPolygonizer by Eric Mootz ;)
emPolygonizer is versatile tool for polygonizing particles, nulls and polymeshes in a metaball-like way...

[flvprev]http://www.si-community.com/download/cl ... olygonizer[/flvprev]

This scene contains 15k particles animated with SPH by Costa/Kot. The resulting polymesh is using the particle-color as vertex color...

Stay tuned for further details..!

cheers,
oliver

MOD-edit: the plugin announced here has been released, look for the release-post here or go directly to the source here - HB

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: upcoming: emPolgonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Hirazi Blue » 02 Jul 2009, 16:54

Wow, that looks very useful! \:D/
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

Letterbox
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Re: upcoming: emPolgonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Letterbox » 02 Jul 2009, 17:39

Hi,

That is another great item Eric, well done...

Questions:
Will it be proper metaballs that can absorb into themselves, best example i can think of would be a lava lamp.
Does it need to be a pointcloud or can it just be a geo item?
Can one change the "resolution of the metaball" like a sub-d surface specifically at render time .. eg low res view, hi-res render.


Looking forward to seeing more on this.

Cheers
Terry

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Mootzoid
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Re: upcoming: emPolgonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Mootzoid » 02 Jul 2009, 18:29

@Hi Letterbox

the answers to your questions are: yes, yes and yes :-)

Oliver and I are going to post a few more OGL captures of some of the demo scenes in maybe an hour or so. Nothing fancy, but it will help to easily understand and see what emPolygonizer can do.

Eric

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owei
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Re: upcoming: emPolgonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by owei » 02 Jul 2009, 19:41

hey...here are the promised little demos...

...this OGL capture shows four animated nulls used as centers for the metaballs..

[flvprev]http://www.si-community.com/download/cl ... izer_nulls[/flvprev]

...this OGL capture shows a sticky-particle scene using emPolygonizer to polygonize the particles ;)

[flvprev]http://www.si-community.com/download/cl ... hroughSnow[/flvprev]

..this OGL capture shows an other demo-scene using emPolygonizer with an ICE Point Cloud and its point colors...

[flvprev]http://www.si-community.com/download/cl ... iclesOrbit[/flvprev]

...this OGL capture shows emPolygonizer transforming ordinary polymeshes into metaballs

[flvprev]http://www.si-community.com/download/cl ... _DogBlobby[/flvprev]

hope you like it ;)

cheers,
oliver&eric

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Hirazi Blue » 02 Jul 2009, 20:03

In what stage of development is this, i.e. when will it be released? :-\
Any ideas on pricing yet (yes, I'm Dutch! ;) )
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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Mootzoid
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Mootzoid » 02 Jul 2009, 20:14

I cannot make any promises, but emPolygonizer will be released some time during the next two weeks.
About its pricing I also cannot be specific (yes, I'm half-French ;) ), but it will be less costy than similar existing plug-ins. And that's a promise!

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Hirazi Blue » 02 Jul 2009, 20:18

Mootzoid wrote: but it will be less costy than similar existing plug-ins. And that's a promise!
You're obviously not refering to the very old free metaball-solution by motionblur.it, I take it... :D
(And that's a joke - I'm half Austrian :-\ , but that obviously makes no sense in this context ;) )
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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ardworx
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by ardworx » 02 Jul 2009, 20:24

that looks intresting :D
will there be a demo version? (yes, i am half german, half swiss and half belgian =)) )
greets,
ardworx

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owei
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by owei » 02 Jul 2009, 20:38

@ardworx

....yes, there will be a demo-version...we are discussing about the restrictions right now ;)

Letterbox
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Letterbox » 02 Jul 2009, 20:43

The vid's look very good, and it looks very very good. Again I presume those are done on a laptop :)

Ok if your going for gold, how about, your going to hate me, i'm all British were used to it... :)) ... MetaEdge's and MetaPoints ?

Edit: I suppose that'd be metaclusters. :) I think I'm askin too much :)

Really a Sweet Job :)


Cheers
Terry

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Mootzoid
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Mootzoid » 02 Jul 2009, 21:33

Hi Letterbox,

the way I understand you, you are asking if it is possible to use let's say a point cluster as input for the metaballs, is that right?
Well, if that is what you mean, then the answer is "yes, through an easy workaround". You can use weight maps to define the influence a point/particle will have on the metaball, so the trick would be to simply create a weight map with 0 values everywhere except for those parts you want to use.

Was that of any help?

cheers,
Eric

Letterbox
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Letterbox » 02 Jul 2009, 21:39

Mootzoid wrote:Hi Letterbox,

the way I understand you, you are asking if it is possible to use let's say a point cluster as input for the metaballs, is that right?
Well, if that is what you mean, then the answer is "yes, through an easy workaround". You can use weight maps to define the influence a point/particle will have on the metaball, so the trick would be to simply create a weight map with 0 values everywhere except for those parts you want to use.

Was that of any help?

cheers,
Eric
Yes, that would work, now if i can get someone else to do the weightmaps i'd be happy. I hate painting them.

PS why still two weeks away...
PPS x64? next week is Vista 7 x64 week :-)

And whats "tree"??

Cheers
Terry

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Mootzoid
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Mootzoid » 02 Jul 2009, 21:50

emTree? Huh, what's that? Never heard of it before. Gee, I wonder what that could/will be :-

PS: emPolygonize is a 100% compatible with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and Win95 (beta), don't worry :-)

Deracus
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Deracus » 02 Jul 2009, 22:07

You are doing an amazing job, extending Softimage to capabilities, way larger, than what it was before...
Your fluid-solution is amazing...the particle renderer finally gives Softimage the ability to do things, that should be in there by default and now this one...yeah...amazing!!!

Keep that up :)

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Mootzoid
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Re: upcoming: emPolygonizer - metaballs for SOFTIMAGE

Post by Mootzoid » 02 Jul 2009, 22:09

@Letterbox
PS why still two weeks away...
PPS x64? next week is Vista 7 x64 week
I still have a few things to do before I can release it, ie. some documentation, one or two tutorial scenes, a few optimizations in my code...
emPolygonizer will be available for XP and Vista (32/64 bit) and for Linux (64 bit), and it is compatible with XSI Version 7.01 and XSI 7.5.

@Deracus: thanx, I will!

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