New features?

General questions about Indigo, the scene format, rendering etc...
neo0.
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Re: New features?

Post by neo0. » Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:01 am

Hehe, never knew about the educational license for indigo! Have to look into this. :)
well, no need to imagine that. painted textures can be saved as masks and used for blending materials, at leat in the C4D exporter I work with...
Still, i think the workflow would be much better (not to mention easier :) ) if the user could do this and get results almost in real time. Cant get ve much better than WYSIWYG. :) With saving them as masks, if you see something you don't like, you have to go back to your exporter. Imho, this is just much more intuitivr

Ok, thats all ill say about that. :D

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Re: New features?

Post by fenerolina » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:48 pm

First plugin is from whaat called sketchupUv but also check thomthom UVtoolkit.
http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/conte ... lkit%C2%B2.
Try to spent some time learning this plugins and also roadkill, a standalone application for uv mapping and you will have no limits. Don't be lazy! But if you need to uv map a lot sketchup is not the best choice.

neo0.
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Re: New features?

Post by neo0. » Tue Jan 28, 2014 8:58 am

Its worth mentioning that what im pitching here is quite different from uv mapping. In fact, it would be really hard if not impossible to accomplish the same thing with uv maps. This is much more user friendly. There would be zero learning curve. :wink:

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dakiru
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Re: New features?

Post by dakiru » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:21 am

neo0. wrote:There would be zero learning curve. :wink:
I would say, that zero learning curve is something, that is possible in theory only. Once the practice part reached, zero learning curve is out of the game. And the reason is that quality of output (measured in different values for different applications) is far more important. As for the quality of output - Indigo is outstanding and I would prefer reading tech. reference, etc., for the quality remaining the same.

Here is how my workflow mostly looks like:
- prepare scene in XSI
- export to Blender
- adjust and set
- render in Indigo
Because result is worth it.

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Polinalkrimizei
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Re: New features?

Post by Polinalkrimizei » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:59 am

Hey ne0., as said before: When you are on a budget, but you need solid UV Tools and texture painting ability, go learn Blender. It is free, and has a very active and helpful community. Yes, it does have a learning curve, but that only means you'll learn a lot. Some things are really worth the effort, especially when I see you tinkering this forums for years and years and still struggling with UV mapping (and yes, sometimes we all struggle with it). Like any artist, try to master your art.

I don't see your request about texture painting to ever happen in Indigo, because it is a renderer. The workflow of most, if not 99% of its users is setting up a scene in their favorite app (that they are used to), and then sending it to Indigo. Of course nowadays you can change a texture and change the scale here and there within Indigo gui.

But seriously, texture painting is just another difficult art to master. Are you able to paint really convincing textures in 2D using photoshop (gimp)? Perhaps you should start there...
It is useful to add some dirt and variations directly to the textured model though.

Apart from that, it's always nice to hear some requests to make Indigo even better!

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Headroom
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Re: New features?

Post by Headroom » Thu Jan 30, 2014 10:34 am

neo0. wrote:Its worth mentioning that what im pitching here is quite different from uv mapping. In fact, it would be really hard if not impossible to accomplish the same thing with uv maps. This is much more user friendly. There would be zero learning curve. :wink:
You need to get your hands on a tool that is really good at UV mapping and texture painting before making statements on what is possible with UV mapping ;-)

And, yes, Blender is renown for its UV mapping abilities. MoDo is very good as well, but unfortunately there is no Indigo exporter for MoDo.


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neo0.
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Re: New features?

Post by neo0. » Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:21 pm

Of course nowadays you can change a texture and change the scale here and there within Indigo gui.
Indigo offers quite a few options where textures are concerned. It even gives you the ability to adjust uv maps. This is very similar, just a more artist friendly way of doing it, since you could also have things like falloff and opacity. :)

The thing with indigo is that you can have very complex materials. This is would also give you the benefit of being able to see the results in your renderer without having to back and forth between indigo and your modelling app. ;)

UV mapping is all great but the things that im thinking this could be used to accomplish with would take much longer with uv mapping. There is alot to be said for making the artists tools easier to use. :wink:
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Oscar J
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Re: New features?

Post by Oscar J » Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:45 pm

You cloud use a black and white blend map, and use that to blend two different materials on an object.

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PureSpider
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Re: New features?

Post by PureSpider » Mon Feb 03, 2014 12:23 am

You could also just accept there actually ARE artists that know how to use indigo and can very well distinguish between their "artists tools" of choice and indigo as their RENDERING tool.
Your problem might not be that indigo is not "artist friendly" enough? :roll:

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Re: New features?

Post by StompinTom » Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:24 am

Quite an exciting speed increase announced on the blog. Can't wait to give it a spin! These kinds of optimizations = black magic as far as I'm concerned :)

neo0.
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Re: New features?

Post by neo0. » Mon Feb 03, 2014 10:34 am

PureSpider wrote:You could also just accept there actually ARE artists that know how to use indigo and can very well distinguish between their "artists tools" of choice and indigo as their RENDERING tool.
Your problem might not be that indigo is not "artist friendly" enough? :roll:
IMHO, indigo became much more than just a simple rendering engine back when the we got the new UI. Since then, we've seen some very beneficial new stuff. I love the open gl preview and the ability to rotate the camera, which saves us the trouble of having to go back to our modelling app. I mean, indigo has a complete set of tools for editing materials which is prob one of my fav parts. :) I remember in the early days of indigo if i didnt like a material, i would have to go back to su and change it then re render. All i am asking is that these tools be expanded a bit. I mean, perhaps it is a bit of departure from what is normal in a renderer but that is what will attract new people. Sure, there are some other ways to accomplish this as noted below, but being able to see the results in real time as you work will be much more natural and a more efficient workflow (or "artist friendly" :) )

This would really help to attract new users. Its a pity most people don't know about the quality because its phenomenal. :D

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Re: New features?

Post by Zom-B » Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:43 am

neo0. wrote:IMHO, indigo became much more than just a simple rendering engine back when the we got the new UI.
If you know how to work with your 3D app and the exporter, you'll barley need the GUI. Once RealTime rendering is inside a 3D app (like in the new Max exporter) it will become obsolete to your workflow...

The point is basically that my Source File is the file of my 3D app! Tweaking and testing out of my 3D app is directly applied to my source file and therefor achieved progress! All the playing around in the GUI needs to be transfered back to my source file I work with. Since tweaking bump values or exponent map settings etc. can be really fast in the GUI, and results transfered quickly back to the source file thats nice!

The Problem starts with extended stuff you are requesting all the time!

Editing UV settings painting textures etc. is hard to transfer back to the source file, even impossible in some cases! Why should I do that?
If my client has some changes where I need to edit my source file, all the work in the GUI and saving to IGS is lost!!!

If I work on days on a scene for a client, I need ALL my progress to be in my source file, since changes are often wanted. Indigo is the renderer and the Exporter the important tool to set it up.
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PureSpider
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Re: New features?

Post by PureSpider » Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:54 am

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Stinkie
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Re: New features?

Post by Stinkie » Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:48 am

:lol:

neo0.
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Re: New features?

Post by neo0. » Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:57 am

That is a valid point but it seems like there have been very few major updates since we got tge new gui awhile ago. Look at blender. Cool new, exciting featuredls every week. Yes, i realize that blender is maintainee by a team of prob hundreds so i dont expect a dozen new features every week but still something would be nice. When i first came across indigo a few years back it seems like there was a much bigger community.

Its not like i am asking for uv editing. THAT obviously belong in a modelling app. But i think it would be very cool if we could hand paing details into things. Would be much easier and save you the time of going back and forth between indigo and your modelling app. Yes i completely understand that this is supported in other apps but having it in a free app would be fantastic for those of us who are limited when it comes to money :) it would also help to unify the experience for all indigo users. I feel like the experience with differeny exporters that can do things others cant is kind of fragmented .

Technically this could be considered a material editing tool. ;) couldnt the igs files be expanded to save state changes? Kind of like psd files. I might be misunderstanding you but i think this would solve things :)

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