UV Imaginator Release Notes ========================== Release: Version 1.1 Final [21st July 2001] Introduction ============ The "UV Imaginator" plugin for Lightwave 6.5b is designed to allow you to generate an image directly from a VMap in Modeler and save it to disk in one of the image formats supported by Lightwave. The current implementation works with UV Texture Maps only (hence the name UV Imaginator), but may be expanded to include other map types in future. Installation ============ Ensure that modeler is not running. If you downloaded the ZIP file simply extract the uvimaginator.p file into the [Lightwave Root]\Programs\Plugins\Model. Or simply download the uvimaginator.p file into that directory. If you are upgrading then you dont need to do this next step. Then open modeler, and goto the "Modeler" -> "Plug-ins" -> "Add Plug-ins ..." menu option. Then find the uvimaginator.p file in the same directory as before. And double click on it. Then click on the "Done" button. How to use it? ============== Well the plugin is a "command sequence" class plugin for those that are interested. Currently the plugin is accesible by default from the "Construct" tab, under the "Additional" menu. It doesn't appear to want to be a button in the sidebar, but this turns out to be a restriction in the current SDK. If there are no UV Maps currently loaded with any object then the plugin will fail to startup with an appropriate error message. I would like to disable the plugin in the menu under these conditions but I cannot as this is controlled by Modeler. The first step is to choose any VMap currently available (whose type is a UV Texture Map), from the pulldown menu. It defaults to the currently selected UV Texture Map in the main modeler interface. The list of UV Maps shown contains only those that have a point in the current object that is mapped to them. You can then choose what polygon selection criteria you want. If you select a UV map that is not used by the current object based on your polygon selection you will see the error message "No polygons mapped to chosen UV Map based on selection criteria" when you try to generate the image. You have three selection options :- a)Selected Polygons, will go through either every polygon you have actively highlighted in the display (so you must be in polygon selection mode), or if none are directly highlighted it will use all visible polygons. This is probably usual behaviour everyone is used to. b)Based on Surface, allows you to choose a surface by name, and then any polygons with that surface that are visible in the current active layers (regardless of whether you have any polygons selected), that is mapped to the chosen UV Map will be drawn. Use the Surface pulldown menu to choose your surface, it will default to the modelers current default surface if that is available. c)Entire Object, will go through every polygon in every layer for the current object (even hidden polygons), and any that are mapped to the select UV Map will be drawn out. This is the catch all option. It will then work with the polygon selection based on the above options to produce an image that will be saved to disk. The image will contain all the mapped polygons drawn as outlines of their VMap polygons. If your UV Map has points that fall outside the grid you have the option to wrap the drawing (using the "Wrap drawing" option). So the lines will be drawn back onto the opposite side of the image. The default representation for the drawing is white outlines on a black surface, with optional red points placed for each vertices on a polygon (using the "Mark vertices" option). Any vertices marked on the image will not be drawn over by following outlines being drawn, so you should always be able to find your vertices. You can change the colours to what ever you like using the three colour pickers, one each for the background, foreground and vertices colour. The plugin also ensure that you do not select any two colours with the same value, to prevent you loosing detail in your image. You can select the size of the resulting image by altering the resolution value which is the height/width of the image. All calculation of the VMap are done using floating point values and truncated to integers at the last possible moment to increase accuracy. It is advisable to use a large resolution for obvious reasons. The resolution must be in the range of 1 to 8192. This is so the image has some definition at the small end, and because anything larger than 8192 starts becoming unmanagable (start having to worry about the amount of memory) and you will be waiting a long time. You can choose both the type and name of the image file to be created. The default location for the file to be saved if you dont choose a directory using the "Save as" button, is in the Modelers current image directory. Any of the lightwave image types are supported. I am not sure as to the state of plugin image savers, whether they will appear or not (as I dont have any I cant test this, feedback on this would be useful). You then simply click on the "Generate" button to create your image. As pointed out earlier, if you have selected a UV Texture that does not contain any information for the chosen polygon selection an error will be displayed. Once finished a popup will be displayed to let you know it has finsihed. You can then change any setting and make another image. The options are now becoming quite flexible and verging on complicated. Once you have finished generating images simply click the "Done" to close the plugin window. It will remember the your settings (except for the UV Map and Surface as these are based on the current default) you used in your current session, but it wont remember them between sessions. Reporting Problems ================== If you have a problem installing the Plugin or while using it. Please send an email to ascerriuk@yahoo.co.uk . As well as your description of the problem, please include the following information :- Lightwave Version Plugin Version Operating System CPU Memory Releases ======== Current Release : Version 1.1 Final [21st July 2001] This release has many little tweaks to improve usability :- Features: The plugin window now has the "Done" button to close the window. Small speed improvement of something in the region of up to 15% depending on the UV map being drawn. Also it will remember the last settings you used in your current session. It wont remember them between sessions. The UV Map and Surface names will default to the current modeler selection. Now added enforced min and max for resolution. This was fixed in the sliders behaviour but you could still manualy add values outside the range. MIX = 1 MAX=8192 UV Map list is now filtered to show only those maps that have a point in the current object mapped to them, same goes for the surface list. If your UV Map has points that fall outside the grid you have the option to wrap the drawing. So the lines will be drawn back onto the opposite side of the image. Fixes: You can now save as default name without clicking on "Save as" and choosing a filename, if you didnt have an images directory in your content folder Vertices marking cleaned up, in some cases the lines being drawn didnt quite end on the right pixel. This should now be more accurate. You may notice that the lines are drawn slightly different in places, but they should still mark out the lines accurate to youe UV. If you preferred the old way let me know. Known Problems: There was a mysterious crash happening, which appeared to be random. Some changes have been made and the crash has not happened since. Next Intended Release : Version 1.2 Beta 1 These are features that are planned for future releases, some depend on the kind of feedback I get from users. Most will probably not get put in the next release, but are order of need:- Features: Added support for weight and morph maps (if feasible/possible/wanted). Possible improvement to allow selection of any object available (depending on feedback from users) Changing of default name for UV image to that of the UV maps name (depending on feedback from users) Place the generated image as the backdrop for the UV Map Known Problems: Wait and see Previous Release : Version 1.1 Beta 1 [4th July 2001] This release has the options for choosing which polygons you want drawn in the image from your chosen UV map. It was intended to be an alpha release but more testing has been done so it looks quite stable :- Features: Three options are now available for the polygons you want drawn see above for more details. The exact behaviour of these options may change slightly depending on feedback as they can be adjusted. A "Generate" button has now been added which you use to generate your image. So you can now make more than one if you want. We are still left with the OK / Cancel buttons which dont play any role what so ever, aiming to replace with a Done button if possible. Fixes: Vertices will not get obscured by other polygon edges being drawn over them. Some clean up of memory leaks Known Problems: Currently no known problems. Previous Release : Version 1.0 Final [3rd July 2001] This release is mainly to address the filename selection process and a minor planned fix :- Features: Slight speed improvements, mainly with background colour selection (if you leave it as black it is 60% faster otherwise it has to raster fill the entire background which is slow using the current SDK implementation). Added check to make sure none of the colour selections are the same (with appropriate behaviour depending on the Mark Vertices option). Filename box no longer editable, you must use the "Save As" button, and associated file requestor. If you change the image type as well as the file extension being changed as before it also checks if the file exists and gives you a warning. If you cancel it will revert the image type selector to the previous value. If you choose a filename through the file requestor with an extension (of three characters) different from the current image type this is not corrected and is your own responsibility. If you dont enter an extension, or give it one with more than three characters, the selected image type extension is appended. The "Save as" window now has the image type displayed in the title of the window, so you can see what type you are saving as (I cannot make the file type selection menu have this value as the SDK does not allow this). Fixes: Vertices will not get obscured by other polygon edges being drawn over them. Some clean up of memory leaks Known Problems: Currently no known problems. Previous Release : Version 1.0 Alpha 2 [1st July 2001] This release is a quick patch to correct a known bug and add some simple functions :- Features: Slight modification of GUI, moved image type down a bit. You can now select background, foreground and vertices colours. Also modified the drawing routines used for plotting the lines. Because everything is done as floating point numbers from 0 to 1, there was an error in precision when generating high res images. Fixes: File name when clicking on the "Save as" button is the same as in the filename box. Known Problems: Currently no known problems. Previous Release : Version 1.0 Alpha 1 [30th June 2001] This is the first release and handles the following functionality :- Features: Select of UV Texture Map only Selectable image size Selectable image format Generated image supports marking of vertices as well Known Problems: If you edit the filename manualy or change image type, then click on "Choose file" it will display the old filename. The solution is to choose your filename first and then select the image type. Although memory/resource leaks are bound to occur and need catching and tidying up Copyright © 2001 Antony Scerri