UVMapper

[johnkell]

Hi

Does anyone know if UVmapper works with the toolkit version of Animator 2.9.3?

I can use Transporter to convert my FACT models into OBJ's.
Open them in UVmapper. Save out the amended OBJ and texture (which is then painted in photoshop).

But when I bring the model back into Animator, it insists on re-saving it as a FACT, so when I bring the texture map into the materials palette -as per the UVmapper manual- ANimator seems to just ignore the UV info.

Am I doing something wrong, or does Animator just not recognise the UV info in the OBJ.

Best

[Mitch]

I believe the only way to preserve the UV data when converting to fact is throught the Object2Fact plugin available from

http://tripledtools.com/

Note that it is only available for Mac OS9 at this point (not OSX or PC)

[johnkell]

Thanks very much.

I've just checked the web site you mention and Obj2Fact is $129.

Before buying can anyone (or Alex) confirm that it will actually work with the toolkit version of Animator?

THe reason I ask is that in response to a previous query regarding another plug-in "Image2Mesh" the answer was that no plug-ins will work with the DV Garage Toolkit Animator.

Any thoughts

John

[Brendon Rich]

While I have no experiences with the obj2fact (I'm on PC), I have found that if you import a .3DS model into Amorphium and export it to fact (with export texture option), the UV information is retained. Of course your object will be trippled. I have no idea if obj2fact will retain quads or not (if you desire that even). It just seems its better to pay $119 and get another modeling app, than $129 for a conversion utillity. That's meaning no offense to the creators of the plugin :)

A demo of amorphium is available so you can test if it does what you need.

[johnkell]

Thanks for that.

Good tip.

Is Amorphium really good?
It's not something that I've had any experience of.

Unless I hear otherwise I'll assume that the Toolkit animator doesn't seem to have these functions.

Anyway, thanks for your comments

Best

John

[Brendon Rich]

It seems to be good for organic forms. The pumpkin tutorial used amorphium, and also it was used to break up the edges on the wooden crate.

Now, tonight I played around with uv's in the toolkit a bit more and discovered you CAN bring objects with UV's in via the standard import options. Both 3ds and obj work, though with a couple of issues. The trick is to tick the "skip file validation" option on the import dialog. Now it should be said that I do not know what skipping the validation will do in the long run. It may cause issues that I havent seen, so be aware of that (hehe, that's my disclaimer). Anyway, once its converted into fact you will see that the "use uv space" option is available in the group info, shading tab, window.

3DS works fine. OBJ does retain quads, but for some reason the UV info flips. For example where I have mapped the leftside of a fish, it actually is the right side. I havent worked out why or what is going on exactly.

Hope that helps. This is in the original PC toolkit btw.


I'll post this in a new thread so that those not reading this thread will see it.

[johnkell]

Wow

You star.

I can't wait to get home and try this. Will let you know.
If it works on the Mac version I owe you a drink.

Best

John

[johnkell]

Brendon, I owe you a beer.

Good news and bad.

I've just tried what you said earlier, and it works perfectly on the OSX version of the Toolkit Animator, but NOT on the OS9 version. Must be because the OS9 version is an earlier version of ElectricImage I suppose.

Unfortunately I'll have to wait until the OSX/Electrimage performance issue is sorted out before I can use it with any regularity.

Currently on my G4 400 with 1GB of RAM, the OSX versions of Animator and Modeller are approximately one-fifth and more (I've timed the same actions) the speed of the OS9 version. There are other threads on this board that suggest it may be something to do with the ATI Rage card in the machine, but I can't deal with that speed loss in a working environment.

Best

John

[Brendon Rich]

Are you able to load a FACT file created in the OSX version into the OS9 version?

I'm glad it partially worked at least.