Hey storm3, good to hear you back. I hope the pain doesn't amuse you much.
Sounds like you know alot more than I do.
As what I know, apps can't decide when to fire the garbage collector, it is controlled by the dot net system. Also in my multi threading codes, no new objects are created since new object creation is not suitable in multi threading operation, so there is no garbage to collect anyway.
I have never used openGL and I don't have time to look into this option right now.
There are still rooms to improve the rendering performance because at the moment I don't create buffers for models in graphic card, so each frame I tranfer the model data from system to graphic card for rendering. This way I have less codes to tackle, but surely the cost is lower performance.
There is also mesh building performance issue which seems I should put more attention to now.
Base mesh modeling apps is different from paint apps. It requires more controll on subobjects, that means more complicated data structure, more memory consumption and more system side computations.
I am using MDX, may move to SLimDX at some stage. Familiar with these?
I don't know which new features you can include in the tuts. But I think the most important thing right now is to complete the model so people can be convinced.
Awesome storm3, glad to hear you're back and feeling better.
It sounds like you and Kun can come up with something together to beat the viewport performance into submission.
good luck fellas
*edit* Ah sorry about that Istonia. I did mean NOT-BackfaceInGrey; I should've been a bit more precise with my feedback
storm3 - good u are better
IStonia - about 'material window' reset helps bring it back. It is just that clicking :
view->window-> material is not working, but it is small thing, now worries.
About performance - I refer to draw performance, but making 80k polys mesh into shaded view helps. Especially useful with disabling -> show edges on unselected object.
I hit drawing/nawigation lags before mesh modeling performance problems.
btw:
In vw help about retopo I read about option 'Forward rendering' - but where is it? Thanks IStonia for great app.
Jose: In Edge mode, open the Retopo tool and you will see the 'Forward rendering' option check box on top of the tool's panel.
Edit: Did you use the sep-21 update. If yes, Check Rendering > Cull None and uncheck Rendering > Back Face In Gray, you should have good performance even with the edges on. Please confirm this.
Thanks for all the kind words as usual.. K, umm IStonia: If you use a library such as: Dark.GDK this will handle tons of 3D Modeling things, such as creating new faces, matrix math, and there are plugins for Rotation -> oh, and did I mention it supports vertex & pixel shaders... it has tons of other options for making complete games, but it is integrated really well with Visual Studio 2008, to the point Micro$haft included it with the express edition downloads.. oh btw did I mention it is free??? and works especially good with C#... has special routines for memory access even directly using matrices.. and I have a License for the Dark GDK.Net Version which is the commercial version.. I'm sure if it can handle throwing thousands and thousands of polys around in realtime in a game, meaning characters and world data, that it should fit nicely in a model editor app. or if you want to go hi-tek for low or no money - Unreal Engine 3 is FREE even for things you sell, until you make the first $50,000.00. The good thing about UE3 is you can specify what renderer to use or let the user select it on app startup, and it is just a matter of selecting either to use the openGL Renderer or DX one or even software last ditch effort...
But!!! I had another thought, you must be using an older version of Visual Studio correct??? Because of the needed older Dot Net Libs to run VW... I fear this may be what is hindering the performance, have you thought about migrating it to 2008 / 2010 even??? I know Micro$haft has made great strides in multi-threads, better garbage collection, better speed, etc... Who, knows maybe what your experiencing slowdown wise may be a side affect of either bugs in the older Dot Net Libs and / or even memory handling issues or function problems of the DX Libs your using..
PS. Yes you can control Garbage Collection, by forcing it to collect it manually, it will momentarily give you a slow second while it fires, but it may be worth a try to when say for instance during a user saving the file, at the same time, writing the poly data out to page, doing a manual garbage collection and then popping the poly data verts etc.. into a fresh set of variables... BTW: to store your data are you using arrays or a linked list format, I only ask because Arrays are definitely faster, I know it may mean more memory consumption up front, but the speed increase would be huge.. Say, you create a huge array, like super huge a poly with like a million faces... and if a user uses less memory than is needed no harm done, because you will have increased your speed of data access 2 fold.. compared to linked list having to create new nodes, allocate the memory, create the new head and tail pointers.. Game Dev magazine did an article about how to squeeze the most speed you can out of your game by using arrays only.. especially if memory isn't an issue.. which on todays systems, it certainly isn't an issue. It's not uncommon for systems to have 4 Gigs of ram now, and tons of space for registers and cache on the cpu itself..
About the libs I mentioned above.. I change my mind, why not use either nVidia developer libs or ATI libs, include both in the app, and then when the app installs, it picks the right one writing it to an ini file or registry depending on which card the user has, if you did it this way you would have the most fast rendering you could achieve on each system, there is nothing better than using nVidia apex libs on a system / game / app that is meant to run on nVidia hardware! I'm not familiar with ATI, but I'm sure they have similar libs I think something about rage... The reason I mention this is: if you use the nVidia libs, it also adapts to openGL / DX depending on card numbers, memory, etc.. I believe this is What 3DCoat uses is the nVidia libs, hence the Cuda and non-Cuda enabled versions. Which is how he handles the shaders..
Goto nVidia.com and goto the developer website, sign up for beta testing and read about the libs, and grab the latest version... I'm sure some of these last 3 things will help alleviate the slowdown.. but I'm convinced that if your using a more recent version of Visual Studio and C#, and more up to date Dot Net Libs, this will help! Although realize that there is a speed limit on C# because it is not a truely compiled language, but they have made great leaps and bounds in the latest versions, with each version, your compiled app only gets tighter and faster..
These are just some things to consider, I surely don't think making a backup copy of the code in another project directory somewhere to do a test migration to a newer Visual Studio.. Although if you or we try everything we can to speed it up, and still have issues, then possibly consider conversion to Visual C++ to create real mode app, and have better memory control etc.. This of course would be the last thing to consider..
phew, that was a long responce.. hit me back IStonia, on what you think about some of these options..
but, thanks for even caring about your users enough to bang your head on the memory wall trying to get that speed up on huge poly models.. possibly an upgrade to DX10??? alas another last option only...
Just remember I'm here to help, if you do something drastic like converting to Visual C++, I can help with the function conversion, re-translation... they are similar languages but definite differences..
If you want to talk like in a chat or something let me know, and I'll re-install Pidgin and my MS instant messenger protocol.. or maybe just meet you in a chatroom or something..
I don't know any of the libs you mentioned. I don't think any of those libs will be usefull for modeling apps, because the basic data structure varies from one app to another and there is no standard. The basic data structure decides what the app can do, what it can't do and what flexibility it has. I heard that Blender is doing BMesh, I guess that is the basic data structrue related issue.
I am using VS 2008. I use arrays, not link list.
Ok, I find this, GC.Collect(). I also learnt that it is an very expensive operation. So it is better to let Garbage Optimizing Engine to do it and avoid to do it in the app code. There could be cases where it is usefull though. Thanks for this tip!
My mind is full of implementation stuff right now, so there is no time to chat. May be another time.
CUDA™ is NVIDIA's parallel computing architecture. It enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the GPU.
With millions of CUDA-enabled GPUs sold to date, software developers, scientists and researchers are finding broad-ranging uses for CUDA, including image and video processing, computational biology and chemistry, fluid dynamics simulation, CT image reconstruction, seismic analysis, ray tracing, and much more.
Computing is evolving from "central processing" on the CPU to "co-processing" on the CPU and GPU. To enable this new computing paradigm, NVIDIA invented the CUDA parallel computing architecture that is now shipping in Tesla™, Quadro® and GeForce® GPUs, representing a significant installed base for application developers.
CUDA has been enthusiastically received in the area of scientific research. For example, CUDA accelerates AMBER, a molecular dynamics simulation program used by more than 60,000 researchers in academia and pharmaceutical companies worldwide to accelerate new drug discovery. In the financial market, Numerix and CompatibL announced CUDA support for a counterparty risk application and achieved an 18X speedup.
An indicator of CUDA adoption is the ramp of the Tesla GPU for GPU computing. There are now more than 700 GPU clusters installed around the world at Fortune 500 companies ranging from Schlumberger and Chevron in the energy sector to BNP Paribas in banking.
Microsoft’s DirectCompute API for GPU Computing is supported on NVIDIA’s DX10 and DX11 class GPUs under both Windows VISTA and Windows 7. Simply install the latest drivers from www.nvidia.com/drivers and applications that rely on DirectCompute will immediately have access to the massive parallel computing power of NVIDIA GPUs to create compelling experiences in consumer and professional applications.
As a processor company, NVIDIA enthusiastically supports languages and API’s that enable developers to ((( access the parallel processing power of the GPU.))) In addition to DirectCompute and NVIDIA’s CUDA C/C++, there are solutions for ((( C# ))), Fortran, Java, OpenCL™, Python and other languages.
NVIDIA Parallel Nsight:
NVIDIA Parallel Nsight brings GPU Computing into Microsoft Visual Studio. Debug, profile and analyze GPGPU or graphics applications using CUDA C, OpenCL, DirectCompute, Direct3D, and OpenGL.
or if you still want to stay with DirectX 9c etc... then here is the link to the older version of
the NVIDIA Graphics SDK 9.52, The current version is for DX11.. But... here is the link.
OK, phew, I hope this helps, if you get some time you need to register to the developer center, it's free, and download the latest libs for cuda, directcompute, Parallel Nsight, as these 3 ways are how nvidia is making it easier to to parallel gpu programming even combine it with cpu and use both to share the load, and greatly increase computation speed, and rendering speeds etc... I hope this helps..
OK, sorry to weigh you down with all this, I didn't know you were coding right now.. You must hammer down on typing like me.. The ONLY way 2 Code is @ 120+ WPM.. Ummm, I know the answer is in here somewhere for ya, depending on how you want to go with it.. That's it, since your bizzy Coding, I'll let you digest on some of this info, and let me know when / if you want to talk some more about this stuff. BTW: You know you can load and use C/C++ libs under C# right?...
Ciao' Mano',
StOrM3
PS. CUDA is what Andrew from 3DCoat is using to speed up his million+ poly models when sculpting or importing or converting voxels to useable triangle type meshes.. and yes I know all about file types, you misunderstand what I mean about those libs I told you about last time, they are merely the libs you use to make any kind of application you want, including a modeling application, or a level creation application, or a game, it merely packages useful functions in a convenient way to make the coding easier... You can still keep your file formats, that's not an issue, think of it like: yer building a house, you need it to be a house, it doesn't matter if you use junk, or wood, or brick, or styrofoam to make the house, meaning you can still make a house, which is the target application, the tools / materials shouldn't matter, how it was built, same thing with you creating VW using say for instance Dark GDK.Net, it contains already all the functions to make a modeling application, and alot of other types of apps as well as games, it all depends on you, as to what you create with it... but the functions are there.. But ignore that, I was just trying to let you know that all of the libs I listed it didn't matter what your internal data structure was, they can still work with it, all you do is make Classes / Structures which you already have, and add member functions for format conversion / copying / moving etc.. whatever needs to be done with your Classes to pipe that data into their classes and send the objects messages to their functions etc.. OK, sorry there I go again getting technical, the other users don't need to read the technical mumbo jumbo.. I don't want to bore them.. SORRY...
storm3: I do know how to use c/c++ libs. But I would use the c# one if it's available.
Can you compare CUDA with this one and let me know your thinking. I haven't got time to study it meself. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/Accelerator/
I checked into it, and from what I can tell, it can be used to parallelize programs on both CPU & GPU, but!!!! I think that Cuda has the added benefits of rendering speed increase, and intense 3D calculations such as moving verts / meshes / etc.. around rotation quickly... and Cuda is like, taylor'd to 3D Graphics apps, whereas Accelerator 2.0 is more general purpose, so that anykind of app can experience speedups, although I fear that Accelerator would NOT increase rendering speed & 3D intensive computations, because it like splits the functions up, and chooses one of the systems CPU's to handle the function, well this kind of thinking and checking can lead to a slowdown on the rendering, I mean it probably is very good at doing lots of things, and could be really really close speedwise, I'm going to do some more research for you to ensure my take on it, is indeed correct.. but from how I understood it, on what it does, and how it does it, that's my take so far.. Let me hit a few people up, who have used it for a 3D Application, and I'll let you know something by tonight..
storm3: I think I have to forget Accelerator, because it dosen't work in XP. I tried to run the sample code on my win7 but no luck, "specified module not found".
Since retopo is now enabled, are you looking for feedback on this aspect of the software?
I have to say, I miss all the tools in retopo mode. If anything, I'd like retopo to just work with the same tools as regular modeling. I realise shift and ctrl enable different behaviour in this mode, but it feels entirely too disconnectecd from the main program. Once the user has gotten used to a being extrude, wouldn't that make sense here as well?
Again, if you're not at that point yet, disregard
I'm very glad to hear you're working on performance, looking forward to the results of that!
I think you can enable the particular streamline tool (extrude) to work with retopo with ticking "can be activated when visual tool is on", in the options of customize streamline tools.
Oops sorry, it's a no go for poly operation.
Yeah, the Retopo toll is so sepcial that streamline tools don't have the ability to replace it.
In Retopo tool, once extrusion is activated, it has the following behaviours.
* Tap A to confirm the current extrusion, then drag to create a new extrusion without having to exit the extrusion mode. This way, user can create polygons in the fly.
* Press A and hold, drag to extrude a series of polygons. Release A will back to normal extrusion, still in extrusion mode.
* Press down Alt and drag to rotate the extrusion.
* Press down Ctrl+Alt and drag to scale the extrusion.
Thanks for that bit of info on the re-topo -> extrude stuff, I will definitely have to try and work this into the tuts.. Which I will once again finish the Head tuts tomorrow, finish the uploads for them, and the body will be a snap, that's the easy part of the model... Most likely will use alot of retopo and extrusion tools to accomplish parts of the body, along with tweaking and soft selection, and showing again how to sew together the various parts..
Ciao' Let me know if ya want me to look into any other things for you IStonia..
StOrM3
PS. IStonia, when you get the module not found error, you need to setup your lib & includes to point to the location of the accelerator libs and include files.. or you could always add those paths to your general path statement, or better yet, when you install accelerator just install it to a dir already checked for libs and includes, this is how I set mine up most times, where I'll make a main project folder, and then a source dir, and an include & libs folders respectively inside it, then you can adjust your project default properties for x86 & x64 and set the include & lib options to point to those dirs you created after you ensure to install all your different library packages etc.. to these folders, and hence forward, just install to these folders time and again, this way no matter what library you have installed or are testing, VC# will be able to find those references..
I had an issue once where the default project kept setting the environment up for Itanium development, so I made a new profile named it something like Generic x86 32bit and a 64bit one, and made those profiles the new default selections when creating a new project..
I just wanted to say vw 23 sept seem more stable, crash less.
Also 'q' key should 'drop' current visual tool' right? I noticed it often do ont work, but it is bit random - can't reproduce every time.
Thanks
To have some specialised behaviour makes sense to me, but.. hold a to rotate? Why not use the tweak rotate key the user will know? And a few basic tools like extrusion could certainly work the same way and use the same shortcut, for the sake of coherence?
There just seems to be a lapse in the internal logic of VW once you enter this mode.
Also, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater! You say the regular streamline tools aren't specialised enough for he retopo mode, but what made you turn off the smarttips box? It could still pop up, to help users discover the functionality.
In addition to that, my favourite part of VW's design is the Streamline Tools, and I would miss the nmb, lmb, rmb and mmb functionality. as well as the popup that tells a user what they are mapped to.
That seems a core part of VW, and I thik overly modal behaviour should be minimised, keeping some form of coherent behaviour between different modes.
On 1st test I got a crash but for some reason it didn't save the text to the clipboard when I hit ctrl + c. There were around 49152 faces in the scene. I just realised it might be because I forgot to turn on Cull Backfacing.
So I test again now with Cull Backfacing switched on and can no longer reproduce the crash.
Home computer with i7-2600 (8CPU)
average fps Number of Processors = 2
196608 Faces = 12.92 fps
Number of Processors = 3
196608 Faces = 13.3 fps
Number of Processors = 4
196608 Faces = 13.3 fps (only noticeable freezing occurs when zoomed in close to the model & switching between view rotate/pan/zoom)
Number of Processors = 5
196608 Faces = 6.8 fps (with noticable viewport freezing every few seconds)
Number of Processors = 6
196608 Faces = 6 fps (highest fps & viewport freezing worse)
It might just be my imagination but subdividing the mesh seems quite a bit faster now, especially on higher subd levels.
While we're on the subject of subd levels I think it would be a bit better if we could step up and down subdivision levels with hotkeys instead of the current method of hotkeys for each level. I'd put it on Keypad + and - like XSI for the time being. Also to give us a cap for max subdivisions would prevent from accidentally going too high (from Silo)
Sorry for double post but I wanted to keep this request separate from the Viewport testing.
I have refrained from giving any feedback on the retopology because I felt it was too big a task currently, but since it's now being discussed I'll offer my opinion.
Totally in agreement with Mightypea on this. I would prefer retopo to be a Global Function in Voidworld.
Similar to the likes of Soft selection or Symmetry. Switch it on and give us options to select exactly which objects to use as the 'Reference' (new geometry to be snapped to)
This way we can use ALL the tools (Visual or Streamline) at our disposal and they will automatically work with retopology function. So we use tweak and the geometry will snap to the Ref mesh. Same with the cut tool, or extrude etc etc.
This would be so much more intuitive and logical to the user, while also opening it up for new streamline tools to aid in the Retopo process. e.g. 3DCoat's genius strokes tool in the Retopo room.
It just doesn't make sense to me to put Retopology on it's own isolated tool.
Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg and is all for the future as you're pretty bogged down in optimization right now. Maybe we can all tackle this collectively at a later date.
I do think some tools could be specific to retopology, so a mode makes sense. The slices, for instance. Which would make sense being mapped to whichever key cut is mapped to, as it can also drag out slices in a similar way.
Yeah, this is what I mean by 'Global Function'. Take Retopo out of Visual Tools (edge mode??) and place it in options; similar to Soft selection or Symmetry. Then put all the specific functions pertaining to Retopo in it's own sub-menu. I think it should also have it's own panel in the UI also (like soft selection) Reference Mesh selection would make more sense being placed here.
Functions I can think of:
projection type (screen/normal based)
Mesh List (of each reference mesh to snap to)
Ref mesh rendering mode (xray or solid)
new geo rendering mode (xray or solid)
Can't think of any more atm.
Then any other tool within Voidworld should work upon these parameters. e.g. cut, slice, extrude, chamfer, slide, tweak, create polygon, etc.
Summary of changes:
* Bug in Q tool's droping-tool funtion is fixed.
* Snap-to-Face/Snap-to-PolygonCenter/Snap-to-Mesh/Snap-to-Object no longer work on transpanere or mesh-wired object. This is to provide convenience to snap to object behind.
* Bug in manipulator pivot constraint in maual mode is fixed.
Thanks!
I am currently struggling in performance issues. The Retopo tools have to be put aside for the moment.
passerby: I couldn't create new thread nor reply in the forum. There is an error in a php page.
I have been trying to get the next tutorial done, but I have been having some problems with the latest version of VW... 2.4 Beta 9-27-2011 Version...
#1.) Cut Tool is NOT Working Properly ??!!?? It Was working OK, until I used the Loop Select / Slide Edges Streamline tool Hotkey G, Then I was trying to figure out how to best insert a new Poly loop, so I tried Loop Insert, Problems w/ polygon loop inserted having new edges where there shouldn't be any, so then I tried Hotkey S - streamline tool Loop Cut / slide edges, seemed to work, after many different trials and errors, undo & redo's, then I tried a simple cut under the edge visual menu to cut in the creases for the nose, going from verts to edge, and it just wouldn't do it, so I was messing with it, holding the shift key, trying to select the edge while the vert was already selected, etc.. no go, but it would suddenly select the vert, and start a cut, but only let me move the cut destination somewhere inside the poly the vert was in.. Very wierd... Then as I was doing cuts earlier, I noticed if you right click to finish previous cut, and stop it from making another cut that is unwanted, it would still leave the new ugly not needed cut, and I would have to do an undo every time..
Then finally, I got an ugly crash, and as you told me before during the last tutorial, to capture the data in the window that popped up, so I did it this time...
Description:
Stopped working
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: voidworld 2.4.exe
Problem Signature 02: 2.3.4287.28944
Problem Signature 03: 4e813d50
Problem Signature 04: WorkShop
Problem Signature 05: 2.3.4287.28938
Problem Signature 06: 4e813d45
Problem Signature 07: 2583
Problem Signature 08: a5
Problem Signature 09: System.NullReferenceException
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline: \Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt
I hope this helps out some... Unfortunately I missed recording the things leading up to the crash as I was just warming up, and trying new ways to do things, for the tutorial, such as inserting loops, etc.. and did not have it recording.. I will try to reproduce the problems, while recording, hopefully I won't be able to, and it was just a fluke.. but if it happens again, I will upload the error video to my youtube account for you to see..
Thanks again for all of your work... I do appreciate it, Silo had some similar issues with creating poly's and right clicking to finish the poly and allow you to move to a new area and go on creating a new poly there, or another right click to exit poly creation mode all together.. We need to look into making the hotkeys a little closer to silo for that hotkey style set that is.. Example: using numbers 0-9 for the views and using the other keys for vert mode etc..
K, I'm going to work on adding some of the other hotkeys from silo for things like append poly, slide, etc.. loop select, loop cut, etc.. Maybe this will help alot of people..
Hit me back if you have another version to try out, until then, I'm working on the tutorial and will let you know if the error happens again, and tell you where the video is..
Summary of changes:
* Bug in symmetry polygon highlight rendering, if object is not fully symmetrical, is fixed.
* Edge_Loop_Cut/Slide right click instant undo result is improved. Previously it only undo the sliding action.
* Some error handling code is added to expose error messages when saving to file fails.
Thanks!
storm3: Can you give more detail on what's wrong in the Cut tool?
I can't get a good clue from the message output. It seems the app hangs.
OK, I will try to give more detail on it as soon as it crashes or starts to crash again, but I did notice a big NO, NO, the Hide / unhide is not working, it hid my stuff just fine, too good in fact, then I modeled the nose of character, went to unhide the rest of the head, and woopsy, it won't come back!!!! Not sure whats the problem there.. Part of the cut prob is when your cutting and go to quit your final cut, and hit escape or something like this, it makes a bad cut, and leaves it there so you have to undo, to remove it from the model, not bad but seriously annoying on heavily edited models.. Also, it appears to have cleared up the cut problems, I read what you put about the transparent model issues, so I made it default flat shaded, and also, made sure and unchecked the snapping enabled default setting... that is really the problem, it appears to not save changes to some of the options you change, like unchecking enable snapping, and soft selectioni, some others too.. I tried changing these, exiting then starting back up and checking them, and they were reset to defaults, and also after changing them saving a default model first, then restarting still the same results.. I'll give you more results tomorrow, it's late, and i'm gonna wake the wife up typing.. night Kun, talk to you tomorrow..
storm3: I feel like reading you spaghetti sleeping words. Any thing you think is a bug, can you put it into the forum with steps or pics so I can reproduce?
I think the sliding cut prob is fixed in the latest update. Please confirm.
I'm sorry, I wasn't being clear enough, but I had been modeling for a while trying to get the tutorials done, and doing the same thing a few different ways to find the best way to teach everyone, and it is late here... I also had to type fast but quiet since my wife was a sleep in the same open end of the house... I will confirm the cut problems in the morning are fixed.. But... I hope you got my meaning about the Hiding parts of the model, only to have them unable to un-hide them when needed... The disappeared, and no matter where I click UnHide, or even UnHide All, those parts are not coming back ??!!?? Ahh well, I can start over from the head where I left off last tutorial anyways, but I just wanted to be able to see how it all looked together when done, as I thought this last method was the best one, and the one that I was going to use to finish the head tutorial up...
and yes, I will put steps, pics and most likely links to the error movies showing the error happening in action, as I talk about the steps I'm doing, that should be most helpful..
I love all of the edge tools, especially: select loop, insert loop, connect, split, path select, remove, cut, extrude, cap hole, etc...
Umm One Request though Istonia...
Can we make a more Silo-Like HotKey Setup That contains these:
0-9 = View Cameras, A S D F= Vert, Edge, Face, Object, C=Sub-D, V=Un-Sub-D, Alt+X = Split Edges, shift+F = Fill Hole, Z = Extrude, Alt+E = Select Loop, J=Slide Tool, X = cut Tool, Exit tool = Escape or RT Click, B = Bevel, Alt+Shift+S=Soft Selection, P=Append Poly, Ctrl+M = Merge, Shift + B = Bridge, Shift + P = Surface tool or Re-Topo, Ctrl+Alt+M = Material Window, Ctrl+A = Select All Edges, Ctrl + D = Duplicate, Alt+C = Create Cube, Alt+shift+N = Mirror Geometry, Alt+M = Re-Center Objects, of course Control = Tweak, which it is already...
If you don't have time, I'm sure I can snag Passerby's hotkeys, and modify them as needed, and re-save them as New_Silo_2_Setup, maybe if you like it, you could include it with VW also, for people wanting control to be more like silo..
Thanks Kun,
Sorry your having a hard time understanding me, in my stuff later today, I'll try to be more clear with pix and videos as well..
Ghib: I'm getting into using Blender as a painting tool, and while checking out its retopo features I came across this video: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icqPZnD_3lA"]Blender Retopology Tutorial/Workflow - YouTube[/ame]
The first few minutes show off how it handles what we're talking about, and I think that's just great. Ctrl to temporarily invert snapping (ie. temporary snapping if snapping is set to off), changing it to snap to faces instead of the grid, and set it to snap to other meshes as well. I haven't worked with it yet, but this seems like a better system than handpicking which mesh to snap to.
@storm3 my config which i posted for people to use Here is pretty heavily based on silo.
not everything is the same like some elements about how radial menus are setup are from maya, and i use tab for subdivision, but most of the basic tool keys are the same as silo and should make you feel at home.
should do the job for you or at-least give you a good starting point to make a setup you like based on silo.
main differnt in keys is bringing up things like the material window and sceen editor, instead of useing control+alt+key i use control+2 to bring up a radial menu add and remove UI parts.
edit:
sorry didnt read your part about useing my keys as a base.
some of my changes i made becuase i feel VW has better ways of handling some htings than silo, like the shift+s snapping streamline tool i have, and the c(temp key will find a better spot later) symmetry tool.
i may fork the config for you and keep 1 version more silo like, since it was orginal based on silo but as i use VW more and tools like maya and modo i have been adding things i like from those packages.
Options are still not being saved properly... Particularly, the snapping enabled & Allow slide through mixed n polygons.. I turn off snapping by default, and make it so it allows slide through mixed n polygons.. I went in latest version and changed the default options, and exited out, came back in and they were once again reset to defaults.. This needs to be fixed to save the options on close however the user has them setup on closing the application..
Hope this helps.. Next I'm working on checking out the hotkey configs..
Question: How do you setup tools in Streamline tools, so they say All Modes, like the ones you have setup in the Stream Tools ?? I Tried to create them a few different ways, and it almost always creates multiple tool entries, with same name, and same hotkey, but one for vert, edge, face, etc.. modes, instead of just one tool with the type set to All Modes ??
This would come in handy, I mean I can do it the other way, it is just annoying, like I'm setting up all the number keys to point to the various views like in Silo, and the numbers should be able to be activated no matter what mode your in, and I'm setting them to activate on Tapped..
Question: How do you setup tools in Streamline tools, so they say All Modes, like the ones you have setup in the Stream Tools ?? I Tried to create them a few different ways, and it almost always creates multiple tool entries, with same name, and same hotkey, but one for vert, edge, face, etc.. modes, instead of just one tool with the type set to All Modes ??
This would come in handy, I mean I can do it the other way, it is just annoying, like I'm setting up all the number keys to point to the various views like in Silo, and the numbers should be able to be activated no matter what mode your in, and I'm setting them to activate on Tapped..
Question: How do you setup tools in Streamline tools, so they say All Modes, like the ones you have setup in the Stream Tools ?? I Tried to create them a few different ways, and it almost always creates multiple tool entries, with same name, and same hotkey, but one for vert, edge, face, etc.. modes, instead of just one tool with the type set to All Modes ??
This would come in handy, I mean I can do it the other way, it is just annoying, like I'm setting up all the number keys to point to the various views like in Silo, and the numbers should be able to be activated no matter what mode your in, and I'm setting them to activate on Tapped..
create a "Generic Streamline Tool" and it will make 1 entry and work on all selection types.
also why make keys for all the views when you got the shift+space combo, for snapping to the orthographic view that is closet to the current perspective view.
Why would you do this VIA streamline tool though, there are entry's in the normal key mapper (Customize Tools) for all the different views, all the commands you want to bind are actually in the first category in there. "View Nav Tools".
edit: you should try to keep small things to the other fourms, especially bug reports and feature requests, since there easier to keep track of there on there own topics.
Summary of changes:
* A few material handling bugs are fixed. They may cause crashes in exporting, object/polygon duplicating/spliting, if some geometries are not assigned with material.
* Settings for Snapping Enabled and Allow NGon Slide Through are remembered on shut down.
Thanks!
Ghib: I'm getting into using Blender as a painting tool, and while checking out its retopo features I came across this video:
Hey MPea, It looks great, I've been meaning to check out Blender again for a while now as there seems to be some really funky tools to try out. Cheers for the vid.
ideally, I'd like to see a VW-like system possible in Blender. I'd be willing to pay for it, even, because Blender seems to be heading in the right direction, except for its modeling tools which are still lagging behind. With Bmesh's inclusion in the next version (or later, it's been postponed a few times) this should become more of a focus again.
it would be cool to get Istonia to work on it, but for obvious reasons I don't think that's going to happen
ideally, I'd like to see a VW-like system possible in Blender. I'd be willing to pay for it, even, because Blender seems to be heading in the right direction, except for its modeling tools which are still lagging behind. With Bmesh's inclusion in the next version (or later, it's been postponed a few times) this should become more of a focus again.
it would be cool to get Istonia to work on it, but for obvious reasons I don't think that's going to happen
rather have a good polygon modeler not a vw/blender "Thing". don't think he would like codeing with the blender team either, open-source projects can be a fucking bitch to work on due to the people involved.
Paaserby: It wasn't a real suggestion, I'm well aware it's quite unlikely. Nevertheless, there's no need to work with anyone at all, as there's the option of making it a plugin (free, opensource or commercial, no restrictions on any of that), or branching the source. I've been writing down my ideas for a nice system for a while now (some of which I shared with Istonia on here), and while I used to agree that seperate programs were nicest, I've since come to prefer the idea of a more fuss-free integrated workflow. Certainly when it comes to normalmapped stuff, as there are so many steps already. Suffice to say I won't retopo my highpoly in Zbrush like some nutters for the sake of keeping it in one program, but seamless consistency in modeling, unwrapping and retopology can only be a good thing.
And most importantly, unless VW can handle a lot higher polycounts soon, it simply won't work well for my purposes.
Sorry I've been away all weekend, my wife made another booboo, and forgot to pay phone / internet bill doh.. but it gave me time to work on the hotkeys setup this weekend, and I have a nice silo like setup done for VW now, and the overall feel is pretty good, and easy to use, I like it, this combined with the multi tweak tool, makes for an awesome modeling setup.. *NOTE* I got rid of the radial menu all together, it was always more of an annoyance than a help to me anyways, I make too much use of rmb with tools and stuff, and got tired of accidentally having it pop up from time to time... I will post it for others to check out and use, if you want to, on the other forums in the customizations alongside of passerby's setup..
While working on the hotkeys, I found a missing command that is very much needed...
Un-SubDivide... This way if you increase the subdivision level past 1, and want to go back to unsubdivided model, by toggling subdivide off, it will work, because as it is, if you subdivide past level 1, then try to toggle it off using toggle subdivide, it doesn't work as it should..
Please verify IStonia.. Thanks..
PS. Nevermind IStonia, I figured out that when you collapse the subdivision then you can no longer toggle the subdivision on and off.. Collapse subdivision is like refine control mesh [shift + c] but under silo you have these commands also:
Toggle Subdivision [C] my hotkey setup, I tried alt + v unable to use because of menu activation upon using alt + v...
and [V] Collapse Subdivision
so yea, still missing unsubdivide and the crease, uncrease and clear higher subd.. but I think if we had a way to un-subdivide or make it clear about once you collapse subdivision you can't undo it anymore, it would make it a little more clear... As long as I don't use V-collapse subd, I can use C to toggle the sub-D on and off as expected.. Once you collapse and hit C to try and toggle it off, it just like does another level of Subdivision or something, that is what is confusing.. Sorry to bother ya about it, just something I figured out..
do you really need to be able to step threw levels using c and v most people just set the mesh to a level usually 2 or 3 and toggle between subdivided and non_subdivided.
and i was still able to subdivide a mesh again after i already collapsed the previous subdivision, just a bit tricky sometimes if your useing the same key to toggle division as you are to collapse the mesh. such as my case where tab is toggle division and tab+~ is collapse subdivision which becomes weird to use since if i hold tab it toggles right away instead of waiting to see what else i press.
do you really need to be able to step threw levels using c and v most people just set the mesh to a level usually 2 or 3 and toggle between subdivided and non_subdivided.
I definedly miss a lot cyling through SubD-Levels as it is possible inside Silo or Zbrush. I find it more useful than having to use several keys to control the Subdivision. So I'd be very glad if this option was added. Even more so as on my German Keyboard I never got the suggested Hotkey-Combinations to work (Modifier + Number).
@ Istonia - sorry for not giving feedback on the Performance of your last builds earlier: Unfortunately none of the last Versions perform well on my QuadCore machine.
Replies
Sounds like you know alot more than I do.
As what I know, apps can't decide when to fire the garbage collector, it is controlled by the dot net system. Also in my multi threading codes, no new objects are created since new object creation is not suitable in multi threading operation, so there is no garbage to collect anyway.
I have never used openGL and I don't have time to look into this option right now.
There are still rooms to improve the rendering performance because at the moment I don't create buffers for models in graphic card, so each frame I tranfer the model data from system to graphic card for rendering. This way I have less codes to tackle, but surely the cost is lower performance.
There is also mesh building performance issue which seems I should put more attention to now.
Base mesh modeling apps is different from paint apps. It requires more controll on subobjects, that means more complicated data structure, more memory consumption and more system side computations.
I am using MDX, may move to SLimDX at some stage. Familiar with these?
I don't know which new features you can include in the tuts. But I think the most important thing right now is to complete the model so people can be convinced.
It sounds like you and Kun can come up with something together to beat the viewport performance into submission.
good luck fellas
*edit* Ah sorry about that Istonia. I did mean NOT-BackfaceInGrey; I should've been a bit more precise with my feedback
IStonia - about 'material window' reset helps bring it back. It is just that clicking :
view->window-> material is not working, but it is small thing, now worries.
About performance - I refer to draw performance, but making 80k polys mesh into shaded view helps. Especially useful with disabling -> show edges on unselected object.
I hit drawing/nawigation lags before mesh modeling performance problems.
btw:
In vw help about retopo I read about option 'Forward rendering' - but where is it? Thanks IStonia for great app.
Edit: Did you use the sep-21 update. If yes, Check Rendering > Cull None and uncheck Rendering > Back Face In Gray, you should have good performance even with the edges on. Please confirm this.
Thanks for all the kind words as usual.. K, umm IStonia: If you use a library such as: Dark.GDK this will handle tons of 3D Modeling things, such as creating new faces, matrix math, and there are plugins for Rotation -> oh, and did I mention it supports vertex & pixel shaders... it has tons of other options for making complete games, but it is integrated really well with Visual Studio 2008, to the point Micro$haft included it with the express edition downloads.. oh btw did I mention it is free??? and works especially good with C#... has special routines for memory access even directly using matrices.. and I have a License for the Dark GDK.Net Version which is the commercial version.. I'm sure if it can handle throwing thousands and thousands of polys around in realtime in a game, meaning characters and world data, that it should fit nicely in a model editor app. or if you want to go hi-tek for low or no money - Unreal Engine 3 is FREE even for things you sell, until you make the first $50,000.00. The good thing about UE3 is you can specify what renderer to use or let the user select it on app startup, and it is just a matter of selecting either to use the openGL Renderer or DX one or even software last ditch effort...
But!!! I had another thought, you must be using an older version of Visual Studio correct??? Because of the needed older Dot Net Libs to run VW... I fear this may be what is hindering the performance, have you thought about migrating it to 2008 / 2010 even??? I know Micro$haft has made great strides in multi-threads, better garbage collection, better speed, etc... Who, knows maybe what your experiencing slowdown wise may be a side affect of either bugs in the older Dot Net Libs and / or even memory handling issues or function problems of the DX Libs your using..
PS. Yes you can control Garbage Collection, by forcing it to collect it manually, it will momentarily give you a slow second while it fires, but it may be worth a try to when say for instance during a user saving the file, at the same time, writing the poly data out to page, doing a manual garbage collection and then popping the poly data verts etc.. into a fresh set of variables... BTW: to store your data are you using arrays or a linked list format, I only ask because Arrays are definitely faster, I know it may mean more memory consumption up front, but the speed increase would be huge.. Say, you create a huge array, like super huge a poly with like a million faces... and if a user uses less memory than is needed no harm done, because you will have increased your speed of data access 2 fold.. compared to linked list having to create new nodes, allocate the memory, create the new head and tail pointers.. Game Dev magazine did an article about how to squeeze the most speed you can out of your game by using arrays only.. especially if memory isn't an issue.. which on todays systems, it certainly isn't an issue. It's not uncommon for systems to have 4 Gigs of ram now, and tons of space for registers and cache on the cpu itself..
About the libs I mentioned above.. I change my mind, why not use either nVidia developer libs or ATI libs, include both in the app, and then when the app installs, it picks the right one writing it to an ini file or registry depending on which card the user has, if you did it this way you would have the most fast rendering you could achieve on each system, there is nothing better than using nVidia apex libs on a system / game / app that is meant to run on nVidia hardware! I'm not familiar with ATI, but I'm sure they have similar libs I think something about rage... The reason I mention this is: if you use the nVidia libs, it also adapts to openGL / DX depending on card numbers, memory, etc.. I believe this is What 3DCoat uses is the nVidia libs, hence the Cuda and non-Cuda enabled versions. Which is how he handles the shaders..
Goto nVidia.com and goto the developer website, sign up for beta testing and read about the libs, and grab the latest version... I'm sure some of these last 3 things will help alleviate the slowdown.. but I'm convinced that if your using a more recent version of Visual Studio and C#, and more up to date Dot Net Libs, this will help! Although realize that there is a speed limit on C# because it is not a truely compiled language, but they have made great leaps and bounds in the latest versions, with each version, your compiled app only gets tighter and faster..
These are just some things to consider, I surely don't think making a backup copy of the code in another project directory somewhere to do a test migration to a newer Visual Studio.. Although if you or we try everything we can to speed it up, and still have issues, then possibly consider conversion to Visual C++ to create real mode app, and have better memory control etc.. This of course would be the last thing to consider..
phew, that was a long responce.. hit me back IStonia, on what you think about some of these options..
but, thanks for even caring about your users enough to bang your head on the memory wall trying to get that speed up on huge poly models.. possibly an upgrade to DX10??? alas another last option only...
Just remember I'm here to help, if you do something drastic like converting to Visual C++, I can help with the function conversion, re-translation... they are similar languages but definite differences..
If you want to talk like in a chat or something let me know, and I'll re-install Pidgin and my MS instant messenger protocol.. or maybe just meet you in a chatroom or something..
ok, ciao' 4 now buddies, talk @ ya l8r..
StOrM3
I don't know any of the libs you mentioned. I don't think any of those libs will be usefull for modeling apps, because the basic data structure varies from one app to another and there is no standard. The basic data structure decides what the app can do, what it can't do and what flexibility it has. I heard that Blender is doing BMesh, I guess that is the basic data structrue related issue.
I am using VS 2008. I use arrays, not link list.
Ok, I find this, GC.Collect(). I also learnt that it is an very expensive operation. So it is better to let Garbage Optimizing Engine to do it and avoid to do it in the app code. There could be cases where it is usefull though. Thanks for this tip!
My mind is full of implementation stuff right now, so there is no time to chat. May be another time.
I Copied some stuff for you to read from the nVidia Sites...
This first part is about Cuda Parallel Programming Made Easy!
Here is for Cuda Tech: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home_new.html
CUDA™ is NVIDIA's parallel computing architecture. It enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the GPU.
With millions of CUDA-enabled GPUs sold to date, software developers, scientists and researchers are finding broad-ranging uses for CUDA, including image and video processing, computational biology and chemistry, fluid dynamics simulation, CT image reconstruction, seismic analysis, ray tracing, and much more.
Computing is evolving from "central processing" on the CPU to "co-processing" on the CPU and GPU. To enable this new computing paradigm, NVIDIA invented the CUDA parallel computing architecture that is now shipping in Tesla™, Quadro® and GeForce® GPUs, representing a significant installed base for application developers.
CUDA has been enthusiastically received in the area of scientific research. For example, CUDA accelerates AMBER, a molecular dynamics simulation program used by more than 60,000 researchers in academia and pharmaceutical companies worldwide to accelerate new drug discovery. In the financial market, Numerix and CompatibL announced CUDA support for a counterparty risk application and achieved an 18X speedup.
An indicator of CUDA adoption is the ramp of the Tesla GPU for GPU computing. There are now more than 700 GPU clusters installed around the world at Fortune 500 companies ranging from Schlumberger and Chevron in the energy sector to BNP Paribas in banking.
This Next stuff is from the developer site and libs:
http://developer.nvidia.com//
Game & Graphics Development
Your center for all things game-related. DirectX, OpenGL, Cg, Performance Tools, Tips & Tricks, and Graphics SDKs.
http://developer.nvidia.com/category/zone/game-graphics-development
This is really interesting for us or you rather: -->> DirectCompute <<--
http://developer.nvidia.com/directcompute
Microsoft’s DirectCompute API for GPU Computing is supported on NVIDIA’s DX10 and DX11 class GPUs under both Windows VISTA and Windows 7. Simply install the latest drivers from www.nvidia.com/drivers and applications that rely on DirectCompute will immediately have access to the massive parallel computing power of NVIDIA GPUs to create compelling experiences in consumer and professional applications.
As a processor company, NVIDIA enthusiastically supports languages and API’s that enable developers to ((( access the parallel processing power of the GPU.))) In addition to DirectCompute and NVIDIA’s CUDA C/C++, there are solutions for ((( C# ))), Fortran, Java, OpenCL™, Python and other languages.
NVIDIA Parallel Nsight:
NVIDIA Parallel Nsight brings GPU Computing into Microsoft Visual Studio. Debug, profile and analyze GPGPU or graphics applications using CUDA C, OpenCL, DirectCompute, Direct3D, and OpenGL.
or if you still want to stay with DirectX 9c etc... then here is the link to the older version of
the NVIDIA Graphics SDK 9.52, The current version is for DX11.. But... here is the link.
http://developer.download.nvidia.com/SDK/9.5/NVIDIA_SDK_9.52.0324.0405.exe
OK, phew, I hope this helps, if you get some time you need to register to the developer center, it's free, and download the latest libs for cuda, directcompute, Parallel Nsight, as these 3 ways are how nvidia is making it easier to to parallel gpu programming even combine it with cpu and use both to share the load, and greatly increase computation speed, and rendering speeds etc... I hope this helps..
OK, sorry to weigh you down with all this, I didn't know you were coding right now.. You must hammer down on typing like me.. The ONLY way 2 Code is @ 120+ WPM.. Ummm, I know the answer is in here somewhere for ya, depending on how you want to go with it.. That's it, since your bizzy Coding, I'll let you digest on some of this info, and let me know when / if you want to talk some more about this stuff. BTW: You know you can load and use C/C++ libs under C# right?...
Ciao' Mano',
StOrM3
PS. CUDA is what Andrew from 3DCoat is using to speed up his million+ poly models when sculpting or importing or converting voxels to useable triangle type meshes.. and yes I know all about file types, you misunderstand what I mean about those libs I told you about last time, they are merely the libs you use to make any kind of application you want, including a modeling application, or a level creation application, or a game, it merely packages useful functions in a convenient way to make the coding easier... You can still keep your file formats, that's not an issue, think of it like: yer building a house, you need it to be a house, it doesn't matter if you use junk, or wood, or brick, or styrofoam to make the house, meaning you can still make a house, which is the target application, the tools / materials shouldn't matter, how it was built, same thing with you creating VW using say for instance Dark GDK.Net, it contains already all the functions to make a modeling application, and alot of other types of apps as well as games, it all depends on you, as to what you create with it... but the functions are there.. But ignore that, I was just trying to let you know that all of the libs I listed it didn't matter what your internal data structure was, they can still work with it, all you do is make Classes / Structures which you already have, and add member functions for format conversion / copying / moving etc.. whatever needs to be done with your Classes to pipe that data into their classes and send the objects messages to their functions etc.. OK, sorry there I go again getting technical, the other users don't need to read the technical mumbo jumbo.. I don't want to bore them.. SORRY...
Can you compare CUDA with this one and let me know your thinking. I haven't got time to study it meself.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/Accelerator/
I checked into it, and from what I can tell, it can be used to parallelize programs on both CPU & GPU, but!!!! I think that Cuda has the added benefits of rendering speed increase, and intense 3D calculations such as moving verts / meshes / etc.. around rotation quickly... and Cuda is like, taylor'd to 3D Graphics apps, whereas Accelerator 2.0 is more general purpose, so that anykind of app can experience speedups, although I fear that Accelerator would NOT increase rendering speed & 3D intensive computations, because it like splits the functions up, and chooses one of the systems CPU's to handle the function, well this kind of thinking and checking can lead to a slowdown on the rendering, I mean it probably is very good at doing lots of things, and could be really really close speedwise, I'm going to do some more research for you to ensure my take on it, is indeed correct.. but from how I understood it, on what it does, and how it does it, that's my take so far.. Let me hit a few people up, who have used it for a 3D Application, and I'll let you know something by tonight..
Ciao' 4 now,
StOrM3
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-sep-23-11.rar
Edit: You need to check Rendering > Cull BackFacing. Otherwise it would be the same.
storm3: I think I have to forget Accelerator, because it dosen't work in XP. I tried to run the sample code on my win7 but no luck, "specified module not found".
I have to say, I miss all the tools in retopo mode. If anything, I'd like retopo to just work with the same tools as regular modeling. I realise shift and ctrl enable different behaviour in this mode, but it feels entirely too disconnectecd from the main program. Once the user has gotten used to a being extrude, wouldn't that make sense here as well?
Again, if you're not at that point yet, disregard
I'm very glad to hear you're working on performance, looking forward to the results of that!
Oops sorry, it's a no go for poly operation.
In Retopo tool, once extrusion is activated, it has the following behaviours.
* Tap A to confirm the current extrusion, then drag to create a new extrusion without having to exit the extrusion mode. This way, user can create polygons in the fly.
* Press A and hold, drag to extrude a series of polygons. Release A will back to normal extrusion, still in extrusion mode.
* Press down Alt and drag to rotate the extrusion.
* Press down Ctrl+Alt and drag to scale the extrusion.
Thanks for that bit of info on the re-topo -> extrude stuff, I will definitely have to try and work this into the tuts.. Which I will once again finish the Head tuts tomorrow, finish the uploads for them, and the body will be a snap, that's the easy part of the model... Most likely will use alot of retopo and extrusion tools to accomplish parts of the body, along with tweaking and soft selection, and showing again how to sew together the various parts..
Ciao' Let me know if ya want me to look into any other things for you IStonia..
StOrM3
PS. IStonia, when you get the module not found error, you need to setup your lib & includes to point to the location of the accelerator libs and include files.. or you could always add those paths to your general path statement, or better yet, when you install accelerator just install it to a dir already checked for libs and includes, this is how I set mine up most times, where I'll make a main project folder, and then a source dir, and an include & libs folders respectively inside it, then you can adjust your project default properties for x86 & x64 and set the include & lib options to point to those dirs you created after you ensure to install all your different library packages etc.. to these folders, and hence forward, just install to these folders time and again, this way no matter what library you have installed or are testing, VC# will be able to find those references..
I had an issue once where the default project kept setting the environment up for Itanium development, so I made a new profile named it something like Generic x86 32bit and a 64bit one, and made those profiles the new default selections when creating a new project..
Hope this helps some..
Also 'q' key should 'drop' current visual tool' right? I noticed it often do ont work, but it is bit random - can't reproduce every time.
Thanks
maybe make drop a event you can add to any streamline tool so for the q-selection tool just add a onActivated event for drop tool.
There just seems to be a lapse in the internal logic of VW once you enter this mode.
Also, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater! You say the regular streamline tools aren't specialised enough for he retopo mode, but what made you turn off the smarttips box? It could still pop up, to help users discover the functionality.
In addition to that, my favourite part of VW's design is the Streamline Tools, and I would miss the nmb, lmb, rmb and mmb functionality. as well as the popup that tells a user what they are mapped to.
That seems a core part of VW, and I thik overly modal behaviour should be minimised, keeping some form of coherent behaviour between different modes.
Istonia- Version Sep-23-11 - Framerate testing
On 1st test I got a crash but for some reason it didn't save the text to the clipboard when I hit ctrl + c. There were around 49152 faces in the scene. I just realised it might be because I forgot to turn on Cull Backfacing.
So I test again now with Cull Backfacing switched on and can no longer reproduce the crash.
Home computer with i7-2600 (8CPU)
average fps
Number of Processors = 2
196608 Faces = 12.92 fps
Number of Processors = 3
196608 Faces = 13.3 fps
Number of Processors = 4
196608 Faces = 13.3 fps (only noticeable freezing occurs when zoomed in close to the model & switching between view rotate/pan/zoom)
Number of Processors = 5
196608 Faces = 6.8 fps (with noticable viewport freezing every few seconds)
Number of Processors = 6
196608 Faces = 6 fps (highest fps & viewport freezing worse)
It might just be my imagination but subdividing the mesh seems quite a bit faster now, especially on higher subd levels.
While we're on the subject of subd levels I think it would be a bit better if we could step up and down subdivision levels with hotkeys instead of the current method of hotkeys for each level. I'd put it on Keypad + and - like XSI for the time being. Also to give us a cap for max subdivisions would prevent from accidentally going too high (from Silo)
Sorry for double post but I wanted to keep this request separate from the Viewport testing.
I have refrained from giving any feedback on the retopology because I felt it was too big a task currently, but since it's now being discussed I'll offer my opinion.
Totally in agreement with Mightypea on this.
I would prefer retopo to be a Global Function in Voidworld.
Similar to the likes of Soft selection or Symmetry. Switch it on and give us options to select exactly which objects to use as the 'Reference' (new geometry to be snapped to)
This way we can use ALL the tools (Visual or Streamline) at our disposal and they will automatically work with retopology function. So we use tweak and the geometry will snap to the Ref mesh. Same with the cut tool, or extrude etc etc.
This would be so much more intuitive and logical to the user, while also opening it up for new streamline tools to aid in the Retopo process. e.g. 3DCoat's genius strokes tool in the Retopo room.
It just doesn't make sense to me to put Retopology on it's own isolated tool.
Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg and is all for the future as you're pretty bogged down in optimization right now. Maybe we can all tackle this collectively at a later date.
Functions I can think of:
Can't think of any more atm.
Then any other tool within Voidworld should work upon these parameters. e.g. cut, slice, extrude, chamfer, slide, tweak, create polygon, etc.
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-sep-27-11.rar
Summary of changes:
* Bug in Q tool's droping-tool funtion is fixed.
* Snap-to-Face/Snap-to-PolygonCenter/Snap-to-Mesh/Snap-to-Object no longer work on transpanere or mesh-wired object. This is to provide convenience to snap to object behind.
* Bug in manipulator pivot constraint in maual mode is fixed.
Thanks!
I am currently struggling in performance issues. The Retopo tools have to be put aside for the moment.
passerby: I couldn't create new thread nor reply in the forum. There is an error in a php page.
sorry about that thought it would be a easy patch so i didn't deploy on a test server first, but it apparently doesn't like the themes templates.
edit: all fixed up and i posted your update to the news section for you.
I have been trying to get the next tutorial done, but I have been having some problems with the latest version of VW... 2.4 Beta 9-27-2011 Version...
#1.) Cut Tool is NOT Working Properly ??!!?? It Was working OK, until I used the Loop Select / Slide Edges Streamline tool Hotkey G, Then I was trying to figure out how to best insert a new Poly loop, so I tried Loop Insert, Problems w/ polygon loop inserted having new edges where there shouldn't be any, so then I tried Hotkey S - streamline tool Loop Cut / slide edges, seemed to work, after many different trials and errors, undo & redo's, then I tried a simple cut under the edge visual menu to cut in the creases for the nose, going from verts to edge, and it just wouldn't do it, so I was messing with it, holding the shift key, trying to select the edge while the vert was already selected, etc.. no go, but it would suddenly select the vert, and start a cut, but only let me move the cut destination somewhere inside the poly the vert was in.. Very wierd... Then as I was doing cuts earlier, I noticed if you right click to finish previous cut, and stop it from making another cut that is unwanted, it would still leave the new ugly not needed cut, and I would have to do an undo every time..
Then finally, I got an ugly crash, and as you told me before during the last tutorial, to capture the data in the window that popped up, so I did it this time...
Description:
Stopped working
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: voidworld 2.4.exe
Problem Signature 02: 2.3.4287.28944
Problem Signature 03: 4e813d50
Problem Signature 04: WorkShop
Problem Signature 05: 2.3.4287.28938
Problem Signature 06: 4e813d45
Problem Signature 07: 2583
Problem Signature 08: a5
Problem Signature 09: System.NullReferenceException
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409
If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
I hope this helps out some... Unfortunately I missed recording the things leading up to the crash as I was just warming up, and trying new ways to do things, for the tutorial, such as inserting loops, etc.. and did not have it recording.. I will try to reproduce the problems, while recording, hopefully I won't be able to, and it was just a fluke.. but if it happens again, I will upload the error video to my youtube account for you to see..
Thanks again for all of your work... I do appreciate it, Silo had some similar issues with creating poly's and right clicking to finish the poly and allow you to move to a new area and go on creating a new poly there, or another right click to exit poly creation mode all together.. We need to look into making the hotkeys a little closer to silo for that hotkey style set that is.. Example: using numbers 0-9 for the views and using the other keys for vert mode etc..
K, I'm going to work on adding some of the other hotkeys from silo for things like append poly, slide, etc.. loop select, loop cut, etc.. Maybe this will help alot of people..
Hit me back if you have another version to try out, until then, I'm working on the tutorial and will let you know if the error happens again, and tell you where the video is..
Thanks again Kun..
StOrM3
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-sep-30-11.rar
Summary of changes:
* Bug in symmetry polygon highlight rendering, if object is not fully symmetrical, is fixed.
* Edge_Loop_Cut/Slide right click instant undo result is improved. Previously it only undo the sliding action.
* Some error handling code is added to expose error messages when saving to file fails.
Thanks!
storm3: Can you give more detail on what's wrong in the Cut tool?
I can't get a good clue from the message output. It seems the app hangs.
Ciao' 4 now,
StOrM3
I think the sliding cut prob is fixed in the latest update. Please confirm.
I'm sorry, I wasn't being clear enough, but I had been modeling for a while trying to get the tutorials done, and doing the same thing a few different ways to find the best way to teach everyone, and it is late here... I also had to type fast but quiet since my wife was a sleep in the same open end of the house... I will confirm the cut problems in the morning are fixed.. But... I hope you got my meaning about the Hiding parts of the model, only to have them unable to un-hide them when needed... The disappeared, and no matter where I click UnHide, or even UnHide All, those parts are not coming back ??!!?? Ahh well, I can start over from the head where I left off last tutorial anyways, but I just wanted to be able to see how it all looked together when done, as I thought this last method was the best one, and the one that I was going to use to finish the head tutorial up...
and yes, I will put steps, pics and most likely links to the error movies showing the error happening in action, as I talk about the steps I'm doing, that should be most helpful..
I love all of the edge tools, especially: select loop, insert loop, connect, split, path select, remove, cut, extrude, cap hole, etc...
Umm One Request though Istonia...
Can we make a more Silo-Like HotKey Setup That contains these:
0-9 = View Cameras, A S D F= Vert, Edge, Face, Object, C=Sub-D, V=Un-Sub-D, Alt+X = Split Edges, shift+F = Fill Hole, Z = Extrude, Alt+E = Select Loop, J=Slide Tool, X = cut Tool, Exit tool = Escape or RT Click, B = Bevel, Alt+Shift+S=Soft Selection, P=Append Poly, Ctrl+M = Merge, Shift + B = Bridge, Shift + P = Surface tool or Re-Topo, Ctrl+Alt+M = Material Window, Ctrl+A = Select All Edges, Ctrl + D = Duplicate, Alt+C = Create Cube, Alt+shift+N = Mirror Geometry, Alt+M = Re-Center Objects, of course Control = Tweak, which it is already...
If you don't have time, I'm sure I can snag Passerby's hotkeys, and modify them as needed, and re-save them as New_Silo_2_Setup, maybe if you like it, you could include it with VW also, for people wanting control to be more like silo..
Thanks Kun,
Sorry your having a hard time understanding me, in my stuff later today, I'll try to be more clear with pix and videos as well..
thanks again,,
StOrM3
Surely you can make a new set of hot key customization and put it in the Community Help section
http://voidworld.cmcproductions.co.uk/index.php/board,3.0.html
The first few minutes show off how it handles what we're talking about, and I think that's just great. Ctrl to temporarily invert snapping (ie. temporary snapping if snapping is set to off), changing it to snap to faces instead of the grid, and set it to snap to other meshes as well. I haven't worked with it yet, but this seems like a better system than handpicking which mesh to snap to.
not everything is the same like some elements about how radial menus are setup are from maya, and i use tab for subdivision, but most of the basic tool keys are the same as silo and should make you feel at home.
should do the job for you or at-least give you a good starting point to make a setup you like based on silo.
main differnt in keys is bringing up things like the material window and sceen editor, instead of useing control+alt+key i use control+2 to bring up a radial menu add and remove UI parts.
edit:
sorry didnt read your part about useing my keys as a base.
some of my changes i made becuase i feel VW has better ways of handling some htings than silo, like the shift+s snapping streamline tool i have, and the c(temp key will find a better spot later) symmetry tool.
i may fork the config for you and keep 1 version more silo like, since it was orginal based on silo but as i use VW more and tools like maya and modo i have been adding things i like from those packages.
Options are still not being saved properly... Particularly, the snapping enabled & Allow slide through mixed n polygons.. I turn off snapping by default, and make it so it allows slide through mixed n polygons.. I went in latest version and changed the default options, and exited out, came back in and they were once again reset to defaults.. This needs to be fixed to save the options on close however the user has them setup on closing the application..
Hope this helps.. Next I'm working on checking out the hotkey configs..
Question: How do you setup tools in Streamline tools, so they say All Modes, like the ones you have setup in the Stream Tools ?? I Tried to create them a few different ways, and it almost always creates multiple tool entries, with same name, and same hotkey, but one for vert, edge, face, etc.. modes, instead of just one tool with the type set to All Modes ??
This would come in handy, I mean I can do it the other way, it is just annoying, like I'm setting up all the number keys to point to the various views like in Silo, and the numbers should be able to be activated no matter what mode your in, and I'm setting them to activate on Tapped..
Thanks for any info you can help out with..
StOrM3
Question: How do you setup tools in Streamline tools, so they say All Modes, like the ones you have setup in the Stream Tools ?? I Tried to create them a few different ways, and it almost always creates multiple tool entries, with same name, and same hotkey, but one for vert, edge, face, etc.. modes, instead of just one tool with the type set to All Modes ??
This would come in handy, I mean I can do it the other way, it is just annoying, like I'm setting up all the number keys to point to the various views like in Silo, and the numbers should be able to be activated no matter what mode your in, and I'm setting them to activate on Tapped..
Thanks for any info you can help out with..
StOrM3
Question: How do you setup tools in Streamline tools, so they say All Modes, like the ones you have setup in the Stream Tools ?? I Tried to create them a few different ways, and it almost always creates multiple tool entries, with same name, and same hotkey, but one for vert, edge, face, etc.. modes, instead of just one tool with the type set to All Modes ??
This would come in handy, I mean I can do it the other way, it is just annoying, like I'm setting up all the number keys to point to the various views like in Silo, and the numbers should be able to be activated no matter what mode your in, and I'm setting them to activate on Tapped..
Thanks for any info you can help out with..
StOrM3
also why make keys for all the views when you got the shift+space combo, for snapping to the orthographic view that is closet to the current perspective view.
Why would you do this VIA streamline tool though, there are entry's in the normal key mapper (Customize Tools) for all the different views, all the commands you want to bind are actually in the first category in there. "View Nav Tools".
edit: you should try to keep small things to the other fourms, especially bug reports and feature requests, since there easier to keep track of there on there own topics.
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/VoidWorld-oct-01-11.rar
Summary of changes:
* A few material handling bugs are fixed. They may cause crashes in exporting, object/polygon duplicating/spliting, if some geometries are not assigned with material.
* Settings for Snapping Enabled and Allow NGon Slide Through are remembered on shut down.
Thanks!
Hey MPea, It looks great, I've been meaning to check out Blender again for a while now as there seems to be some really funky tools to try out. Cheers for the vid.
it would be cool to get Istonia to work on it, but for obvious reasons I don't think that's going to happen
rather have a good polygon modeler not a vw/blender "Thing". don't think he would like codeing with the blender team either, open-source projects can be a fucking bitch to work on due to the people involved.
And most importantly, unless VW can handle a lot higher polycounts soon, it simply won't work well for my purposes.
Sorry I've been away all weekend, my wife made another booboo, and forgot to pay phone / internet bill doh.. but it gave me time to work on the hotkeys setup this weekend, and I have a nice silo like setup done for VW now, and the overall feel is pretty good, and easy to use, I like it, this combined with the multi tweak tool, makes for an awesome modeling setup.. *NOTE* I got rid of the radial menu all together, it was always more of an annoyance than a help to me anyways, I make too much use of rmb with tools and stuff, and got tired of accidentally having it pop up from time to time... I will post it for others to check out and use, if you want to, on the other forums in the customizations alongside of passerby's setup..
Hope you like it,
StOrM3
While working on the hotkeys, I found a missing command that is very much needed...
Un-SubDivide... This way if you increase the subdivision level past 1, and want to go back to unsubdivided model, by toggling subdivide off, it will work, because as it is, if you subdivide past level 1, then try to toggle it off using toggle subdivide, it doesn't work as it should..
Please verify IStonia.. Thanks..
PS. Nevermind IStonia, I figured out that when you collapse the subdivision then you can no longer toggle the subdivision on and off.. Collapse subdivision is like refine control mesh [shift + c] but under silo you have these commands also:
-subdivide [C]
unsubdivide [V]
-Toggle Current Subdivision [ALT + V]
clear higher subdivision
-refine control mesh [SHIFT + C]
crease edges
uncrease edges
The only ones, I am finding in VW is:
Subdivide 1-4
[Shift 1] --Subdivision1
[Shift 2] --Subdivision2
[Shift 3] --Subdivision3
[Shift 4] --Subdivision4
Toggle Subdivision [C] my hotkey setup, I tried alt + v unable to use because of menu activation upon using alt + v...
and [V] Collapse Subdivision
so yea, still missing unsubdivide and the crease, uncrease and clear higher subd.. but I think if we had a way to un-subdivide or make it clear about once you collapse subdivision you can't undo it anymore, it would make it a little more clear... As long as I don't use V-collapse subd, I can use C to toggle the sub-D on and off as expected.. Once you collapse and hit C to try and toggle it off, it just like does another level of Subdivision or something, that is what is confusing.. Sorry to bother ya about it, just something I figured out..
and i was still able to subdivide a mesh again after i already collapsed the previous subdivision, just a bit tricky sometimes if your useing the same key to toggle division as you are to collapse the mesh. such as my case where tab is toggle division and tab+~ is collapse subdivision which becomes weird to use since if i hold tab it toggles right away instead of waiting to see what else i press.
@ Istonia - sorry for not giving feedback on the Performance of your last builds earlier: Unfortunately none of the last Versions perform well on my QuadCore machine.
just to make things easier for new comers to find.