-Vivek
I am using the 3DToolkit and I have version 2.9. .. ok stop laughing.. and help me please..

What’s the best way of producing cutaway imagery - for example on 3D floor plans inside a building.

The method I have used in EI is to use a camera map of black and white and use it as a clipping texture. On a complex scene this is really slow (it would appear).

I think, if memory serves there is a plug-in that can do this but is there another way of doing it within EI without buying a plug-in.

James

ps I was happy to find that adjusting the ‘perspective clip’ in the prefs enables you to do this on the plane of the camera but I want to cutaway one floor at a time and leave the camera’s position alone.

Appreciate any titbits of info.

pps Ian, your three men in a boat image has cutaways - did you say that was tailortool or some such thing you used ?

I was just wondering if EIAS has a way to “lock” the camera x-y-z positions.
Especially when doing 3D stills, I spent lots of time to reach the perfect camera angle.
But every once in a while I accidently hit my space bar and mouse “pan”, thus ruining my cam view.

How does one go around this problem ?

Regards, Bert.

http://www.silverbullet3d.com/eias_benchmark/

It sounded like the biggest issue is when you write to the same drive you read from, which is to say send the render output to the same drive you read the files from.  One task has to wait.  The second biggest issue is the system and other components needing the drive.

Some previous suggestions have had separate drives for each slave, to keep a slave from waiting while the other is reading.

I’m sure there other ways to optimize.  If you have further clarifications, share the tips.

Yon

Any news on whether or not we can get a dedicated subforum for the weight mapping discussion? It would be very helpful.

Brian

Firstly, thanks for everyone that took part in the discussion and voting, the response has been fantastic.

Without further ado, the winners:

Widgets:

Job Reordering (Renderama)
Lets users reorder the list of jobs by dragging them to a new location in the list.

File Names (Renderama)
Displays the name of the rendered file next to the job name.

Center with C-click improvement (Animator)
The “C Click” to center command could be improved by zooming to fill the widow with the selected object through the use of an Option-C.

Remove From Set (Animator)
As an addition to “add to selection set” - “remove from selection set”.

Green Triangle to “off” by default (Animator)
Default of all channels should be to “off” - not only for the object, but also for the animation channels. Added as a preference or toggle.

Direct Shader Opening (Animator)
A keyboard/mouse click combo option when clicking on a shader in a texture list to go straight to the shader interface

Normal Mapping (Camera)
Allow normal mapping via Camera Mapping.

Remote Folders (Camera)
Makes Camera (on remote rendering) Subfolder aware, so that one can use folders of shaders and sockets inside of the EI sockets and EI shaders folders.

Re-import on export (Animator)
A ‘re-import on export’ Fact check box. Useful for Encage, Dicer, Antiqua, Bebel etc., etc.

Improved aspect lock for textures (Animator)
Utilise “Aspect Lock” popup menu (Texture Dialogue) for auto-scale purposes as well - it would work in a similar way to Auto YZ in the Group info window.

--

Brown Features:

Strength map tool
Ability to load, save and re-apply wmap, combine wmaps together

Strength map blur/contrast tool
Self explanatory, effectively clicking blur ‘n’ times would give you a smooth gradient.

Strength map mirror tool
Self explanatory.

Strength map unfold tool
Save the Wmap as a grayscale img, UV coordinates required.

--

I will keep you up to date as these features are programmed, letting you know the status of each feature as we go along.

Thanks again to all who took part,
Ian

This techniques demonstrates how to use strength maps to weight character without a lot of hassle. It discusses good cages and exclusion mapping to hone the skin. This is a production smart technique based on “invisible initial bind”.

This is lesson 28 of the Deformer Rig DVD. I believe all sections of the Strength Maps are currently online (26, 27 and 28).

I indexed the video. Rigging isn’t as exciting as animation

1:38 — cages
2:00 — Explain the problem vert.
2:14 — Understanding cages vs hi-res
2;40 — Maya proxy rig for skinning. (Wrap Deformer aka Smart Skin)
3:07 — Comment IDEA AWARD (David Wu, Brian Pohl)
4:00 — Wrap Deformer, Encage, Proxy SDS,

Editing the skin

7:00 — Position Skin for Editing.
8:00 — Isolate Bone effecting stray vertex.
9:00 — Subjective Weighting (Exclusion)
11:00— Create Strength Map on Skin
12:00— Paint off weight
13:00 — Editing
14:00 — Testing, Experimenting
15:00 — Done.
16:00 — click on Encage
16:00 — Joking

Weight Mapping Fingers

17:00 — Evaluating finger Weighting
18:00— Reverted
19:00 — Finger Webbing
20:00— Slight Demo on using Morph to sculpt hand gesture.
(Modeling by AVT, Render by David Wu)
21:00 — (+/-) Plus and Minus Strength Maps.
23:00 — Subtracting Priority.
25:00 — Stretchy Geometry through Skinning.
26:00 — Sculpting/Honing Form with Weight Map
27:00 — Stray Vert.
29:00 — Evaluating Maps for
30:00 — Fix dupe

32:00— Conclusion

28. Skin Fingers
http://homepage.mac.com/avtpro5/.Public/28. skin fingers.mov.zip

For the other vids go to
http://homepage.mac.com/avtpro5

I’ve moved the following post from the UP as it’s off topic, but, very interesting. So, lets discuss.

Best,
Ian

Yon

*edit* the cheapest route I see is the Ritek 2.5 disk with a 2.5 to 3.5 converter… it’s about $300, which would be well worth it if it’s reeeaaaly fast