Hi Scott,

yes, please contact EITG and demand those (good) features. They are the people to ask and decide.

Jens

Edit: All this discussion is really nuts… “Igors, wake up...” (?!?). What is the Igors responsibility with the decision on new features (beside their implementation). If you replace “Igors” with “EITG” in all of your posts it does make much more sense to me.

You could just as easily argue that what is really needed is a better dxf importer.
You could even argue that the current dxf import is “broken”.

EIAS and Transporter seem to ignore any curves in a dxf file, but straight line segments work fine.

The dxf export utility Brian showed must be “tracing” the curves and saving out segmented polylines.
formZ also saves curves to dxf this way. I have used this many times to import lines and curves into Animator.

Dave

Hello Scott, hello Brian, hello Igors, hello Jens, hello Dave and hello to anyone else who posted and might ever read this thread.

Since I have been using EI, for the last 10 or so years, this sort of polarized discussion has been all too common. I have partcipated in it many times.

Jen’s if it was EI’s responsibility to ensure perfect in and out why did you develop Obj2Fac? Dave, Transporter is a big mess as far as I am concerned - I have yet to get it to be effective ....so yes, it can be argued endlessly. Igors, you guys know how to program good tools but you need to not take all of these suggestions quite so personally and attack users for wanting better tools.

Brian, I have to commend you for your persistance - I have seen other’s in the past take up the flag but eventually just burn out over similar situations such as this. Well done.

Scott, it’s easy to see you love EI and just want it to a better app...how-ever that gets done. Nothing wrong with that - I do too. If the Igors don’t want to program what you need....well, it’s their time and their decision - they have the right to say no. No one should fault them in how they decide to procede.

EI is what it is...we all love or have loved it. If it works for you then use it and continue to create those wonderful mograph animations you create. If, after a little time you aren’t getting the features you absolutely need to do your work, dispite well intentioned suggestions....well, EI isn’t the only 3D tool out there. Using other tools to make up for EI’s short-comings takes a lot of pressure off. It’s easier to not get twisted...but I totally understand your frustration.

...and lastly, Hello EI! These are your users here, I think it’s time someone spoke up and set some sort of course for the future.

These are just my 2 cents.....listen or not. I continue to use EI to it’s strenghts but have found other wonderful tools to make up for it’s short-comings.

hello Igors,

what is this Mr. Front Plug-in? i googled it and found nothing?

Hi monday1313,

If you go to the object menu and use “add Font” this is essentially Mr.Font. In the old days (pre 3.0) it was a plugin, later it was “integrated” but is still the same code afaik. It read Truetype and Postscript Fonts and tesselates them to be used in EI. So actually a PostScript loader is already there and it would be wise to use this also as a “general” EPS loader.

Hi Paul,

O2F was developed as an inhouse tool when ramjac was an animation studio. It was later made public to get back in the cost. I never recommended anyone NOT to hire a programmer and do his/her special purpose inhouse tools… There actually is a difference between requesting a feature and hire someone to just get it.

and

Pauls02 - 09 June 2008 07:32 AM

...and lastly, Hello EI! These are your users here, I think it’s time someone spoke up and set some sort of course for the future.

excactly.

Jens

Hello everyone!
I have investigated this further-

The problem is that Illustrator exports true splines and arcs which EIAS does not understand.
I can do some basic conversion to a logo within illustrator export as DXF - and convert using Transporter to fact.
Every path comes in properly, and each path is a separate object.
So this is possible without any 3rd party tools.
Using Trestle to convert/edit these individual paths should then be possible.


Here is the 10 step workflow....

1) Open logo in illustrator
2) Ungroup all objects
3) Select all outlines
4) Menu Object -> Path -> Add Anchor Points
5) repeat step 4 until you have the resolution you need (2 or 3 times should be enough)
6) Menu Object -> Path -> Simplify: Angle Threshhold 1º, Options Stright lines.
7) Go to the Layers palette and select the current layer then from the pop-up menu- select “release to layers-sequence”
8) export to dxf
9) open transporter preferences and set “build groups from blocks”
10) process the dxf file (i left all process options off).

Now everyone can get to animating logos! ;)

Dave

Hello Everyone,

It would be interesting to examine the psychology behind all of this kind of banter. Without a doubt, the personalities and egos of every individual are involved. The ego spares no one. Debates and positioning all serve only one person. The individual..because we all want to be the one that is right. There’s no doubt that working together is required to resolve situations like these...but above all else, there needs to be a central authority that moderates what is to be done to benefit the future of this application. That central authority needs to be EITG, but as history has shown us EITG rarely gets that involved. What happens next is what we are currently seeing...the leaders of this community attempting to provide direction.

The thing is, I’ve seen this kind of discussion time and time again. It happens on nearly every film that I’ve ever worked on. Artist vs developer. Budget vs creative vision. Director vs producer. Some films can turn out quite well despite a conflicting environment, but they are usually the exception. EITG history has been filled with passionate debate ever since I can remember this application but its time to put that passionate energy to work for us rather than having it diminish us.

As Scott and Paul have pointed out, the way of conflict usually winds up exhausting key individuals. As more and more evangelists, feature artists and even developers leave the application out of frustration, the weaker and weaker EIAS is perceived by the 3D community. To be perfectly frank, I’ve spent my share of time internally debating whether or not to continue pushing for this application when its so clearly divided and almost unwilling to be focused.

For simplicity sake, this conversation should be boiled down to the core issue. How do we establish a direction for EITG when the company seemingly takes little PR action on its own? And secondly, how do we resolve the artist vs developer debate that seems to happen quite frequently with this application?

If the artists and users drive feature development, there is the potential for a fragmented and unrealistic application direction to take place. We do not “know” the internal structure of the application as well as its programmers, thus at first glance it would seem right to just simply leave the feature decisions to those that do the coding. However, the problem there is the developers don’t actually use this application in a production setting. What the users lack in programming expertise is readily countered by the collective experience these hundreds of users possess meeting the demands that production places on them. Thus it is extremely unwise to disregard the advice and suggestions for features that the users generate. 

In regards to the Paralumino lineup...I envisioned a company that would provide a new method of generating tools and training that were focused on the needs of the artist in production. I also wanted to supply tools and training that attempts to provide solutions for some rather large “holes” in our application workflow. For now, Animator remains the central “hub” of the EIAS universe, but yet Animator is the weakest application in the entire system. Despite the advent of Tesla and its modeling capabilities, there will still remain a need for geometry creation and component level animation in Animator because the old static FACT import method into Animator isn’t enough to remain a viable and competitive solution any more.

Dave!  you are a genius, add anchor points, that was the missing link…
thanks!

Jens, thanks, i get it now…

the problem with Animators type generator, and Vue’s for that matter, is they generate long skinny triangles...this has caused me so many problems with refractions and transparencies etc, that i just import the model and use a wire from that to rebuild the topology as quads that work better. that’s assuming there is a font i can work off of...more often than not, the logo is customized so i end up “pushing verts” in silo…

but thanks for explaining that…

Dave - 09 June 2008 08:18 AM

Here is the 10 step workflow....

1) Open logo in illustrator
2) Ungroup all objects
3) Select all outlines
4) Menu Object -> Path -> Add Anchor Points
5) repeat step 4 until you have the resolution you need (2 or 3 times should be enough)
6) Menu Object -> Path -> Simplify: Angle Threshhold 1º, Options Stright lines.
7) Go to the Layers palette and select the current layer then from the pop-up menu- select “release to layers-sequence”
8) export to dxf
9) open transporter preferences and set “build groups from blocks”
10) process the dxf file (i left all process options off).

Dave

But it shouldn’t be that hard.

Trestle is the ideal mechanism to transport AI files directly into Animator. The resulting polyline conversion upon import into Trestle can then be utilized directly by any number of combinations of plugins. Taking 10 steps just to bring in a static dxf to fact file is ridiculous. Then you have to add in the extra steps of Importing Groups into Trestle to scan the points in order to get the shape into the editor (all the time knowing there is no hole support). Finally, once you have what you need, then you delete the unnecessary static dxf/fact file out of the project window.

The advantages of Trestle are clear.

1. Editable cv points and various drawing tools.
2. Animation support.
3. Master/Slave instancing support.
4. Polylines and polygon generation.
5. Repeating and replication features.
6. Load and saving of polylines.

Why would you want to give up that kind of functionality in exchange for simple static FACT import? Trestle has so much already there...further v2 enhancements only make sense. Giving direct AI import into the host that provides CV point editability and animation will take several upgrades to accomplish. Why reinvent the wheel when Trestle is so close already?

Dave - 09 June 2008 08:18 AM

Hello everyone!
I have investigated this further-

The problem is that Illustrator exports true splines and arcs which EIAS does not understand.
I can do some basic conversion to a logo within illustrator export as DXF - and convert using Transporter to fact.
Every path comes in properly, and each path is a separate object.
So this is possible without any 3rd party tools.
Using Trestle to convert/edit these individual paths should then be possible.


Here is the 10 step workflow....

1) Open logo in illustrator
2) Ungroup all objects
3) Select all outlines
4) Menu Object -> Path -> Add Anchor Points
5) repeat step 4 until you have the resolution you need (2 or 3 times should be enough)
6) Menu Object -> Path -> Simplify: Angle Threshhold 1º, Options Stright lines.
7) Go to the Layers palette and select the current layer then from the pop-up menu- select “release to layers-sequence”
8) export to dxf
9) open transporter preferences and set “build groups from blocks”
10) process the dxf file (i left all process options off).

Now everyone can get to animating logos! ;)

Dave

Hello Dave.

Unfortunately. I haven’t gotten to a point of animating anything based on your suggestions for 10 steps to succes.

Transporter behaves as always - like something from another universe. I follow your steps exactly but when it comes to Transporter...it starts to calculate and then just goes away. Typical Transporter.....my least favourite app of all time:-)

I opened up my exported DFX in Rhino and found that while it accepts some of the shapes, anything will holes in it did not translate. Did you by any chance use an example where there were holes? I’m curious. If you can get this to work with holes...as in the letter P then this might work.

If there are no holes then I’ll just tell my clients I only accept logos without holes....anything with holes needs to be sent to another animator:-)

Hi Paul-

Yes my object had holes. ( it was a company logo all curves)
I ungrouped all of the lines first and the holes imported as separate objects.

the Igors said - NOT IN BOUNDS OF THIRD-PARTY PLUG-IN. That’s what we explained you at
least 10 times, on forum and in private letters. Let’s look/think a little: -
.....
you can tell me 10 times to jump of a cliff, and I still wont do it.  I am asking passionately AND logically for
you to please respond with programming information.  Can it be done or not.
......
the Igors said- please don’t disturb people with new “explosions of passion”
.....
I love EI and I am Passionate about it!  I am sorry, you have silenced a lot of great EI users in the past…
you will have to try harder with me.  We need MORE passion for EI to succeed, NOT less.

Dave - 09 June 2008 09:18 AM

Hi Paul-

Yes my object had holes. ( it was a company logo all curves)
I ungrouped all of the lines first and the holes imported as separate objects.

Thanks Dave - glad it had holes. I have complete lack of faith in me using Transporter. For the life of me I cannot get it to behave predictably - without a doubt some user error but I can move geometry around in C4D, Rhino, EIM, Modo and Max without any issues and quite fluidly. Back and forth but once it hits EI and if Transporter is required, everything grinds to a hault.

So how do you use the holes in EI then?

Back and forth but once it hits EI and if Transporter is required, everything grinds to a hault.

So how do you use the holes in EI then?

Transporter is finicky- but I have been using it to translate 2d lines from dxf into EIAS for a couple of years now (formZ and other modelers will not save 2d lines into fact so transporter is necessary)

As for what you do with the lines once they are there- that’s another issue

I don’t have the Paralumino plugs (yet) so I cannot do further testing with the imported AI/dxf lines.

But this should provide a fairly simple process for getting Illustrator art into EIAS.

As for how hard this is- It is not hard at all.
It took me less than 30 seconds to do this with a logo made up of 7 different complex spline curves, so I think this is a viable workflow.

If anyone has any problem AI files they would like me to try- I will make some time to do some more experimentation and problem solving. Just e-mail me the AI file and I will give the translation a shot.