Sketch-based 3d modeler beta

[phydeaux]

Hey all,
I've finally finished the mac port of the latest beta version of OpenTeddy, the easy-to-use 3d modeler project I have been working on. If you have a chance, please download it here: http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~alexni/code/openteddy-mac.tar.gz and let me know if it works okay on your machine (and of course, use it to make stuff- that's what it's for- you can save in Wavefront obj format.) The tutorial to try is available on the web page: http://openteddy.sourceforge.net/ I also included a sample model to give you an idea what you can create very quickly with it- you can type the L KEY and the name of the file to open it (posterboy.obj)
You will find that this modeler functions quite differently than most out there- this system is geared towards organic-looking meshes a lot faster than a traditional modelers. For certain models it may be inappropriate to use OpenTeddy, though I would like to add more functionality so that it is as useful as a general-purpose modeler.
I decided on what I hope is a nice control scheme for a single-button mouse. What normally would be the left button is the single button, right button clicking is a double-click (since you don't need to drag the right button, this works out fine) and to middle-click, you can either do a really slow double click with a drag at the end (e.g. click, wait a while, drag in the same spot) or you can shift-click.

Thanks,
p.

[skyhawk]

perhaps you should include SDL IN your program... the program doesn't open:
dyld: /Users/mjsdnalab2/Desktop/openteddy-mac/ot.app/Contents/MacOS/ot can't open library: @executable_path/../Frameworks/SDL.framework/Versions/A/SDL (No such file or directory, errno = 2)

NEVER expect anyone to have any non-standard frameworks

[igame3d]

Yep, no go.

[phydeaux]

New version up with static linked SDL. Thanks for the help, guys. I had forgotten about that.

[aaronsullivan]

I need documentation to make this work... I just get one mesh blob and then nothing I do does more than draw temporary red lines and temporary green squares. Occaisonally I will cut into the blob and make it a messy blob.

...Eventually I think I figured out some of it (once I made it so my middle mouse button wasn't triggering expose' ;) ) but it's very unpredictable in the results.

[aaronsullivan]

What would really help is interactive point selecting AS you move your mouse across the surface.

[phydeaux]

Did the tutorial help at all? I definitely would like to make the software easier to use. By default when you make a new blob all your strokes that you finalize end up going to projecting onto that blob. What might be a better idea is that every time you finalize a stroke you just end up with a new blob (you can actually enable this behavior by editing the xml prefs file, and turn auto-select to 0. however, it still may be confusing where new blobs are created with respect to old ones- right now there is a 3d cursor that defines where they will be created, though it might be easier if the program just kind of assumed where you wanted it based on what other shapes you already have down.)

Thanks for giving it a try.

[skyhawk]

caused it to crash... WHEEE

gpoints size 49
Display: Stroke is self-intersecting.
Click: 414 367, 0.391667 0.529167
Click: 389 308, 0.287500 0.283333
Click: 389 308, 0.287500 0.283333
gpoints size 59
Slice... closed: 1, mainfold: 1

(process:3209): Gts-ERROR **: file boolean.c: line 1273 (new_ear): assertion failed: (or > -1e-6)
aborting...

side note, needs to recognize apple-q as quit

[Skorche]

Whoa, awesome. A modeling program I might actually be able to use!

[phydeaux]

Unfortunately, for now you will get that one once in a while- a lot of the functionality is based on GTS's boolean operations which are not completely rigorous. That's one thing I'm trying to fix eventually. In the meantime, it would be a good idea to at least not make the program crash when that happens, though. I probably should do that before releasing this next version.

[skyhawk]

LOOK! It's a whale! :lol:
http://www.hkasoftware.com/skyhawk/models/whale.gif

[aaronsullivan]

Did the tutorial help at all?
Heh... whoops. :blush: Sorry about that.

[phydeaux]

Hehe, no problem. It would be nice, though, if it were just easy enough that you could almost figure it out without any instructions. Let me know what you think.

[skyhawk]

wow, the tutorial shows there is a lot more power in this thing! I managed to make jay leno =D

anyways, you also need the ability to load these .obj you make so I don't have to entirely recreate my things :)

[igame3d]

Is there an alternate key for "LEFT" mouse? every mouse in my house that is worth using is one button.

[aaronsullivan]

Hey, I like this. It's a great fast prototyping tool, and, as you say, if you are looking for an organic look, this is probably the most natural program I've played with. I especially like the easy interactive simplifying of the model... buttons for that stuff will be nice, but most important is a way to undo! :)

Also, restricted rotating would be cool.

Keep at it! It seems you want to keep the simplicity thing going, and that is the key to making this a stand out program. Thanks for sharing! Anyone using .obj files in their program would do well to use this program (even as is) for a set of models to test with.

Did you ever try out SketchUp? There's some great ideas for simplicity in that app.

[Skorche]

That is completely awesome. I've never been able to figure out how to use a modeling program before. With this one I didn't even have to try that hard. I'll definitely keep my eye on this one.

[aaronsullivan]

anyways, you also need the ability to load these .obj you make so I don't have to entirely recreate my things :)
tsk tsk... always read the first post carefully before commenting like I always do.
:lol:
:blush:
;)

you can type the L KEY and the name of the file to open it

[skyhawk]

definitely more mac friendly then :)

[aaronsullivan]

Yes, it will be nice to have menus, etc. Although, since you seem to be using SDL I'm betting they won't be standard menus... buttons at least will be nice instead of having to memorize key presses when you are just learning.

BTW, the animation features are pretty sweet. :) I'm excited to see where this goes.

[phydeaux]

If you have a single button mouse, LEFT is your single button, RIGHT is double click, and MIDDLE is shift-click (or double click with a drag at the end.) I may have forgotten to put that on the tutorial page (which is again, http://openteddy.sourceforge.net/ )

You should be able to load and save models unless something is broken on the mac version. It's non-standard keys (for the Mac) for sure- S will save, but to load you use L instead of O. The O key actually will re-center the origin at wherever your cursor is.

[diordna]

iG3D just doesn't like to read tutorials and Read Me's, phydeaux, it's on your page :)

You REALLY need some kind of menu system or button sidebar. Nothing complicated, just a grey box with black text in it that says "simplify" and "open" and all you have to do is click them instead of memorizing keys.

But other than that, this is one of the most creative things I've ever seen in my life. Feature suggestion for the distant future: painting directly onto the surface. I realize that's too much for now, but it'd be really neat :)

[igame3d]

iG3D just doesn't like to read tutorials and Read Me's, phydeaux, it's on your page :)
You got that right :) I don't like writing them either.


Another suggestion, put all the instructions (keyboard stuff etc) into a window that can be pulled up from the application itself.

[aaronsullivan]

Guys, I don't want to speak for anyone out of turn here, but I think he gets that the interface will need improvements. He's just testing out the core of his app until it feels right and works right. The button interface and help and stuff is the LAST (and easiest) thing he will need to add. I think he's approaching it with the right focus. I'm anxious to see him work on the core features, not interface elements like buttons that may change as the core functionality changes.

Anyone else try the animation features yet?

Anyone try this with a Wacom tablet yet? It seems perfect for it.

[phydeaux]

I'm anxious to see him work on the core features, not interface elements like buttons that may change as the core functionality changes.
Couldn't have said it better myself- I intend to use this for uDG (provided I can finish something in time) so all the functionality will come before the user-friendliness. I just wanted to release it before it's user-friendly so that everyone can make use of the functionality in their projects if they'd like to. However, if there's something really easy UI-related to add (e.g. I can throw in cmd-Q real quick since that really is standard on the Mac) I can put it in fairly soon.

Did you ever try out SketchUp? There's some great ideas for simplicity in that app.
I haven't gotten to try that software yet, but it looks cool. I will download it and give it a try.

Feature suggestion for the distant future: painting directly onto the surface.
A lot of the functionality for doing this is already there, so that may come fairly soon. Right now there is actually some limited support for texturing (secret feature with the T KEY- you select the triangles you want to texture, and a planar mapping is applied- the texcoords will show up in the obj file) though texturing should be practical in a few weeks when I get back from SIGGRAPH.

For my purposes, "complete" functionality is creating a base mesh, adding a few planar textures onto it (probably then creating those textures in photoshop), automatically generating normals (to do shading), keyframe animation, and geometry metadata (e.g. you want to mark some vertex as being part of a hand so you can stick in a sword there or something.) This should all be done within the next few weeks, and hopefully it will be useful to more people than just me.

[skyhawk]

I would like to see this thing accept .obj files completely. I have models I have made (in another modeler), and would like to take advantage of the wonderful polygon reducer you have in this program (absolutely wonderful).
perhaps you can help me achieve what I want now

[phydeaux]

Sure- if you could post your .obj files, I can see all the features that need to be imported- presuming they don't use too many complicated .obj extensions, I can post a binary that will import and export it correctly- the importer/exporter I have now is fairly flexible, and hopefully will be able to handle it.

On another note, at SIGGRAPH I was able to see SketchUp in action, and it's quite neat (though costs like ~$400.) I may try to throw in some of the features- I think the main thing is that a lot of the axis-snapping is incredibly useful for making architectural stuff.

p.

[skyhawk]

http://www.hkasoftware.com/skyhawk/Icarus/bob.obj.sit

[phydeaux]

It appears that there are either cracks or some reversed-face triangles in your mesh- this makes the simplification algorithm mess up, so you won't be able to simplify the mesh without some mesh repair. You may be able to do this manually with whatever tool you have- it appears that the breaks are in the two sort of large disc-like shapes to the sides of the object (all the inner shapes I believe have no cracks on them- but the reason why seems fairly clear, which is they look like they were just unmodified primitives- cone,sphere, etc.) Once your mesh is repaired you can use the simplification technique- I was able to load the model other than these problems.

A recent technique for mesh repair I saw recently you can find at http://www.cs.rice.edu/~jutao/code/software.htm though it looks like he only has a windows binary available. There may be some other tools out there if you do a web search. But to use the simplification algorithm I have you will definitely need to have a manifold mesh.

[anarchy99]

ive downloaded openteddy from the link on the first post several times and every time i decompress the tar.gz it says ot is corrupt or damaged so i was wondering could some one put a working one in a dmg or something for me please

[phydeaux]

Okay, give http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~alexni/code/openteddy-mac.dmg a try.

[anarchy99]

i notice one up in the directory so thanks and the app is great allot better than the conventional modeler

[xtiank]

hi there, just came across this thread and wondered if anyone still had a copy of the dmg - ive googled and wayback machined it but no fun...

ta

christian

[xtiank]

hi there, just wondering if anybody still has this app or dmg or link to it - been using this software on windows, but really want to use it on my macbook.... i looked on the waybackmachine and although they recollect the page, they dont keep all the data....

thanks

christian krupa