For some odd reason, my previuos post is now broken. You cannot answer to it anymore! This thread is meant to start where the other one ended.
See the proposal here: http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/
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New stuff ( January 28 ):
Render Buttons (http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/renderbuttons.htm)
UV Editing (http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/uveditor.htm)
Please read carefully before commenting! And remember, this is not an attack on Blender, but a help to improve the program we all love.
-William Reynish
PS
There is an error in the forum. The seventh page cannot be accesed by normal means. CLick below to acces the seveth page:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=m ... c&start=90
Further Interface Improvement proposal - NEW: UV Editing
Moderators: jesterKing, stiv
Further Interface Improvement proposal - NEW: UV Editing
Last edited by Monkeyboi on Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:56 pm, edited 9 times in total.
Regarding the Texture buttons proposal, a pulldown for the channels has the following disadvantage over the current implementation:
- You have no overview of how the textures are layed out on top of one another
- Harder to add texture to a particular channel
Regarding the UV editor proposal. I don't really see where more than one coordinates set could be useful, can you give us a real example?
Regarding the use of the OS clipboard. An internal clipboard is:
1) Faster (not much to explain here)
2) Safer (other apps cannot modify the content of the clipboard without telling you)
3) Less error prone (the os clipboard can contain other things than text. I never tested it myself, but it could cause some problems).
Popup proposal: Nothing to rant about, nice and clean looking.
Object info: Seems ok. The memory usage could stay in the header though.
Keep the proposals coming
Martin
- You have no overview of how the textures are layed out on top of one another
- Harder to add texture to a particular channel
Regarding the UV editor proposal. I don't really see where more than one coordinates set could be useful, can you give us a real example?
Regarding the use of the OS clipboard. An internal clipboard is:
1) Faster (not much to explain here)
2) Safer (other apps cannot modify the content of the clipboard without telling you)
3) Less error prone (the os clipboard can contain other things than text. I never tested it myself, but it could cause some problems).
Popup proposal: Nothing to rant about, nice and clean looking.
Object info: Seems ok. The memory usage could stay in the header though.
Keep the proposals coming
Martin
Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon
- John Lennon
I will change the texture buttons proposal to use a different way to handel channels. I regret using a dropdown menu there.
About the clipboard:
You know Blender already supports OS clipboard copying and pasting right? You do this with ctrl-shift-c and ctrl-shift-v. There are no problems are errors with this. Try it! The proposal was to merge the OS clipboard and internal program clipboard, because there is no point in having them sepperate. Every other application has them as one, and there are never any problems, and it never gets confusing. In fact I would say it would get much less confusing if there was just one copy and one paste command that copies/pasted to and from the OS clipboard and the program clipboard.
About the speed: Copying to the OS clipboard is not noticably slower than copiyng to the program clipboard at all as far as I have tested.
An example where several UV coordinates per object would be useful:
Here is an object (Suzanne the monkey) with a texture:
Here are the UV coordinates for the same texture:
This is a different texture on the same object:
It has different UV coordinates:
I would like to make a blend between these two textures texture. Is it possible? No, because you can only have one UV coordinates set per object. In the proposal it would be possible.
Here is another example:
Here is a hand:
As you can see, there is some stretching on the sides of the fingers.
We can currently fix this by changing the UV coordinates of the problematic faces. This would look like so:
The problem is that there is now a visible seam between the sides of the fingers and the rest. If we could have several UV coordinates per object we could use a new texture with an alpha map to cover the sides of the fingers, where the alpha map takes care of blending between the two texture channels. In other words it would be possible to completely remove strectchin and seams on objects.
About the clipboard:
You know Blender already supports OS clipboard copying and pasting right? You do this with ctrl-shift-c and ctrl-shift-v. There are no problems are errors with this. Try it! The proposal was to merge the OS clipboard and internal program clipboard, because there is no point in having them sepperate. Every other application has them as one, and there are never any problems, and it never gets confusing. In fact I would say it would get much less confusing if there was just one copy and one paste command that copies/pasted to and from the OS clipboard and the program clipboard.
About the speed: Copying to the OS clipboard is not noticably slower than copiyng to the program clipboard at all as far as I have tested.
An example where several UV coordinates per object would be useful:
Here is an object (Suzanne the monkey) with a texture:
Here are the UV coordinates for the same texture:
This is a different texture on the same object:
It has different UV coordinates:
I would like to make a blend between these two textures texture. Is it possible? No, because you can only have one UV coordinates set per object. In the proposal it would be possible.
Here is another example:
Here is a hand:
As you can see, there is some stretching on the sides of the fingers.
We can currently fix this by changing the UV coordinates of the problematic faces. This would look like so:
The problem is that there is now a visible seam between the sides of the fingers and the rest. If we could have several UV coordinates per object we could use a new texture with an alpha map to cover the sides of the fingers, where the alpha map takes care of blending between the two texture channels. In other words it would be possible to completely remove strectchin and seams on objects.
Only under windows and until I debuged it, it didn't properly handle newline characters. Do I know about?Monkeyboi wrote:About the clipboard:
You know Blender already supports OS clipboard copying and pasting right?
Unless you use the current CVS version, yes, there is, or you haven't used it for multi line back and forth copy-pasting.You do this with ctrl-shift-c and ctrl-shift-v. There are no problems are errors with this.
It would be trivial to map the OS clipboard to Ctrl-X,V,C and the internal clipboard to Alt-X,V,C. Would that make you happy?Every other application has them as one, and there are never any problems, and it never gets confusing. In fact I would say it would get much less confusing if there was just one copy and one paste command that copies/pasted to and from the OS clipboard and the program clipboard.
There's a call to the Windows API, of course it is slower than directly copying memory. (Only slightly noticeable when copying to the clipboard and with large amount of text).About the speed: Copying to the OS clipboard is not noticably slower than copiyng to the program clipboard at all as far as I have tested.
When UV mapping, "usually", you unwrap the mesh first and then create the texture to fit the layout of the UV faces. Doing it the other way around is not only harder, but it creates problem like having two textures that need different wrapping, seams, ...I would like to make a blend between these two textures texture. Is it possible? No, because you can only have one UV coordinates set per object. In the proposal it would be possible.
Of course, this only applies if you create your own UV textures, but using a premade image with UV coords is like trying to screw with a hammer.
Totally rubish. This wouldn't haven happened if the mesh was unwrapped correctly in the first place. Which you'll have to do anyway if you want to use multiple textures for different output (Nor map, Hard map, Spec map). Patching each of those like you suggest would be just a waste of texture channels.Here is a hand:
As you can see, there is some stretching on the sides of the fingers.
We can currently fix this by changing the UV coordinates of the problematic faces. This would look like so:
The problem is that there is now a visible seam between the sides of the fingers and the rest.
Martin
Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon
- John Lennon
Please dont take things as an attack! I'm really trying to help!
Sometime it there can be quite nasty stretching even if you do unwrap your mesh.
Another posobillity that several UV maps would add is the ability to have several textures on a character (for example one for the head and one for the body). Currently you cannot have this without a seam between where one texture starts and one ends, but with several UV maps you could remove this with an alpha map.
When unrapping a character, you would mostly like to unrap the arms seperately, since unrapping the entire character usually creates stretching problems. If you do unwrap the arm sepperately as you would, there will be a visible seam where the arm joins the body. If you could have several UV maps per object, you could remove this seam. Another example of where it would be useful. Again, you can make it look ok with the current system, but it would require a lengthy process om matching colours on both sides of the seam. Having more UV maps per object would add flexibility above all.
Yes that is a good idea. But maybe it would be even better to map both the internal and OS clipboard to ctrl-X,V,C , and then use alt-X,V,C for only copying to internal clipboard should you want to do that. The reason is that users expect ctrl-c to copy. One alternative thing that would also really improve matters would be simpy adding "copy to OS clipboard" and "paste from OS clipboard" in the Text Editor menu, so users have a chance to figure out how to do it.It would be trivial to map the OS clipboard to Ctrl-X,V,C and the internal clipboard to Alt-X,V,C. Would that make you happy?
Please only see the hand example as an example! Lots of cool things that would be much harder to do by unwrapping could be made possible! Take for example if you would like to create blood stains on a character being shot: You could create the blood stains image with an aplha layer and apply them to a second UV map on top of the first. You could then animate the visibility the visibility of the second channel to toggle the blood stains on or off. There probably are other ways to do a similar effect, but the ammount of flexibility adding several UV maps per object would add is what is the point.When UV mapping, "usually", you unwrap the mesh first and then create the texture to fit the layout of the UV faces. Doing it the other way around is not only harder, but it creates problem like having two textures that need different wrapping, seams, ...
Of course, this only applies if you create your own UV textures, but using a premade image with UV coords is like trying to screw with a hammer.
Totally rubish. This wouldn't haven happened if the mesh was unwrapped correctly in the first place. Which you'll have to do anyway if you want to use multiple textures for different output (Nor map, Hard map, Spec map). Patching each of those like you suggest would be just a waste of texture channels.
Sometime it there can be quite nasty stretching even if you do unwrap your mesh.
Another posobillity that several UV maps would add is the ability to have several textures on a character (for example one for the head and one for the body). Currently you cannot have this without a seam between where one texture starts and one ends, but with several UV maps you could remove this with an alpha map.
When unrapping a character, you would mostly like to unrap the arms seperately, since unrapping the entire character usually creates stretching problems. If you do unwrap the arm sepperately as you would, there will be a visible seam where the arm joins the body. If you could have several UV maps per object, you could remove this seam. Another example of where it would be useful. Again, you can make it look ok with the current system, but it would require a lengthy process om matching colours on both sides of the seam. Having more UV maps per object would add flexibility above all.
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Pablosbrain
- Posts: 254
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:39 pm
My take on the multiple UV mappings is that it is a good thing. It is available in other application like Lightwave. It helps if you want to map things in different ways. For instance you may want to apply a texture of a face to an unwrapped UV mapping while then wanting to map a pracedural texture a different way. Another example would be using a flat mapping for a tattoo on a character that is seperate from the base texture that is mapped in an unwrapped UV mapping.
Another Idea: I don't know if its been mentioned yet... the possibility of animated uvmapping? UVMapping that changes... similar to morphing a mesh but this would be morphing the UVMapping. Could definitely provide some creative possibilities for texturing.
All together... I think the more UVmapping options available the more flexible the system will become.
Another Idea: I don't know if its been mentioned yet... the possibility of animated uvmapping? UVMapping that changes... similar to morphing a mesh but this would be morphing the UVMapping. Could definitely provide some creative possibilities for texturing.
All together... I think the more UVmapping options available the more flexible the system will become.
I just updated the proposal again. This time I have included an IPO window proposal.
Here is an image:
Click here to read the IPO Window proposal:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/ipowindow.htm
I have also updated the RVK/morph target proposal. It now has colours in the panels to identify the curves.
¨
Click here to see it:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/morphtargets.htm
Here is an image:
Click here to read the IPO Window proposal:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/ipowindow.htm
I have also updated the RVK/morph target proposal. It now has colours in the panels to identify the curves.
¨
Click here to see it:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/morphtargets.htm
I actually like the idea for multiple uv-mappings; Like others, I've actually used this in another program (animation:master by hash) and its very useful (they called them decals there, but what-the-hey). In conjunction with alpha images you could fade from one texture to another, useful for multi-texturing or for hiding seams on especially complex and hard to unwrap meshes (think hands, for instance)
Its not impossible to achieve similar effects without this option. sometimes, you have to add extra lines in the model. But this is better: think:
1- you have a mesh that is very irregular; one mapping stretches in one part, and another mapping stretches in another.
2-you'd like to 'fade' between two maps over an 'irregular' area with another texture to hide a seam
3-you'd like to quickly and easily, with lots of control, change surface texture between generic images without using an image editor.
the color
Its not impossible to achieve similar effects without this option. sometimes, you have to add extra lines in the model. But this is better: think:
1- you have a mesh that is very irregular; one mapping stretches in one part, and another mapping stretches in another.
2-you'd like to 'fade' between two maps over an 'irregular' area with another texture to hide a seam
3-you'd like to quickly and easily, with lots of control, change surface texture between generic images without using an image editor.
the color
Very, very nice! I enjoy watching the evolution of your GUI proposals, very interesting.
Things I found great:
- The improvements of the IPO window (yeah, seems you really want to group everysingle element in blender), but I'm not so sure about changing the name.
- The popups proposal is great too. Having it all visible in the beginning and not having to worry about moving your mouse far away... great!
- The toolbox mesh editing would be a charm, will save me from having to deal with the Button Window's panels
(it's fast too, having it all on the toolbox)
- The object's properties window would save me some great space in the header
- I could definetively get used to using your new mouse button scheme (but, it's better if we can choose the buttons scheme)
- Multiple UV mapping, that would be interesting
Oh, and btw, I would love seeing the game engine back with that design of yours, that would be neat. But remember! Different logic bricks have different background and header colors! It would be nice to keep those colors (i think) because it's easyer to differentiate different bricks by just looking at the color sets.
I still have to keep on reading the rest of your proposal, but it looking real nice.
Things I found great:
- The improvements of the IPO window (yeah, seems you really want to group everysingle element in blender), but I'm not so sure about changing the name.
- The popups proposal is great too. Having it all visible in the beginning and not having to worry about moving your mouse far away... great!
- The toolbox mesh editing would be a charm, will save me from having to deal with the Button Window's panels
(it's fast too, having it all on the toolbox)- The object's properties window would save me some great space in the header
- I could definetively get used to using your new mouse button scheme (but, it's better if we can choose the buttons scheme)
- Multiple UV mapping, that would be interesting
Oh, and btw, I would love seeing the game engine back with that design of yours, that would be neat. But remember! Different logic bricks have different background and header colors!
It would be nice to keep those colors (i think) because it's easyer to differentiate different bricks by just looking at the color sets.I still have to keep on reading the rest of your proposal, but it looking real nice.
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Blendorphin
- Posts: 0
- Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2003 12:21 am
for the customizable mouse layout, i had an idea.
in the user-preferences window, there could be a section with a diagram of a mouse. each feature would be listed (select, manipulate view, place cursor, etc.) and the user could drag-and-drop the features on to the buttons. also, it should be possible to make presets. (Blender default, Regular PC, etc) i might be able to make a mockup of this sometime(but i'm sure you could do a much better job with merely this description!)
anyways, just my $.02
in the user-preferences window, there could be a section with a diagram of a mouse. each feature would be listed (select, manipulate view, place cursor, etc.) and the user could drag-and-drop the features on to the buttons. also, it should be possible to make presets. (Blender default, Regular PC, etc) i might be able to make a mockup of this sometime(but i'm sure you could do a much better job with merely this description!)
anyways, just my $.02
improvments opinion
Although many proposals are not said to be an incredible improvment and I'd be careful about implementing them, I like monkeyboi's proposal of having the frame well visible, in the IPO window, with +1 -1 increment right beneath it. Where having it right under the line or maybe in the button bar of the IPO window is debatable, but the idea is OK
-R
-R
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blendermax
- Posts: 0
- Joined: Sun Jan 19, 2003 8:30 pm
I have included a new section about how to change the file browser. Please check it out!
Here is an image:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/fileselector.jpg
This is a link to the File Browser proposal:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/filebrowser.htm
I have also updated the texturebuttons proposal. I had to have a max eight texture channel system because it is hardcoded in Blender. See it here:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/texturebuttons.htm
Here is an image:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/fileselector.jpg
This is a link to the File Browser proposal:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/filebrowser.htm
I have also updated the texturebuttons proposal. I had to have a max eight texture channel system because it is hardcoded in Blender. See it here:
http://www.shadeless.dk/ui/texturebuttons.htm