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Post by markjoel60 on Jun 5, 2010 2:29:31 GMT 1
OK... I'm not sure where to put this... it's sort of a resource... but really it is a stand alone application, that I hope some guys might find useful. (Mods can feel free to move it...) I wrote a little utility that I think is helpful, and the price is right (It's free). First off, know that it is WINDOWS ONLY. I take advantage of some low-level system calls to make it work. It's pretty simple. It pops up a form that you can load an image into. You can zoom it and place it anywhere you want (ie over Blender). When you hit the "Overlay" button, the screen goes into a pass-though mode, so you can model in Silo as though the screen is not there. You see the image, but it doesn't affect your Blender actions. It has become a FOREGROUND reference image -- as opposed to a background image. It should work with any application: Silo, Blender, Sculptris, zBrush... anything. Doesn't matter if it is for animation, or modeling... it is independent of the app. There is a little video showing it in action here: Foreground Reference UtilityAnd you can get the Utility here: RAR File
Let me know what you think... |
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Post by wikkidwidgets on Jun 5, 2010 2:33:04 GMT 1
That sounds kinda kewl!
P.S. I fixed your links for you.
*wink*
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Post by markjoel60 on Jun 5, 2010 2:38:51 GMT 1
That sounds kinda kewl! P.S. I fixed your links for you. *wink* Thanks... yeah, I cut and pasted it in and didn't see the URLs are different here... Glad the links work now! |
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Post by polyhertz on Jun 5, 2010 2:41:09 GMT 1
Sort of neat. I use GhostIt for locking transparent images to the forground already though. Check that out and see if can gleam some ideas off it to continue to improve on your app. I can think of a few things that'd make yours very useful if you're interested in continuing to work on it.
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jim
Forum regular
Sculptris Beta Team
Posts: 69
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Post by jim on Jun 5, 2010 3:21:13 GMT 1
wow, really a most elegant tool and very charmingly presented  thank you very much for shareing it *seeing this makes me think: 'rotoscoping' any chance to support video files/single frame animations one day? ;D |
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Post by sporkfumaster on Jun 5, 2010 3:29:48 GMT 1
I was just about to start doing a sculpt with reference. I had just finished saving a couple pictures for it when I saw this post. I'd feel a bit like I was cheating with this, but it may come in handy still. Thanks.
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Post by markjoel60 on Jun 5, 2010 4:17:16 GMT 1
I use GhostIt for locking transparent images to the forground already though.... I can think of a few things that'd make yours very useful if you're interested in continuing to work on it. Hehe... had I seen that, I would have never written mine. In the end, though, I am glad I didn't see it, because having my utility allows me to tailor is to fit my specific needs -- which I hope will also fit others who are using it for art things. GhostIt seems like a more broad utility, whereas this a will be more focused... If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I have a list of things I want to do with this already... wow, really a most elegant tool and very charmingly presented Wow... I don't think a programmer can get higher praise than to be told something he wrote was elegant...thanks! *seeing this makes me think: 'rotoscoping' any chance to support video files/single frame animations one day? Yeah, actually, you read my mind. At a minimum, I would want to be able to load up a bunch of pictures, and flip through them with ALT-Arrow or something. But taking a video file and loading stills from it would seem to be a logical progression. I'd also like to make the zoom and position thing a little slicker. The challenge is that I have to use a global system hook to grab events (once I hand them over to the other app) and I wouldn't want to do a lot of processing for fear of getting in the way of the underlying 3D app... but I plan to play with this somewhat... by all means keep the wishlist coming... I was just about to start doing a sculpt with reference. I had just finished saving a couple pictures for it when I saw this post. I'd feel a bit like I was cheating with this, but it may come in handy still. Thanks. Well, I guess everyone has their own ideas on what cheating is... I just look at this as another tool in the tool box. If this is cheating, would it be cheating to refer to a photo? Or look in the mirror, or use a live model? I dunno... I don't have any answers. But I sometimes have my proportions get away from me, so I need something like this. Or... put another way... it may be a crutch, but I'm a cripple... so I'll take it! |
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Post by schwerpunk on Jun 5, 2010 4:41:22 GMT 1
Very interesting... I would comment further, but I'm going to bed, so I've bookmarked this for tomorrow.
Thank you ever so much for sharing. :3
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Post by thehand on Jun 5, 2010 7:35:58 GMT 1
Awesome! Thanks for sharing Sir!
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Post by rob49152 on Jun 5, 2010 7:59:04 GMT 1
well it looks like the development for Ghostit is long since dead. Frankly I tried it and it doesn't compare to the one you've written
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ljb
Spud
Posts: 4
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Post by ljb on Jun 5, 2010 14:34:38 GMT 1
Hmm That looks a little familiar.
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ljb
Spud
Posts: 4
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Post by ljb on Jun 5, 2010 14:38:11 GMT 1
I suppose at least this one is free.
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3dioot
Forum regular
Posts: 70
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Post by 3dioot on Jun 5, 2010 15:25:01 GMT 1
markjoel60Thanks for this! I think its awesome you created this and made it freely available for everyone to use.  It seems you are forgetting a whole other way of using it though. While its nice to use it as an overlay its great for people who have a single monitor as well. Its very convenient to place some reference in one of the corners of your monitor and just sculpt away. A flipbook option would be very nice especially for that. Someone did make something similair but it costs a small amount. It has many features though. scary-monsters.org/blog/purchase-reference-image-v1/Perhaps thats good for inspiration. If not its a very nice app for the price with some awesome features. ---- As for cheating. Its not cheating. In "production" nothing is. When you are just studying however i, personally, strongly advice against tracing. You need to make mistakes to recognize them. With tracing that will never happen so you will not learn much if anything from it. Just my 2 cents. 3dioot
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Post by polyhertz on Jun 5, 2010 15:37:05 GMT 1
Ok, a few suggestions then: -ability to quickly switch between images in the loaded images folder (like Windows Picture viewer with left and right arrows). -Tabs for different folders. So in conjunction with the above, you could have multiple relevant reference images loaded from multiple folders and quickly tab or flip between them. -A maximize/minimize button on the top right -Ability to zoom in/out on an image -Smaller control window (the current one is huge), and one that doesn't cover the image when not in overlay mode. This could be great as a general picture viewer apart from just a foreground ghost reference app with some tweaking I think |
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Post by sporkfumaster on Jun 5, 2010 15:46:10 GMT 1
Sorry about that markjoel60. Shouldn't have put in "cheating".. ;D It is closer to tracing an image which would be really helpful in many instances. I think it would be a very helpful tool. And for free, you really can't complain either...lol. It will be nice to be able to have a reference image up on the side of the screen for me as well as having the sculptris window maximized.
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