"Mike Miller" <mil### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> "Samuel B." <stb### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> > "Mike Miller" <mil### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > > "Samuel B." <stb### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> > > > "Mike Miller" <mil### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > > > > Current modeling progress for a brain bot character. [...]
> > > >
> > > > It's looking really good!
> > > >
> > > > How are you modeling the brain?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > the brain is one continuous sphere_sweep/cubic_spline. [...] I exported the
> > > spheres via .x3d and converted the file to POV syntax. [...]
> >
> > Ah, tracing the brain folds is a good solution, for sure.
> >
> > I know nothing about the .x3d file type, but it sounds like it somehow preserves
> > lots of info including ordered point arrays? Or it can at least be converted to
> > arrays?

> Yes, you are correct. The .x3d holds all the naming and transform information of
> the Blender types. As long as you stick with Blender primitives (blobs, spheres,
> torus, cube, etc. the output file is simple to parse. I use it to export point
> arrays for POV lathes, sweeps, prisms, 2D arrays. I wrote a converter that reads
> the .x3d and writes POV syntax. Attached shows spheres renamed as 'pointData in
> Blender... I convert the points into 'mixed array' to be used in a construction
> loop.
>
> [...]
>
> In Blender, I array a sphere along a bezier path with the 'curve' modifier.
> Collapsing the array and curve moodier to create a list of loose elements still
> maintains a creation order. Prefect for lathes, sweeps, prisms, ect.
> Miller

That's some welcome information! Years ago, I made a Blender-to-.pov arrays
script in Python to transport object orientation data to POV-Ray (for rigid body
sims), but Blender's Python API changed over time, and the script stopped
working :( The .x3d file type seems like a promising replacement, and might even
be less work than finding the changed API calls all over again.

> Currently working on some sci-fi tower forms.

It's looking more interesting all the time.

Sam

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