I just modeled this REAL fast (of course I did follow a tutorial :) Its made
with Wings3D. I was really impressed, It won't get rid of my text editor but
I can definetly see myself using it for some organic stuff. I have a few
questions though. In Wings I changed the materials of the hexagons to black
so that it'd look more soccerbally. I saved it as .3ds and then used
crossroads to convert it to pov 3.0, Now its all white! Blechk. Is there
another, better, possibly newer program I should be using to covert things?
I'd rather see it converted to a mesh2 as well. I've seen other POVers use
wings and considering its open source maybe the author would consider
including a mesh1 and mesh2 pov export to the program? Has anyone contacted
him about this before?

Thanks,
Corey

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DOH!

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'soccer.png' (48 KB)

Preview of image 'soccer.png'

> crossroads to convert it to pov 3.0, Now its all white! Blechk. Is there
> another, better, possibly newer program I should be using to covert
things?

Just texture it.  Or have a look at Steven Cox's UVMapper
http://www.uvmapper.com/

-tgq

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Is there
> another, better, possibly newer program I should be using to covert things?
> I'd rather see it converted to a mesh2 as well.

Try 3dWin

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Excuse me, but this looks more like a bump map, than real surface
displacement. Anyway, I assume you're telling the truth and these are
triangles.. Does it "waste" a lot of triangles? What is the memory
consumation of this ball? I downloaded several modellers through time but
never liked any of them.. But I've never tried Wings3d and don't know
anything about it... Is it free?

I'll seek on google now, but let me know anyway if it is REALLY free, or
just a half-way, ad-supported, crippled, beta version full of bugs.

Regards,
Hugo

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> I'll seek on google now, but let me know anyway if it is REALLY free, or
> just a half-way, ad-supported, crippled, beta version full of bugs.

Not only is it really free, but its open source. Its basically a clone of
nendo.
http://www.wings3d.com/

Looks great for organic stuff. Its not a scene modeler or a complete package
by any means though. That cool spaceship posted just a few days ago by
Coridon Henshaw (called the 4rth Age) was modelled with it I think.

Corey

Post a reply to this message

Okay thanks! I looked at the official homepage now. I agree with you, we
need mesh2 for POV and I don't know where to get it, moreover for free.
Preferred would be a direct POV output from Wings. I wonder why he didn't
make that, when he mentions POV several times. It would be pretty easy!
Maybe there's an unofficial version that supports POV...?

Regards,
Hugo

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This ball looks very strange to me. There is a sharp change in the surface
normal at the edge of every hexagon where the round edge begins. The ball
looks like a csg made of clipped spheres and tori. If Wings can generate a
wire-frame, I would very much like to see it.

 -Shay



Corey Woodworth <cdw### [at] mpinetnet> wrote in message
news:3cb6bc3a$1@news.povray.org...

Post a reply to this message

Regarding Wings3d > OBJ > POV mesh2

I found:
http://www.geocities.com/who3d/Downloads.html

But it fails to read the OBJ.  :o(  Very strange because I just had a look
at the OBJ file-format in Wordpad and it's very simple, and very similar to
a mesh2 format, actually... So, Corey, if nothing else works, we can write
our own OBJ > POV converter in pov script.

Maybe it wouldn't even be slower than to have a third program involved to
convert.

Maybe this has been coded already?

Regards,
Hugo

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Oh no.. I had a look at POV's abilities to read text files, and to my regret
I see it's very strict on formatting.. I can't build a conversion tool
because POV can't just read some text into a string.. I can't help... :o(

Hugo

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Hugo <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote in message
news:3cb7094d$1@news.povray.org...
> Oh no.. I had a look at POV's abilities to read text files, and to my
regret
> I see it's very strict on formatting.. I can't build a conversion tool
> because POV can't just read some text into a string.. I can't help...

Someone posted a link to a free C compiler recently in p.o-t.

 -Shay

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On Fri, 12 Apr 2002 11:30:52 -0500, "Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote:
> Someone posted a link to a free C compiler recently in p.o-t.

http://lizmi.oingo.com/apps/domainpark/results.cgi?Partner=lizmi&ac=r&Keywords=free%20c%20compiler

ABX

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I know some C. I could try to write a converter but this would definetly be
the most ambitious project I've ever done and I havn't coded since last
semester.

So don't hold your breath :)

Corey

Post a reply to this message

"Corey Woodworth" <cdw### [at] mpinetnet> wrote in
news:3cb6bc3a$1@news.povray.org: 

> In Wings I changed the materials of the hexagons to black so that it'd
> look more soccerbally. I saved it as .3ds and then used crossroads to
> convert it to pov 3.0, Now its all white!

Crossroads won't retain Wings materials if you export via 3DS format.  You 
have to use the Wavefront OBJ format.  Crossroads will strip the material 
colors from OBJ imports, but it will keep the textures separate so you can 
put the proper textures in place by editing the pov file.

Exporting geometry from Wings into Povray via Crossroads is a bit of a 
black art.  For organic shapes, be sure to resmooth everything in 
Crossroads or you'll see facets everywhere.  Also be aware that high 
polygon counts are almost always necessary to avoid ugly artifacts.

I suspect that your soccer ball might have too few polygons for it to look 
right.  Try smoothing it a few more times in Wings.

> Blechk. Is there another, better, possibly newer program I
> should be using to covert things?

Not yet.  3DWin used to be freely available, but the author pulled a bait-
and-switch and made it crippleware.

I have started to write a multiformat conversion utility which can read 
OBJ, LWO (both version types) and 3DS and export into POV, but I don't 
presently have that much time to spend working on it.  Since I am planning 
on releasing the tool under the GPL, I am prepared, however, offer up what 
source code I have (C++; the OBJ importer and core data structures are 
mostly written) if anyone else wants to take a shot.  

> I've seen other POVers use wings and considering its open source maybe
> the author would consider including a mesh1 and mesh2 pov export to the
> program? Has anyone contacted him about this before?

Not to my knowledge.  This route is probably, IMO, the best option for 
decent Wings to Pov export.

Post a reply to this message

"Corey Woodworth" <cdw### [at] mpinetnet> wrote in
news:3cb6de2b$1@news.povray.org: 

> Looks great for organic stuff. Its not a scene modeler or a complete
> package by any means though. That cool spaceship posted just a few days
> ago by Coridon Henshaw (called the 4rth Age) was modelled with it I
> think. 

You think correctly. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

> I know some C.

In times like this, I really feel ankward since I always chose other
languages to learn, and never tried C.. But I'm not going through a big
learning process for the sake of connecting a modelling tool with POV-Ray,
when I already see how to do it with POV ... Wouldn't this be a good
all-round command for the next version of POV-Ray? :

#fopen Reader, read
#read ( Reader, file_position, read_length, string_variable )


Regards,
Hugo

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"Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote in message
news:3cb6f902$1@news.povray.org...
> This ball looks very strange to me. There is a sharp change in the surface
> normal at the edge of every hexagon where the round edge begins. The ball
> looks like a csg made of clipped spheres and tori. If Wings can generate a
> wire-frame, I would very much like to see it.
>
>  -Shay

I can see what you mean there.  This is most likely from a shadow line
artifact, read section 9.8 in the 3.5 docs for more information.

-tgq

Post a reply to this message

GOOD NEWS!

Download a plugin for Wings3d here and it will export directly to POV mesh2.
I tried and it works.

http://pub33.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmiraifrm1.showMessage?topicID=770.topic

Regards,
Hugo

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Borland is giving away a c/c++ compiler vs. 5.5
(command line only, though :(   )
just go to their website and signup, then download.
It works well

K

"Shay" <sah### [at] simcopartscom> wrote in message
news:3cb70b75@news.povray.org...
> Hugo <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote in message
> news:3cb7094d$1@news.povray.org...
> > Oh no.. I had a look at POV's abilities to read text files, and to my
> regret
> > I see it's very strict on formatting.. I can't build a conversion tool
> > because POV can't just read some text into a string.. I can't help...
>
> Someone posted a link to a free C compiler recently in p.o-t.
>
>  -Shay
>
>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

Wasn't it Corey Woodworth who wrote:
>Is there
>another, better, possibly newer program I should be using to covert things?
>I'd rather see it converted to a mesh2 as well.

I tend to use OBJuvPOV to convert from Wavefront OBJ to POV Mesh2 with
uvmapping.

OBJ files don't contain the details of the materials, they only specify
the name of the material that is associated with each polygon, so the
colours will get lost in transit and you have to make fresh textures in
POV.

The OBJ file format seems to be rather weakly specified, and OBJuvPOV
seems to cope with most variations better than most things I've tried,
but it can't handle OBJ files that don't contain normals.

It's at <http://www.geocities.com/who3d/>.


-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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Corey Woodworth wrote:
> I know some C. I could try to write a converter but this would
> definetly be the most ambitious project I've ever done and I havn't
> coded since last semester.

Coincidentally, I wrote a converter today (for Surface Evolver output)
in Python; it took less than an hour.  No more C for me, unless I need
speed.

http://www.ogre.nu/source/evolpov.py

-- 
Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/

Post a reply to this message

Corey Woodworth wrote:
> . . . In Wings I changed the materials of the hexagons to black
> so that it'd look more soccerbally. . . .

Black pentagons and white hexagons are more traditional.
(http://www.ogre.nu/soccer.html)

-- 
Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/

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I posted a feature request on the source forge page and got this response:

>Comment By: Bjorn Gustavsson (bjorng)
>Date: 2002-04-15 12:06
>
>I expect that there will be built-in POV export within a few
>releases of Wings.

YAY!

Corey

Post a reply to this message

> I posted a feature request on the source forge page and got this response:

> >I expect that there will be built-in POV export within a few
> >releases of Wings.

I know. A guy names KayosIII are currently working on it, and I'm giving
some advices.

Regards,
Hugo

Post a reply to this message

> I know. A guy names KayosIII are currently working on it, and I'm giving
> some advices.

Cool. Have you had a chance to play around with Wings3D yet?

Corey

> Regards,
> Hugo

Post a reply to this message

> Cool. Have you had a chance to play around with Wings3D yet?

Yes, after you told me about it. It's a nice program at first glance and I
could immediately get some results. The interface is clean. I was actually
missing a good polygon modeller, and this one works. That said, the program
is still in a child state. Documentation is poor and scattered, facts change
rapidly. Either I'm very clumsy or some things are still incredibly slow to
model with the program. But I think it has potential, well if Björn really
carry on with it because it's not written in C but some strange (unknown to
me) language.

It's a handy tool to have aside POV, obviously not a replacement because of
countless things, but probably going to play it professional. Btw, the Pov
plugin will soon be working.

And what do you think about the program?

Regards,
Hugo

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"Hugo" <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote in message
news:3cbd6f14@news.povray.org...
> > Cool. Have you had a chance to play around with Wings3D yet?
>
> Yes, after you told me about it. It's a nice program at first glance and I
> could immediately get some results. The interface is clean. I was actually
> missing a good polygon modeller, and this one works. That said, the
program
> is still in a child state. Documentation is poor and scattered, facts
change
> rapidly. Either I'm very clumsy or some things are still incredibly slow
to
> model with the program. But I think it has potential, well if Björn really
> carry on with it because it's not written in C but some strange (unknown
to
> me) language.
>
> It's a handy tool to have aside POV, obviously not a replacement because
of
> countless things, but probably going to play it professional. Btw, the Pov
> plugin will soon be working.
>
> And what do you think about the program?

I like it. I think its the interface that makes it so cool. Its easy to jump
in and start messing around (Unlike Blender for ex.) I can see myself making
so cool objects for POV scenes since it really is only a single object
modeller. I havn't made anything useful yet though, I'm still getting the
hang of modelling at all!

Corey

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"Hugo" <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote in news:3cbd6f14@news.povray.org:

> Documentation is poor and scattered, facts change rapidly. Either I'm
> very clumsy or some things are still incredibly slow to model with the
> program.

What are you having problems with?  I've been using Wings for quite a while 
and have become fairly proficient with it.  I might be able to help you 
out.

Post a reply to this message

> > Either I'm very clumsy or some things are still incredibly
> >  slow to model with the program.
>
> What are you having problems with?  I've been using Wings for quite a
while
> and have become fairly proficient with it.  I might be able to help you
> out.

Thanks! This post is getting old, so I don't know if you'll ever read
this... I have begun a spaceship project where a polygon modeller would be
handy (just for a few things).. And Wings3d is the best program I've
encountered because it's so easy to understand.. But.. Until now I end up
placing all vertices manually because bevel, scale and extrude makes a mess.
Yes, even if I select an origin, those commands can't guess what I want;
they don't follow my shape.. If I could "scale along edges" this would
probably solve the problem. I've suggested this to Björn. Maybe it's easier
to understand with this example:

home3.inet.tele.dk/huas/strange.wings

Try to smooth out the "hill" by adding another line of vertices. Try to
scale them, and see the mess! Any solution that doesn't require a lot of
manual work?

There are also other things I'd like to see in Wings: The ability to connect
any vertices to make a polygon. Boleean operations (ala POV's "difference
{}").. Spline extrusion.. More options to smooth a shape.. A face
decimaition algoritm.. More options to mirror things.. Bridging any two
polygons.. Make single sided objects.. Lastly, animation capabilities..

Regards,
Hugo

Post a reply to this message

"Hugo" <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote in news:3cc51039$1@news.povray.org:

> Until now I end up placing all vertices manually because bevel, scale and
> extrude makes a mess. Yes, even if I select an origin, those commands
> can't guess what I want; they don't follow my shape..

It sounds like you're not doing something quite right, but I don't have 
enough information to hazard a guess yet.

Have you tried extruding (etc) by normal rather than by the standard axes?  
This is the only way to produce usable results when extruding faces that 
don't all point in roughly the same direction.

Another trick to remember when using extrude is that, if you want to 
extrude two or more adjacent faces and have them stay together (i.e. the 
edges sharing vertexes), delete the dividing edges before extruding and 
recreate them afterwards.

> If I could "scale along edges" this would probably solve the problem.

scale->region is probably close to what you want, but it's only available 
in faces mode.

Keep in mind, too, that the effects of scale are different in vextexes mode 
than in edges or faces mode.  Scale in vertexes mode will scale the 
vertexes relative to the origin but scale in the other modes will scale the 
items relative to eachother.

> Try to smooth out the "hill" by adding another line of vertices. Try to
> scale them, and see the mess! Any solution that doesn't require a lot
> of manual work?

Unless I've misunderstood what you want to do, it works fine for me:

'e' to enter edge mode
select all vertical edges in the hill
'2' to subdivide edges
'c' to connect the new vertexes.
menu->scale->uniform (left mouse button).



> There are also other things I'd like to see in Wings: The ability to
> connect any vertices to make a polygon.

If the faces are adjacent (or close to it), delete the intervening edges 
and recreate the edges as needed.

> Bridging any two polygons..

It takes a bit of messing around if the faces are adjacent (see above), or 
if they have a different number of vertexes (think extrude & add or remove 
vertexes as needed), but Wings can do this already.  Faces mode->select two 
faces->menu->bridge.

Hope this helps.

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