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Mesh Capture PluginHow about a plugin to capture a dynamic mesh and allow saving as a file, or multiple rendering of the same dynamically-generated mesh by more than one Mesh Renderer patches? I understand there is an OpenGL extension called TransformFeedback that might allow this. a|x
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Not to threadjack — recently I posted a request for an Output-to-PDF plugin to save output as vector art instead of the usual bitmap possibilities that QC and Quartz Crystal offer. Obviously this could only output vector/primitive sources like GL Lines, Points, Quad Structures etc.
After getting no traction with that I thought maybe an output to a 3D file-format which could then be opened and printed to PDF as vector art in a 3D app completing the vector-only round trip into Illustrator...
Not sure if this is the kind of thing you are talking about or you mean only for meshes in a SL/QC 4 context (I'm still on 10.5 so no mesh for me).
Still some sort of output as vector from QC would be handy at times because it's such a great content creation tool… From imagination to prototype in an hour or so you can have proof of concept. Cleaning up in AI would be handy sometimes for me.
I think we're talking about very different things though:
I'm talking about capturing 3D mesh data (vertices, normals, colors, texture coordinates, indices) into a mesh array or .dae (or other format) file.
What you're talking about is abstracting 3D point data to a completely 2D format. What you're after (if you really only want points and straight lines) might be achievable, but it's quite a different proposition to my request, and I imagine it would be quite difficult to extract the data you want from the data I want :)
Your vector output module would form a useful part of a suite of vector tools for QC, but that's another thread (and one that's already been started, I suspect).
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Yeah sorry for confusion toneburst, what I was getting at is that because that 3D->2D abstraction is quite complex and there's a good chance it can't be pulled of the GPU when it works it out for screen rendering purposes, to just publish the 3D data as 3D data in a 3D app native format.
ie. 3D points become Spheres with diameter ≃ GL Point size 3D GL Lines become 3D lines with (x,y,z) co-ords Quad Structures become 3D Faces colour values passed etc all wrapped up in a 3D file eg. .3dm, .obj .dxf or whatever
Then let a 3D app do the complex 3D -> 2D abstraction eg. In Rhino print screen to PDF file and everything flattens into a perspective view made up of PS artwork. Spheres become elipses, lines stay lines.
I guess in relation to this thread, I'm hoping that some GLTools ready structures of geometry could be outputted to a 3D file in addition to mesh contents. Just take the structures feeding GL Point Structure *et al *and plug them into the Renderer-to-3D-File patch.
So where you are talking export mesh to 3D file, I'm saying could GLTools type stuff go with it, please. [because I use them almost exclusively ;) ]
Having said that, maybe when I get to QC4 I can use meshes instead of GLTools for hi-volume ball-stick type stuff. I'm wondering if meshes are as fast to draw and easy to make largish sets of with a simple JS patch?? New GLTools Structure Transform patch could help out there it looks pretty powerful. Replicate in Space was always to limiting for my liking