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Features
Release 2.0
With this release,
we are finally releasing ToolBox IV Dynamic, with the addition
of dynamic systems, gravity and wind along with dynamic Hair, Cloth and
Particle system.
The other main focus for ToolBox IV has been additions designed to create
a movie maker in a box. The addition of sound that plays back synced to
the animation, and many features to allow using the OpenGL display system
to create movies at almost realtime, which can then be played back inside
ToolBox for viewing your animation real time (for scenes too big to play
real time in the ToolBox editor). Shadows, antialiasing and depth of field
allow you to create useable animated movies at almost real time.
And for the first time, our own Renderman (Renderman copyright Pixar)
compatible renderer!
GRRen, the Greenbriar Poly Renderer is a renderer, that in its
first version, supports all the features that we use from a Renderman
renderer, with the additions of built in Cell Shading, auto transparent
shadows and a GUI to make setting up a small render farm quick and easy.
We couldn’t afford to buy a render farm so we built our own. Unlike
other Renderman type renderers, it is being optimized for Polygon models.
So you can now select from GRRen, Pixar’s PRMan or the 3Delight renderer
as output options.
A demo of GRRen also now comes with out ToolBox Demo.
New Features for ToolBox IV Dynamic
- Dynamic Hair and Cloth
- Sound Import and Playback
- Animated Camera Switching - switch cameras for multiple shots
in the same animted sequence
- OpenGl Render to File - renders to tiff file set and Quicktime
command file just like main renderers, just much faster. Can be played
back in Quicktime or in ToolBox.
- OpenGL Render to File playback in ToolBox - for instant viewing
of your animations
- Particle system for creating explosions, smoke fire, snowflakes,
etc
And to Make OpenGL renders in ToolBox IV useable as actual animated movies-
- Reat time shadows - selectable on all lights
- Anti aliasing
- Camera Depth of field
- Non display of lights, cameras, nulls, bones and optionally the floor
grid when in OpenGL render mode
New Features for Animating Versions (II and up)
- Visual animation key display - Allows for easy moving, deleting
and editing of all animation keys
- Export to Poser Face format also now supports export of lip sync type
files - head and eye movements and head morph animation - to make it easier
to edit lip sync animations.
- Morph JCM - Joint Controlled Morphs moves morphs based on the
movement of bones. Creates auto morphing
- New Render output formats - Tiff with Alpha, JPG and OpenEXR
High Dynamic Range ImageNew Features for All Versions
- Scene Import - to add the contents of a previously saved scene
into the current scene
- Improved Object export and save to include all textures and materials
- Display of current scene on main window title bar
- Animated display style - For making objects become visible or
invisible during an animation sequence
- Mesh Panel creation - New built in rectangular object with definable
size and divisions in all three dimensions
- Show Normals - on Scene Settings you can now turn on the display
of normals to check for normal issues.
- Rotating (Animated) Textures - You can indicate that an image
is part of a numbered image set and have these play back as a texture
on an object. So any animation frames you generate can be used as animated
textures,
New
tools with release 1.014
There are lots of new additions with
this release, the largest being the Game Exporter related items.
New Systems:
- IK (Pro) - multiple IK chains can be defined for each skeleton,
works with both bone systems. From Object Info panel. Supports rotation
limits.
- Null Objects (Pro) - for IK and animation
- Progressive Mesh (Pro) - Create multiple levels of detail with
a slider. These stay animated to your skeleton! On Object Info panel.
Also maintains multi surface texturing.
At last, the last of the big three game modeling functions - Poly reduce
is now added to mesh merging and texture/uv merging!
- MTL file read and write added to the Obj import and export (All)
- Animation and LOD Export Panel (Pro) - Define multiple animations
sequences by name and frame range for different model exporters. And Define
Multiple LOD levels as manual or automatic. From Object Info panel.
- Torque DTS export (Pro) - Standard DTS and our new Morph capable
format (TGE update available from us or Garage Games)
- Large Model export - 50K triangles and up available
- Morphs that animate in Torque with our new DTS format (user selectable
old or new)
- Multiple textures per Model
- Discontinuous UV support
- Multiple animation sequences in DTS
- Multiple bones controlling each point
- Animation Flags for Blend and Cyclic
- Collision Objects
- BillBoards
- Entire scene DTS export (multi model) static or animated
- Animation by bone or object transform, or objects parented to a non-exporting
skeleton
- DSQ export - regular and morph animated - multiple animation sequences
- Torque DIF export (Pro)
- WYSIWYG textures - Game level type uvs built in (selectable)
- All Torque light types supported
- All Torque entity types supported
- Map output with Auto compile to DIF
- Ogre Export (Pro) - Export Orge .mesh, .skeleton, .material format
- Multi surfaces per model
- Discontinuous UV support
- Mutiple bones per vertex
- Multiple animation sequences
- Auto Convert from xml to binary - one step export
- LOD meshes - auto or manual
Small additions:
- Split Improvement (All) - ends now will add a point to split a quad
that is on the edge of a mesh (for half mesh modeling.
- Freeze Deformed Mesh (Pro) - converts a mesh deformed by morphs and
bone scaling into a new mesh with the effects, but with no morphs or scaling.
Freezes the results on the mesh and bones so the model can be exported
to systems that do not support body part scaling or morphs.
- Delete Bone and Children (Poser / Pro) - Prune entire branches of a
skeleton
- Use Limits (Poser / Pro) - Restrict motion to bone rotation limits
- Rename Morph (Poser / Pro) - Rename an existing morph in the morph mixer
- Move Perspective Rotation Point right and Left! - Ability to circle
around a hand or other non central section. (Cntl/Shift/Rt Mouse)
- View Close (All) - Switch to let you zoom in much closer to a working
mesh
- Major SubD speed increase for real time editing
- Perspective Move switch on Scene Settings panel - makes Move work perpendicular
to your current screen view instead of on standard axes. Very Handy!
Bug Fixes:
- 3DS Import - Several import bugs fixed, more fromats now readable
- Selection off one mesh while it is over another - only items in current
mesh can be selected
- Compact Mesh function Fixed
New
tools with release 1.013
Poser 6 compatible. Reads Poser 6 cr2 files, compressed obj files,
new binary morph files.
Auto
Texture locate for P5 and 6
Uncompress File function
New
Mesh tools with release 1.012
Switch for selecting front facing points, edges and faces only
Added Weld w/threshold to Mirror
New Reflection Mode so you can see both halves of a half model while you
work
Switch to move selections in perspective view based on your view direction,
not along axes (very handy!)
Extrude now handles multiple edges and faces with bevel option
Mirror supports full texturing
New non-object background pics for each ortho view - with scale and offset
Switch for grid in all ortho views
User settable hot keys
Hot keys added for Front Only Select, Reflection, Split
You can now select Faces in wireframe mode
Add Points now uses depth of last selected point, to control where they
are placed
Finally! ALL windows (including main) remember their location and are
saved with each scene
Edge Info panel
Split function (like knife, splits selected faces, but Split lets you
select any wandering set of connected faces - I always have problems using
a knife tool, I never need straight lines split)
The basic concept is for a modeling / animating tool with special functions
(tools) built in to facilitate work in two prime areas:
Poser content creation
For new figures, new clothes and other figures / props, and new morphs
for existing characters.
Poser aimed special tools:
Native Poser file read and write
Mesh over mesh working ability
Show body parts in color display mode
Bone effect display mode
Full compressed Morph system
Multi weight bone system
Poser animation import and export, Mimic import
Built in Conforming figure functionality
Bone controlled morphs
Game content creation
Aiming for easy level construction, animated model creation and modification.
And the ability to import geometry from other editors and create the level,
with all texturing, as it will appear in the game, for easy previewing.
Game Content special tools:
Game style texture mapping - duplicates the texturing of Quake, Halflife,
3DGS - see your texturing in the 3D app before exporting
MDL import (md2)
Map export to Quake2, HalfLife and Torque map formats
Full Conitec 3DGS Compatibility - WMP level import and export, HMP terrain
import and export,
MDL7 vertex and bone animated model import and export
Vertex animation - fully supports (including import) point base animation
- use bones to get the basic movement and then clean up the problem areas
in point mode!
Morph to Vertex animation
Bone Animation
Bone to Vertex animation
Auto Stair generation tool
Auto colonnade generation tool
Array object duplication
Terrain Generator
Terrain Fog
Plan to building - draw 2d plans with doors and windows and generate levels
- support of single and multi level structures.
SkyBox
Set up your entire game in ToolBox! We even have a walk through camera
mode for checking your level from all angles.
'Walk' around your model, correcting as you go.
General features
Imports:
Read 2D format- jpg tif bmp png ico gif tga pcx wbmp wmf jp2 jpc pgx pnm
ras
Real time texture mapping
Texture resolution selection per image - 64x64 to 2048x2048
Auto recognition of all importable file types
Imports all Poser File Types
Hi speed binary save and restore of working scenes and objects
Materials:
Global material definitions
Diffuse, ambient, specular and even glow color supported
Specular highlight
Color mapping
Transparency mapping
Relection
Mapping
Subdivision Surfaces
Surfacing:
Surfaces by object - allows many objects to tie to a single material to
allow updating of many objects, yet each object (even dupes) can be changed
to reference a different material.
Parts:
Support for parts - used for bone attachment and Poser morph creation
among other things
Parts have a user settable display color for part display mode. Also used
to facilitate game level export.
Windowing:
7 Independent view windows - with independent cameras. Extra windows open
does not affect scroll/movement speed. Since camera movement and selection
occurs in a single window, only that window has to be redrawn while you
work. Only adding a new object/changing objects triggers an update of
all open windows.
Special UV Editor
window (for a total of 8 independent windows)
ToolBox remembers which windows were open when you close and where they
were
Remembers this also in saved scenes
Auto reloads last scene you were working on (if you saved or loaded a
scene since calling new scene).
Display in wireframe, flat, smooth, textures or invisible (to speed up
scene redraw and make selecting easier - invisible objects have no impact
on screen refresh)
Editing:
Integrated UV Editor system
Includes texture guide creator for painting textures in paint programs
User settable 0-100 level Undo
Point edit mode - select point sets for editing
Edge edit mode - select edge sets for editing
Face edit mode - select faces for editing or creating/altering parts and
surfaces
Bone edit mode - select bones inside mesh objects for animating
Zero Object - apply transform to points making new shape from transform
Full transform on each object
Select modes makes non-selected objects invisible (Controllable via a
scene level setting)
Lights:
Built in Overhead 'Sun' color, position contollable
Non-lit mode
User added 7 lights - directional, positional or spots - full color control
and animatable
Tags:
Text based 'Tags' on Objects, Parts and Surfaces - Tags allow misc user
and tool info - labels for game objects, instructions for auto generating
tools, etc
Animation:
ToolBox supports several animation modes. Most items can be animated.
Light position, color and all parameters can be animated. Mesh objects
can be animated at the object level,by their transfom, and can also be
animated within the mesh by game type vertex animation, bone animation
and morph animation. Plan objects and other 2D tool inputs are not animateable.
Design issues:
Windowing
The windowing approach is to allow several things - all windows are independent
to allow use of dual monitors, all view windows and tool dialogs can be
moved off the main screen. All tool dialogs are non-model so they can
stay resident while you work. (There are only a few exceptions like importer
popups).
All view screens are independent - this means moving the view in one does
NOT affect any other window. I HATE it when I try to adjust one view and
then my other views are out of place. It also allows me to have the large
number of windows, since they are independent, only the one you are currently
moving has to be redrawn as you scroll. So extra screens open do not slow
down each other (but geometry and texture editing still can/will.)
All tool windows are children of the main perspective window, so they
are not affected by opening and closing other views.
Surfacing
The goal is to have a surfacing system that makes it easy to copy geometry
and its texturing without duplicating tons of materials info, and allow
both the possibility that a lot of different objects can be textured with
the same material to make changes easy, but also that any object can have
an independent material. The choice to share or not share materials is
up to the user.
To implement this, a two level system has been created. Each object (that
can be surfaced) has it's own surfaces. They contain the id used in the
geometry (which faces belong to the surface), tags and the name and id
of the material to use for the surface. These are private object level
items. The materials are scene level and can be shared. They contain the
color and image mapping data. Images reside in their own repository and
can be easily hand loaded and applied. User controlled, on the fly, selection
of display resolution for images is built in.
Since the targets are Poser and games, I will only be supporting color
and image maps initially. Colors will be turned into the appropriate image
file for game export, so anything you can apply can be exported. Since
procedurals are not supported by either Poser or game engines, they will
not be included at this time.
ToolBox
I Game Level
Contains the special tools for creating, importing and exporting game
levels
No animated model tools
ToolBox
II Poser
What is only available in ToolBox II is the Poser related tools.
ToolBox II Poser only
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All Poser import/export
ToolBox Poses
Morph sytem and morph tools
Bone system and tools
FK Animation controls
Multi UV set capability in the UV editor
Bone Edit Mode
Boned figure Conforming
ToolBox
III Pro
What is only available in ToolBox III is advanced mesh edit tools and
the Rendering system.
Plus all contents of ToolBox I and II
ToolBox III only -
Animated game model
import and export
Subdivision surfaces
Animated Cameras
Renderman output - Pixar, Air and 3Delight
QuickTime with custom plugin
Merge multi textures and uv sets
Create/Edit vertex animations
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