3d Objects

[teotoon]

Dear LM,

Importing 3d objects is a great improvement in Moho5, thank you very much. I have been waiting for this feature for such a long time. However, it would be great, if you can add more control parameters for 3d toon rendering.

Particularly, those complex 3d objects (e.g. neatly modeled faces or hands) lose their details when imported in Moho.

Or can it be done in Lua script?

Thanks again...

[saintmovius]

I totally agree with you on this. I was so excited about being able to use 3D in Moho, but after I saw what the models looked like after importing I was a little disappointed to say the least. All my perfectly modeled faces lost all their detail and other extruded shapes had no definition to them what-so-ever. So, please, if this can be done, please add more control for toon rendering.

Thanks!

[Simpy]

I Concur.

[Shaun Swanson]

Hi there, I'm new.

I like the 3D cameras but I can't see why I would need a lot of options for importing 3D objects. I think Moho is a very strong 2D program and should focus on that.

I already have 3D programs with tons of options. I can render a movie in one of those and import that movie if I want 3D content in my cartoons.

I guess I am just afraid that focus on 3D will take time away from developing other parts of Moho (like drawing tools.)

Thanks,

Shaun

[kdiddy13]

I totally agree. 3d cameras are cool. Simple object imports are nice, but beyond that you're better off getting a dedicated 3d program (many render out to Flash already).

Perhaps a decent compromise would be some sort of camera importer (such as After Effects allows with Maya cameras) so that you could work in your 3d program, export the camera, render the movie in swf or similar toon shader, and then combine the two later. Just a thought.

Other than that, I'm more than happy to just work in 2d and continue developing my drawing skills so that it looks like 3d. So my vote is for better drawing tools over more 3d work.

[sonygod]

Importing 3d ?
include *.3ds format?

[Simpy]

Yes Sony. They aren't the best quality however

[drapostrophex]

I also would hate to see Moho lose it's 2D character and become just another 3D animation program (though, knowing the Marble, I doubt it could ever be just another animation program, 3D or otherwise). I think it's very cool that simple objects can be imported with some toon rendering, but I don't have any .obj files I can test this out on.. anyone know where I can score some free, simple OBJs?

[7feet]

I don't know about too many .OBJ files online, but I've found tons in .3DS format, and I just import them into Wings3D ('cause it's works, and it's free) them export 'em right back out as .OBJs. A little roundabout, but the conversion seem to work just fine for the purpose.

--Brian

[Barliesque]

Here's a sample .obj to play with:
http://www.lostmarble.com/downloads/moh ... mple3D.zip

Have a look at the following thread. I've posted some screenshots of a project I did combining 3D settings with 2D Flash-animated characters. Personally, I would like very much to see some basic enhancements to Moho's 3D functionality, so that I can do a project like this in Moho.

http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtop ... 4&start=15

[Lost Marble]

You could do a project like that in Moho. I think the issue was the light maps being a different size than the texture maps. It may not be as convenient, but you could always resize them to match, and combine them into one texture map.

To me, the main reason for using smaller texture maps, and repeating texture maps is games - you need to reduce memory consumption, etc. Moho isn't a game, so there's no particular reason to optimize your texture maps - go ahead and make a bigger light map to match your texture map.

[drapostrophex]

Just fooled around with the demo 3D .obj... that's pretty slick...

[Barliesque]

You could do a project like the one I did, the way I did it: By taking snapshots of the 3D stuff from the 3D application, and just inserting them as image backgrounds. With a little masking, you can even make certain objects appear to be in the foreground, or have characters partly visible through a doorway, etc. ...but then that's not really what we're discussing. It's not yet feasible to do this in Moho with 3D objects.

To me, the main reason for using smaller texture maps, and repeating texture maps is games - you need to reduce memory consumption, etc. Moho isn't a game

Well, Animation Master isn't a game either, but it uses OpenGL or DirectX. I think you'll find most other 3D modelling applications also rely on 3D hardware acceleration.

...so there's no particular reason to optimize your texture maps - go ahead and make a bigger light map to match your texture map.

Well...

Maybe Moho isn't relying on 3D cards, but if it is, then there are hardware limits to consider: images over 1024x1024 are often not supported for texturing.

Also, I have no idea how I would go about constructing that architecture without using tiled textures. It would become quite a bit more troublesome to lay out every single polygon with its own texture space.

Even if you get beyond that problem, you're now working with an object which is incredibly inefficiently textured---the inevitable result would be a slowdown for Moho, whether it uses 3D hardware or not. Also, programs like gile[s] do rely on 3D hardware acceleration, and so have limits to their texture sizes. ...Which leaves a solution of using dozens of copies of the same texture image. ...And then you start running out of video memory.

Really, the issue is about efficiency. Lightmap images don't need to be very detailed, but they do need to assign a unique space to every polygon. Texture images are better when they're nice and detailed, and they don't need to be uniquely designed for every square inch of the model, so they can be reused or tiled as needed. Some parts of the model might not even need a texture, like the mailbox in my example--It's been coloured with vertex colours alone.

One more illustration: The brick pattern on that building is repeated an estimated 80 times. The image is 512x512, which might sound overly large, but when you get closer to the subject, you need that kind of detail. If you were to try to lay out a texture image 80 times that size, to retain the detail and be lightmapped, you'd be waiting a long time between frame refreshes. If you shrink down the overall image size, then you lose detail in your textures.

If you like I can send you a copy of that model, so you can get a clearer idea of how lightmapping works.

[Lost Marble]

If you like I can send you a copy of that model, so you can get a clearer idea of how lightmapping works.

Yes, I would be interested in seeing it. If you don't mind, send a copy to support@lostmarble.com