Ok, it looks like I was wrong in my previous post. I can’t see an obvious way to launch a plugin on load in Layout. There’s a button to set it up in Modeler, though… Why the difference? I’m going to have a delve into the depths of the Layout config files to see if there’s anything obvious I’ve missed.
I’m a great believer in unit testing, and test-first development. Unfortunately, the concept of automated testing doesn’t sit especially well with developing LightWave plugins (as I am with Shaxam). This project is an attempt to answer that. (more…)
This project is at the “wouldn’t it be cool” stage so far. The idea is to compile Ruby as a LightWave plugin, and add an extension to give it access to the LightWave SDK. This would make it a feasible alternative to LScript for prototyping, which I can’t help but see as a good thing. There’s also the outside possibility of being able to use RubyInline (or something related) to generate actual compiled plugin code, which I think would be outstanding.
More on this as it happens. I might have a little play today, and see what I can see.
This is indescribably cool. At least, I think so. I’ve been out of the image processing loop for a couple of years now, but the sort of thing SIFT makes possible are just mind-boggling. Photosynth is just the beginning. Shame about the licencing, though…
Well, I finally got round to it – I’ve released a rubygem for loading Lightwave objects in Ruby. It’s not especially fast (not too slow either, though…), but it is pretty well tested. It’s been sitting behind the web converter at shaxam.com for a little while, so I figured I’d get it out there.
For those of you who haven’t been following along, here’s a brief state-of-play update. I’m working on Shaxam.com, which span out of Turning The Pages, and has had me learning lots about LightWave’s SDK and file formats and the 3D parts of XAML, and is the most fun and interesting work I’ve been involved with in years. I’ll be posting here info about what I’ve learnt, a few questions for those involved, and progress updates as and when necessary.
The main output so far has been a simple plugin to convert static LightWave objects to XAML meshes, with as much detail intact as possible. Head over to shaxam.com if that interests you. On sale RealSoonNow(tm) will be a plugin to handle animation data. We’re about 95% there functionality-wise, and it’s looking better all the time.
I’m working on all this with Mark, who is fiendishly good with LightWave, and keeps pushing my code further than I was expecting, which is a good thing.
Anyway, that’s it for now. More updates as and when, you know the drill.