Blackkettle » LightWave http://blog.blackkettle.org Things of Occasional Interest Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:03:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 We got flayed! http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/16/we-got-flayed/ http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/16/we-got-flayed/#comments Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:02:21 +0000 alex http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/16/we-got-flayed/ The post is here.

]]> http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/16/we-got-flayed/feed/ 0 Mapping Video http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/mapping-video/ http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/mapping-video/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 13:06:28 +0000 alex http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/mapping-video/ So, I’m trying to map a video texture onto a Xaml surface. So far, so easy. Except I want to apply the diffuse data to the emissive channel, because that’s closer to the way LightWave works. This is fine with static textures, but there’s a problem with videos. I generate as much as possible in a ResourceDictionary, and the relevant Xaml looks a little like this:

<VisualBrush x:Key="media_element" Opacity="1.0">
  <VisualBrush.Visual>
    <MediaElement Source="#filename#" />
  </VisualBrush.Visual>
</VisualBrush>
<DiffuseMaterial Brush="{StaticResource media_element"} />
<EmissiveMaterial Brush="{StaticResource media_element"} />

The problem is that even when I specify that the DiffuseMaterial and EmissiveMaterial brushes point to the same element, they get their own players which don’t start in sync, so you get ghosting and funky audio ringing. I can’t see an obvious way around this… Anyone?

]]> http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/mapping-video/feed/ 0 Layout Is Not Modeler (1) http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/layout-is-not-modeler-1/ http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/layout-is-not-modeler-1/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 07:30:49 +0000 alex http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/layout-is-not-modeler-1/ 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.

]]> http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/layout-is-not-modeler-1/feed/ 0 LightWave Testing http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-testing/ http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-testing/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 07:04:35 +0000 alex http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-testing/ 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.

The requirements are:

  • Be able to launch Layout or Modeler from Ruby.
  • Cause the launched process to open a given model or scene that is specified per test.
  • Load a plugin file that is specified per test run.
  • Run the plugin on the loaded model or scene, and save the output to an output file that is specified per test.
  • Load the output back into Ruby for verification.
  • Ideally launch all of this over the network.

These parameters stem from what I’m trying to do with Shaxam. When the Shaxam plugin is run, it saves the current layer or scene to an XML file in XAML format. This simple one-in one-out path with XML at the end should make it an easy fit for Ruby’s unit test framework, but LightWave seems not to have been designed with this type of process in mind.

So far, I’ve worked out:

  • I can’t specify the plugin to load anywhere other than in LightWave’s config file, but that path can be specified on the command line. This means potentially generating a new config file for each run. Fine.
  • I can pass a scene filename to Layout on the command line. Fine.
  • I can pass an object filename to Modeler on the command line. Fine.
  • I don’t know how to trigger running the plugin once Layout or Modeler has loaded. I know that it’s possible to specify a plugin to run on startup, but as far as I can tell, it gets run before the scene is loaded. Not fine, but I may be wrong about that.

More investigation is needed.

I’ve already discovered that plugins which run on startup can’t have a space in their name, because that makes the option parser misfire.

]]> http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-testing/feed/ 0 Ruby-in-LightWave http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/ruby-in-lightwave/ http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/ruby-in-lightwave/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 06:46:46 +0000 alex http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/ruby-in-lightwave/ 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.

]]> http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/ruby-in-lightwave/feed/ 0 Lightwave object loader in Ruby http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-object-loader-in-ruby/ http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-object-loader-in-ruby/#comments Sat, 12 Aug 2006 06:14:47 +0000 alex http://blog.blackkettle.org/2006/08/12/lightwave-object-loader-in-ruby/ 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.

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