United3dArtists Archive

Hi together, i'm working on new widget for better navigation in tS6.6 (7.x modeler) because i always hate this stupid bluish cage thingy.

Today i will give you a first impression. It shows the "Move" widget (without moving - not implemented yet). The calculation to positioning, rotate, scale etc. the widget now works fine and also the cage which shows the actual selected object (this was a decision as i found out that it is hard to see the selected object without the blue cage - tS swaps here the color from grey to a bit lighter grey - not so impressive. Also i had (just for now) to implement a lot of workarounds because the SDk is not really a good sdk to develop plugins. Sometimes i feel that caligari don't want that anybody developes plugins - they could MUCH BETTER - but it is as it is ...

I turned the 3D widgets off. Model side/6.6+ needs the widgets for the SDS level spheres so I use TS 5 for that.

Amazing !
Such a news enlight my day

DesignDevil, it looks like you have made the long awaited world/scene axis indicator for tS
Yepee !

Another great work DD!
I know that Prodigy would give one super banana to you, but if you accept you can receive one from me! I know that isn't the same thing...
Superbanana to you!

thanks a lot...

@emmanuel ... the indicator is in my case a cube (top right corner) and this works very well and in the next time i will put this on my website (i just rewrite the readme for this)

@leonregis ... thanks for the banana but stay cool, it's not finished yet.

DesignDevil wrote: @emmanuel ... the indicator is in my case a cube (top right corner) and this works very well and in the next time i will put this on my website (i just rewrite the readme for this)

Even being a WIP, it's an amazing idea and if someone is doing that, oh great!!! I give a triple super banana when you finish that

Edit: Now I need to give you a whole superbanana page!!!

GREAT JOB!!!! Several Fair Traide Bananas for that!!!!

This is awesome, and unexpected. I can't wait to see the final version.

So, here is a small update...



BTW: If anybody know's how it is possible to check any option from trueSpace inside a plugin - you are very welcome.

1. Example: I want to know if the trueSpace coordinate system is actual set to "object" or "world" or "screen".
2. Example: I want to know which tool is actual choosed in trueSpace (i.e. move, scale, rotate).

If anybody has a plan for this it would be cool. In this case the extra buttons for the plugin won't be necessary.

That's fantastic !

Even more than the operation widget, I love the marker system that indicates the selected object. This is VERY useful when working in solid mode.
I am sure most of us use wireframe mode because of that visual information which is available in wireframe and wireframe+solid modes only. So this could be a little revolution in our workflow !
Also, these thin red/blue lines in the corners of the selected object are a far better choice than Workspace's marker system that colorizes the entire object. It is more legible, more obvious. An option to let the user choose the marker color (like yellow, orange, green) would be a plus.

A very good tool indeed !

Yes, choosing the color would be cool, but the SDK has no free color choosing, there are just tS system colors and red/green/blue - don't ask me why.

Emmanuel, maybe Simon would help DevilDesign if you asked him.

This would be cool. To get in contact with other plugin developers is a great idea. It's not easy to learn anything by myself because the SDK documentation is not really good written and the samples are very old (tS4) and a of them are also not correctly.

Getting help in any way is always a good idea.

Looks like widgets that could actually be useful, instead of annoying.

While you're at it, any way you can hack in three button mouse axis lock support? For some reason, Caligari never got a round tuit.

Having the right button restrict action to the Z axis has always been a tS feature, but the bleedin obvious feature of having a middle button (or holding down a wheel) restrict action to the Y axis and the left button for X... that thought never crossed their minds, in spite of me suggesting it several times on the olde e-mail list from before they had the forum at the Caligari site.

THAT would drastically speed up modeling by eliminating any need to always be zipping down to the XYZ buttons, and the irritation of switching tools and having the wrong axis locked - when tS decides to wipe the undo buffer.

BTW, which version of tS finally had the world/object/screen modes fully functional in both perspective and ortho views? 6.6 does, 3.2 doesn't, pretty sure 4.x doesn't either.

Well, for my widgets axis lock support is not neccesary because you drag directly on the widget to move, scale or rotate the object in a direction. (well, this was my idea)

You will do that in just ONE direction, ie. the move tool: click and drag on the green arrow to move the object in x, on the red one to move in z etc.
It is also possible to move, scale or rotate in all directions together. For this there is the small cube (sphere for rotate) in the center of the widget.
I don't know if i also should add support for moving (scaling) in 2 directions together, i.e. x+y; x+z, y+z, but it should be possible to do that.
All these functions will also work in ortho views (well, that's the plan).

Adding the feature that you wan't - middle mouse button - is difficult in my eyes, so far i know. The problem is, i explained this above, that there is no way from within a plugin to READ or SET the state of a option in tS. As example: to write a plugin which toggles x+z if the middle mouse button is clicked i had to switch these buttons from within my plugin. But there are no functions for that or to get access to that (this is the weakness of the SDK - ask caligari why they don't implemented such an importend thing).

If anybody had a hack for this - i could do a lot of cool things. I readed from Clintonman that in tS7.x SDK there is a feature to simulate a pressed button in modeler side. But from my plugin - i see no way.

There could be just one chance (more a workaround). The only way that i see is to go over the hotkeys. If you define hotkeys for toggle x,y,z i could write a plugin which simulates these keys if you press a mouse button. Maybe in this way it could work. But if this makes sens and a good workflow ... i don't know

If you do, I'll like

if you don't know about this place here is Simon's sourceforge cvs.
http://freecp.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/freecp/freecp/

he has a color picker in many tsx or shaders that you might be able to use to figure out how to create one in your widgets.

couldn't the coord system toggle from some part of the widget instead of a panel..

Thanks for the link stan. I know about these plugin but never used them and i don't know about the sourceforge side. Is there a way to download the complete FreeCP package??? (maybe i'm to stupid to find a DOWNLOAD ALL link)

yes, it's been awhile but I believe I used a free program named tortoiseCVS.

Hi stan,

now i had a look of what you mean but this doesn't help.

stan wrote:he has a color picker in many tsx or shaders that you might be able to use to figure out how to create one in your widgets.

In this case he used commands and functions for MATERIALS and they are supported by the SDK, i.e. tsxMaterialSetActive (will set a new material which is then are immediatly visible in the Material Editor). i.e.2. It is no problem to get the active material etc.

But that's not exactly what i mean. What i need is to know (as example) if the material editor window is opened (visible), or if the "object move" tool is actual choosed etc. In other words: i need the state of buttons, the state of interface elements such as buttons, checkboxes etc. Or better: directly acces to variables to get there state.

I think the only way to get these informations would be reverse engineering of tS - and this is to much for me (and forbidden also)

here is a cpp from pipeworks tsx it has some color stuff on it, maybe it might be useful.

Simon is the only plugin maker who ever worked for caligari so he would be the best to ask about what is or isn't possible.

Thanks for the code. Not directly useful for my widget project but shows a few cool methods to do things.

I'm a bit confused ... why you givin me so many tips to colors?

Is it possible to get in contact with simon?

Emmanuel was asking if you could change colors for some items earlier in this thread thats why and he knows Simon too.

I don't have anything for coord system callbacks but if anyone would know if it's possible that would be Simon unless someone knows one of the old devs.

ahhh, i understand. To the colors:

it is not possible to select "any" color for the wireframe cage. The reason for that is in tS himself (or the SDK). You can set a color by using the tsxAViewSetPen( tsxPEN ) function. For tsxPEN are just a few colors predefined as constants. They are:
If it would be possible i had implemented it

Here is a small update of DDWidgets.

I added icons to the dialog window to choose the tool and toggle between world and object mode. I also added a "tool info" which appears if a widget is in action. This shows the representing values depending on the tool. The transparency and color of this "tool info panel" can be adjusted - later

The functionality of the tools (i.e. rotation) doesn't work correctly at the moment - is still WIP. I just want to show where i want to be in the future and it is a long way to go until final. There are a few issues with getting and apply the mouse positions depending on the view and axes direction - but i think i can solve these things. I also have to apply the functionality in ortho views. Well, lot of things to do.

DesignDevil wrote:ahhh, i understand. To the colors:

it is not possible to select "any" color for the wireframe cage. The reason for that is in tS himself (or the SDK). You can set a color by using the tsxAViewSetPen( tsxPEN ) function. For tsxPEN are just a few colors predefined as constants. They are:

Is this to do with the old colors of White for selected object, blue for un-selected objects and orange for the selected object when you're doing point editing etc on it?

Whomever decided to change from orange to slightly-darkened-white needed some cluebat application to the head.

Big sorry, i believe my english is not good enough to understand your last post. Could you explain better what you mean?

Cluebat, a fictional device used for adjusting the attitude of people who don't have a clue about something, for example in the real world most people have trouble telling the difference between two colors that are very close in tint/hue/shade.

Someone at Caligari made a bad choice to change the default colors trueSpace uses for the various states of an object in wireframe view. They needed a cluebat whack to the head, accompanied by shouting through a megaphone "That wasn't broken! Now put it back how it was!".

Same thing goes for whomever at Microsoft chose to make the "highlight" color in Windows Explorer in Vista's Aero Glass theme a super light, transparent blue, with black text - and made it impossible to change the color or have it invert the text color like all previous versions of Windows do. The people responsible for that decision need a severe cluebatting.

See also LART = Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool. AKA "Light Armament, Recoil Type" in the BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell) stories.

Programmers, or more usually software "designers", who make changes that have no functional difference or advantage or improvement, but instead make the software more difficult or annoying to use - they need some cluebat application.

Ahhhhhhhh .... hahahaha ....

YOU ARE ABSOLUTLY RIGHT ...

...and i want to add that this is guilty not just for the colors. You can say this to the complete SDK. There are so many "things" in there that i'm sometimes on a point to think that they don't want that anybody creates plugins for tS, just a few helper app's but not really full featured working plugins.

examples? here we go:

- There is no function to refresh the informations in the object panel after manipulating a object in the plugin
- There is no possibility to get/set the state of properties (i.e. coordinate system, currently choosed tool etc.)
- There is no (callback) function to get a "refresh" information if the name of a object has changed (i.e. all plugins they use a object list need a refresh button to refresh these informations "by hand" because the user could change the name of a object in the object panel or the KFE - try it out, maybe with MoStu)
- Just hand full of predefined colors (why it is so difficult to use RGB ???)
- The functions to change the View from within the SDK are different to tS. If you use this in your plugin the tS widgets goes totaly crazy
- 2 constants for the ortho views (e_tsxVM_BACK and e_tsxVM_RIGHT) are wrong. If you set these views they are correct, if you wan't to GET the view they are twistet.
- No functions to control the tS widgets himself (no choosing, or toggle for viewing etc.)

...i believe this could be a endless list....

Just a remark, regarding workflow :

For a seamless integration into trueSpace user interface, I think I would prefer to operate the tool toggles (those 4 icons) from a trueSpace toolbar, rather than a specific floating dialogue window. The idea is to keep the icons docked just like the rest and keep that toolbar minimized most of the time.

If these are options of a unique plugin, I guess that solution would be a problem though.
Unless all those 4 toggles could be loaded as standalone tSX and thus loaded and docked/customized one by one.

What do you think ?

Hi Emmanuel - you have the same ideas as i

The window is just WIP. I want to create the icons as a separate icon bar to integrate these into tS - like the tS own icons but the new ones will be one bar (not so flexible but better then a window).

So, stay tuned

Design devil,

On those widget videos...I see a box int the upper right corner giving you the orientation...can that be made to show North, South, East, West? or just the letters?

thanks, Jeff

Hi Jeff,

it just shows this letters. I'm sorry for that but it is a real modeled object (also the letters are modeled). The SDK for 6.6 has no solution to apply a texture onto a widget. A widget is always a model which has just colors as material.

You could use Prodigy's Cube Widget for that and change the Materials.
viewtopic.php?t=525"