G I F T S

SOFTIMAGE 3D

Custom Effects

Many users of Softimage 3D utilize the software for modelling and animation, and then have to transfer the resulting geometry and motion to a proprietary, in-house format (the best example of this is what games developers do).

The DKit (Developers Kit) provides all the necessary tools to retrieve any information about a Softimage 3D scene, but it requires a certain amount of programming. The 'evalScene' standalone retrieves transformation information about scene components, but doesn't provide all information, and it is not interactive with the interface.

Included in the Sample Custom Effects package are two custom effects: Model_Info and Motion_Info. They can be used (directly from within the Softimage 3D interface) to retrieve information about models. Each custom effect comes with full source code so that it can be modified easily to print results in a specific format, or to include additional information.

Model_Info

This static effect that appears in the Softimage 3D as Model -> Info -> Model_Info. It starts at the root of a hierarchy and for each object prints out the name, SRT values, and list of textures. If the object is a polygon mesh, it also prints out a list of the object verticies, vertex coordinates, and UV textures coordinates. This effect is contained in the MODEL_INFO.tar (184k) package. You can install it as you would any custom effect.

Here's some sample output:

================================================================
Object: cube1

Scaling:     1.000000 1.000000 1.000000
Rotation:    0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Translation: 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000

Number of Verticies: 8
Number of Polygons: 6
Number of Textures: 2

/Databases/Jason_Bright/PICTURES/dark_wood
/Databases/Jason_Bright/PICTURES/green_marble

Polygon 1   Number of nodes: 4
Node  1  Position: -5.000 -5.000 -5.0000  Texture: 0.0000 0.0000
Node  2  Position: -5.000 -5.000 5.0000  Texture: 0.0000 0.0000
Node  3  Position: -5.000 5.000 5.0000  Texture: 0.0000 1.0000
Node  4  Position: -5.000 5.000 -5.0000  Texture: 0.0000 1.0000

Polygon 2   Number of nodes: 4
Node  1  Position: -5.0000 -5.0000 5.0000  Texture: 0.0000 0.0000
Node  2  Position: 5.0000 -5.0000 5.0000  Texture: 1.0000 0.0000
ETC ETC ETC ..........
================================================================

Motion_Info

This is a dynamic effect that appears in the Softimage 3D menus as Motion->Info->Motion_Info. It is attached to the root of a hierarchy. At each frame of an animation this effect prints out the SRT values for every object in the hierarchy. This effect is attached to the hierarchy (and active) until it is disabled/deleted.

This effect is contained in the MOTION_INFO.tar (184k) package. You can install it as you would any custom effect.

Heres a sample of the output:

===================================================================
Frame: 1
Object: sphere1
Scaling:     0.630000 0.630000 0.630000
Rotation:    0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Translation: 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Object: sphere2
Scaling:     -0.650000 1.000000 1.000000
Rotation:    0.037118 -3.889257 0.054562
Translation: 0.113584 -10.629341 0.105477
Frame: 2
Object: sphere1
Scaling:     0.630000 0.630000 0.630000
Rotation:    0.000000 0.001183 0.000000
Translation: 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
Object: sphere2
Scaling:     -0.650000 1.000000 1.000000
Rotation:    0.037118 -3.889257 0.054562
Translation: 0.113584 -10.629341 0.105477
ETC ETC ETC..........
====================================================================

NOTE: Both of these effects are currently set to print out their results on the "STDERR" filehandle. If you started Softimage 3D from the command line, the results will be printed out in the startup shell. If you started Softimage 3D from the toolchest, the results may end up anywhere. To be safe, start Softimage 3D from the command line, or modify the included source.

Source code for both effects are included so that you can modify them if you want the results to be sent to a file (for example) or if you want to print out the results in a different format.