Imagine that one wanted to create some game object like the ones in the Codea resources. Fairly simple shapes, with textures.
I could do the job with Blender on the Mac, if I didn’t hate Blender. It has the ability to make any shape, and to define even complex UV maps that will allow textures to be applied any way one wants. (I’m not sure whether it can export with textures already printed on or not, but surely there is a way.)
It would be very nice to be able to do the whole job with one’s iPad. There are some very powerful CAD-oriented apps for the iPad. I’m particularly fond of Shapr 3D, which is downright amazing, but it can’t apply or export textures, and has at best very simple UV maps. I’m not sure how to apply textures to an OBJ model anyway, other than going through something like Blender.
It seems to me that it would be valuable to have enough documentation to allow a new Codea user to build something like a simple game, even as simple as the Froggy game or Cargo-Bot. (Not that those are entirely simple but their 3D objects are pretty simple.)
So far I’ve not found a flow that’s really worth writing up. I suspect that 3DC.io, as limited as it is, may be close to a decent way. I’d welcome other ideas, pointers to articles and sites, and so on.
@Ronjeffries - just in the middle of trying to texture models at the moment - Blender is way too complicated menus upon menus. I am trying Wings 3D at the moment which looks more accessible and even tried 3D Paint in Win 10. Keep me posted on your progress please.
@piinthesky - I have been thinking round this, @John pointed out that the concept of Shade is to build this into the shader. I think we just need to set up a module for combining the model and texture. Once built that should allow you the flexibility of adding new refinements rather than just a loader.
I have been looking at the Shade examples to pull out the thread used for this.
the trick with making something look sensible … say made of bricks or the like … is that the model needs a sensible mapping from its triangles onto the texture. this is called UV mapping, and almost any fairly complex model needs its UV map somewhat hand crafted.
@RonJeffries - I have been playing around with the latest version of Blender 2.8.2 and, as always, after many changes the package is now very powerful but almost indecipherable. Lots of video tutorials from experts who flip through the screens so fast you have great difficulty in following them. But I am slowly making progress. Do you know of any good references to the uv unwrapping and texturing of models using it. Viewed many but none I find easy to understand. Probably need to sit down and wade through the manual.
I have been looking for a good non-subscription 3D editor working on the iPad for a long time. But I was not very pleased with what I found, yet.
But today I stumbled upon ‘Verto Studio 3D’ and since it is on sale right now for just 7,99€ (maybe 6,99$ in the US) I immediately purchased it. After playing with it for 5 minutes I think this is one of the best iPad 3D editors you can get for that price. Supports mesh editing, texture mapping and even the creation of your own shaders.
Here is a quick snapshot to give you an impression:
@RonJeffries@TheMojoMan - still moving slowly with3D editors but now trying to use two free ones on my Mac and PC. They are Wings 3D and MeshLab. Used the latter years ago, version on the iPad but stopped updating and could not get through apple store. Now new 2020 version for Meshlab (and think PC). Much less involved than Blender but both a little more eccentric. Slowly getting used to them. What I do like is you can colour models by vertex definition in your model in obj format, load into Meshlab and , after a little fiddling, dave as a textured model obj/mtl/ texture png.
I’ve been trying to set up a 3D video by making several Codea scenes and recording them as a prompt to ‘Stay At Home’ in the fight against Corona. Made first part but it’s slow work.
@RonJeffries - now trying to use Verto 3D but can not find the manual. Loaded an obj file and it loaded up without using the mtl file so no colouring, will try with vertices colouring in the object file. Even so, tried to find the texturing options in Verto 3D but - can’t find manual?
Also, just trying some models in Codea using Euler angles to rotate and getting some significant distortion. Anyone know how to set up with quaternions?
@Simeon - with distortion on euler angles on my model I looked at the Craft tutorial/trainer but it had an error. I seem to remember someone else mentioning problems with the examples, possibly @dave1707 or @RonJeffries. Can you update them without having to update Codea or is it wrapped in a Codea installation. If it is the latter, it may be a good idea to make them independent and open for additions by forum members (with your approval of course).
@Bri_G A lot of the examples we’re giving the asset warning and I noticed the Voxel Editor wasn’t working. I had to update the Load and Save statements to get that to work, but that was easy enough. The problem is that when Codea is updated and the examples aren’t, the same errors just come back.