Monthly Archives: March 2014

Adventures in 3D.

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I remember when Blender became first available for me. It was a 3D rendering engine and it looked fun, so I downloaded it, installed it and tried it. This was somewhere around 1999 and I still had a lot to learn back then. Still, I did not like the user interface of Blender (and still don’t) and I considered it too complex and not useful enough for myself so I soon forgot about it again. I still was interested in rendering 3D images, but I also wanted something simpler.

So, around 2004 I purchased a copy of Poser and it had the user-friendliness that I was looking for. I needed to collect all kinds of models, though. But by using models I could create some interesting images and could use my own CGI artwork instead of my own photographs for the software development that I like to do.

Being able to generate your own artwork for your applications is a better option than depend on stock material or purchasing/hiring others to make it for you. I don’t want to violate copyrights of others, but when you create websites, you need some graphical parts too and I needed to be my supplier of these images. Buttons were easy, since Paint Shop Pro and other 2D software had plenty of functionality to create them. But more complex things like showing a person behind a computer either required taking pictures or rendering a 3D model. Poser made the second option available to me.

When Second Life became hot, I also played a bit with that. Here is a 3D environment where you can build 3D objects simply by combining several basic shapes, or prims. (From primitives.) The game gave me a more comfortable feel around 3D environments and made me wanting even more.

And now its 2014. I have a piece of land in Second Life where I can build all kinds of things. I use the Firestorm viewer which allows me to exports my own objects from Second Life to use in other 3D software and from there I can continue to change them even further. Second Life also allows me to import back those objects I’ve exported and modified and allows me to import other objects from 3D software, although it does have a lot of problems with many of those models. Unfortunately, Second Life isn’t very clear when it reports errors and doesn’t seem to be able to simply fix some problems during import.

But in all this time, I’ve gotten a nice collection of 3D software which I will mention now, including where you can find it and what I think about it. All software I have are used on Windows systems.

Blender

Blender is a very popular product but I consider the user interface a bit complex. Too many buttons and options are polluting the screen and make it difficult to understand. To make things worse, it’s user interface behaves different from standard Windows user interfaces. Dialog boxes tend to appear anywhere, with plenty of different options instead of Yes/No or Ok/Cancel. Information is visible all over the screen so you have to look everywhere to find it. It’s just not intuitive, which is probably because this is an open-source collaboration between many developers who each left their own marks on the application.

Personally, I think the Blender user-interface needs a complete rewrite…

POV-Ray

POV-Ray is another 3D render engine and even older than Blender. POV-Ray uses scripts instead of a 3D graphical environment thus it’s not easy to use if you want to generate some 3D model. You just have to write each line in code for this software. Fortunately, there are plenty of 3D modelling applications that you can use to generate POV-Ray scripts. One of them is:

AC3D

AC3D is a commercial product that makes 3D modelling quite easy. Not as easy as Poser or Second Life, but it has plenty of good features. It’s user interface could use some sanitation, though. On my dual-monitor setup, some of the dialog boxes tend to pop up on the wrong monitor. But it’s very practical and supports several 3D image formats. For all others, you might want something that’s able to convert many different formats. Something like the Online 3D Model Converter or an application like:

AccuTrans 3D

AccuTrans 3D supports a few 3D image formats, allowing you to convert your models between different applications. This software also allows you to make some simple modifications to your models and I’ve used it to convert my Poser models to a format that Second Life understands. During this conversion, I also merge the parts of my models that all use the same texture, thus making the models simpler within Second Life. Of course, there’s an alternative that’s free:

MeshLab

MeshLab is open-source, but it has a clear user interface. It still has a few flaws, though. For example, it’s a bit slow compared to AccuTrans 3D. And it fails to correctly import some of my models correctly. It also fails to generate an export file that Second Life can read correctly, thus I need AccuTrans 3D to create those. (And even then Second Life tends to have problems importing them.)

Still, MeshLab is useful and allows you to make several changes to your models. But if you want to put models in proper poses, you will need:

Poser and Poser Pro

Poser is my favorite tool to create 3D models to use within my software. If I need a model of a person behind a computer, I can make it within 20 minutes with Poser. Just take a model of a person, add clothing models and a computer model, perhaps a desk and chair model and start rendering. It is very easy to use and it can import models created by other applications, although those will be less flexible than regular Poser models.

Another application that can be used with Poser models is:

DAZ Studio

DAZ Studio is free, thus making it very popular. It uses the same models as Poser does and DAZ also sells those models! Thus, DAZ has become very popular as supplier of Poser models.

But maybe it’s because I’m too used to Poser already, but I don’t like the user interface of DAZ Studio. To make it worse, I’ve tried to open some of my Poser models with DAZ Studio, only to discover that DAZ Studio did not accept many of the changes I’ve made to the models. Body parts were reset to their default shapes and it just did not look right.

Still, if you use Poser or DAZ Studio to render some new images, you’ll often want to have some interesting background too. Indoors settings aren’t much of a problem but outdoor images would need a more complex environment. One solution would be:

Bryce Pro

Bryce can make some great environments, although it seems to be missing some functionality. It also looks very small on my screen with a resolution of 1920×1200. While the results look very good, the user interface is less practical than the alternative:

E-on Vue

I use Vue a lot to render models that I’ve created with Poser. The reason for this is because Vue generates very good environments while Poser creates fine models. I could use Poser to render those models, but the lack of a good environment makes them look a bit boring.

Still, one problem with Vue is that it cannot export my generated environments for use in other software. Although Vue does have an export option, it also has many models that are not allowed to be exported. Thus you can create a nice sea, with boats and an island, and try to export it only to discover that you can export just one tiny rock from the whole scene. Vue is also quite expensive, compared to Bryce.

There is far more 3D software available, for all kinds of purposes. DAZ Studio also has Hexagon and Carrara:

Hexagon

Hexagon is just another tool to create models in 3D. I like to use it and have created a few things with it, but it tends to crash a lot. It’s not reliable enough for big projects because it can unexpectedly crash while you’re working on some project. While it is very user-friendly, the instability is just annoying.

Carrara

Carrara is similar to DAZ Studio and Poser, since it’s meant to put models in certain poses. But it combines this with landscape modelling, making it more useful. It has a simple interface, making it very practical to use. Less is more. Well, at least for user interfaces. Users tend to get lost in very busy interfaces.

Carrara can use Poser models and more. It can import templates I’ve created based on Poser models, although it doesn’t always succeed at importing Poser scenes. It can export to a format that Second Life should be able to read, but this too has some incompatibilities. Second Life is just too picky.

Second Life

It’s easy to forget but Second Life itself is also very capable of building 3D images. And it seems to be very user-friendly at this too, since it does so in an interactive way with the user. You have an avatar that can walk or fly around the object, which helps you to create models at a nice scale. It supports several primary shapes that can be used to build more complex items. It also allows great control over textures on your objects.

However, to build objects in Second Life, you need some land where you can build. This happens to be limited to certain areas, unless you yourself own some land. You also have to pay small amounts to upload images to the Second Life environment, making it costly in usage. So, there is an alternative:

OpenSimulator

The OpenSimulator is an alternative for Second Life. It’s open-source, thus free. But it can be used by the same viewers that are used for Second Life. It is a bit complex to set up your own simulations and OpenSimulator itself lacks a useful graphical interface. For this, you need a special viewer:

FireStorm

FireStorm happens to be a great viewer for both Second Life and OpenSimulator. While Second Life has its own viewer, FireStorm has some more advanced features and can be used for OpenSimulator. You can use it to build objects within Second Life or OpenSimulator and then export these for usage in other 3D software. Thus you could use Second Life to make a building or fortress and export it and use it in Poser with some models around it.

There are more viewers available for Second Life and OpenSimulator, but I would recommend to use Firestorm.

VastPark

One more simulator. Unlike Second Life, VastPark seems to focus more on businesses who want to make more interactive presentations. And what better to use for this than a virtual environment.

But like OpenSimulator, you can’t really use this without first generating the virtual environment. This takes time and some skills with 3D images. You need to create models and create textures for those models, else it’s just a lot of white on white…

VastPark could also be used to create complex animations by recording the actions within the virtual world. This would be useful for creating training material or support documentation of special events, like car accidents or office fires.

LightWave

I haven’t used LightWave but it looks quite nice. However, I use the LightWave file format as export format for Poser. I then convert those with AccuTrans 3D to the Collada file format, which Second Life can import. The only problem is that Poser models are extremely detailed because they are used to generate highly detailed images. Second Life can’t really handle that much details and often fails to import these models. I can use AccuTrans 3D to split the Poser model in several parts and import those parts one by one, which seems to have a better effect. However, the models that you will import this way in Second Life eat away a lot of your land usage, thus you need a large piece of land. Or your own simulation!

FreeCAD

FreeCAD is just another modelling tool. It has some good examples but it lacks some practical functions. However, missing functionality can be added through plug-ins. It is a good tool to combine with POV-Ray. It can do a lot based on the design mode that you’ve selected.

DeleD

DeleD is another modeller, which is more used for game development. It is useful for simpler objects, not Poser models. It works a bit like Second Life, where you select cubes, spheres and other primitives to build more complex objects.

Speaking of game development, there are also libraries for developers that can help them to create their own 3D software. For example:

Horde 3D

This is an open source 3D rendering engine, to be used in games and 3D applications. It has been created for speed, thus less practical if you want to generate highly detailed images. But in a game, you want animations, and you want them in real-time, running smoothly.

Ogre 3D

Ogre 3D is another 3D rendering engine, written in C++ and with wrappers for use with Python, C# and Java. It too is great to use with games and other interactive environments. It also supports Linux, iOS, Android, WinRT and the Mac OS X. Basically, it’s a library around the OpenGL specifications.

OpenGL

OpenGL isn’t really an application but today, it is part of almost every computer that has a graphics card. The Khronos Group is responsible for maintaining this standard, thus every graphics card can be used by the OpenGL protocol. (At least, if the manufacturer added the support for OpenGL.) Most 3D software relies on OpenGL to display its graphics, although there are plenty of games that use DirectX instead. However, DirectX is an API created by Microsoft to be used for Windows applications only. Thus, many developers are focusing more on OpenGL while Microsoft seems to try to push them back to DirectX.

Oculus VR

The greatest dream of 3D will be the Oculus Rift, a special piece of hardware that’s supposed to give you a 3D virtual environment. Basically, it’s made of two screens, each of them showing you a scene from a slightly different angle. Since each eye will only see one screen, your brain will see the virtual world in 3D. (Unless you’re a cyclops.) It will respond on the movements of your head and development for this device will ask a lot from future developers. The 3D worlds are arriving for consumers and companies. It’s still mostly eye-candy to have nice, 3D environments. Development for such 3D worlds is more complex than having a simple web page with text on it. It will need to conquer its place in this world.

However, there’s also development done on 3D televisions and monitors that would not require special glasses to view its content. If such a device would hit the market, then 3D development would become even more important…

So, developers… Prepare to go 3D!

Great photography, licensed or self-made…

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The Internet has become extremely important in our daily lives. And more importantly, the Internet requires many developers to think more graphically. Twenty-five years ago, computers were mostly text-based with some little graphics. The Internet was about to be born and graphics was mostly restricted to small icons and images with a limited amount of colors. When you were lucky, your graphics card would be a VGA card, able to handle images with 256 colors at resolutions of 640×480 pixels. A need for a graphic standard was required back then and a few new formats were born.

The PCX format, created by the now-defunct Zsoft Corporation, turned out reasonable successful because it supported up to 256 colors with an extra color palette that allowed the selection of 256 colors from any of the true-color images. It also supported data compression, making it reasonable small. Yet the decompression method was pretty fast, thus the processor would not need to work hard to display the image.

The PCX format has extended to true-color more recently but the JPG format turned out to be a better format. Since processors started to improve their performance, the more complex compression of the JPG format was fast enough to use and resulted in smaller files, although the images would lose some details.

Another popular format was the GIF format, that allowed images with 255 colors plus a transparent layer. (Or 256 colors without transparency.) This format is still popular since it’s great for logos and cartoons and it allows animations. And the compression of GIF files would reduce the image considerably in size without losing any details.

The PNG format has become more popular and was created as successor of the GIF format. It was needed because modern graphics required more colors and there was a demand for a better transparency layer. The PNG format uses 24-bits or 48-bits for its colors allowing more colors than the human eye can detect, plus an alpha channel (24-bits only) allowing images to define the transparency level of each pixel to be anything between transparent and opaque. This was great to e.g. create dirty glass windows or thin, silk nightgowns as graphics.

There are, of course, many other graphic formats but I want to talk about art, not formats. And this time, I want to talk about Pavel Kiselev, also known as photoport (NSFW), who likes to create glamorous pictures of pretty women. Today, he posted this picture of Irene, of one of his models. (I’ve licensed it for personal use, and this is my personal blog so it should be okay.)

IreneAnd this is the kind of photography that I love to see. Should I say more?

Well, okay… I do have to keep in mind that I wanted to relate this to software development so I should not distract myself by continuously looking in those pretty eyes. 🙂 So, back to the software development part…

When you’re designing websites, you have to keep in mind that you will need a lot of graphics. Something simple like an icon to display in the browser is already a requirement these days, else people have some trouble finding your site among their favorites. They can, of course, read the labels in the menu but most people will glance over all icons first and clicking on the icon that they recognise as your icon. Without the icon, they have more trouble finding you so never forget to add a Favicon to your site! Something that people will easily recognize as your brand.

Next, your site will need a logo and a background image. Or at least a logo. The best logos are PNG or GIF images, because they are small and allow transparency. The image of Irene would be bad as logo since it’s big and has a lot of bytes. When people visit your site with a slow internet connection, it would just look bad if the logo takes too long to download. Thus, keep it small yet detailed enough to be recognisable.

The background image might be bigger, unless you’re designing websites for mobile devices. For mobile devices, no background image would be better since it will take less bandwidth. Many mobile devices are accessing the Internet through providers who charge by the megabytes of data sent or received. Thus, for mobile sites you need to keep the amount of data to an absolute minimum, else it becomes expensive to visit your mobile websites forcing visitors to stay away when they’re roaming around…

But a favicon, logo and background aren’t always enough. Let’s forget the mobile devices for now and focus on the regular browsers and users who pay a fixed price for their connection. Your website will probably offer some services to customers and you need them to easily recognise what they’re looking at. And these days, more and more people dislike reading descriptions and prefer to see something more graphical. You might consider hieroglyphs on your website but not many people are capable of reading ancient Egyptian. You you need your own set of icons and images for the most important actions on your website. Preferably icons with an extra label next to it.

Take a look at your browser and find the following buttons: Back, Next, Refresh and Home. Did you read some text to find them? Most likely, you found them by looking at the images. Arrows for back and next buttons, an arrow in a circle for the refresh button and a symbol of a house for the home button. Images that have become standard so make sure you have a few of your own to put on your own website. Especially when you want navigation buttons on your own site. However, do keep in mind that you either have to create these images yourself or get a proper license for the images created by someone else. Considering that many icons are already in the public domain or have been created under a Creative Commons license, it should be no big problem to find any for free.

Next, you will probably need images for the products that you want to sell or display. While Irene looks very pretty, I would not use it when I want to sell socks. I would use a picture of socks instead. And make sure I have licensed that picture or created it myself. Preferably, I would create multiple images at different sizes so I can display thumbnails first and a larger version if the user wants to see more details. Again, this would speed up loading your site.

It does create a bit of a challenge, though. Would you resize the image to a thumbnail dynamically or will you store the image as thumbnail and original format? Both have their advantages. Dynamic resizing will allow you to change the thumbnail size when you like and even allows you to create all kinds of custom sizes. However, your server will need more processing power to do the resizing, which is slow if your original images are created at huge resolutions. (Like most of my artwork.) If you’re expecting a lot of visitors, storing images at different sizes would improve performance considerably but will require more disk space, which could be a minor problem when you have your site hosted and have to pay for the storage per megabyte. Then again, hosts don’t charge much for extra disk space these days, if they’re even charging anything at all.

The image of Irene would be practical for dating sites and sites for bathing products. Her hair has a wet look, giving the impression that she just washed it. She also looks very seductive which would certainly attract attention of many men and probably a few women too. However, on dating sites the members would probably recognise her as a professional model and thus consider it a fake image. She’s too pretty to use a dating site. You’d probably scare a few members away if you would use this image. It would still look great for selling shampoo, though.

So, you’re designing a website and thus you will need images to fill it up. This is often the biggest problem for many companies. In many cases, developers will just use Google to find some image and copy it to the project, ignoring the need for any license. They have good reasons to work this way, because adding proper images isn’t a real task for developers. But it could cause legal troubles if the site is published and some photographer recognizes his images. Without a proper license, it could cost you hundreds of euros to correct the situation and that’s without any other legal costs. Thus it is really bad when developers have to search for the proper images themselves.

A better solution would be by creating placeholder images. Provide the developers with some dummy images that you’ve created yourself by adding a textual description to a newly created image at the preferred size. Make sure it has a proper filename too. This placeholder can then be used by the developer to insert in the proper location, allowing him to continue his work while you start to look for a nice image to replace this placeholder. This will allow time to get a proper license or to make it yourself. Once you’re about to publish the site, all you have to do is replace the placeholders with the images that you want to display.

One more, very important thing to remember. When you get a license for any image that you use, make sure that you keep track of the specific details of the license. It would be best if you have your own database where you can store the image with more information about where you’ve licensed the image, where you found the image and the license and the name of the author. You will need this information if the author or some company representing the author finds your image online and thinks you don’t have a proper license.

Of course, there’s a risk of having a fraudulent license. You might have gotten a license from someone pretending to be the author. This is a risk which you might avoid by keeping track of the origins of every image used by your organisation. And yes, it’s a lot of additional bookkeeping. With this information about where you got your license, you will have a good excuse to get away without any financial damages if the license turns out to be fraud. If you can continue to use the image will depend on the local legislation of the country where your organisation is located and the legislation of the country where your website is hosted.

My personal preference for images is to just create it myself. This takes time and I need opportunities to create those images. For CGI artwork, my computer is fast enough to render an image in the background while I continue to work on developing my sites. Still, I am limited to one image per computer at any time and my license for Vue limits me to using the software on just a single computer. Rendering can easily take a few hours, even days, so I have to be patient.

Of course, I could just take one of my digital cameras but that often means that I need a model, a place and the right weather if I’m going to take pictures outside. This is a lot of work for a bunch of images and I will need to do extra work on those photos once I’ve taken them. They need to be cropped, lighting needs to be adjusted, colors need to be enhanced. This is just too much work for a software developer to do. Thus, you’d better hire a professional to do this work if you don’t have someone in your organisation dedicated to this. Do make sure the photographer you hire will do a “Work for hire” so you’re the official author. Otherwise, the photographer will have influence on how you can use the photos he took!

So, organisations will have a complex task of maintaining licenses and their own images. A lot of organisations do tend to forget about these details which can result in costly problems. Make sure your developers will have something to work with while they are developing. Make sure they don’t have to waste time on those images themselves since developers are costly too. They should focus on the code, not the graphics themselves. Make sure someone in your organisation will manage all images and who is responsible for checking anything that’s about to be published for unknown images. If the image isn’t in the system maintained by the image manager, then you should block the publication until this is fixed.