It must have been a slow internet news day, because someone at EpicFU found ShapeShop and mentioned it in an internet newscasty-type-thing. Starts at about 1:50 in the video below. The “segment” only lasts for about 10 seconds, and they could have picked a better clip, but hey, I’ll take it…
(what’s with the crazy vampire eyes…?)
ShapeShop B5 has been released. What’s new and exciting in this beta? Hold on to your pants:
And finally, a delightful scuplture created by ShapeShop user Andusan, with ShapeShop and Modo:
What are you waiting for? Go download ShapeShop B5!
These models were created by CG Artist Corien Clapwijk (also known as Andusan). The modeling was done usingShapeShop and Modo, and then painting and rendering was done in Modo, with a bit of post in Photoshop. Click for full resolution images.
Check out Andusan’s gallery at CGSociety for a bunch of interesting work.
I have also added quite a few images to the gallery, if you’re interested…
ShapeShop B4 is up. The big changes are 1) Decal texturing is back and 2) my highly experimental Layered Surface Editing tools have been enabled.
Decal Texturing has been re-enabled in this version. Any scene files you made in ShapeShop 002 that have decals in them should now load properly, and you should be able to save and load new scenes with decal textures. (At least, in theory - I did just hack this in for a demo a few weeks ago, so your mileage may vary.)
But the big news is that I have enabled the Layered Surface Editing tools that I implemented as part of my PhD research at the University of Toronto. The idea is to extend the procedural style of creating 3D volumes that ShapeShop uses to more traditional surface editing, like you would find in more conventional 3D modeling tools. But unlike those tools, when you apply a surface edit in ShapeShop, you can always go back and change it later. We call this a Surface Tree. Here is an example of what you can do with layered surface edits:
If you want to know more, check out the research paper. If you aren’t interested in the “science”, the YouTube video below has all the key info, like what sort of edits ShapeShop supports, and how to make them. I haven’t had time to update the manual yet, so this video is the only documentation you’re going to have. But the basic approach is very similar to existing ShapeShop tools - you draw something on the object, and you get options in the suggestion toolbar. Oh, and because this is a new and not-very-stable feature, I have disabled it by default. To turn on surface edits, check Suggest Surface Edits in the Shapes menu.
Please keep in mind that this stuff is extremely experimental. It will cause ShapeShop to crash and hang, frequently. Some things (like the linking between copies) will not be saved.
I have also enabled .OBJ mesh import (File->Import->Import Mesh). Be warned that this feature only works with layered edits. You won’t be able to perform regular ShapeShop blending, cutting, or remeshing on an imported mesh. You also won’t be able to create any other “base” shapes - once you’ve imported a mesh, all you can do is apply layered edits to it, and then export the new .OBJ mesh. Don’t bother trying to save the scene, it won’t load. But you will be able to play with layered edits on meshes you made with other tools. Good luck!
As always, I love hearing from artists, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you think at feedback@shapeshop3d.com. I am particularly interested in what you have to say about the layered surface editing, as well as the gestural 3D manipulation from B3, because I will be presenting them next week at the Eurographics 2008 computer graphics conference in Crete. So, feedback - please!
What are you waiting for? Download it!
When I released ShapeShop B1, I said I was going to try to keep posting monthly beta updates. Clearly, that didn’t happen. But, at long last, ShapeShop B3 is available.
This one took a while because you’re getting a major new feature - I’ve completely re-designed the 3D manipulation widgets and interface. The new system is based on gestures, which can be combined to do 3D rotation / translation / scaling (yes, scaling, at long last!), easy access to world/object coordinate systems, transformation around arbitrary pivots points (with their own frames), snapping, etc - the list goes on. To demonstrate, here is a YouTube video:
Pretty neat, huh? Well, I hope you like it, anyway. If you do like it, or even if you don’t like it, and especially if you completely love it or absolutely hate it (no! never!), please let me know your thoughts at feedback@shapeshop3d.com. If you’re interested in the “science” behind it, you can check out the paper that I will be presenting at Eurographics 2008 in Crete.
Other new stuff in B3:
So, what are you waiting for? Head over the download area!
OK, as promised, ShapeShop B2 is available on the download page, just in time for DemoCamp16. There aren’t any major new features in this one, I just found (and fixed) some pretty major problems in the file loader. If you have saved models that weren’t loading properly before, they might load now. (And if you have saved models that used to load and don’t, well, drop me a line).
There is one change that you might notice. It seems like one of the hardest things for new ShapeShop users to understand is that if they make a stroke they don’t want to use, they have to clear it, otherwise the system is going to try to add it to the next stroke they draw. Essentially, once a stroke is drawn, the system goes into “drawing mode” until all the strokes are cleared. To try and get this message across, I’ve added some feedback - the 3D view is tinted red whenever there are any existing strokes. I tried to make the effect as subtle as possible, while also making it impossible for a new user to miss. I’ve had it turned on for a month or so, and barely notice it anymore, so….you’ll get used to it =).
Soooo…according to David Crow’s blog, I will be demo-ing ShapeShop at DemoCamp16. What is DemoCamp? I quote:
“DemoCamp is a variation of the un-conference style of event, started by the TorCamp group as an excuse to have more regular meetings where community members share what they’ve been working on, demo their products, meet others (and share a drink or 3).”
I will be showing the sketch-based modeling, decal texturing, and gestural interface aspects of ShapeShop, and if you’re lucky I’ll toss in previews of two top-secret unreleased ShapeShop features. Also, I’m going to (fingers crossed) release a new Beta on the weekend which fixes some rather nasty bugs I’ve fixed. Exciting times, ShapeShop fans (all 7 of you…)
So, if you’re in the Toronto area on the evening of Monday, December 3rd, why not come check out DemoCamp16 - free tickets are still available.
Ok, so the installer I released last week did not include the “merge modules” for the Microsoft C runtime libraries (CRT) and MFC. Normally these should already exist on your system, but since I’ve switched to Visual Studio 2005, which uses version 8.0 of the CRT, which didn’t exist when XP shipped, I have to include them. And now I have.
So, if you tried B1 last week and it wouldn’t run, please try again. And if you still get an error message, please post it in the forum so I can try to debug it. Thanks!
Ok, ShapeShop B1 (the first beta of version 003) is available on the download page. I am planning on doing beta releases on a monthly-ish cycle, although if some critical bugs pop up (and I fix them) I will publish a new version ASAP. This first beta has not been heavily tested (surprise! it’s a beta…), but it is based on the code I have been using for the last year. So hopefully nothing bad will happen for you. Any existing save files should load without problems, if they don’t, drop me an e-mail (and the zipped-up save file, if you can).
Ok, now for the good and bad news.
Good News (aka new and improved stuff):
Bad News (aka old stuff that is currently broken):
That’s it for now. You might notice that there aren’t many significant new features listed up there. That will change. There are some major new features in development, but they aren’t quite ready to be released yet. I’m going to hold back on new features until I feel like they are stable enough. In the meantime, you benefit from the UI and stability improvements.
Now head over to the download page and try it out!
I recently stumbled across this post on IndieHIG about the folder icons in OS X Leopard. One of the main critiques is that the folder icons all have the same silhouette, which is thought to be one of the “pre-cognitive” ways we recognize visual things (like icons). Several of the replies in the comments section argue that this “unique silhouette” idea is nonsense, arguing that color and interior features are more important. Well, the plural of anecdote is not data, but I’ve got one anyway, and it’s a good excuse to talk about the improved camera tools that will be available in the beta*.
The old view toolbar in ShapeShop looked like this:
The three blue icons are dolly/zoom, pan, and tumble. You use them by dragging on them. The slick cube on the right, which I rendered in Maya, is for picking fixed views (ie F is front view, etc). It’s actually a whole menu of views, I left off the little black triangle that can be dragged to “pull down” the menu. I kind of suspect that most ShapeShop users don’t actually know how it works. It was an experiment, which is best forgotten, because the new view toolbar looks like this:
Two big changes. One, no more view buttons. Two, the tumble icon (which looked almost exactly like the pan icon) has been replaced with a “procedural” icon - a little blue cube that spins around as you manipulate the camera. It actually works better too - it uses a “turntable” tumble, like you’d find in Maya, rather than a full Arcball (which is always horribly broken in my opinion), and it has a non-linear response so that you can really fine-tune the view by moving the mouse slowly. You’re going to like it, I promise.
But, I digress. The main point is that the new tumble icon/widget has a silhouette that is (often) nearly identical to the old view-picker icon:
So, the question is, does this silhouette similarity have any effect? In my (extremely frustrating) experience: yes. Even though they have reasonably different colors, one has a big black F on it, and they are different sizes, I cannot for the life of me manage to hit the old rotate icon without first clicking on the bloody “F” cube, dragging around on the screen, and wondering why nothing is happening. Every single time I have to demo ShapeShop v002, I end up looking like an idiot, because I can’t even use my own camera controls. Argh.
So, I think the “unique silhouette” argument holds some water. There is one other possibility, which is that the tumble icon has replaced the “F”-cube-icon as the semantically “last” icon in the view toolbar. Because of how I position the toolbar, the new tumble icon is in the same physical location as the old tumble icon. There is just nothing to the right of it anymore. So maybe that’s it. But my money is on the shape.
You might wonder why I got rid of the view-picking buttons, which are a pretty useful feature (especially in a sketch-based modeling tool). Well, I replaced it with something a bit more integrated. If you draw a “crossing” stroke across the boundary of the icon, as shown below on the left, it will turn red. When you tumble the red cube, you’ll find that it “snaps” the camera when you get close to the cube faces, edges, and corners. This gives you more pickable views (40 instead of 6), uses up less screen real-estate (3 icons instead of 4), and is both easier to use and more efficient than the pull-down menu. That qualifies as a “win”, I think…
* Yes, the beta is en route. But don’t expect miracles until after the Eurographics deadline….
