ShapeShop B4
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!