Compositing TS Images without Border Artifacts

Images from TS can be composited (ie. superimposed or overlayed) on top of other images in image editing programs like PhotoShop, or in video editing programs like Premiere. A common problem occurs when compositing specific objects from a TS rendering that has been done with anti-aliasing enabled. Anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges in images by interpolating the pixel colors around the problem edges. This unfortunately causes border artifacts when the object is composited on another image. Solutions:

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

When rendering the object to be composited, use a background that's quite similar to the background it is to be superimposed on. This will avoid the contour around the object, where TS has blended it with the background color. The other way to do is to render without the anti-aliasing. It can still get a border, but not that strong. It gets quite jaggy though.

Nontajit Lertworachon, gostudio@pipeline.com

TrueSpace can also render alpha channel. [Ed. Note: You have to render to a 32-bit targa file. This will automatically make an alpha channel with the background being transparent.] Photoshop and Premiere (and many others) have options to use the alpha channel in a composite. This will give you much cleaner result because the anti-alias interpolation occurs with a transparent background.

RGB Values For Blue And Green Screen Masking in Premiere

Ian Firth, IanFirthDS@aol.com

Use true blue or green (ie. 255 for the color component RGB values) when setting up your background matte for blue/green screening TS images. Also, if you are going to use Premiere to bluescreen, don't use the default bluescreen option as it tends to cause all areas of the image to become slightly transparent. Use color difference instead.

Importing 2D Drawings (DXF, AI, etc.)

James Eric Mason, jem@cais.com

If you're drawing 2D outlines in Corel for DXF export, design using beziers when needed, but don't export beziers directly because the lowest DXF export curve resolution is 32 points per curve, which is way too many. When I only want 10 or 15 points per curve, I select the bezier segment at an inflection point with Corel's point-edit, and then tell it to subdivide until the number of points looks adequate, then I tell Corel to convert to curves. If your bezier point is connected as anything other than a Cusp-type point, change it to Cusp before doing this as it will modify the other side of the curve (which you may have to convert to lines seperately). Of course, Corel treats Circles and Arcs the same way, so you might have to adjust them as well (convert to curves first... I know it's a pain...) I would guess some of the same advice goes for Illustrator and Designer users as well, though I have not tried DXF output from either.

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

When importing objects from 2D drawing programs, try not to have objects with both a fill and an outline. Objects with both will import as two Truespace objects: one for the outline and one for the fill. If this occurs, they will traversible via object hierarchy and you can delete one of them.

VistaPro and Truespace

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

When importing VistaPro landscapes into Truespace, you will typically want to texture the landscape so that it appears essentially the same in a Truespace rendering as it does in a VistaPro rendering. The is the general procedure to do that:

• Start VistaPro (not sure if this will work with pre-3.0 versions).
• Load a DEM or create one using the fractal utility.
• Select 'Save DXF' and 'Yes' to overlap edges for smooth shading Note: use a polygon count of 2 or more (ie. 4,8). Otherwise, you'll need a lot of memory to even load it into TS and even more to manipulate/render it.
  [Ed. Note: He ain't kidding. VistaPro generates monsterous DXFs....]
• Select 'Save Texture Map' and 'Yes' to allow VP to calculate colors. Note: you must enable the 24-bit graphics mode first.
• Start trueSpace.
• Load the previously created DXF.
• Select 'UV Project' and apply a flat proj. to the top of the terrain. Note: this may need to be rotated later for proper placement of the terrain texture map.
• Right-click 'Paint Object' and select the previously created TGA as a texture map (change other attributes as necessary).
• Left-click 'Paint Object' and you're done!

Importing Fractal Landscapes from Fractint into Truespace

Serge Golikov, Serge.Golikov@Syd.AFTRS.EDU.AU

Anyone interested in creating Fractal Landscapes should look no further than Fractint from the Stone Soup Group, arguably the best (and still public domain) fractal explorer available. It is currently in Ver. 19.1. Fractint has the ability to save out in DXF format which TrueSpace loads in faithfuly, maintaining the original colours of the rendered GIF fractal. The advantage of using this method to a utility such as GIF2DXF say, is that Fractint can generate 1000's of different fractals, has control of the pallete of the output GIF, adjustment for mesh resolution etc., etc.

[Ed. Note: There's a great book out called "Fractal Creations" that you can buy for about $30. It gives easy-to-follow explanations of fractals and how they work, as well as a CD-ROM with Fractint, example images, and loads of Fractint recipes for cool images.]

Lparser

Chng Ching Huei, chngchi1@iscs.nus.sg

Lparser is a freeware l-systems generator for making organic models. A great write-up on it was published in issue #17 of 3D Artist. It is capable of spectacular plants, but be aware that the models it generates are huge. Its available via ftp from povray.

Fractal Designer 3

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

FD3 is a fabulous tool for use with trueSpace. It has a smart tile builder for creating tileable textures. You create the tile of any size and FD3 sees to it that the elements are positioned so a seamless pattern will result. The Image Hose will spray image elements on the tile so you can build up amazing textures with a 3D look to them. I'm building a bit map for the NCC1701 with all the windows and shadows and stuff.

Batch Image Processing

Dave, DaMo1111@aol.com

Truespace animators who work with image sequences often need to perform a particular image enhancement to large numbers of images. For this type of job, check out Brenda for Windows, shareware, available on the Macromedia forum on CIS.

From the Brenda Forum:

Welcome to Brenda * The Batch Renderer. Brenda was written to fill a long-felt need for a way to process large numbers of digital image files in an efficient manner. With Brenda, you can select a virtually limitless number of images, set a few options, and sit back (or go to lunch) while Brenda does the rest!

Batch Processing Features:

• Map true-color images to greyscale
• Map true-color images to fixed color palettes at a variety of color depths
• Convert true-color or palette mapped images to the same, standardized palette
• Create an optimized palette from an assortment of source images (limit 100)
• Convert palette mapped images to true color
• Perform file format conversions

Polyform

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

Polyform is a neat new 3D utility from Vivid Technologies. It will load 20 some different 3D formats and you can save any of them in COB format. Further, it is the only proffessional program I've seen that reduces the polygon count and fixes co-planar polys. It's very useful, don't know the price and a demo is available.