Tattoo 1.41
Community Forums/Developer Stations/Tattoo 1.41
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| Hi all, Just a quick note to let Tattoo users know that Version 1.41 is up. It features some additional options for projection painting, some bugfixes and a new registration system. |
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| Wooo! Thank you Lee! Does this mean I can install it on my laptop without getting yelled at now? |
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| That is great news about the registration system! I'll very likely be registering it soon, as that was pretty much the only reason I wasn't willing to purchase it before... |
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| Cool - this new reg system is really nice... at least for us who swap HW constantly or have several PCs. Thanks! |
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| Glad the new reg is working out. Security is always a trade off between irritation and usefulness. The other one was just a little too draconian. As a tip, if you don't want to re-enter your details between installs, keep a copy of the .reg.key' found in the tattoo install directory somewhere, then when you reinstall, copy it in. |
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| Tattoo bug: it won't load a lightwave model whose skelegons have been removed - still complains they are there! Scenario: I was trying to test out Tattoo on a lightwave model. It had 2 layers, with layer 1 having 2 skelegons. I removed them after Tattoo said it couldn't handle meshes with skelegons. So I deleted the skelegons, and saved the file. Tried loading it into Tattoo. Still complained about the model having skelegons. Thinking the app was confused about the layer2 mesh, I removed layer2. Tried again to load the model into Tattoo, but it still complains about the model having skelegons! Lee, is Lightwave just very difficult to work with as a file format? I'm beginning to have my doubts about it. :( |
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| Lightwave is a pig of a format (chunks, sub chunks,sub sub chunks etc., lists of pointers into other lists and lists of adjustments to other lists! erk!!!, but the actual software is very good! You need to have the model in layer1 and skelegons (optionally) in layer 2. If you have it the other way around, the loader just gets plain confused. |
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| I think I should make clear from my earlier post that layer 1 had not ONLY 2 skelegons in it, but most of the model mesh as well. (Layer 2 just had the character's cape). When I deleted the skelegons from layer 1, that still left the mesh of the character's body in layer 1. To simplify things, I deleted layer 2 entirely, which just had a cape mesh in it (no skelegons at all). But Tattoo was STILL confused, and thought there were skelegons in the model, when the only thing left in the model was the character's body mesh in layer 1. |
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| Can you post/mail it so I can have a look? |
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| Ok. I've sent you the file. :) |
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| Got it! It's the subpatches. If you freeze them then it loads with no problem. Hmmm, subpatches look like skelegons in the file? There is also no UV map assigned yet.  |
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| Why can't it just be more straight forward to use Tattoo (or LWDeformConv for that matter)? It just seems like there are all these restrictions put on (Lightwave) users because of Lightwave's quirky file formats. As an end user, I just want to be able to make a model and then jump into Tattoo and paint it. Am I being unreasonable here? I suppose that issues such as these is why Tattoo sells for what it does whereas something like Maxon's Body Paint 3D R2 sells for about $750 U.S. dollars. I wouldn't expect to jump through any hoops with that application (but I haven't tried it out yet either). :\ |
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| I know what you mean. The problem with the .LWO format is that it is too flexible and hence complicated for its own good. I suppose that issues such as these is why Tattoo sells for what it does whereas something like Maxon's Body Paint 3D R2 sells for about $750 U.S. dollars. I wouldn't expect to jump through any hoops with that application (but I haven't tried it out yet either). :\ I think you'd be surprised! I played with the trial version of Deep Paint 3D (around the same price level) and it often crashed on .LWO models that even my convertor handled correctly! I'm pretty sure that if I was to devote a couple of solid weeks to rewriting the convertor/importer that I could get pretty much anything (that will fit into blitz) going on it, but a couple of weeks work on just one file format? Try saving as .OBJ or .X or .3DS and see of that gets you in and out of Tattoo more effectively for the models you use. The .LWO file support will improve over time, but it really needs to have sufficient time taken with it that I do not currently have available. |
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| I've tried Deep Paint 3D a little while ago and wasn't too impressed by it either. From what I've seen of some movie footage of Body Paint 3D, I think it should work pretty seemlessly with Lightwave. Definitely priced for professionals only though (or perhaps someone VERY committed to their hobby). :) Well Lee you really have a fan over on NewTek's Lightwave forum. This guy absolutely raves about Tattoo! Since I have Milkshape, it shouldn't be a problem (I hope) saving .LWO files imported into Milkshape out from it as one of those other formats you listed. Then I guess I'll have to re-import the output from Tattoo back into Milkshape, save as a .LWO file, and reopen in Lightwave. Workflow: Lightwave > .LWO > Milkshape > .OBJ (or .X, .3DS) > Tattoo > .OBJ (or .X, .3DS) > Milkshape > .LWO > Lightwave. --Whew! As long as it works, I guess it will be OK. |
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| I guess I'll have to re-import the output from Tattoo back into Milkshape, save as a .LWO file, and reopen in Lightwave. Why?! All Tattoo does it change the textures. It doesn't modify UVs or other geometric information, so all you need do is. 1) Build a model 2) UV map it 3) Export it from LightWave 4) Paint in Tattoo & anything else.... Once the geometry is done, you only need to export once! Getting stuff into Tattoo is purely one way! So Lightwave -> .LWO/.OBJ -> Tattoo -> Reopen original .LWO in Lightwave. |
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| Because if I had to convert the .LWO file to some other format, then used Tattoo to modify the textures (in that new format) wouldn't I then need to convert the modified texture informat from the new format back to .LWO again to make it readable by Lightwave? I would need to get back into Lightwave again, if for example after texturing I wanted to add skelegons to the model and then animate it. Of course, this is based on the assumption that a format other than .LWO (like .OBJ) stores its texturing information in a different format than the .LWO format does. |
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| No, they're just textures. .JPG, .PNG, .BMP, .TGA files. It should still reference the same filenames. |
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| Oh, I think I'm starting to get it now. Tattoo doesn't modify UV coordinate mappings, but just the file that's being used to texture the model. So it doesn't allow a texture map that's already been made for a model to be shifted or scaled across various sections of the model (I guess we do that from the UV texturing window in Lightwave or some other app). Forgive my ignorance. |
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| I thought of doing UV mapping in Tattoo, but all this faffing with saving loads of file formats and their various revisions, quirks and incompatibilities put me off somewhat. |
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| Have you thought about a free flight camera for tattoo? |
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| I'm not sure what a free flight camera would be useful for? Since you need to be pointing at the model to paint. Possibly I'm missing the point? |
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