[Plugin] Shape Bender Beta

Chris Fullmer · 24 Apr 2010, 16:42

@Diego - Unfortunately that is just a side effect of how curved shapes in 3d work. I have not figure out a mathematical way to smooth those jaggies out. I'm not even sure its possible?

Chris

August · 25 Apr 2010, 22:46

@chris fullmer said:

Unfortunately that is just a side effect of how curved shapes in 3d work. I have not figure out a mathematical way to smooth those jaggies out. I'm not even sure its possible?

You could smooth out the jaggies with Beziers connecting the points, but that would simply make the curve have lots more points in it and the attached surface would have LOTS more polygons in it.

At this point in the technology, polygons are the most general-purpose way of rendering surfaces and that's what Open-GL is designed to do, and the math for that is built into the video chips.

If we had hugely faster processors, like maybe 1000 times as fast as the current standard or more, it would be possible to have all surfaces represented by mathematical formulas instead of simple polygons. That would allow everything to be arbitrarily smooth -- as you zoom in closer, the pixels are recalculated by the formulas and the formulas are designed to connect smoothly to each other. Like having every polygon represented by a Loft surface.

Of course, that's just smoothness. You would still have a limit of precision by how many different formulas were used -- the edges of Loft surfaces. At some point there will always be a trade-off between numbers of parts and the complexity of those parts. If instead of formula Loft surfaces you use 1000 times as many polygons to have smoother edges, you will still hit a limit where things go jaggy.

I hope this helps,
August

kitesurfjerry · 26 Apr 2010, 17:06

I can't seem to find the link to download Shape Bender Beta plugin. Help!!

Chris Fullmer · 26 Apr 2010, 20:18

Hey Jerry, the download is at the bottom of the first post in this thread. So go back to page 1, and scroll down past the videos and right there at the bottom of the thread should be a link to download the plugin. Hope that helps.

Chris

August · 27 Apr 2010, 03:26

@chris fullmer said:

... the download is at the bottom of the first post in this thread. ...

Hi Chris,

This seems to be a chronic problem, and not just for this plugin, but certainly often here.

Obviously the title of the thread, with the recent date, does not get people's attention.

Somehow, when they are glancing at that page, looking for the link to the last page of the thread, they need to have their attention caught and dragged away from what they are intent on and get hit in the face with "Right Here" of some kind.

I suggest a big graphic, right under the title, maybe even above the script name and the version, that looks like a Download button as used on so many websites, that says "Download Latest Version Here". Then either that can be a working button or, easier, it is followed by the instructions, "The link is at the end of this first post." Or something like that. Then the script name, Beta v0.55, Date (yes, repeating it from the title), etc.

I know it sounds redundant, but most people skim rather than reading. Their first approximation is to look at the graphic organization of the page to figure out which minimal parts they need to actually read. Most of the time, for most web pages, that's an effective strategy and gets you where you want to be faster. Here, because SCF actually has better organization than most web pages, people's presumptions can lead them to exactly what Jerry did -- skipping right paste the information they are looking for because they don't expect it to be there.

Once people get used to how SCF works, the idea of having the first post updated with the latest version is a really great way to organize things, but that is not the web standard, so you have to interrupt people who think they already know what they are doing.

My suggestion, based on UI-design psychology and the neurophysiology of human visual perception, is a big graphic that looks as familiar as you can make it that says "Download". Once they stop an look at that, you can tell them what to do.

I hope this helps,
August

Chris Fullmer · 27 Apr 2010, 04:31

Thats a good idea August. I like the icon, I think I'll go with one that I put at the very bottom of the post, immediately above the link that have large arrows pointing downards. Great idea,

Chris

TIG · 27 Apr 2010, 08:06

The 'warning sign' is a good idea...
I always have the download-link in the first post, and then I update it as the version changes; I also add the full update notes there.
Then I add a new post to the topic to bump it, explaining briefly the changes and also add a link back to the main post [right-click over the small 'square' icon below the title string called something like 'copy link location']...
That way users are told about the changes and the download is always in the same place.

Chris Fullmer · 27 Apr 2010, 15:00

Thats how I have done mine too, and I genereally like it that way. Except this particular plugin the release notes got so excessive, the first post was unbearable. So I recently stripped out all the release notes just to simplify the frst post to make it easier to find the download link. The release notes are inside the plugin if people really want to see the version history. oh and I recently updated it with a tiny minor update that I decided to not bump the thread for - maybe I should have. It was just a speed fix that made it work faster. Anyhow, all good ideas. Especially now that two days ago Aidan blogged about thisd script. I'm guessing that might start pushing more people to come check it out. Especially after the newlestter gets emailed out to everyone with the blog posts in it.

Chris

August · 27 Apr 2010, 16:45

@chris fullmer said:

ThaI'm guessing that might start pushing more people to come check it out.

All the more reason to catch people's attention at the very top of the first post so you don't get as many "I can't find it" questions.

It has to be at the top of the post, "before the fold" as Marketing folks call it, so that it is there before they do any scrolling or clicking or anything.

xrok1 · 27 Apr 2010, 17:04

too bad the link at the top of each post couldn't be used for a link to the first post (or download) its almost useless anyway to keep repeating Re: [Plugin Shape Bender Beta v0.55 UPDATED April 21, 2010] on each post. why not make it useful, at least in the plugins section of the forum.
maybe like this DOWNLOAD: Shape Bender Beta v0.55 as a link above each post instead?

PS i like the way chris puts a link in his signature but if you don't know he's the author ??

August · 27 Apr 2010, 17:29

@xrok1 said:

... its almost useless anyway to keep repeating Re: [Plugin Shape Bender Beta v0.55 UPDATED April 21, 2010] on each post. ...

Actually, that is not useless. That link is actually different on each and every post in the entire thread. If you right-click and select Copy Link you get a URL that takes you to that specific post and not just to the first post in the thread.

xrok1 · 27 Apr 2010, 17:32

i know that but it gets used a LOT less than a download link would. have you ever used it? i haven't and look at my post count.

August · 27 Apr 2010, 17:43

Yes, but not all threads here are about downloads. Most are not.

xrok1 · 27 Apr 2010, 17:50

@xrok1 said:

too bad the link at the top of each post couldn't be used for a link to the first post (or download) its almost useless anyway to keep repeating Re: [Plugin Shape Bender Beta v0.55 UPDATED April 21, 2010] on each post. why not make it useful, at least in the plugins section of the forum.
maybe like this DOWNLOAD: Shape Bender Beta v0.55 as a link above each post instead?

PS i like the way chris puts a link in his signature but if you don't know he's the author ??

August · 27 Apr 2010, 19:19

Whoops. I guess I'm guilty of skimming too.

xrok1 · 27 Apr 2010, 20:10

aren't we all.

benjamin22 · 28 Apr 2010, 01:13

Hi guys, Just wondering why my pipe is bending like this...

The circular parts of the pipe are staying vertical rather than arraying around the arc, thus crushing the pipe and flattening it out!
Also how can I get more segments into my circle to smooth it out?

Thanks a million!

xrok1 · 28 Apr 2010, 01:39

thanks ben, for a minute there i forgot this was a shape bender thread.

could you post a file? its hard to tell whats going on from the image/description.

benjamin22 · 28 Apr 2010, 01:41

Ok no worries.

New Design.skp

Chris Fullmer · 28 Apr 2010, 04:34

Hi Ben, I wrote the script with the intention that the bendy shape would be lying flat. If you just rotate the arc 90 degrees so its flat on the ground, then the bending will work as expected. Hope that helps!

Chris