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TagCMA Inspired By ZBrush [Look! Added QuickTime Movies]

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#1

TagCMA is a work in progress.

It dices, it slices, and now it brings models across the Internet to your door. The latest feature allows you to download your buddy’s entire 3d scene complete with vertex arrays, texture coords, and textures. All this for under 270k.

Visit TagCMA.com and give this Open Source project a test spin!

Excellent question. I just put together a “What is TagCMA?” page.
http://www.tagcma.com/article.php?story=20041224202010712

I suppose they wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about and might not need to use the app.

What I meant was TagCMA will include features similar to:

  • The mesh creation and keyframe animation abilities of Discreet’s 3D Studio/GMAX
  • The look and feel of Macromedia Flash/Director keyframe layouts
  • The sociability of instant text messengers / chatrooms
  • The image texture editing tools of Adobe PhotoShop

The tagcma site runs something called geeklog (another open source project). Basically, all stories are sorted in chrono order. I just happened to create the what is story last, so it shows on the top.

Currently, if two people are working on the exact same tihng then the logic is to use whatever the last action was. If two people are doing opposing rotations, it will use the last change based on the timestamp.

The should be stuff, is just specifications. Just dreaming up, what would be cool, what it should do. Just trying to get people interested so I can get their feedback and make things better.

This is all a work in progress…

Each user that logs in is given their own personal workspace. A buddy has complete control over their workspace. I have some Digital Rights Management (DRM) ideas written down. Basically, a user should be able to moderate what other people do in their workspace. On various issues, like (1) customize the UI, (2) add new models to the scene, (3) change the materials of a model, (4) move verteces around, (5) change the environment, (6) change the lighting…

Stuff like that. The basic idea is that a free user has access to all the features in the system. Where a paying user will have the greater ability to moderate their workspace and retain more intellectual property rights.

#2

I recorded a few movies to show some of the system’s features. I added functionality to capture the screen in a new thread which outputs a series of PNG files. And QTPRO can turn a series of images into MP4 movies. The following links are mirrored on sourceforge.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=101941&package_id=139445

The following is a short video showing the overall features of TagCMA.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tagelflax/TagCMA_1_9.mp4?download

Another QuickTime movie. Shows some of the viewport manipulation features.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tagelflax/TagCMA_1_9_2.mp4?download

The following movie shows a typical user switching workspaces by clicking on buddies.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tagelflax/TagCMA_1_9_3.mp4?download

#3

I wonder if you could elaborate on your “Inspired by ZBrush” tagline? I might be drawing a different connection than you are, and wanted to make sure I understand where you’re coming from when you say this.

#4

Sure. We’ll I’m a ZBrush user. And I’m a programmer. I’ve used 3d studio and GMAX. And I did a little Maya but didn’t like the interface. ZBrush has been the best sculpting tool I have ever used. The only drawback to ZBrush is the fact that you can’t do animations. So about a year ago, I set out to create a little app that could do animations using ZBrush exported object files. I wrote the little app in C++ using OpenGL. But as I was adding new features, I found that I wanted to share my work with others. I realized nobody was going to use a stand alone app with competitors like ZBrush, Blender, Wings3D. I was working on the project with a friend over in the UK (8 hours away). When I realized that working in groups over the Internet is hard. It’s hard to keep everybody motivated and interested in the project. That’s pretty much when I started doing some concept drawings for TagCMA. I made the move to C# for the simplicity of the networking code. Basically I’m mirgrating all the C++ code into the new TagCMA tool. Very shortly, I’ll be adding the animation tracks in. In the end, you should be able to create meshes in ZBrush and then animate them in TagCMA while your friends are watching.

Anyways, the inspired by ZBrush is basically, I never would have started working on this fun project if I hadn’t purchased ZBrush and had so much fun sculpting.

#5

I like your Santa, some guy.

What did you use to do the animation? Is it illustrator?

#6

Build Update: