i just picked up a version of the Horn Maker and was astonished at how simple it is to make …
then i started thinking of what exactly was going on and i realized that the movement of the empty was just like the movement of a pen on paper only in a 3D world!
this got me thinking and i came up with this:
what if we could implement this script to get the input from a tablet pen and then by pressing the button on the pen and after running the script and moving it across the tablet - wouldn’t blender be able to literally “draw” meshes and shapes instead of having to manipulate vertexes and what not!
it could be further tweaked so that by pressing a hot key such as Y (i don’t think it has a function yet) blender could then go into pen mode where the embedded script would automatically get the pen input and based on perhaps a pop-up menu select the draw type from say vertex, curve, face, or it could also enable multiple vertex extrusion much like blender 2.35 CVS does!
this would be an awsome feature and would definetly give Blender an edge in the CG community!
What do you think about it?
(sad to say i have no experience with python scripting so i’m sorry i actually couldn’t be of more help in the end! )
one thing -would it just be 2d objects created(not as in flat, but as in an 2d curve with a bevel object) or how would you turn the 2d line on the tablet into a true 3d object/curve?( mabe presure?)
If I have a slight handle on what’s being said here, I think I understand what Prince is suggesting. I’ve used Horn Extrude quite a bit, and it creates a 3D mesh in the 3D world. Like all extrudes, it depends on your viewpoint. I assume that the pen would work the same as the mouse in this case.
Where Horn Extrude does extrusion/scales for each segment, you could quite easily only do extrudes (making a tube - not sure why this wasn’t included as an option with Horn Extrude). The shape of the extrusion is controlled by the face that is selected when the operation is started. I don’t see why a script could not create a face, based on user shape input, then begin the extrude. Other options such as segment length, scaling, rotating … even a segment-by-segment morph to a different shape could be implemented. Using this logic, you might specify that there would be a very tight morph between segments, allowing you to abruptly change the extrusion from segment to segment (think archer cutouts on top of a castle wall). There seems to be a great deal of potential for expanding on this concept. Not sure just how important the tablet will be … or whether a user could use the script without a tablet (that would be nice).
You just might have something there Prince.
I’ve seen the recent pre-release of a drawing tablet script that is intended to support sculpt mesh. Here is the thread:
from my understanding the horn.py uses an empty to extrude a curve and this curve was unfortunately only created to support 2d but if the script enabled the 3d function which blender already supports then moving the “horn” which would be a branch or something you could create roots and everything…
the main hack would not be the extrude part but rather the functions and settings that could be set by the user. For instance… by pressing a button in the GUI (Create Curve) the user could create the curves shapes of the object being drawn (useful for creating branches with leaves! ) also other features like buttons that would allow for selecting the amount of scale along the x and y axis per extrusion and also the extrusion length would be nice. Different presets as well are always helpful. The GUI might even support the saving of user presets which would allow of the creation of already once made extrusions to be repeated…very helpful!
why a pen…well i was just suggesting that cause it would allow for actual drawing…of shapes although i suppose the GUI should have a pen enable and pen disable button which would allow for the mouse to be used instead!
anyway i am just brainstorming…the closest thing to helping i can do, outside of creating the GUI!
I’ve been planning to do a draw tool based on metaballs.
Haven’t looked at the horn script, but it sounds like it just uses an empty to track mouse position to make up for the previous lack of a way to project into world space.
Basically what I was planning is that on the first mouse click, a metaball is created (and the arrow keys or whatever can be used to size it. Then a second metaball is created of the exact same size. It follows the mouse, until the mouse is a radius distance away from the center of the last object, then it drops the metaball and creates another. Rinse and repeat.
Hmmm… and perhaps allow the WASD keys to control things like depth placement. So the workflow is, you have one window open to front view which you are drawing in, a second open to side view. You use the mouse and basicly draw a stick figure (with mirroring so you can do a symmetrical stick figure <grin>.). Then you use the WASD to control fine placement, (add curvature to the back, etc.)
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