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Kerkythea Export Plugin for Wings3D Feb 19, 2008 Update for improved export speed A small change in how normals get exported that greatly improves the export speed (8-10x!!). So a 3 minute export is down to 20 seconds! I've also modified the axis arrangement to match how a scene would be exported by the .Obj exporter. This is essentially a 180 degree rotation around the vertical from what it was before. Feb 04, 2008 Update for KT 2008 With the release of Kerkythea 2008 Echo, I've updated the Wings3d render / export plugin. There aren't any major changes, but a few big improvement issues. Before, during render, you specified the name of the .xml file to export and the rendered image was always "output.png". Now, you specify the name of the image to output and the xml file is image_name_export.xml. There is an option to prevent the xml file from being overwritten, in which case it will add an incrementing number in the xml filename. Parallel camera is now available in KT 2008, so it is an option from the plugin. There is now an option to export objects identified only by their material name, not object and material name. This should help when trying to edit groups of objects together in KT. Render presets have been updated. Oct 16, 2007 Small update: AA is now a menu instead of checkbox. Ambient lights are enabled. From the light dialog, you can set the various available sky properties. The background color that was in render / export is now a sky option under the ambient light. NOTE: If there are no lights in a scene, Wings3D always adds a "headlight" from the camera perspective. Ambient lights count as lights, so adding one will prevent the "headlight". If the ambient light is "Background Color" though, it won't shed light on the scene, so your scene will be black. You'll need other lights, or a different sky setting. Oct 04, 2007 Small update: Addition of SSS to material presets. Selection between sky and background color Moved the "Fixed Camera Size" to the render dialog Oct 03, 2007 Kerkythea is another freeware renderer that is absolutely fantastic. It has one of the best GUI's of any renderer I've used and the results are awesome. Check it out! Building off of the pov-ray export plugin, I built a KT export and render plugin for Wings3D. There is a plugin available for 98.36 (I'm no longer supporting 98.32a). I haven't tested it with any other version. The current level of KT (Kerkythea, of course) compatibility is 1.4.1. Also, IMPORTANT, I have only tested it with Windows XP. I have no access to other OS's so I have no idea how it will respond. I took a new direction with this plugin from POV-Ray. KT has an outstanding material editor that updates in realtime. Since Wings3D can't capture the complexity of the KT materials, and because I didn't want to replicate the work done in the KT material editor, I provided very few additional material controls. If you are new to KT, I strongly, STRONGLY, suggest going through the tutorials, help documents, the KT forum, etc, to familiarize yourself with it. It will make using the plugin a lot easier. Features Lights Point, Infinite, Spot, and Area. KT technically only supports Point and Spot lights (and Projector, a square spotlight). However, it supports light emitting materials very well. Because of that, Infinite lights are basically Point lights moved in the opposite direction of their aim by 100 units and Area lights are geometry with an emissive material applied. Despite the compromise, they are all still quite effective. Allows setting color, power, radius, attenuation, and misc control parameters Materials This is where you'll notice the sparseness of additional controls. Instead of all the available settings, I've provided 'presets'. These are templates that will incorporate the various material colors and settings into a photo-realistic material that KT can use. There is a help button next to the preset menu that will tell you how the various Wings3D option (Diffuse, Specular, Shininess) are interpreted into a KT material. Despite the few controls, you still have a significant amount of control over the end result. And if you want more, export your scene to KT and open it from Kerkythea directly. There's ALOT in there! Export / Render Camera, Render Settings Allows settings camera type and parameters, and selecting the render configuration. When it comes to render settings, there are dozens of individual settings that you can tweak within KT, but the presets are a good encapsulation of the major different types. If you want to render from Wings, you'll need to set the path to KT in the plugin preferences dialog. A NOTE: If you render from Wings, the render dialog asks for a filename for an XML file, not an image. This is because KT, from the command line, renders to output.png, in the directory where you save the XML file. Just so you know. ANOTHER NOTE: for those of you new to KT: The render settings Progressive PathTrace, BiPT (Bidirectional PathTrace), and MLT (Metropolis Light Transport) will never stop (ok, they will eventually but it may take several months). When you are satisfied with the results, just close the KT render window and the image will be complete. This product and myself are in no way representatives of Kerkythea or its developers. This software, while I've worked hard to make it useful and safe, is released without warranty of any kind. |