Softimage
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Softimage

Getting ready

Softimage versions 3.0, 3.51and 3.7 require the texture images to be in Softimage format and accept image file lists (called "scripts" by Softimage). If you have enough hard disk you need only convert the JPEG image files once, but you need an image file list for each different length of animation you create. We provide a special tool, unJPEG, which you can use to convert a Texturemation on the CD to a directory of Softimage-format images on a hard drive. unJPEG uses Softimage conversion tools. It will bring up a directory browser so that you can show it where the top-level Softimage directory is (this is the directory pointed to by the SI_LOCATION environment variable).

For example, if you are using NT and E: is the CD and D: a hard drive, then you can convert the yeller Texturemation using unJPEG like this:

Pressing OK fills the d:\yeller directory with the images of the yeller Texturemation in Softimage format . Note that the destination directory is not created, so you must specify a destination which already exists.

The destination directory is not a bad palce to keep script files, which you can generate using the makeIFL tool. Remember, to work with versions 3.0, 3.51 and 3.7 this image file list must have exactly as many entries as your animation has frames and each entry must be a complete file specification (that is to say that it must include the path).

Using textures in an animation

Make sure you have a script file with at least as many entries as your animation has frames. You probably want to name this file something unique to your animation so you can edit it.

Copy the script file for your animation to somewhere soft can get at it. The rsrc directory is recommended, 3D/bin/rsrc or 3D/rsrc are the default resource directories.

Softimage has 2 kinds of textures, global and local. Global textures apply to all of a model. Local textures are applied to parts (faces) of a model.You will probably be using Texturemations as global textures, since that is where seamlessness is usually appreciated the most.

Now when you bring up any of the texture dialog boxes from within Softimage and click on the "script" radio button you can browse for your script file. Here we have selected the ICEWATERSCRIPT100E script:

When you select a script (image file list) the texture image which is the entry for the current frame will become visible in the textures dialog box, like this:

The frames of a texturemation will seamlessly cover a tube or torus (or anything topologically equivalent ) without any work.

Mapping a cube (or anything topologically equivalent to a cube) requires adjustment of the UV mapping. Softimage provides a number of ways of doing this. we will now go into some detail of a method which is pratical only for simple models, because it provides a good overview of what UV mapping adjustment does.

The default mapping projects the entire texture onto a face of the cube, it also projects the texture through the cube so that (for XY mapping) both the front and back faces of the cube are each covered with a copy of the entire texture. We want to change the UV mapping so as stretch the texture to cover 5 faces of the cube (everything but the back face, which we will leave alone). This will seamlessly wrap the cube with the texture. First unfold the cube and stretch all the faces except the front face (4) so that their edges meet.

This makes the cube (without its back face) into a rectangle, just like our texture. Now what we want to do is establish a correspondence between points on the texture and the vertices of the cubes faces. Laying the flattened and stretched cube (less its' back face) on top of the texture gives this correspondence.Each point of the texture has a unique UV coordinate, and Softimage numbers faces and vertices.By mapping vertices to the UV coordinate of the corresponding point of the texture we can stretch the texture around all the cubes faces except the back. The next picture shows the unfolded cube with it's vertices numbered on top of the texture. Face 4 has vertices 0,1,2, and 3 which we want to assign UV coordinates <0.666,0.333>, <0.333,0.333>, <0.666,0.666> and <0.333,0.666> respectively.

To make these assignments of UV coordinates to Vertices we use the Texture Operations in Softimage's MATTER module. To work on the cube we want the global texture.

This brings up the texture UV coordinates editor window.

Here we are in the midst of modifying the vertices UV coordinates. Vertex 0 has been assigned the correct value, and vertex 1 is being assigned the value 0.333,0.333. Be sure to use the modify vertex button, then the mapping applies to all instances of the vertex no matter which face they are in (if you use the modify button you will have to change the same vertex once for each face it appears in, which is a lot more work).

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