I am unsure if this is being posted in the correct section but I am curious as to how I can go about getting involved in this software. I have always played about with 3d software since I was a kid and found this one and have been enjoying playing with it recently and want to give back and get involved in an open source project. I taken a few design courses so feel that would be my best area to offer my expertise. I noticed on the website textures are required yet clicking on the link provided took me to a 404. Any tips on how to get involved ? I can also help with website, logos etc.
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I was going to create a few human ones, skin, hair etc. Then move onto some animals and maybe soft toys as these seem to be missing. Although any requests or thoughts are more than welcome. What file type and size would be best for the final texture?
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7 numeric channels that can each pull their value from an image color channel.
Even if you intend to use every channel, you do not need to create 11 different images. For example, diffuse and transparent might well be the exact same image. The numerics require only one color channel each, so you can put enough information for three of them in a single image. (Actually, I believe it is four if your image has an alpha channel - @Peter, could you confirm?)
Once you have created a texture to your liking, you can save the AOI file, and ask for it to be included in the library.
Formats
AOI supports basically any image format that java's standard libraries can decode, plus .hdr and .svg.
AOI saves all but the last two as .png internally, so there is no size advantage to be gained by generating your images in a lossy format like .jpeg.
.hdr and .svg are saved in their own formats, there is no conversion.
Size
That's the 10,000 dollar question. How is the texture intended to be used?
Is the texture meant to be tile-able? Maybe it doesn't need to be big.
Highly detailed, non-repeating pattern? Might need to be larger.
Keep in mind that AOI loads the entire, uncompressed image into JVM heap space, no matter how much (or little) of it you need for one scene. This means that a ton of large images could cause trouble for a user that has a slightly older computer.
AOI generates MipMaps of all the raster image types, including .hdr, so actually figure double the memory usage of the uncompressed image.
It might be worthwhile to have two versions of some textures: a high-res version, and a 'lite' version.
Industry standards for texture images are Power-of-Two squares. (256x256, 512x512, etc.) I don't know if there are any performance benefits to doing things this way in AOI, but it is important for game engine formats, and AOI can export, including pre-mapped textures, to some of the common ones. Might be well to conform to those expectations.
Proceedurals
You can also create proceedural textures. In fact, that is what all of the textures in the library so far are, and some of them are fairly sophisticated. You can even use an image for raw data that is then tweaked and processed by proceedural modules to get even more complex effects. There is also a plugin that allows you to use video in the same way. But such a file might be huge.
Last edit: Luke S 2014-01-06
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is there an image texture repository that I don't know about? adding them to aoi's internal library wouldn't make sense, as the file size of the installer would grow rapidly.
a couple years ago somebody was talking about an interface similar to the scripts and plugins manager that would connect to a community contributed repository of textures and models. Did anything ever come out of that idea?
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If you want your textures to be considered for bundling with the application, do be careful about size. If every texture included 100K of images (which really isn't very much), that would quickly add up. So procedural textures are best. But it's fine to use images, as long as they aren't too big.
Peter
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I am unsure if this is being posted in the correct section but I am curious as to how I can go about getting involved in this software. I have always played about with 3d software since I was a kid and found this one and have been enjoying playing with it recently and want to give back and get involved in an open source project. I taken a few design courses so feel that would be my best area to offer my expertise. I noticed on the website textures are required yet clicking on the link provided took me to a 404. Any tips on how to get involved ? I can also help with website, logos etc.
Creating more textures would be fantastic. Which link was it that gave the error?
Peter
The following page trying to connect to the link below.
http://www.artofillusion.org/contribute
http://aoi.housepixels.com
I meant 403.
I was going to create a few human ones, skin, hair etc. Then move onto some animals and maybe soft toys as these seem to be missing. Although any requests or thoughts are more than welcome. What file type and size would be best for the final texture?
Most of the stuff at housepixels has been down for a long time...
An AOI file! From the way you phrased this, I'm thinking that you are intending these textures to be Image mapped.
Possibilities
An image mapped texture in AOI has space for up to 11 different data sets:
Even if you intend to use every channel, you do not need to create 11 different images. For example, diffuse and transparent might well be the exact same image. The numerics require only one color channel each, so you can put enough information for three of them in a single image. (Actually, I believe it is four if your image has an alpha channel - @Peter, could you confirm?)
Once you have created a texture to your liking, you can save the AOI file, and ask for it to be included in the library.
Formats
AOI supports basically any image format that java's standard libraries can decode, plus .hdr and .svg.
Size
That's the 10,000 dollar question. How is the texture intended to be used?
Proceedurals
You can also create proceedural textures. In fact, that is what all of the textures in the library so far are, and some of them are fairly sophisticated. You can even use an image for raw data that is then tweaked and processed by proceedural modules to get even more complex effects. There is also a plugin that allows you to use video in the same way. But such a file might be huge.
Last edit: Luke S 2014-01-06
is there an image texture repository that I don't know about? adding them to aoi's internal library wouldn't make sense, as the file size of the installer would grow rapidly.
a couple years ago somebody was talking about an interface similar to the scripts and plugins manager that would connect to a community contributed repository of textures and models. Did anything ever come out of that idea?
If you want your textures to be considered for bundling with the application, do be careful about size. If every texture included 100K of images (which really isn't very much), that would quickly add up. So procedural textures are best. But it's fine to use images, as long as they aren't too big.
Peter