UV Imaginator Relase Notes
==========================

WARNING - This is a Beta release, it should be stable. Please make sure you have saved your work before 
using this plugin.

Release: Version 1.1 Beta 1 [4th July 2001]


Introduction
============

The "UV Imaginator" plugin for Lightwave 6.5b is designed to allow you to generate an image 
directly from a VMap in Modeler and save it to disk in one of the image formats supported by
Lightwave. The current implementation works with UV Texture Maps only (hence the name UV 
Imaginator), but may be expanded to include other map types in future.


Installation
============

Ensure that modeler is not running. If you downloaded the ZIP file simply extract the 
uvimaginator.p file into the [Lightwave Root]\Programs\Plugins\Model. Or simply download the
uvimaginator.p file into that directory. If you are upgrading then you dont need to do this 
next step. Then open modeler, and goto the "Modeler" -> "Plug-ins" -> "Add Plug-ins ..." 
menu option. Then find the uvimaginator.p file in the same directory as before. And double 
click on it. Then click on the "Done" button.


How to use it?
==============

Well the plugin is a "command sequence" class plugin for those that are interested. It 
allows you to choose any VMap currently available (whose type is a UV Texture Map), from the
pulldown menu. You can then choose what polygon selection criteria you want. You have three 
options :-

a)Selected Polygons, will go through either every polygon you have actively highlighted in 
the display (so you must be in polygon selection mode), or if none are directly highlighted 
it will use all visible polygons. This is probably usual behaviour everyone is used to.

b)Based on Surface, allows you to choose a surface by name, and then any polygons with that 
surface that are visible in the current active layers (regardless of whether you have any 
polygons selected), that is mapped to the chosen UV Map will be drawn.

c)Entire Object, will go through every polygon in every layer for the current object (even 
hidden polygons), and any that are mapped to the select UV Map will be drawn out. This is 
the catch all option.

It will then work with the polygon selection based on the above options to produce an image 
that will be saved to disk. The image will contain all the mapped polygons drawn as outlines
of their VMap polygons. The default representation for which is white outlines on a black 
surface, with optional red points placed for each vertices on a polygon. Any vertices marked
on the image will not be drawn over by following outlines being drawn, so you should always 
be able to find your vertices. You can change the colours to what ever you like using the 
three colour pickers, one each for the background, foreground and vertices colour. The 
plugin also ensure that you do not select any two colours with the same value, to prevent 
you loosing detail in your image.

You can select the size of the resulting image by altering the resolution value which is the
height/width of the image. All calculation of the VMap are done sing floating point values 
and truncated to integers at the last possible moment to increase accuracy. It is advisable 
to use a large resolution for obvious reasons.

You can choose both the type and name of the image file to be created. The default location 
for the file to be saved if you dont choose a directory using the "Save as" button, is in 
the Modelers current image directory. Any of the lightwave image types are supported. I am 
not sure as to the state of plugin image savers, whether they will appear or not (as I dont 
have any I cant test this, feedback on this would be useful).

You then simply click on the "Generate" button to create your image. You can then change any
setting and make another. The options are now becoming quite flexible and verging on 
complicated. 

Note - for the time being the OK and Cancel button will be displayed in the window, I am 
working on changing that to a Done button, but I dont know if this can be done. Click on 
either OK or Cancel will simply exit the plugin, none of your setting are saved regardless 
of which button you use. IT DOES NOT SAVE THE IMAGE EITHER YOU MUST USE THE GENERATE BUTTON 
NOW

Currently the plugin is accesible by default from the "Construct" tab under the "Additional"
menu. It doesnt appear to want to be a button in the sidebar, but this turns out to be a 
restriction in the current SDK.


Things worth mentioning
=======================

As pointed out in the main documentation the list of VMaps shown is that of all objects 
loaded (if this became a problem they could be filtered if necessary but I believe the 
overhead to be quite large). Currently the list will be all UV Texture Maps from loaded 
objects. If you select a UV map that is not used by the current object you will.

Also if there are no UV Maps currently loaded with any object then the plugin will fail to 
startup with an appropriate error message. I would like to disable the plugin in the menu 
but I cannot as this is controlled by Modeler.


Reporting Problems
==================

If you have a problem installing the Plugin or while using it. Please send an email to 
ascerriuk@yahoo.co.uk . As well as your description of the problem, please include the 
following information :-

	Lightwave Version
	Plugin Version
	Operating System
	CPU
	Memory


Releases
========

Current Release : Version 1.1 Beta 1 [4th July 2001]

This release has the options for choosing which polygons you want drawn in the image from 
your chosen UV map. It was intended to be an alpha release but more testing has been done 
so it looks quite stable :-

Features:
Three options are now available for the polygons you want drawn see above for more details.
The exact behaviour of these options may change slightly depending on feedback as they can 
be adjusted.
A "Generate" button has now been added which you use to generate your image. So you can now 
make more than one if you want. We are still left with the OK / Cancel buttons which dont 
play any role what so ever, aiming to replace with a Done button if possible.

Fixes:
Vertices will not get obscured by other polygon edges being drawn over them.
Some clean up of memory leaks

Known Problems:
Currently no known problems. 


Next Intended Release : Version 1.1 Final

These are features that are planned for future releases, some depend on the kind of feedback
I get from users. Most will probably not get put in the next release, but are order of 
need:-

Features:
Added support for weight and morph maps (if feasible/possible/wanted).
Removal of most memory/resource leaks (time permitting)
Possible improvement to filter list of UV Maps (depending on feedback from users)
Possible improvement to allow selection of any object available (depending on feedback from 
users), and generate multiple files without closing plugin
Changing of default name for UV image to that of the UV maps name.
Place the generated image as the backdrop for the UV Map (I believe this is possible?!?!)
Might need to keep the selected colours for background, foreground and vertices.


Known Problems:
Wait and see


Previous Release : Version 1.0 Final [3rd July 2001]

This release is mainly to address the filename selection process and a minor planned fix :-

Features:
Slight speed improvements, mainly with background colour selection (if you leave it as black
it is 60% faster otherwise it has to raster fill the entire background which is slow using 
the current SDK implementation).
Added check to make sure none of the colour selections are the same (with appropriate 
behaviour depending on the Mark Vertices option).
Filename box no longer editable, you must use the "Save As" button, and associated file 
requestor. 
If you change the image type as well as the file extension being changed as before it also 
checks if the file exists and gives you a warning. If you cancel it will revert the image 
type selector to the previous value. If you choose a filename through the file requestor 
with an extension (of three characters) different from the current image type this is not 
corrected and is your own responsibility. If you dont enter an extension, or give it one 
with more than three characters, the selected image type extension is appended. The "Save 
as" window now has the image type displayed in the title of the window, so you can see what 
type you are saving as (I cannot make the file type selection menu have this value as the 
SDK does not allow this). 

Fixes:
Vertices will not get obscured by other polygon edges being drawn over them.
Some clean up of memory leaks

Known Problems:
Currently no known problems. 


Previous Release : Version 1.0 Alpha 2 [1st July 2001]

This release is a quick patch to correct a known bug and add some simple functions :-

Features:
Slight modification of GUI, moved image type down a bit.
You can now select background, foreground and vertices colours.
Also modified the drawing routines used for plotting the lines. Because everything is done 
as floating point numbers from 0 to 1, there was an error in precision when generating high 
res images.

Fixes:
File name when clicking on the "Save as" button is the same as in the filename box.

Known Problems:
Currently no known problems. 


Previous Release : Version 1.0 Alpha 1 [30th June 2001]

This is the first release and handles the following functionality :-

Features:
Select of UV Texture Map only
Selectable image size
Selectable image format
Generated image supports marking of vertices as well

Known Problems:
If you edit the filename manualy or change image type, then click on "Choose file" it will 
display the old filename. The solution is to choose your filename first and then select the 
image type.
Although memory/resource leaks are bound to occur and need catching and tidying up


Copyright © 2001 Antony Scerri