dast

Well, to be honest, I am not sure what to do with this plugin. I have had a few positive feedback, and thank you for that. It was not my intention to make money out of this. Still, making it freely available doesn't give anyone the right to upload it to anywhere they please and violating copyright in the process. So, due to abuse, lack of interest and general lack of responses I have removed public availability of the plugin. Give me a few more days to decide how to proceed further - thanks.

New update is being finalized. Still some code clean up to do, and then some massive testing before this update is being sent out to customers. I know I was asked to provide audio for my next video demonstrations. Unfortunately, once more a silent WIP video demonstration. I don't think the video needs detailed explanation of what is going on: the formerly static UV view window is being mutated into an editor. Not much more I can add to that (*). (*) explanatory wise I mean. There's quite some things that can be added to the editor's functionality ;)

That's how I would do it in the end. Tried both live and dubbing, both none came out satisfactory. Just as everything it comes down to practice, practice, practice. I am sure that it will eventually turn out to be OK. But for now, I'd rather "practice" writing code than commenting my videos. Still, your comments and feedback are appreciated. I gather that providing tutorial videos with commentary is a next step in my customer service.

Thanks. I have deliberately avoided adding any audio to my videos. No background music, as I find that just simply disturbing, and annoying. As for commentary during the video. I have thought about that, but simply am not comfortable doings so. I am lousy at explaining things. I did intend making a narrative video tutorial to be provided with the released plugin. You all should be glad it ended up being a written manual instead.

The current released version does not allow any editing of the UVs (nor points, nor edges, nor islands). The update I am currently working on allows editing of the UV islands (move, rotate, scale) ... and I wanted to include editing of UV polygons and UV points. So this is a No for now, but a Yes for next update.

All source code is simply copied from Windows Visual Studio project to MacOS XCode project. So both versions share the identical code base.

Well, I didn't see the fine prints of needing to be a Gold Support member in order to be able to sell products ;) Now, I didn't know that Turbo Squid takes up to 40% of the profit when selling your product, so I think that the 10% I proposed to sell my plugin is very generous of the Cafe. But to additionally request to be a Gold Support member ... no offense, but that feels a little "double", like having your cake and eating it. I became a Gold Support member right before I started to sell the product. Not because I needed this status in order to sell. But only because I wanted to reward Igor for providing so much support in setting up all the store things. I did that on top of the agreed 10%, because I felt it justified. But I understand the idea behind the need to shell out the 60 euros in order to be able to sell. It avoids everyday sellers, and provides more dedicated sellers only. But again, asking for gold support and then taking another 10% from the sales. Mmmm, feels somewhat awkward. My opinion.

Yes, the video demonstrates WIP8, the next "work in progress" after the official released version. As mentioned, it still requires some work before being delivered. When all work related to move/rotate/scale is completed, this update will be sent to customers.

After a short break I finally managed to get something done yesterday and today. Nothing final, but I am happy to show some progress. The earlier "move island" WIP showed a concept implemented as a quick hack. For the past two days I have now implemented this concept into the view/editor framework. Still a few things to finalize before providing a next update to the customers. But as always, it's the small details that take up the most time. This has been developed on Windows only (not tested on Mac yet), and from earlier WIPs I know that some concepts don't work on MacOS. Hopefully, porting this to the other platform isn't going to take too much time. Fingers crossed!

As some of you know, I also have a thread running over at CGTalk. And while I am not in favor of simply duplicating the posts, this time however, not much else to report than saying the pre-release period of Seamilar has ended. Today the plugin has been officially released. The early adopters have received their final release version. I am also glad to report that I have managed to build (and test) the plugin for R16 (windows and mac). With the official release now concluded I can now focus on further developing the plugin. Stay tuned for future WIPs.

I see that you have found how to follow this topic, so I guess this answers your question. Customers who purchased the plugin are sent the latest version anytime a major update is built. As for regular updates in this thread, I don't broadcast around. So, no newsletter or anything similar, sorry. Small update for those following, I managed to build an R16 (mac) version of the plugin (if you followed along on CGTalk you might know the reason). Haven't looked into the R16 windows version, but when I find the time, I'll sure look into that as well ... giving there's interest for it, of course. Customers (the legal ones at least) have received release candidate 4, containing all features I wanted to provide in the release version. Now it's up to making some documentation. When that's done the plugin will officially be released.

@ILJI Thanks for the feedback, glad you like the plugin so far. Multi object support is indeed for later, as it still requires a lot of work. In the meantime I am working on turning the UV view into an editor, and here is a quick and dirty first iteration. Again, still a lot of work before being available. Sorry if lately I have not been replying to everyone's questions ... I just have too much fun implementing all these features. Unfortunately, it does take up more time than anticipated, and definitely takes up more time than I have available. Thanks for your patience.

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As maliohammad mentioned, the easiest would be for you to contact the original developer and request to add your needed features. However, your first and second feature could be implemented as a separate plugin. But your 3rd feature probably requires changes inside the original plugin, which requires the source code to be available. So, as said, contact the plugin's author. You 'll have more chance of success.

While playing with the plugin there was a feature I really miss(ed) sometimes, which is to be able to create seams in the UV View. Now, I know I mentioned that the UV View is still a simple viewer and that editing capabilities will be introduced when it gets upgraded to a full UV Editor. However, I just could not resist to already introduce some foundation work.

@bezo Thanks for the kind words (and the order request) It's a little early to start discussing the concept as there is still quite some work required. And as we have seen in the past things can change really quickly depending the needed workarounds. For now, the Seamilar Unwrapper tag on every object is only for unwrapping purposed, even without this tag the object will be shown in the UV View. But since the island information is stored in the tag, it is also required for drawing the different island colors. I have foreseen 3 modes: - single object, multiple island colors - multi object, single island color - multi object multi island colors When no Seamilar Unwrap tag is present the UV View will thus only be able to display a single island color for the whole object (=mode 2), but every object will get a different color (in mode 2) Well, that's the idea. But as mentioned, this can still change as a result of work required to implement ... or feedback from the WIP users. EDIT: Here's a video that demonstrates with and without tags https://youtu.be/PcWwBKM1DLk

Thanks to those having placed pre-release orders at the reduced price. These have been delivered by now. Hope you enjoy the plugin. As mentioned by e-mail, the provided plugin is a release candidate as last touches is being done on the final release. Additionally, I have also been working on next feature for the UV View: MultiObjects. Depending on progress this will be made available in the final release, or in future (free) update. As it currently is the UV View is only a viewer not an editor. But UV Editor features will be next on the list. For those contemplating a purchase, just a reminder that the introductory (pre-release) price of 25 euros will end once the plugin is officially released. early Multi object viewer concept below: Objects "sharing" the same canvas can be displayed simultaneously, using a single color per object, or a single color per UV island. This "sharing" follows the same principle as my workflow using the SPETI plugin (importing of Substance Painter textures)

I am no expert in UV unwrapping, as such I am not claiming to know it better, or trying to teach anyone of you how UV unwrapping should be done. But -in my opinion- the purpose of unwrapping is to flatten the polygons from your 3D mesh onto a flat UV canvas with the least possible amount of distortion. In your example, the front and back face of the C are flat. Unwrapping this onto a flat canvas -with least possible amount of distortion- is what you get in the screenshot. If you would straighten the result you would definitely introduce a lot of distortion. Now, I understand in some cases you would want to obtain a straight result, but as the unwrapping algorithm is optimized for least distortion, the straightening will have to be triggered by user interaction. By this I mean that it will be up to the user to straighten it manually. Of course, tools could be created to support the user to accomplish the straight result, but -again, in my opinion- it is not something you can let the algorithm decide. It will need to be an interactive process, steered by the user.

I am finalizing the financial setup and in a day or two I should be open for business. Just send me a private message containing the 11 digits of your Cinema 4D serial, the requested platform (Mac or Windows) and an e-mail address where I can reach you. When the financial set up is ready I will send you a Paypal link for you to proceed with the payment. Once payment completed the plugin and serial number will be sent to the provided e-mail address.

I have good and bad news to report. First of all, I managed to build a Mac version of the plugin (WIP4) and sent it out to Rick. As he was kind enough to provide me with a Mac to port my plugin, it wasn't but fair to allow him to be the first Mac user. Unfortunately, I didn't get any response and hope all is well with him. In the meantime I have been working on the next WIP, and have had to spend quite a lot of frustrating time resolving Cinema's inconsistent undo/redo. MAXON's developers will probably tell I am abusing their design, as it wasn't meant to be used that way. Well ... hell yeah! Give us a proper unwrapping tool and we won't have to abuse the system. Anyway, the many frustrating hours an days have at least managed to help me find a way to get rid of the annoying Texture View initialisation requirement. Additionally, I have reworked the icons. Undo/redo should be working (hopefully all the way through). Symmetry has been fixed. Just a word to some of you downloading this and previous WIPs ... and you know who you are! Even if a piece of software is free of charge that does not give you the right to distribute or upload it to any website of your liking. Violation of copyright is a serious thing. I know that some of you might not agree with my ideas, and I respect that opinion. But I urge you to respect my work and not distribute nor upload any of my files without permission! Edit: <removed obsolete files> I hope to finalise this plugin shortly, until then I am proposing this plugin at a pre-release price of 25 euros. Just a reminder that any form of violation of copyright (be it related to plugin, script or host application) will revoke your right to any support, including future updates or upgrades.

Update: I had already mentioned this in the CGTalk thread, but didn't simply want to copy the same information here. As such, I waited for more news before updating this thread. Big news for Mac users !!! A few days ago, Rick F. van Koert (a very generous member at CGTalk) did send me a Mac Mini, completely free of charge, in order for me to compile the plugin on Mac OSX. Still trying to find my way on a Mac ... cursing a lot, but enjoying the experience. I have managed to build WIP 4 in Xcode and test it in R17.055. However, further testing needs to be done before releasing the Mac version to the public.

The whole concept has changed. See my previous posts, as well as the demo video of WIP 4. The Seamilar Tool is now just a selection tool. While the Unwrapper tag does now all the automated unwrapping. However, while you usually would use the combination of the two, I didn't want to force this workflow. User can now use any selection tool to unwrap. Additionally, user can now also use Seamilar Tool for edge selection (without wanting to unwrap). The "disconnection" of Seamilar Tool and Unwrapper Tag, means that the user now manually needs to add the tag to an object for this to become the target for drawing and unwrapping. This manual action is what I referred to in my post -when I introduced the new concept- which might still change in the future. Other users liked the idea, so I left it for what it was in WIP 4. Regarding a Mac version, there is a potential solution on its way, but I can only confirm after the deal has been completed.

Symmetry has been fixed, will be available in next WIP. I agree that one axis might be enough, but not everyone builds their meshes with the same axis orientation, hence I provide all 3 axes. It's up to the user to decide which one to use, and to use more than one if wanted/needed. I am using the built in functions for alignment. It has an option to preserve orientation of the island, or to let Cinema 4D realign it. In next WIP I will provide this option to the user, but currently the preserve orientation was set to false (= do not preserve orientation), so if the result of Cinema 4D is not properly aligned, there isn't much I can do ... currently. Of course I could implement a better unwrapping/alignment/packing algorithm. But that might make the plugin a little more expensive ;-)

Haven't found the time to work on this plugin during the week, so excuse the delay. As such I have only been focusing on finalizing the new concept, and testing as much scenarios as possible to fine tune the implementation where needed. Of course, this will not guarantee for an error free plugin. Actually, I know there are some issues with undo/redo, and that will be the next area to focus on. Unfortunately, this all hasn't left me the time to look into the symmetry which was broken in WIP 3 (and thus still isn't working). But that's another reason to keep people coming back ... A big thank you to @DrBluem for the callcommand hint. During the unwrap/relax I do now check if the function is successful, if not I assume the Texture View hasn't been opened once and I thus perform the aforementioned callcommand, and try again to unwrap/relax. If this second one doesn't succeed ... there's something else going wrong. Unfortunately, I still haven't found a way to hide this Texture View after it has been initialized, and haven't gotten any response from MAXON dev support on this whole issue. So, for now, I leave it up to the user to close the Texture View manually, if they want to. If all goes as expected it will only open once per session. Not a pretty solution, but good enough for a WIP. Again a big thank you to DrBluem for providing a mesh to play around with. Unfortunately, I still haven't found the time to use it in any of the video demonstration. Sorry about that. But the gesture is very much appreciated. Thank you. <removed>

@bezo Thanks for reminding me of the Outline selection. I always seem to forget about that. I mentioned yesterday I was going for a new approach. It's an idea I had while finishing WIP 3 in a hurry. Since it needed quite a rewrite of the plugin to match the new idea, I figured it would be better to release what I currently had ... but releasing (even a WIP) in a hurry is never a good idea, hence the issues and crashes. With WIP 3 uploaded I could go back to the drawing board and start afresh. Well here it is: the new concept! With this I am going back to the original plugin being a "simple" selection tool. Just as it was in version 1. Another part of the plugin now handles the auto unwrapping, while the seam selection tool is just another way of selecting edges (see video). The idea behind this concept is that any selection tool now becomes a "seam tool", not just Seamilar, but also the native live selection, loop selection, path selection, ring selection, ... you name it. It should even work with selection tags you have prepared. Double click a tag, edges get selected and the plugin unwraps. For now, only a video demonstration is available. Plugin needs to be "polished" before releasing it in a hurry, this time. Note: This will probably not be the last change of idea/concept as I go along implementing this plugin. Currently, it's the tag assigned to an object which is responsible of triggering the drawing and uv unwrapping. I am not to fond about that, and will probably move the trigger to a more common place. This to avoid the need for the users to perform the setting changes on a per tag basis.