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Tried my hands on making a prototype/conceptual script to start feasibility tests for a new plugin. Working title: PolyGnome Short concept video:

While I support this hope of one day having 3DKiwi back at the Cafe the way he used to be, I don't think we'll ever see that day. No offense meant, and in no way am I judging. But I guess he's more happy using MODO than he ever was/will be using Cinema 4D ... of course, I am only assuming here. To each his own, and while we would like to prefer otherwise, we have to accept the decision made. As for a written review (or any other format), I would really be looking forward to that. Be it using a demo, NFR, beta ... or what not. Now, back to your regular R19 discussions.

I have long time debated if participating in this thread would be worthwhile, as most of the discussion is just over the top of my head. While I am no beta tester and but a small developer, I can only confirm what I know. NO R20 SDK is available right now to developers. Not even the R19. As far as I know, the only SDK available is the one that ships with the released version of Cinema 4D ... or there should be some hidden developer conspiracy, which I don't know about. The mention of R20 SDK being available was a surprise to me, and I quite spend some time on the plugincafe (the official MAXON's 3rd party developers website/forum). Still haven't found where they're hiding the R20 SDK download button ... or the R19 one for that matter.

Continuing with implementing updates to the plugin. This one is a "quicky" and although it seems an obvious feature, there has been quite some changes under the hood to provide this functionality. But it's a first in showing the benefit of supporting the Attribute Manager to allow for tool settings. Notice the new Move/Rotate/Scale tool and especially their "snap to point" setting. Well, not too proud to show this as the native UV tools could already do the same, but happy enough that the hard work to support the Attribute Manager is working out in the end. It's a small step, but necessary for future updates. (Quantization is next on the list)

@mdfmuse Thanks for the feedback, and for all those nice words. Glad you like the plugin, as do so many others. I have noticed your e-mail and will reply shortly to your questions. If you don't mind, I would like to also present your questions here on the forum, so my answers might help others as well. But I'll first reply to your mail in private and wait for your approval.

While I haven't posted anything in a while I still have been working day in day out (when time permits) on the next update of the plugin. Next step was to provide some additional tools for straightening/aligning the UVs. As current and future tools require settings to be adjusted by the user, I needed to be able to control said settings via some kind of Attribute Manager. Nothing comes for free, and in order to provide access via the Attribute manager quite some changes had to be implemented. While I originally re-used the Cinema 4D native move/rotate/scale tools, along with the live selection and rectangle selection tool. This all had to be reworked because of how things work internally ... (sometimes you're happy that MAXON developers have provided this wonderful SDK, other times you curse at them for ... ah, never mind, long story). So in short, things had to change because of the need to use the Attribute Manager for settings. Which meant native tools had to be dumped in favor of custom ones, losing the benefit of re-using the native short-cut keys ... and some more. However, the big plus is that Seamilar UV tools can now make use of the Attribute Manager for its settings (yeah). Still, I have to confess that I wasted a lot (I mean a loooot) of time to get this working, while it currently does not provide for more functionality to the plugin ... except for the new align tool, which is the root cause for this whole change. D@mn you, align tool (curse, curse). Now, I didn't spend all this time on implementing support for the Attribute Manager alone. Quite some time was also put into fine tuning the straighten/align functionality. And to be honest, the more time I spent fine tuning the less I am happy with the result. So, maybe it's time to release a beta version to one or more customers and get feedback of the functionality so far. Any takers? (PM me, windows only for now)

And ???? What happened? Or is it too early to say?

Not sure what answer you expect: a simple yes/no? Or a more elaborated reply? I have worked on a personal animated short project for the 5 past years, put most of my spare time into it. Storyboard was completely drawn, animatics etc ... Voice over / dialogues were recorded. All characters were modeled, rigged, textured. And then "suddenly", I dumped the whole. That was about 8 months ago. Even after having done the entire pre-production and them some, the direction this project was taking didn't suite me anymore. I still don't know which direction I want it to take, so the project remains shelved. Not sure if it was 25% into the project, and I am not really into doing the math, as that might mean another 15 years to complete the project ... So yes, been there, done that. Which means that (at least for me) even by doing your homework and evaluating the whole, you still might end up with a dud.

This looks very interesting, and something I could really use myself. Besides using it, it also looks like a very challenging and fun project to implement. Someday I'll sure want to try my hands on writing something like that. Thanks for sharing the info.

OK, that explains it. Those who purchased the plugin at introduction price before it was part of the store can't write a review. Good to know. Well, there are enough "store-buyers" to write reviews ... wondering who will be the first.

I don't know how to reply differently then I already did. All is shown in the code in my first reply. You create the quicktab via the AddCustomGui, then populate that with groups and gadgets. As for the lack of documentation: welcome to the world of Cinema 4D plugin writing.

I have a Space Navigator, and have assigned SHIFT and CTRL to the two buttons. Wish I could justify the purchase of a pro version, with all the keys and heavier grip. ... One day !

if this is what you want (see reflectance layers) you will need to create a quicktab subgroup # create a quicktab subgroup gadget per layer bc = c4d.BaseContainer() bc.SetBool(c4d.QUICKTAB_BAR, True) bc.SetString(c4d.QUICKTAB_BARTITLE, 'title') bc.SetBool(c4d.QUICKTAB_BARSUBGROUP, True) subgroup = self.AddCustomGui(<some id>, c4d.CUSTOMGUI_QUICKTAB, '', c4d.BFH_SCALEFIT, 0, 0, bc) # create a group to contain all the gadgets, this in order to simplify # the hide/show of the gadgets when the parent quicktab subgroup is collapsed/expanded self.GroupBegin(id=<some id>, flags=c4d.BFH_SCALEFIT, cols=1, rows=1, title='', groupflags=0) ... Of course you will need to keep hold of 'subgroup' as this is how you will show/hide the gadgets when collapsing/expanding the quicktab subgroup

With the hype around the current BodyPaint beta update, I am sure this is probably not the right moment to post any updates. As everyone seems to be all over the beta download, I am not sure anyone might ever be reading this ... Also considering that possibly near future update of Cinema 4D (be it beta or R19 release) might show some enhancement related to UV ... Maybe, maybe not. Who knows. Anyway, while I don't consider this moment to be the best to post any update on my Seamilar plugin, I still wanted to show the next concept I have been working on. Not sure if this rings any bell with all the other exciting news around, but I sure was looking forward to show this progress.

Well, seeing the abundant feedback (*) of the Octane version of SPETI, I have reverted to my original thought: "never gonna happen". The offer has expired, and I am focusing on a release of the regular version instead. I have noticed that non Substance Painter users were kind of afraid of dipping their toes into the waters of this plugin. As the name of the plugin implied that it seemed to be specific to a workflow involving Substance Painter. Because of this, and with the issue of changes in the Python SDK between R17 and R18 I have decided to provide a more generic version of the plugin. Meet TINA (Texture Importer 'N' Assigner), the identical twin sister of SPETI. It shares the exact same DNA, but is meant to work with R18 and refrains from referring to SP. Next to this shiny new sibling, SPETI will remain R17 only and jauntily refer to Substance Painter. As they both rely on the exact same code (slightly modified per Cinema 4D Release) they of course both can handle textures from any origin, be it Substance Painter or different. Due to quite some abuse in the past, I have refrained from providing a download link to the plugin. Instead, I will provide the plugin on request only. To obtain this I will need the requesting person to provide me (via private message) with a valid serial number of Cinema 4D (first 11 digits only of course), and an e-mail address. The plugin will then be sent by e-mail. Additionally, I will include a link to Paypal, but will leave it up to you to decide if you want to donate something, something more, or nothing at all ... Whatever you feel this plugin is worth to you. It's a new scheme I am trying out, in order to avoid the abusive downloading and distribution of work, some unrespectful take credit for. Depending the serial number I will provide you with SPETI or TINA ... yes, I know how to read serial numbers ;-) (*) I know, sarcasm doesn't translate well in written words.

@Cerbera Thanks for trying to add a review. I wish more would do so, but I understand not everyone would know what to write. On the other hand, I am more than happy with the positive feedback provided in this thread. I originally had expected a lot of questions, but it seems the plugin (or its documentation) is self explanatory ... But then again, I might simply be biased! Just for the record. Version 2.2 has been distributed to the customers. So, before diving into the next features on the todo list, I will spent some time on SPETI and its identical twin sister TINA.

Working hard on the next features. And as always: simple things tend to take up much more time then anticipated. When using the native BodyPaint tools for unwrapping I noticed many times that UV polygons ended up flipped/mirrored. I figured this could easily be fixed, and decided to add this as a feature. Seamilar does now automatically detect flipped polygons and will mirror the island when needed. This feature has been part of version 2.1 of Seamilar, but for some (unknown) reason was never brought to the attention. In version 2.2 the UV view gets another step towards becoming an editor, as points, edges, polygons and islands can now be selected and manipulated. Color configuration has been added to make up your own preferred island colors. Tools and commands have been added, and not least important, shortcuts and icons follow the native Cinema 4D policy. A specific rendernode version of the plugin has been written to avoid the need of deleting the Seamilar unwrapper tag, before sending to a render queue. All customers of Seamilar will receive such rendernode version of the plugin, free of charge. As always, still a lot of tweaking and even more testing to be done before release time. Silent video demonstration of upcoming 2.2 features below:

Well, I think I didn't explain correctly. What I meant with the fading, was to fade from black background with the white character to the white background with black drawn lines. The idea behind this would be to indicate that the stress situation (black background, white outlines) slowly fades away into a peaceful situation (white background, black outlines) ... while taking a deep breath.

For a less abrupt ending, why not fade from black to white, instead of the direct switch you now have ? You could do a slow fade to end up with the white background right after the inhaling. Maybe repeat inhaling, exhaling one more time while the end credits start appearing. In my opinion, the inhaling should be animated just as the exhaling is done. Now it's a simple 2-still pose. It would come over better if it was a slow, smooth animation. I also don't get the "inhale on the one side, and exhale on the other two sides"

My first thought was ... "Never gonna happen!", since I don't have Octane nor the knowledge how to create Octane materials. But after a while it started itching as I was wondering if I could solve this puzzle. And moments later I was browsing the Otoy forums in search for information. I still have no idea how to setup or use Octane materials, but have some more knowledge about the internals. Downloaded and installed the demos of the standalone and plugin, but since my (apparently outdated) hardware and drivers doesn't allow to run Octane I am still left in the dark as to what I am actually doing. So, as a test, I updated SPETI to only import textures into the color channel of an Octane material (or so I think). While I am not sure if such material does render correctly, I managed to see the resulting material listed in the material manager. Now it's up to someone with a working Octane (and knowing what s/he does) to test and see if this SPETI version creates useful materials (color channel textures only !!!). Thanks in advance for trying and reporting back. Edit: offer has expired (obsolete file removed)

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.