EDF Viewer

[RiccoChicco]

Hi!

I thought an EDF viewer would be really helpful for a lot of people, especially for creating skins without having the original 3D model.

Adding textures "live" would be great too. For example if you load a bike with one of its texture called "livery.tga", you'll be able load another "livery.tga" from somewhere else on you computer, or better, allow the drag and drop just like in 3ds max without having to repack a .pnt. Adding to that the refresh button (just like the "R" shortcut in the showroom) + zoom and rotation and you'll have happy skin creators 

Of course all textures will have to be repacked into a .pnt for release.

That just a suggestion, and I don't think it's a high priority work to do, but would be a great feature for the future of PiBoSo's sims.

[Vergio101]

Hi!

I thought an EDF viewer would be really helpful for a lot of people, especially for creating skins without having the original 3D model.

Adding textures "live" would be great too. For example if you load a bike with one of its texture called "livery.tga", you'll be able load another "livery.tga" from somewhere else on you computer, or better, allow the drag and drop just like in 3ds max without having to repack a .pnt. Adding to that the refresh button (just like the "R" shortcut in the showroom) + zoom and rotation and you'll have happy skin creators 


Of course all textures will have to be repacked into a .pnt for release.

That just a suggestion, and I don't think it's a high priority work to do, but would be a great feature for the future of PiBoSo's sims.

+100000000000

[Blackheart]

If it were possible it would be a nice feature 

[matty0l215]

Yes yes yes

I mean, not important but a weekend project maybe

[Hawk]

Great suggestion Ricco!  That would be very useful.

Hawk.

[TFC]

Definitely a massive +1 from me!

[Daniel_F]

+1!!

[Vergio101]

News riccochicco?!?

[Blackheart]

It was a suggestion for the Piboso team

[HornetMaX]

@Ricco: just to be sure I understand that right: the thing that is annoying is being obliged to pack into a .pnt to see "live" the changes, right ?

Because we already have the EDF viewer, it's GBP: put the .pnt where it belongs, alt-tab to GPB and do a ctrl-r (or whatever is the command to refresh the currently loaded skin) to see your updated skin in-game. Or am I missing something ?

It seems to me the only problem is that PaintED could be done much better: it doesn't remember the last directory you "read", it doesn't remember the destination file name (.pnt) etc.

I think PaintED could be done so that you start it, you tell which is the "source" directory with your .tga files, you tell the destination .pnt file and then, each time you hit pack, it just reads the .tga from the "source" directory and pack them. Once done like this, your workflow would be:\

• Start GPB and show your bike and paint in the showroom
• Start PaintED and select the folder with your .tga files and the destination of the .pnt (correct GBP folder)
• Work on your tga files with whatever you use (photoshop etc).
• When you want to see the changes in game you'll have to:
  
• 
  
  • Alt-tab to PaintED and click on "pack"
  • Alt-tab to GPB and do a ctrl-r (or hatever is the command to refresh the currently loaded skin)

Would that be better ?

[RiccoChicco]

@Ricco: just to be sure I understand that right: the thing that is annoying is being obliged to pack into a .pnt to see "live" the changes, right ?

Because we already have the EDF viewer, it's GBP: put the .pnt where it belongs, alt-tab to GPB and do a ctrl-r (or whatever is the command to refresh the currently loaded skin) to see your updated skin in-game. Or am I missing something ?

It seems to me the only problem is that PaintED could be done much better: it doesn't remember the last directory you "read", it doesn't remember the destination file name (.pnt) etc.

I think PaintED could be done so that you start it, you tell which is the "source" directory with your .tga files, you tell the destination .pnt file and then, each time you hit pack, it just reads the .tga from the "source" directory and pack them. Once done like this, your workflow would be:\

• Start GPB and show your bike and paint in the showroom
• Start PaintED and select the folder with your .tga files and the destination of the .pnt (correct GBP folder)
• Work on your tga files with whatever you use (photoshop etc).
• When you want to see the changes in game you'll have to:
  
• 
  
  • Alt-tab to PaintED and click on "pack"
  • Alt-tab to GPB and do a ctrl-r (or hatever is the command to refresh the currently loaded skin)

Would that be better ?

Modifying texture, packing it in a pnt (which is quite long if you're in a deep sub folder since as you mentionned it, it doesn't remember the path), waiting for it to compress (something that can be quite long if you have several big textures in the skin) and finally reload the texture ingame is really annoying. If you only want to move a sticker just a bit, it takes something like 5 seconds in photoshop and can be up to 1 min to verify in game depending on the place where your textures are. My temporary solution for now is to create a folder on my desktop each time.

With my idea, it would only takes few seconds : 5 seconds in Photoshop and maybe something like 5 seconds in a EDF viewer. Moreover, the "garage" homepage of GPB isn't very good to see details even at max zoom, I often need to load a track to zoom and be sure everything is ok. Even a viewer with zoom and all side like in BikeEd would be enough. Talking about that, BikeEd is already an EDF Viewer, but it just reads the defaut paint.

About the refresh command, it's the "r" key only

Again it's not a big deal. It's just more confortable to work with this kind of tool.

[HornetMaX]

But with what I proposed most of the annoyances are gone no ?
Only thing left would be the compression time (and maybe some more freedom in the showroom camera in terms of movements and zoom).

[RiccoChicco]

Partly yes, just havin the path remembered would be enough for now. Moreover it's just a 5 minutes job for PiBoSo. But if PiBoSo wants someday to release quality tools (I mean those we have for now are quite good but can be improved a lot) it would be great to have something like my idea.

It's a suggestion, so PiBoSo is free to take it (or not  )

[HornetMaX]

Yeah, to me two little changes in PaintED could already save you all a lot of time:

• PainteED to remember the current "source dir" (containing the .tga) and the current output file (.pnt) between consecutive "pack" actions
• PaintED to re-read the "source dir" each time pack is pressed: this is not the case today, meaning each time you change a .tga you have to re-read the dir pressing "Read dir". It should just read the dir each time you press pack. As an alternative, you could have a "Re-read button" that re-reads the current dir (no dir dialog).

@PiBoSo: if you can encapsulate the core functions of PaintED (pack/unpack) into a dll, I can build a GUI around it (but I think the changes above are simple enough for you to put them in PaintED).

[Steven]

When typing "painted -help" in the windows command line, it shows the commands to create and extract a .pnt.
Is this any help to create a GUI? Or would it be enough and less work to give some instructions for everybody how to use this?