9. Work Log

Gearing Up for Full Release

posted 6 Feb 2013 14:40 by Richard S

With 2.61 I feel I am getting close to a full production release. In the coming weeks we'll be running through two Release Candidate releases RC1 and RC2. During this phase I will be running through a full quality audit of all functions within MeshCreator. In addition, I will be tying up a few outstanding bugs and adding a few final feature requests. Primarily I will be looking to add:

- Mesh Extrusion Function

- Automated Texture to Surface mapping

- Export to STL file (Raw Surface Triangle Data)

These will be added into the RC1 Candidate. At this point, full public testing will commence and any resulting bug fixes will be rolled into RC2. Finally, following a second phase of public testing RC2 + further bug fixes will be rolled up into 2.62 as the first certified release.

Please get involved, get in touch via Twitter or Facebook or e-mail. Download and provide feedback.

Texture Coordinate Importing Demo

posted 11 Jan 2013 16:04 by Richard S

Importing Texture Coordinates from the .OBJ files isn't too much of a problem and correctly assigning them to the appropriate vertices is now functioning correctly. This means that more complex textured models can now be imported into MeshCreator. The following is a demonstration of this import functionality:

Original OBJ File is was from 3dvia.com.

Improvements to OBJ Imports

posted 3 Jan 2013 14:39 by Richard S [ updated 3 Jan 2013 14:40 ]

Importing OBJ files has been overhauled to make it more efficient with the memory allocation meaning it can support larger files than ever. Add that to some other general performance improvements and I think we have the most significant update to MeshCreator yet. It can handle meshes with large numbers of vertices and, even with the application processing overhead is still usably fast on my machine which has a fairly low end laptop graphics adapter. Take a look at this screenshot that shows an OBJ Model of a Starwars Walker having been loaded into MeshCreator:

We are looking at over 400,000 vertices. MeshCreator wasn't designed to generate such intricate models but this shows that it can certainly handle more than the load for the purpose for which is was developed.

Import .OBJ Files into MeshCreator

posted 30 Dec 2012 16:11 by Richard S

Import of simple (non-textured) OBJ files into MeshCreator is now possible in the latest release. I have also been able to tie down the cause of some additional bugs in the software so these can be fixed in the next release. I have made some improvements to the normal calculation functions to make them more efficient and added the normal calculation status to the debug window. I have some ideas on how to improve the software so I want to run some tests with those and see how they will impact the overall experience.

Export to .OBJ and more to come

posted 29 Dec 2012 13:27 by Richard S

Finally, after a long break away from development for MeshCreator I have now added functionality to export to WaveFront .OBJ files for Vertex/Triangle data which is a first step in making anything created in MeshCreator portable to other applications making MeshCreator take one step closer to being a viable solution for quick and easy 3D Model Creation for developers.

Next steps include getting the .OBJ import functions into the code and expanding the library of default shapes and objects that ship with the App. All in all, a very small ammount of code for a very big step forward.

2000+ Downloads and counting

posted 22 Mar 2011 16:19 by Richard ADM

MeshCreator, since the 2.5x BETA release in November last year has just pitched over the 2000 downloads mark. Also, the new mailing list is now up and running and development progress is ramping up. Another new ALPHA is in the pipeline so watch out for that (hopefully in the next few days.) MeshCreator seems to be developing a web presence which is great, with new sites posting links regularly.

It finally feels like MeshCreator is on its way to becoming a "Simple 3D Solution".

Great Feedback and New features

posted 13 Mar 2011 15:59 by Richard ADM

Have been receiving some great feedback from MeshCreator Users over the past month or so which is really helping me to focus on where I am and where MeshCreator is going. After the lull I have now begun the process of adding new features to MeshCreator and making it more usable. The bug list is growing again and I have a lot to get through but little by little it seems to be slowly coming together. I have posted some user created images in the gallery (thanks for sharing :) and things are starting to really move along.

The latest ALPHA has now been pushed to the website and the 2.60 ALPHA program is now stable enough to replace 2.52 as the recommended download version. The feature migration is still in progress but it is coming along well. I am hoping to get as many people testing 2.60 as I can over the coming months so watch this space and new stuff is hitting the app regularly right now.

Slowly ramping up again

posted 5 Mar 2011 14:10 by Richard ADM

The last posted version of MeshCreator was back at the beginning of December last year. Since then, development has completely come to a halt. There are bugs to fix, functions to write and (it would appear) documentation to repair thanks to Google Sites forgetting where it put some of my images.

I had planned on getting the 2.6x BETA out the door on the 1st February. This absolutely did not happen. There are several reasons for this and I feel it is only fair that I explain myself. Firstly, there was the holiday season and the new year. I have 5 kids so family time was a must. Then there were some severe performance issues that I have found it difficult to resolve. This has let to some time away from the IDE. Last, but by no means least, I lay a significant portion of the blame on Gran Tourismo 5 (on PS3) which hijacked my entire life. Even now, I have had to send my B-Spec driver on a 20 lap stint around Monza just so I can write this post.

So, I am now in the process of dragging myself back into the development hot-seat. I have received some good feedback and constructive criticism from several sources and I am hoping to start getting some alpha code out the door in the next couple of weeks that addresses some of these requests and also improves performance of the application.

---- HANG ON ----

Sorry - PIT STOP

I have also decide that I will be recommending 2.6x in preference to 2.5x if the next version is stable enough. This will simplify things from a support perspective. I may need to write an upgrading "Need-To-Know" doc to explain the differences and how things are changing in 2.6 and later.

All GO! GO! GO! (ish...)

900+ Downloads + New ALPHA + First video tutorial...

posted 1 Dec 2010 00:47 by Richard ADM

As we move into December I have surveyed the mirror sites that are hosting/listing MeshCreator. The first BETA was published on the 1st November and in November it hit a little over 900 downloads if I include direct downloads from the website.

Also, a new ALPHA build of MeshCreator v2.60 has been published on the website. It includes a major overhaul of vertex storage arrays and how the data is managed to make it better from a rendering performance point of view. Although this will have a negative impact on performance of the editor it should make it easier to produce fast rendering code for use in your applications. There are also some new features that are posted in the release notes.

Finally, the first tutorial video has been posted on the new "Tutorials" page. It isn't perfect but it shows how to create a chess piece with MeshCreator. More, shorter and easier to watch videos coming soon.

MeshCreator passes 600+ Downloads

posted 20 Nov 2010 11:21 by Richard ADM

Since the BETA build was published on the 1st November today we have passed the 600 downloads mark. This is with with help from external mirrors and freeware hosting sites. I will post the full count for November at the end of the month but I thought I would share this statistic.

1-10 of 42

	Search this site