why did this not get posted sooner?

A little preview of what is to come in the PolyMo Live! renderer.

This is just a test to see if the program could load the model from the Universal Editor ModelObjectModel.

It took quite a bit of work to actually get the PMDDataFormat to load the model file, and to convince OpenGL to display the model properly, but it finally worked out.

Sadly, textures don't work (I can't seem to figure out how the PMDDataFormat associates which textures go with which sets of vertices (meshes)... Anyone know anything about this?)

Take a look, it's pretty neat so far. Once I figure out how textures work, I can figure out how to take my software one step further than the original Polygon Movie Maker..... how to ANIMATE the textures!

more pictures... yay =^.^=

This time, it's the remote-control interface login window for PolyMo Live!

(It doesn't do anything now. I just put that window together in 5 minutes... haha!)

If the application looks vaguely familiar, it's because PolyMo Live! is simply a bundle of plugins, editors, object models, and data formats for the Universal Editor platform. Notice that the god-awful Ribbon interface is gone. THAT project I've decided to put on the really-far-back burner for now.

Basically, I'm updating the Universal Editor codebase at the same time I'm working on PolyMo Live! It's really tough, finding out what features should be moved into Universal Editor (affecting all other UE platform-based applications as well) and what features should remain specific to PolyMo Live!

Take a look, it's pretty awesome so far. (The Editor has a concert set list file currently open. That Editor is about ... 45 percent complete? Maybe?)

Features to come in PolyMo Live! custom renderer

The idea for this system comes from the popular Polygon Movie Maker (MikuMikuDance) animation program developed by higuchuu4.

However, the code is written entirely from scratch (as higuchuu4 did not release the source code to the public) in C#, based on the Universal Editor platform I have been working intensely on.

Features will include (sorted in order of priority):

• Animated textures (such as GIF and MNG) provided by changing the texture applied to the surface each frame.
• Chain multiple MMEffect renderer effect presets for a single model
• Save MMEffect presets selected for the models along with the animation file you are saving (will require an extension to the Polygon Movie Maker PMM document format, or a new PolyMo Live PML document format)
• Play animations and their associated songs from a Playlist file supported by the Universal Editor platform. Currently these include XSPF, WPL, ZPL, and M3U. Sound facilities will initially be provided by VLC.
• Remote control the interface over TCP/IP (to place the rendering software on the computer dedicated to the projector and keep the controlling computer separate)
• Synchronize stage lighting using a DMX interface - this is an extremely low-priority and out-of-my-expertise project, but something I'd like to see anyway (any DMX-using .NET developers out there?)

Estimated date of first release for this project? Don't push me. I just got out of school for the semester, I'm going to be hard at work hacking for the next few weeks. Sadly, I have to fix most of the deficiencies in the Universal Editor platform before even attempting to write a program based off of it!

Perhaps one day I will write a history of how the Universal Editor came to be. If it's not interesting to any of my (few) blog-followers out there, at least it will provide an entertaining story to distract me from coding if I ever have a hackers' block.

[Universal Editor] Screenshot of model material editor

So I figured I'd update you on what's been going on with universal-editor... No, I don't plan on keeping the ugly and incomplete Ribbon interface, and currently the model editor only supports loading PMD and PMX files. PMD and PMX saving "works", kind of, but there are extreme issues with bone attachment and material colors. Once those bugs are fixed, I'd really like to figure out the Ghoul2 GLM format (used in some Quake 2 engine-based games) and id software's MD2 and MD3 formats (which are both free software, and also used in Quake 2 engine-based games).

This would theoretically enable anyone with GLM character models from their favorite Quake2 engine-based games to save those models as PMD files and import them into an editor that supports this format (such as Polygon Movie Maker...), albeit without the physics support, since I do not believe that file format supports physics (if I'm correct).

universal editor

So I just realized I haven't made a blog post in quite a while (four months actually) and since I haven't been very inspired musically, lately...

I'll make a post about programming instead!

I've been working on a project called universal-editor, which will be 100% free software (GNU GPLv3) and aims to open, edit, and save pretty much any file in the universe.

It does this by separating file formats and data "representations". For example, a Microsoft Word 2003 file, an Adobe PDF file, and an OpenDocument Text file all store the same data : formatted text. So one need only write a formatted text editor, define the three different file formats... and voilà! Instant conversion between data formats!

So there's a lot of perks. Currently, not much is complete (and if it is, it hasn't been thoroughly tested). Right now I'm working on loading vocal synthesis sequences (VOCALOID VSQ files, UTAU UST files, and VirSyn CANTOR 2 VCP files).

Since MIDI files are also synthesized audio files, they use the same editor. So importing pre-made MIDI files, adding lyrics, and re-saving them as vocal synthesis files is a snap!

(Note that this editor CANNOT and probably will never aim to synthesize these vocal tracks. You will have to purchase VOCALOID2 or download UTAU in order to actually synthesize the vocals.)

Here's a screenshot: