3D scanning
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/3D scanning Polygon soup - yum, yum. :P
The scan studio demo is very interesting to watch. An amazing piece of kit for the money, now where can I find £1250 ?
All the gallery shots show huge gaping holes in the models. Either I'm missing something or it's not the best advert for their scanner.
There are alternatives to this using software only such as UZR3D and Photomodeler
I can't believe anything produced with something like this would be any use for game assets - especially if they need to be animated. It's a gimmick. You can't beat a 'hand made' model made by a pro artist.
No, it wouldn't be any good for 3d games, and not great for animation ( although if you didn't reduce the polygon count it might be ok for animation. ) It could be nice for 2d games which use rendered 3d models, though. In fact, if you were Anthony Flack, it could be brilliant. It would save you a ton of time hand animating your models, and you could do all kinds of lighting effects without having to set up lights and whatnot.
Course it would have to work without leaving big holes in it ;)
Course it would have to work without leaving big holes in it ;)
heh :)
I can't believe anything produced with something like this would be any use for game assets - especially if they need to be animated. It's a gimmick. You can't beat a 'hand made' model made by a pro artist.
Unsure if it really applies, but I've seen movies make use of 3d scanning (albeit with a device that looks like a barcode reader, to allow the artist to decide which of the model gets scanned in) to get hand-modelled objects in for 3d work, unsure it that'd really apply to gaming where budgets are limited (this was all stuff I seen on the LoTR extra's discs), but it still has a purpose.
Only thing I don't like about *that* scanner is that the size of the object appears to be limited by whatever the stand can hold.
modern games could quite easily use it, a lot of visualisation modelers prefer to work in clay.
Still not useful for realtime rendering, but a good choice for prerendering, movies and so on. I think most of those "Dino movies" use a manual 3d scanner tool, that's like a pen you have to move on the surface of the (real world) model,kind of a 3D pointing device.
One could build something like this with the data glove somebody released the blitz decls for some time ago.
One could build something like this with the data glove somebody released the blitz decls for some time ago.
I can't believe anything produced with something like this would be any use for game assets - especially if they need to be animated. It's a gimmick. You can't beat a 'hand made' model made by a pro artist.
Yes, and the horseless carriage will never replace the bicycle.
Expect this technology to become more than a novelty rather rapidly. In the meantime, I want this 3D scanner and the latest 3D printer (rapid desktop prototype machine) so I can spend all my time replicating the crap laying around my house.
SpaceAce
All the gallery shots show huge gaping holes in the models. Either I'm missing something or it's not the best advert for their scanner.
I noticed that too -- which paints a bad picture, considering that you would *assume* they would pick 'better than average' objects to be showcased in their gallery... Does that mean that the typical results will be even worse than the ones in the gallery?
$2,500?! Naw, much rather get a whole Alienware rig for the same price as one of these, sorry to tell ya...
depending how quickly you could get one of those messy scans done, it could be handy as a quick template for tracing a lower polygon game model.
But like someone said earlier, you need to scan something alrady suitable for modeling, like a clay sculpture, so probably not ideal in many cases. But you could definately use it as a first step towards a low poly model and it wouldnt take too long to produce a decent model from the high res rough.
But like someone said earlier, you need to scan something alrady suitable for modeling, like a clay sculpture, so probably not ideal in many cases. But you could definately use it as a first step towards a low poly model and it wouldnt take too long to produce a decent model from the high res rough.
Holes shouldn't be a problem, a simple modifier as "cap holes" in 3dsmax can do the job. BTW did I metion that I've built a 3D scanner some time ago, from nothing but a bulb and a webcam? ... hmm yes I think I did :o) Anyway, if you wonder how then follow my worklog.
We just ordered a 3d scanner at work and although I can't remember for sure I think it might have been the NextEngine one. I'll let you all know how well it works as soon as I've had a chance to play with it.
In case anyone hasn't seen it before, I'll just mention that its possible to get quite reasonable results on the cheap with this:
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/
Oh, and (sorry SpaceAce) we also ordered a rather expensive 3d printer! Looking forward to trying that out too.
In case anyone hasn't seen it before, I'll just mention that its possible to get quite reasonable results on the cheap with this:
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/
Oh, and (sorry SpaceAce) we also ordered a rather expensive 3d printer! Looking forward to trying that out too.
Holes shouldn't be a problem, a simple modifier as "cap holes" in 3dsmax can do the job.
Erm no, cap holes in 3dsMax doesn't add detailed geometry where it's missing, it just fills in a hole with a completely flat polygon. The shots in the gallery show huge, detailed, shaped areas missing, not just a few flat holes here and there. I mean check the Han Solo model, it looks like the poor bastard has been infected with the ebola virus.
I didn't watch the samples (ok I will). Some scanners can't handle convex shapes - or concave ones - I never know wich is wich, but you know what I mean :o/
EDIT yeah, they look as if they were scanned only from one side.
A scanner should use a rotating platform, or orbit around the object. I know there are other systems that are capable of scanning a static object from a stationary location. But the rotating platform system makes things easier IMHO.
This head of Michelangelos "David" was a 6 centimeter statue. after the scan there was a hole on top of his head, that was closed with 3dsmaxes "cap hole" modifier.
Here's the scanner workshop:
http://www.melog.ch/3dscan/
...was a fun project.
EDIT yeah, they look as if they were scanned only from one side.
A scanner should use a rotating platform, or orbit around the object. I know there are other systems that are capable of scanning a static object from a stationary location. But the rotating platform system makes things easier IMHO.
This head of Michelangelos "David" was a 6 centimeter statue. after the scan there was a hole on top of his head, that was closed with 3dsmaxes "cap hole" modifier.
Here's the scanner workshop:
http://www.melog.ch/3dscan/
...was a fun project.
Gabriel: If you look closely, it makes a lot of holes on every scan (scanners having a hard time with concave shapes), but since they make 10s of them and connect them with each other. If you take the 3DSMax render, they are all of them connected (and probably cleaned up manually).
Those would be awesome to use as a base for a low-poly and to render the normal map.
All that's left to do (after multiple scan, connecting, making a low poly version) is to rig it, skin it, uv texture it properly and animate it. In the end, it probably save something along the lines of 10% of the job in game dev.
Those would be awesome to use as a base for a low-poly and to render the normal map.
All that's left to do (after multiple scan, connecting, making a low poly version) is to rig it, skin it, uv texture it properly and animate it. In the end, it probably save something along the lines of 10% of the job in game dev.
I agree for normal maps it's great - if you've got a nice object to scan.
Try this one: DAVID-Laserscanner
Low-Cost 3D Laser Range Scanning for Everyone...
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/
Low-Cost 3D Laser Range Scanning for Everyone...
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/