import model with alpha maps - is it possible?

[Anonymous]

After trying (and failing ) to import some trees with leaf clip-maps attached, as a 3ds format, into ArchiCAD I started to wonder - is that possible at all?
Does anyone succesfully imported such thing (using any format) into ArchiCAD and used it as a native objects? Will be grateful for any help.

[Dwight]

You'l lose the mapping coordinates when you import - the object won't know how to find the texture or where to map it. I don't think Archicad's flavor of 3Ds allows for this level of information to cross over.

If these are the flying plywoods trees - tilted planes arrayed around a shaft - with masked images pasted on to simulate leaves, you have your GDL work cut out for you. Each plane's texture must be placed and oriented using GDL (COOR???)

This HAS been done. I've seen trees done this way. Perhaps you can find one and steal the code. Just kidding. Well, no. DO steal the code. How many ways can this mapping trick be done? Like, there's only seven stories in the world and Hollywood released hundreds of movies last year. There must have been some duplication.
Just the other day i was watching a movie and i said "I'm almost certain that I've seen a pickup truck just like that one explode before." and "Geez. The hero wins again. AND gets the girl. Whooda thunkit?" Of course, that isn't the universal result. Take "The Terminal" for instance. The hero and the chick don't get together in the end but she does sacrifice for him, so it is almost the same. I hope that things go well for him back in Krakozia. No forest of trees in that movie.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dwight and I was affraid of that.
I always try to be positive person, but how this is possible that 10'th generation of 4000 euros, leading CAD software still cannot solve basic UV mapping, and I don't mean only imported object but even its own (retoric question).
No matter how simple GDL is, it is just not practical to mess with the code every time you want to fix something more complicated than a cube. Either way they need to put it under heavy development and write some flawless import plug-in, or drop it and go for market standard formats like 3DS and OBJ. It is just not funny any more.

Regarding Hollywood crap movies, I actually enjoy watching them, after long day of work it is a kind of relaxation, like watching a fireplace or an aquarium when you don't need to focus and still won't miss a thing.

[Dwight]

I like splosions, too. Relieves the nervous mind.
Just like Canadians are wine experts because they have so much experience with bad wine, Vancouverites know all about bad movies since we make many of them. Hanging out in my neighborhood is creepy because there are always gangs of uniformed men being handed guns and streets blocked off for car chases. There's a new, really creepy thing at night: a glowing blimp floating in the sky above a shoot. UFO, don't you know?
I was an extra on a movie set many years ago and learned how to make a 'splosion. We got to be tradesmen on a job site. I already had dirty clothes from renovating my house, but some of the other guys didn't, so they had special movie dirt for them (it doesn't wash out so easily. haha. Better to roll in the ditch if you ever find yourself faced with clean clothes on a movie set and need to represent a sloppy worker. The guys i worked with were pretty clean and tidy. But that is the movies for you. Stereotypes!). Since this was an American show, they needed to put lots of black people in the scene as foremen, measuring things with clipboards and we white guys were laborers carrying pipes and such. There's a very small population of blacks in Vancouver so it is good work if you get in. And the joke was on them acting like bosses 'cause i was in ACTRA getting full union rates while they got minimum wage.

My big break: I was supposed to put out an exploding circuit breaker panel and shout "Fire." They used rubber cement to do the flameburst. Woofboom. Great fun.

Series got cancelled before my episode went to air. dang.

Odd that i should get called for "construction worker" because the way i got in the movies was at Hadassah Bazaar. I had this great beard in the eighties and the extras company had a booth, there. They called me over and took my picture. I said "Why are you here? Why me?"
Answer: "We wanted to get some of you "ethnics" into our work."
"Oy vey," i thought.