Image Inflate not on menu

[Celty]

I'm using the demo, Beta 2.17. How do I get the Image Inflate feature to appear under the model menu to try this feature?

[Simon]

Image Inflate is only available in the full version of Curvy 3D 2.0 Pro, along with several other advanced user features.

The demo is intended to give you a taste of the basic tools in Curvy. If you would like the full set please buy the full version and help support this fun software

[Celty]

hm ok thx, well that feature was what i wanted to try to know lol, oh well

[Simon]

Here are a few links with more info on the inflate tool if you haven't seen them yet, and feel free to post an image you would like to see inflated to test it out.

Inflate Docs

Inflating a Sword (With Video)

Inflated Antlers

More Inflated Shapes

[Fenderfennec]

I tried to inflate a simple white circle on a black background following the instructions--the results don't look anything like a sphere no matter what settings I use. The BMP image is 256 x 256 at 300 dpi resolution. The result when inflated is indescribable but it is not even close to a sphere. Are there any other settings I need to be aware-of? Anything to do with video drivers or DirectX or ... ?

[Simon]

Here are some example source images and an exported OBJ that demonstrate using "Auto" mode inflate.

http://www.curvy3d.com/Demo/InflateDemo.rar

The first pictures show making a sphere-like object from a white circle. I left a 12 pixel black border around the white to help the conversion process.

Inflate is not the best way to make perfect spheres, but it gets more interesting if we make the input shape a bit more complicated. The other images show what happens as I change the source image, then change the inflate settings.

[Fenderfennec]

Okay! The problem I was having was with the image format--I didn't realize that it needed to be RGB/8 bit. That part works fine now, thank you very much for your help.

I would like to go a little further though and ask about the Sculptie export, as I don't see anything in the reference section specifically about this feature. When I sculptie-export my inflated object the result seems to be a zero-byte BMP file and some additional files that are not useable. I hope you can give me a bit of guidance about this, too.

Again, thank you for your assistance.

[Simon]

The zero byte file is a little glitch (it is not used for anything)

The additional files should however be useful sculptie maps. If you open them they should look like waves of colour.

However - please note that sculpties can only be made from regular lathe, line and loft objects. If you use merge, mirror or booleans the smooth surface is broken for sculptie export. There are ways around this limitation... but it pays off to be careful.

Perhaps start with a sculptie lathe, and see if that works - otherwise please send me the cvy file and exported BMPs and I will investigate.

[Fenderfennec]

Here is what I am experiencing. I load this image into Curvy:




I inflate the image to make a sphere, then Export Sculpties. The resulting sculpt map is this:




Am I not performing a step that I should? I don't see anything in the tutorials about another needed step but I could have missed it. Or is exporting an inflated image as a sculpt not supported?

[Simon]

This tutorial explains it:
http://www.curvy3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2193

You need to use lathes and lofts to export sculpties, but using "Apply Children" you can make a lathe conform to an inflated model and then export that instead.

If you are making simple shapes it is much better to just use lathes/lines/lofts in the first place as they export directly to sculpties.