What is… Textures.com?

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Textures.com, formerly CGTextures.com, is a subscription based stock resource website for texture maps. Depending on the subscription level, the user has a certain number of credits per month to use on textures. There is also a free option with a small number of credits that regenerate on a daily basis.

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The textures are royalty free for both commercial and noncommercial use, are high resolution, and have been processed to remove distortion, color cast, and in some cases to add tiling. They are distributed at multiple sizes, with larger sizes requiring more credits.
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Point Cloud Integration with Vizard

Point clouds are a set of data points in a coordinate system. In 3D applications this coordinate system is designated by X, Y, and Z coordinates and shows the external surface of an object represented as individual points.
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How to… Work With Realtime Shadow-Casting Lights in Inspector

Vizard R5: Adding realtime light to a scene and enabling shadows.
Sample Files: Realtime Lighting.zip (7.5Mb)

Starting with an unlit scene in Inspector:
- First, Go to Create -> Light -> Directional Light
- Then, in the properties window check the box for "Shadows"
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- Next, name the light node so it can be accessed through code
- You can set the angle of the sun node using the rotation controls
- The position of a directional light does not affect its output, but can be used to move the node's icon to a more convenient location.

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What is… Crazybump?

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Crazybump is a tool that analyzes a source texture such as a diffuse map and attempts to generate additional supplementary maps based on that analysis. It has been in use by numerous professionals in 3d graphics since its beta was first released in 2007.

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Crazybump is especially useful for generating tangent space normal maps, but can be used to create approximate height and specular maps, and a few other types. Many of these types of maps can be slow and difficult to create by hand or with freeware tools.
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Controlling Imported Animantions

The following types of animations can be exported with OSG models from 3ds Max and played in Vizard:

  • Transform:  Animations based on translation, rotation, and scale
  • UV: Animations based on changing texture coordinates
  • OSG sequence: Mesh animations that cycle through a series of saved meshes, one for each frame

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Underwater Effect

The example script in this article simulates the type of visual distortion that occurs in an underwater scene. It uses a custom post-process effect created using Vizard's vizfx.postprocess library and GLSL (OpenGL shading language).
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Cleaning up FBX imports for baking and realtime use

Follow the instructions in this article to clean up FBX models imported into 3ds Max for export to Vizard. These modifications should be made in the order listed: Read more

SketchUp to Vizard

SketchUp is a great tool for quickly creating and modifying existing content for Vizard. With its extensive libraries of VR commands, Vizard makes it possible to transform a SketchUp model into an immersive simulation.
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Complex Animations – from 3ds Max to Vizard

When exporting a 3ds Max file with the OSG Exporter, by default, only transform based animations (move, rotate, scale) will be exported correctly. In order to use more complex animations with animated meshes you can either use the OSG Sequence Helper or skin the mesh and export it as a Cal3D avatar. This article discusses the pros and cons of each method.
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Anark to Vizard workflow

This article describes how to use Anark to convert a CAD model to a Vizard compatible model format.
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