Teaching Max-MSP-Jitter at art schools - Illustrator and Photoshop files
From time to time i am teaching Max at art schools and i always have the same problem:
Art students usually know and work with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. They would like to use their graphics within Max / Jitter, but i think there is still no easy way for the students to accomplish that. It would be nice to have a reliable way for using vector graphics (ai, svg, eps) and Photoshop layers within Max.
I checked Blender, but the user interface is completely unintuitive to me. I couldn't figure out how to import a 2D Illustrator .ai and export to .obj or .dae for use in jit.gl.model.
It would be nice to have example patches for using vector graphics exported from illustrator with objects like jit.gl.model, jit.gl.path, jit.mgraphics and jit.gl.sketch.
That would be sweet, yes. But what exactly do you mean by "import a 2D Illustrator .ai and export to .obj or .dae for use in jit.gl.model"
I mean it would still be 2d right? I assume you want to use it as a texture? Not pretty and does require some work but you can achieve that by exporting png's with transparency from ai/ps. To work with layers you could export every layer as a new png-file and combine them agan in max/msp. And because you know the dimensions of the outputmatrix in max you can use these dimensions in ai/ps so it's scaled properly or to put it better: no scaling is necessary. And because the endresult are pixels vectors aren't really necessary anymore.
It would still be sweet to just import psd/ai's but i guess it's a long shot.
FRid
Dirty workaround maybe?
https://cycling74.com/forums/convert-dwg-to-obj
Try this:
I would like to keep the vector data of course, so they could do animations based on their 2D files. The jit.gl.path object for example has the evalin and evalout attributes that you could use to draw the path over time. I didn't explore the jit.gl.model too much, but at least they could move the shape in 3D space or something.
Thanks mzed. I overlooked the SVG commands in jit.mgraphics. Have to check this out.
Look at the project I made it implements Images with opengl. I believe this intersection is interesting. I would share the project but it's a mess it was done with Max5 now with Max6 this is relatively easy to do.
hi Karl Kliem.
i could look into the adding svg importing to the path objects. would that be useful? i don't think it could support everything in the spec, but at least the path data.
this would not be appropriate for the gl.model object however, as it loads polygonal mesh data, not vector data.
you can use a 3d modeling software to convert your vector data to mesh data, and export one of the many file formats that gl.model supports.
let me know your thoughts on the svg importing to gl.path.
thanks
I think this would be amazing. I have been thinking about figuring out how to take the pathstrings as they exist in fonts, SVG files and the like. For example pathstrings found in the Raphael.js library, etc and make them work in the new JSUI, jitter mgraphics or jit.path land.
Thoughts?
hi robert,
importing svg into jit.gl.path would be great. i'm looking for ways to use 2D vector files for animations in jitter.
animating the outline of fonts over time would also be nice. maybe that's possible already, but i didn't come across it. something along these lines:
http://vimeo.com/11610106
(just made a quick search for font outline animation - i'm not a member of the elston family church :)