[sldev] Hide geometry in Sculpted-prims

[Dale Mahalko]

Ahem, so the problem is that people are limited to just four two-dimensional
arrays of R G B and Alpha. It appears that what are needed are more 2D
arrays but the image interface is already maxed out with the current
implementation, and Alpha is being used by people for undefined purposes
because it currently has NO defined purpose.

Expansion is needed for more 2D arrays and more data storage, but this is
going to break the ever so simple and clever concept of sculpts as RGB maps.
Probably because it is too simple and clever to really be practical in the
first place.

What image formats allow additional hidden 2D arrays not used for image
generation? So we need a Beta channel, on up to Zeta, or whatever. Maybe
it's time to drop the "image" concept and go with a new "variable size 1D
array of 2D arrays" data format, with each 2D array compressed with lossy
wavelet compression where practical.

I fully realize I am trodding on Phillip Rosedale's baby here so I don't
expect any sort of positive reception of this discusion. :-)

- Dale

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Dahlia Trimble <dahliatrimble at gmail.com>wrote:

> I've also seen a lot of designers use the alpha channel to mask the entire
> bitmap so it doesn't show in the editor and can't be grabbed with a screen
> capture
>
>
> On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Argent Stonecutter <
> secret.argent at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2009-05-17, at 00:54, Feilen wrote:
>> > That's actually a lot better of an idea, and it would be simple to
>> > implement: just use any basic image editor to implement the alpha and
>> > remove all of the black space the 3d modeler creates. If this was
>> > implemented it would be likely that all plugins/modelers supporting
>> > would also change to generate alpha instead of blackspace.
>>
>> The problem is that Alpha is planned to be used for flexibility in
>> sculpties, and there are already experimental version of the Open
>> Source viewer testing this.
>>
>> It would probably be better to add a flag (like the flag proposed for
>> indicating flexible sculpties) indicating that <0,0,0> was not part of
>> the geometry.
>>
>>
>
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