[Bf-funboard] Knuckles, Painting, Drag & Drop

[Roger]

My daughter has 3  suggestions for Blender to set it apart from all other 3D
modeling apps.


First: to reduce or perhaps eliminate bones and armatures.
Instead use Knuckles (joints) and employ the skin as the armature

Example.
a model of a humanoid body

Instead of creating bones for a body,  each appendage has a dialog of choices:
Full Skeleton
Head
Jaw
Back
Leg
Hand
Foot
Toes

On selection of say 'Hand',  an object with15 Knuckles is placed beside the hand.
Move Knuckle Object over the hand model.
Move each Knuckle to its correct position in the wrist, hand, fingers and thumb
as desired.
Join or parent the Knuckle Object to the hand mesh and the software determines the
appropriate splits in the model for each joint, and determines the number and
location of vertices that will in effect become a solid (quasi bone) between
each Knuckle.

The Knuckle object will automatically dislpay an Arrow at the end of each
appendage (heal, wrist, finger, toe) which can be parented to a movement cycle.

The Knuckle software knows how a finger works and that axes are restricted and
by how much.

All the above applies to arms, legs, feet, jaw bones etc. Also fish, trees,
animals and insects.

It is also possible to customise knuckes.
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Next:
Paint a model as you would paint a physical plastic model, porecline doll or
plaster model.

Instead of going through the rigmarole of texturing, coloring and lighting.
Select your previously prepared image and textures, where it be .jpg, .gif, 
.png, .tif etc .
Drag and drop the image onto the model (or selected vertices).
Auto wrapped to suit, eliminates UVW unrapping.

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And:
The software should literally "paint/graffiti" the 3D model using the spray,
brush or paint brush.
Select previously prepared image to paint onto model.

Select a texture, For instance, canvas, velvet, wood, etc and paint that on -
being able to adjust noise, fresnel  etc, as desired.

Then if embellishing is needed, select the image of the braiding, rope, what
ever, select the appropriate vertices/faces etc and it will be applied to that
area of the model automatically, or by paint or spray paint. It also recognises
image transparency.

At any stage through the painting you can erase and reapply just like in Gimp or
Inkscape, etc and it doesn't mess up the model.

Lighting is automatic and alters as the model is rotated and painted. the model 
is always lit from the point of view of the viewer.
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Hope Ive explained this ok
Roger