JPatch

JPatch is a surfacic modeler using Bézier/splines patches, the very same way some Windows freewares like Spatch and Hamapatch do. These softwares are both based on the commercial software Animation Master.

For the moment, this software is only in early development stage (pre-alpha version) but it already provides most of Spatch features. It is multi-OS because it is developed with Java and Java3D. The main backdraw for the Linux users is to have to download Sun's 22 Mb JRE 1.4 (only 9 Mb for the Windows' version of JRE).

The idea behind this software is to create smooth surfaces out of control points. Thus, it is easy to model quickly complex shapes such as organic shapes. For the moment, there's no documentation available for Jpatch but you can make a decent use of the numerous tutorials written for Spatch and Hamapatch in order to have a good glimpse of the not-so intuitive use of this software.

Please also note that the GUI (a very minimal one) is not fully operational.

Current features :

• Add/delete curves segments, control of curves segments tangents.
• Translations, rotations and scaling, extruding and surface of revolution tools.
• Layers (only 8 layers for the moment, as in Spatch, but will change in a near future).
• Use of blueprints as background pictures in order to help at modeling.
• Import/export of the models in Spatch's native format.
• Export of the models in POV-Ray's native format (uses "bicubic_patch").
• Export of the models in RENDERMAN's native format.

The future :

• Import/export of the models in Animation Master's native format.
• Support for 5 points patches
• Textures UV mapping
• Morphing editor
• Animation skeletons editor and support for IK (Inverse Kinematics)
• Lipsync and animations capabilities

Currently, the author is fully reviewing his source code. This phase should be over when the next version (0.3) will be out.

Useful information

• Author : Sascha Ledinsky (sascha_l@users.sourceforge.net)
• Homepage : jpatch.sourceforge.net
• Tried version : 0.2 (May 2003).
• License : GPL.
• Localization : English.
• Dependencies : Java 1.4 (jre is enough) and Java3D 1.3.
• POV-Ray versions supported : 3.x

Ressources

• Anto Maktovic's website : Models for Spatch and Hamapatch + a full tutorial on modeling a head with Spatch.
• Spatch : Spatch homepage.
• Hamapatch Ressources : Ressources for Hamapatch (Model and tutorials for spatch, hamapatch, Animation Master).
• Martin Hash's Animation Master : Homepage for the Animation Master commercial software (features links to models and tutorials for this software).

Please note: at this early development stage, some of these ressources are not directly useful with jpatch because it couldn't import other software's native formats except for Spatch's format (Hamapatch can convert models from Animation Master to Spatch, though)

Jpatch's GUI

Jpatch with only one window

A model rendered with POV-ray
Errm... could you smile, please ;-)

Note : the face above has been modeled with Spatch (and not with Jpatch) by Olivier Boyaval (using more or less skillfully Anto Maktovic's head tutorial)