CameraMapGemini is a camera map modifier that makes your 3ds max projection work more flexible, more stable and easier to manage.

What is Camera Projection / Camera Mapping ?

Camera Projection is a technique that is derived from matte painting, a process to quickly design backgrounds for film scenes without actually building them on set. Back in the days, matte artists would paint on glass (e.g. a landscape). By rephotographing the painting through the film camera it would look as if the actors are standing in the environment designed by the painter. This works, as long as the camera position does not change too drastically.

Nowadays, you can use 3d software such as 3ds max to project matte paintings or map textures onto 3d geometry. This can give you a lot of photographic detail without the need to model and texture huge amounts of elements by hand. A typical 3d camera projection consists of:

1. painting / texture map

2. geometry to project on

3. camera through which to project the image

Please visit the following link on the cgarchitect website for a great tutorial on camera mapping in 3ds max.

http://www.cgarchitect.com/resources/tutorials/misc/tutorial2.asp

Why would you need more than one camera projection ?

Camera mapping with a single image and camera works great for scenes that have a static shot camera or where the shot camera is not moving too much. If there is a lot of parallax though, the single projection can fall apart and stretching or double projections can become visible. Those artifacts can be fixed by setting up a new camera from a different angle than your previous projection camera and by mapping another image through the new camera. Then you could set up a b/w map to blend between those 2 projections. If your camera flies through a valley, for example, using more than one camera to cover different areas is a possible way to map the environment.

What is CameraMapGemini and why would I need it ?

CameraMapGemini is a free modifier / map plugin for camera projection work in 3ds max. It is the most stable, convenient and powerful camera map solution currently available for 3ds max. I am developing it in my free time. CameraMapGemini overcomes a lot of limitations of 3ds max's builtin modifiers / maps / plugins and it finally allows you to use projections that do not rely any longer on having the same resolution and/or image aspect ratio as the rendered output image. For a full list of features, see below.

Features

• supports up to 10 individual projections ( = camera & map channel ) within 1 modifier, good for complex projection setups
• custom projection resolution settings and not tied to render resolution, more flexibility for aspect ratios that diverge from rendered output image
• all projections can be toggled on and off individually within the modifier
• projection camera names clearly visible in separate scrolling text field
• projection cameras directly selectable in the modifier panel
• acts like a WorldSpace Camera Map modifier, takes object and camera transformation into account (this means if an object is moving through the projection it will update every frame), projections will always stay "live" and recalculate on the fly if the camera or the projected object is animated
• is in fact a regular ObjectSpace modifier, so other modifiers still can go on top
• more stable than 3ds max's default Camera Map object space and world space modifiers, no more lost connections to cameras or mapping channel numbers when cloning, no reassignment necessary
• works properly as instanced modifier, many objects can share the same projection setup
• all parameters exposed and controllable via MAXScript
• since it is a modifier that projection results can be seen in viewport by turning on map
• option to act as an object space modifier so that projections are frozen at a certain frame
• custom resolution per projection channel, each projection can have its own map size now
• per pixel rendering supported by custom CameraMapGeminiMap. It works like the CameraMapPerPixel map but reads out modifier's settings so projections only need to be set up once (in modifier).
• CameraMapGeminiMap has additional controls for projection angle threshold, toggles for projecting on back faces and faces behind the camera
• fully backwards compatible from MAX 2012. If scenes are saved out from MAX 2012 in the MAX 2010 or MAX 2011 file format, plugin data will load properly in those earlier MAX versions.

Per Pixel Rendering

Regular modifier-based solutions in 3ds Max have the limitation of getting distortions when projecting images onto geometry that is too "low-res". Mapping coordinates are interpolated between mesh vertices and if there are only few faces covering a wide projection area, distortions might occur. To solve this problem, the additional CameraMapGeminiMap was created. It is not necessary anymore to subdivide the mesh before the projection by using the Tesselate or Turbosmooth modifiers underneath because the CameraMapGemini map will render the projection on a per-pixel basis.

For more information, please have a look on the official website:

http://www.projectgemini.net/CameraMapGemini/

About Crowd Funding the development

First of all, I would like to thank the awesome people who made voluntary donations in the past which enabled the continuation and maintenance of the plugin for different 3ds Max versions. Your contribution is really appreciated!

I won't disclose details about individual donations but it came as a surprise to me that all in all, donations since the launch of this plugin haven't even reached $100 while I spend many days of my free time maintaining the code. Not even mentioning the weeks of actual initial development and bug fixing. And the reward is to sometimes get rude emails from people full of complaints.

Knowing that this plugin is partly used in big productions by big names in the industry and due to Autodesk's release cycles policy as well as due to previously stated observations and lack of support, I have decided to stop releasing this plugin for free.

Because of the administrative overhead, a license system will be avoided. Therefore crowd funding new releases seems to be an ideal situation for everyone involved. Everyone can pay their fair share and what they are able to afford. As soon as the goal is reached, the new version will be available for download on the website.

This is the crowd funding project for Camera Map Gemini 2015 which will be compatible with 3ds Max 2015.

This campaign ends on May 22, 2015.

This is an all-or-nothing fixed funding campaign so if the goal is not reached, you will be refunded!

The 3ds Max 2015 version is compiled and ready-to-go so please support this kickstarter project to receive the new version as soon as possible!