XAML By Hand!?

re: XAML By Hand!?

Jeff Parker — Thu, 12 May 2005 15:20:46 GMT

You know really with XAML coming down the pipe there really needs to be some tools to do this some good, easy to use tool. You have seen a lot of my 3d works and well existing 3d tools are going to be too complicated or maybe sometimes unrealistic. Are interfaces going to be created by Graphic artists now? They are familiar at least with some of the concepts needed, the rendering, the shading, the lighting Really I would prefer a tool like www.rhino3d.com that is fast simple easy to use that currently produces obj, nurbs and polygonal intefaces. But use something like that to make the objects.

re: XAML By Hand!?

Mike Carnevale — Mon, 16 May 2005 00:50:04 GMT

This response is both to Mike's helpful post (thanks for the props!) and Jeff's reply. Mike had mentioned Electric Rain's ZAM-3D tool. The 3D modeling capabilities of that package are based on Swift 3D, which is a reasonably powerful 3D modeling tool for the price. Swift 3D is typically used to export 3D animations for use in Flash projects (such as http://www.gtasanandreas.com)

Swift 3D's user interface was also designed for entry-level users; therefore, I imagine that it would be perfect for people looking to add the third dimension to their XAML-driven interfaces. For more advanced modeling requirements--imagine "projecting" a UI on an anthropometric form--I would guess that pro animation packages like Maya and 3D Studio Max will have XAML export plug-ins if they don't already.

Illustrator (and competitors), along with 3d modeling apps seem to be the obvious choice for XAML export. Quark and InDesign could yield some interesting results as well. While Photoshop wouldn't seem like a natural fit, the latest version in CS2 includes a "Smart Objects" feature (vector data). Adobe seems well-suited for giving designers tools for XAML creation.

And one last thing--would it be completely unreasonable to expect a Mac-based XAML dev environment?

Adobe Illustrator to Avalon/XAML Export Plug-In

Michael Swanson's Blog — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 02:54:41 GMT

In response to my XAML By Hand? post awhile back, I became curious about what it would take to export...

Adobe Illustrator to XAML plug-in

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:21:56 GMT

I don't post much on graphics stuff, but this is pretty cool, IMO:

In response to my XAML By Hand?...