Igallery Hacks

Ignite Gallery is a really nice commercial gallery component for Joomla 1.5 (native). Some of the hacks I used to adapt it to my needs on hellmachine.net might be useful for you aswell.

Close popup image when clicking on it

I wanted the popup image to close when clicking on it, not only when clicking on the close button (X).

1. Go to [yourJoomlaDirectory]components/com_igallery/javascript/
2. Open gallery.js
3. Search for
   

   $(this.options.closeImage).addEvent('click', function(e)

4. Replace the line with this:
   

   $(this.lboxGalleryObject.options.largeImage).addEvent('click', function(e)

5. If you want to have the closing functionality on the image and the close button just duplicate the code block. The block ends at

   }.bind(this));

Move slideshow controls and close button to the top

When you enlarge an image on hellmachine.net you'll see that the slideshow controls and the close button (X) are moved to the top of the popup.

1. Go to [yourJoomlaDirectory]/components/com_igallery/views/gallery/tmpl/default.php
2. Rename default.php to default.phpbak so you have a backup!
3. Replace default.php with the one in this .zip file.
   

The slideshow controls can be centered with CSS code in gallery.css:

1. Go to [yourJoomlaDirectory]/components/com_igallery/css
2. Rename gallery.css to gallery.cssbak for backup
3. Replace gallery.css with this one.

TinyBrowser Directories

In the most recent Joomla Update to 1.5.12 the new TinyMCE has been integrated. One of the new features is the fantastic TinyBrowser. No more image uploading via FTP, just use TinyBrowser directly when editing an article.

Sometimes, however, the TinyBrowser doesn't point where you want. Time to edit the default directory paths:

1. Start your FTP client and browse to /plugins/editors/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/tinybrowser
2. Open your config_tinybrowser.php
   Either download my config_tinybrowser.php or follow the steps below to make the adjustments yourself.
3. Around line 50 you will find something like this. Comment it in.
   

   // File upload paths (set to absolute by default)
   //$tinybrowser['path']['image'] = '/useruploads/images/';
   //$tinybrowser['path']['media'] = '/useruploads/media/';
   //$tinybrowser['path']['file']  = '/useruploads/files/';

4. Right afterwards there is this block, which you need to comment out.
   

   $tinybrowser['path']['image'] = str_replace($tinybrowser['docroot'],'', preg_replace('[\\\]', '/', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../../../../../../../images/stories'))) . '/';
   $tinybrowser['path']['media'] = str_replace($tinybrowser['docroot'],'', preg_replace('[\\\]', '/', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../../../../../../../images/stories'))) . '/';
   $tinybrowser['path']['file']  = str_replace($tinybrowser['docroot'],'', preg_replace('[\\\]', '/', realpath(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../../../../../../../images/stories'))) . '/';
   

5. Customize the paths so that they fit your preferences. Mine look like this:
   

   $tinybrowser['path']['image'] = '/images/';
   $tinybrowser['path']['media'] = '/media/';
   $tinybrowser['path']['file']  = '/files/';

That's it, your TinyBrowser should now point to the correct default Joomla directories.

Batch Render Script

A new update to version 1.5 of Sergo Pogosyan's Batch Camera Render Script has been released. It's a very nice replacement for 3ds Max's Batch Render, offering increased functionality. It allows you to assign lights to your cameras, so it's no longer necessary to use Scene States to switch lighting setups for a camera in batch render. This frees up Scene States for more important tasks like globally switching geometry, layers, etc., independent from the Batch Render.

Download the Batch Camera Render 1.5.1 script

Installation

• Go to MAXScript -> Run Script and execute the script from any folder on your disk
• Customize -> Customize User Interface -> Toolbars Tab
• Browse to the category 'Sergo Pogosyan' and drag the 'Render scene cameras...' button onto any toolbar (create a new one before if you like)
  

More info over at Scriptspot.

Intro

View the result

My goal was to create a simple bloody impact effect with a custom alpha texture.

Although the legacy Max particle systems would have been up for the task, I choose Particle Flow to understand it better. I wanted the effect to fade out smoothly, but Particle Flow doesn't offer any option to do just that. So I did some research...

After checking tutorials and forums at Autodesk's Area, CG Talk and many more sites I couldn't find a good enough solution for fading out particles with an occupied Opacity Slot. Finally, the sparking hint came from within 3ds Max's help: By utilizing a Blend material.

Tutorial

Read more: Fade out particles with Particle Flow

Following up my Blog entry about free Mocap data from CMU from January, Bruce Hahne announced the release of 3ds Max compatible BVH files of the complete CMU motion library.

3ds Max Tutorial

"The motion data is free and available to use for any project. There is no use license, i.e. the data isn't under Creative Commons or a similar limited-use license."
– Bruce Hahne

Grab the BVHs from the links over on Bruce's page.