Recently our company, Electric Rain, set out to build a Photoshop Plug-in that extended some of the new 3D capabilities built into CS4 Extended. We just had a successful release of the product, called Swift 3D PS, and it is safe to say that Adobe Configurator saved the day for us.

For those that don’t know about this great utility, Configurator allows you to build your own custom Panels and insert them into the Photoshop UI. Although Configurator may not have been built specifically for plug-in builders to utilize, we found that it offered us some critical access to the Photoshop environment that we simply couldn’t find elsewhere within the Plug-in architecture.

So here’s our story about how Adobe Configurator came to the rescue for Swift 3D PS…

The Problem – Lousy Plug-in Workflow

Swift 3D PS is a new plug-in based on Electric Rain’s mature Swift 3D product line, which allows designers to quickly and easily build 3D models and animations and export them to Flash and a variety of other formats. Our goal with the plug-in was to allow Photoshop users access to the designer-friendly 3D environment of Swift 3D without having to leave the comfort of the Photoshop UI, while letting Photoshop’s amazing texture design tools and renderer handle rest. To accomplish this we started tapping into the new 3D API included in CS4 Extended and quickly found a way to move 3D objects, lights and cameras back and forth between the Photoshop stage and our 3D-specific interface. Within short order we were off and running with our nascent plug-in!

But…although the technical side of the picture was partially solved, we quickly ran into some serious workflow issues.

The first problem we ran into was the need for us to insert ourselves into the Filter menu since we did not have access to the 3D menu in Photoshop where we would have liked to reside. This required the user to have to navigate to the Filter menu, scroll down to the Electric Rain menu item, and then choose Swift 3D PS to launch our plug-in. Not a show-stopper, but awkward nonetheless.

Our next issue was that the user needed an existing 3D Layer to be selected in Photoshop to be able to launch Swift 3D PS. This required users to insert a 3D shape using the CS4 Extended tools, then launch the plug-in from the Filter menu, and once into our interface they would have to delete that 3D object to get to a blank slate. Now that was a show-stopper. We had gone from clumsy do downright inept.

And lastly, we were unable to create a new blank layer from our place in the Filter menu, which added an additional step to the aforementioned workflow. We were pretty sure that CS4 “Extended” was not referring to “effort it takes to launch a plug-in.”

We knew there was a better way…

The Solution – Configurator to the Rescue

Along came the idea to install a full-fledged Panel into the Photoshop UI to overcome some of these issues, which of course led us to discover Configurator as the tool to help us do this. Although there were many things we found useful in the capabilities offered by Configurator, these were the biggies:

1. Configurator was wicked easy to use. Our Marketing Director was able to download the Adobe AIR application, follow the basic instructions, drag-and-drop a control into the default panel, and wire up an existing Action he had created to launch the plug-in from the Filters menu. Within 15 minutes he was staring at a panel in the Photoshop UI that housed a single button – “Launch Swift 3D PS.” Workflow glitch #1 solved.

2. Configurator allowed us to aggregate relevant tools. A quick trip back to Configurator and we had collected the relevant 3D Photoshop Tools into our panel alongside the launch button and we had built a one-stop 3D shopping experience for our users. Workflow glitch #1 turned into plug-in enhancement #1 (without a single trip to the engineering department).

3. Configurator opened up access to JavaScript commands. To make the launching process a bit less of a hack, we did end up calling in the big-brains – our developers – to write some JavaScript that circumvented the clunky use of Actions to launch our plug in. Might as well do things right.

4. JavaScript led to deeper interaction with Photoshop. Once we recognized what could be done through JavaScript, our engineers began to dig a little deeper, and low and behold they found hooks that allowed us to both launch from a non-3D layer, as well as to create a new blank layer. Goodbye seven-click, menu-driven plug-in launch…hello single-click access to 3D joy.

The Result – A Powerful and Easy-to-Use Plug-in

Did we mention that Swift 3D PS just launched? Well it did, and we’re happy to report that it works just like we expected it would when we first considered the project. The road to a smooth workflow was initially a bit bumpy, but once we found Configurator we were able to quickly overcome the stumbling points. And although most of the value of our plug-in lies within our 3D interface, the user’s ability to move back and forth seamlessly between the 2D and 3D worlds was critical to the success of Swift 3D PS.

No longer is our plug-in hidden deep within the menu system of Photoshop. By inserting ourselves into a Panel as a first-class citizen, Swift 3D PS becomes a more visible, and valuable tool. Configurator allowed us to easily gather appropriate Photoshop tools with its drag-and-drop UI design process, providing a more comprehensive 3D experience for our customers. And by utilizing JavaScript to interop between the Panel UI and some of the lower functions of Photoshop, we’ve eliminated the workflow inefficiencies we first saw, and greased the wheels of user interaction.

Conclusion

As a 3D tools company, Electric Rain is really excited about the new 3D capabilities in Photoshop CS4 and are thankful for the APIs Adobe has exposed for us to build upon those 3D tools. The discovery of Configurator has made our job as a third party software developer that much easier to satisfy both the technical requirements of our users, but the workflow requirements as well. And to have that happen with minimal investment from our engineers is icing on the cake (or is it money in the bank… or maybe extra code in the app…?) As we watch version 1.0 of the plug-in heading out the door to our customers, we’re already thinking about how Configurator is going to help us get the next round of features built into Swift 3D PS v 2.0.

Download a trial version of Swift 3D PS here.

Download a Adobe Configurator and build your own panels here.