Maya 2014 Node editor features we've been wanting in ICE

[Eric Thivierge]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI2MYFg6G0c&feature=player_embedded

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Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Christopher]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Maya new node editor appears to be ICE and Render Graph blended into one ?

Christopher

Eric Thivierge

Friday, April 05, 2013 12:35 PM

[Miquel Campos]

I think the comment is more about the "tab" shortcut and things like that. For a speed up workflow

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Miquel Campos
www.akaosaru.com

2013/4/5 Christopher <chris...@thecreativesheep.ca>

[Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]]

Out of curiosity what is it in this video that is of interest?

 

I’ve not had a chance to tinker with Node Editor yet, but from this video it only looks like a visual version of the Connection Editor. It certainly doesn’t appear to be anything like ICE.

 

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LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)

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[Peter Agg]

Some nice handy features in there, the Tab menu and bookmarks in particular.

I still have no idea why they feel the need to make the Maya icons and GUI so bemusingly ugly though - there's no need any more, they updated to QT then just left everything as it was!

[Steven Caron]

https://github.com/caron/NodeSearchMenu

its not finished yet, maybe you want to help?

[Eric Thivierge]

- Tab menu

- Bookmarks
- Expandable vector inputs

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Adam Sale]

Yep.. tab menu is nice, was there in 2013, the filter is useful, as well as the bookmarks and the ability to view texture thumbs. 

Finally, the fact that you can make connections to textures in the node editor makes it a one stop shop, whereas we currently need to utilize attribute shaders in the render tree to take advantage of ICE. 

Really wish the two were integrated in Soft. 

Adam

[Eric Thivierge]

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:

https://github.com/caron/NodeSearchMenu

its not finished yet, maybe you want to help?

I'll take a look Steven, but until we get a native PySide build in Softimage my PyQt UI work will be minimal as not every studio gets to have that installed. If I get used to such an awesome workflow and have to go back to drudging along without it I'll start punching kittens.

[Graham Bell]

Maya's Node Editor is basically a universal Node Editor that can be used for different things. It first came in 2013 (and 2012.5 for Subs customers), and is an alternative to using the Hypergraph and Hypershade, and other windows like the Connection Editor. It's by no means a complete replacement for those Maya features yet, 2014 is another layer of tweaks and improvements.

The Tab menu is good, but you kinda need it because the Node Editor doesn't have sidebar manager like Softs ICE/Rendertree.
Maya's Hypershade doesn't have tab menus, instead it has the side bar and keyword filter.

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Christopher
Sent: 05 April 2013 18:07
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Maya 2014 Node editor features we've been wanting in ICE

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Maya new node editor appears to be ICE and Render Graph blended into one ?

Christopher

[cid:image0...@01CE322B.1BBB3800]
Eric Thivierge<mailto:ethiv...@gmail.com>

[Steven Caron]

well users have asked for this for years in ice tree view, so thats kinda 'needed'. i use ctrl+f all the time, but i have to drag the node in...i know i know, i am whining right?... NO i am not, i have dragged in thousands upon thousands of nodes over the years and we need anything and everything that will speed this process up. all we have gotten as far as workflow improvements in the icetree view since it came out has been middle clicking on connections to show values and the 'hide all values' command for the view. don't get me wrong, thats a great feature/update, and i know it has saved me time and frustration.

also, we can't even get decent SDK functionality for the views so we can create this ourselves. see andy's 'Tab Menu', 'QMenu' from Keyvis guys and my pyqt attempt at an exact copy of Nuke's node search menu.

in short, let's not continue to defend the old developers/managers reasons for not making this possible.

[Rob Chapman]

on the flip side, Mayafication of our beloved ICE node selection would bring us this..?

http://cgmemes.blogspot.com/2013/04/pointless-connections.html

no thanks!

[Peter Agg]

In their defence I'd take  Ctrl+R over grid snap any day of the week.

...of course if it would also preserve group comments I'd also be able to stop moaning about it. So I can only go so far. :)

[Steven Caron]

why choose one or the other? can both not be implemented? :)

[Jason S]

Tab Menu is indeed very cool,

Can also get primitives and things in a flash!

Yet as discussed at SiCommunity,
the new nodes show up somewhere in the tree (unselected so you cant 'F' it)
but at least they always show up at the same place.

Seemed to be SDK limitations (once again) as I understood it,
but best of luck at overcoming such limitations with your NodeSearchMenu Steven & Eric, you'd be lifesavers! :)

[Peter Agg]

Nope! All minor features must be distributed evenly across all packages! No sharing.

[Grahame Fuller]

Actually, ICE does have both grid snapping and Ctrl+R.

About group comments, I've pretty much stopped using them because of the problem with rearranging. I find it's better to just make a compound on the fly, and add a comment to that if necessary.

gray

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 01:52 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Maya 2014 Node editor features we've been wanting in ICE

why choose one or the other? can both not be implemented? :)

[Steven Caron]

i never use it, but its there! awesome

keep in mind, i wasn't arguing for snapping feature. it certainly was the least impressive feature of that maya node editor video.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Group comments are like embedded laTEX doco in your code. Something you do when everything is done, or close to, and in good order for somebody else to pick up, or to remind yourself of this or that hack or workaround or creating visual sets inside the graph.

It was never a very good comment on the fly thing, it would only become one if nodes could be tagged as part of a group comment with an ID that would resize to their screen BBox without having to be managed manually.

Compounds, however, I find are an even worse way to keep track of things while working in more cases than not.
The rigidity and messy-ness of port handling makes it so.

I have some default empty compounds with a number of pre-existing ports hooked to pass through nodes I load in for what you describe, and that kind of makes them useful to organize work while in progress, but the inability to view explode them without exploding the actual subgraph makes them tricky, especially when you start nesting.

A simple shortcut with ctrl _ mouse wheel in and ctrl + mouse wheel out to hover on a compound and explode/implode it temporarily only visually would go a million miles in those regards, as would auto-pass through nodes on ports to prevent the stupid inability to connect/disconnect them once connected, would save a lot of clutter.

All in all, ICE still works better than well as an editor. I've done a lot of work in ICE in the last couple years, some of the recent graphs I had to produce are nothing short of massive by any standard (talking hundreds of nodes and a painful level of discipline to keep things well over real-time involving all kind of hacky workarounds and manipulations), and very rarely I had some of the OMFG moments I've previously experience wrestling some hypergraph assemblies.

Maya was in sore need of this, and it will hopefully overcome its original "yet another view not quite fully replacing any" status soon, and then move on to get the fabled MayaFX engine for its evaluation.  That would make Maya not completely crap to use, and given the way things might go in the future, if I have to use Maya regularly again on my next job I would very much like it not to suck the same mileage of donkey penis it's inhaling currently :p

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Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

[Stefan Kubicek]

> also, we can't even get decent SDK functionality for the views so we can
> create this ourselves.

Right, that's the biggest problem for implementing any quick-search
utility atm.
All quick-search functionality (or menus for favorite nodes, as in the
Qmenu implementation) is mostly futile once you need to add nodes to a
dense ICE tree since there is no exposed functionality in the SDK to place
them at some distinct location or view coordinate - they simply get
dropped where ever Soft thinks is enough space to avoid node overlapping
in the tree, and that can be way off screen. All the precious time saved
to create the node quickly goes to waste searching for it in the tree
after creation. I added a feature req early during the 2014 beta for that
(basically suggesting to mimicing the Schematic View SDK functionality in
this respect) the but it didn't make it into the initial release, and I
don't have high hopes it will make it into SP1 either.
I even wrote to Chris directly about this very issue (sorry Chris, I know
I can be a PITA sometimes),
but got no response, maybe because it was just before the official
announcement of 2014 and everybody was busy.

Good things come to those who wait too I guess, just a little later...


--
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Stefan Kubicek
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keyvis digital imagery
Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
Phone: +43/699/12614231
www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at
-- This email and its attachments are --
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[Ciaran Moloney]

Also there's now way to be sure which of the open ICE trees the user wants to place a new node into. PITA.

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Stefan Kubicek <s...@tidbit-images.com> wrote:

also, we can't even get decent SDK functionality for the views so we can
create this ourselves.

Right, that's the biggest problem for implementing any quick-search utility atm.
All quick-search functionality (or menus for favorite nodes, as in the Qmenu implementation) is mostly futile once you need to add nodes to a dense ICE tree since there is no exposed functionality in the SDK to place them at some distinct location or view coordinate  - they simply get dropped where ever Soft thinks is enough space to avoid node overlapping in the tree, and that can be way off screen. All the precious time saved to create the node quickly goes to waste searching for it in the tree after creation. I added a feature req early during the 2014 beta for that (basically suggesting to mimicing the Schematic View SDK functionality in this respect) the but it didn't make it into the initial release, and I don't have high hopes it will make it into SP1 either.
I even wrote to Chris directly about this very issue (sorry Chris, I know I can be a PITA sometimes),
but got no response, maybe because it was just before the official announcement of 2014 and everybody was busy.

Good things come to those who wait too I guess, just a little later...

--
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               Stefan Kubicek
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           keyvis digital imagery

          Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3

[Stefan Kubicek]

If the target ICE Tree view is the one under the mouse there is a
semi-deterministic way via Pythons win32com extensions. Basically you need
to query the view under the mouse, get it's coordinates, compare it with
all other existing view's coordinates and take the one with the least
amount of difference in the coordinate values. This only fails if two
views have exactly the same screen coordinates (two floating views exactly
overlapping). It works pretty well (I never tried on Linux though) but as
you said, it's a PITA that we can't query the view object under the mouse
directly of course. I don't know how many times I kindly asked for that to
be added during the last 4 years ;-(

>> ------------------------------**-------------
>> Stefan Kubicek
>> ------------------------------**-------------
>> keyvis digital imagery
>> Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3

>> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>> Phone: +43/699/12614231
>> www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at
>> -- This email and its attachments are --
>> --confidential and for the recipient only--
>>
>>


--
-------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek
-------------------------------------------
keyvis digital imagery

Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3