What use is ICE really?

[Alastair Hearsum]

Folks

We had a chat with a senior chap at Autodesk. There was hint of surprise at one use of ICE that I mentioned in passing. I think we over estimate the understanding of what ICE gets used for and its all pervading usefulness. I'd like to invite people to share their ice work especially if its more obscure (without giving away your trade secrets obviously). Here are some starters for us. Please keep the explanations as short as possible to attract Autodesk to read them.

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/love
1) Fine feathers created totally with ice strands
2) Feather system created in ice
3) Cats fur : ice strands

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/tadpoles-master
1) Totally ice strand vegetation
2) Ice driven water surface
3) Render tadpoles have ice compound which auomatically detects the shot number and selects the correct cache

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/node/3266&search-type=brand&term=g-star
1) Ice creating the cotton balls unravelling

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/node/549
1) Ice crowd

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/transformation&search-type=brand&term=lg
1) Object IDs picked up in ice and use to assign materials of supermarket aisle items

https://vimeo.com/87096859
Some holes aesthetically
1) ice rigid body pens transferring their attributes to lagoa ice fluid melted pens
2)Ice fracturing bottle

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/strewth&search-type=brand&term=o
1) Intervened in Momentum ice plugin to extract vectors and modulate them

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/excess-baggage&search-type=brand&term=benylin
1) Hair created from scratch in ice strands including clumping

http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/summer-sport-0&search-type=brand&term=freeview
1) Ice rigid bodies combine with ice syflex and custom hand cooked verlet for the strings

And many many more.

--

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

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[olivier jeannel]

What's the point ? Understanding of Ice for Maya ?

[Alastair Hearsum]

Correction


http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/model-britain&search-type=brand&term=talk
1) Ice crowd

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 867290000)

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[Alastair Hearsum]

The point is to get Autodesk to understand the power and all pervading nature of ICE and for that to inform their development of Bifrost

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 867290000)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.

DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system.

[Oscar Juarez]

It might help with the transition time period with support and bug fixing, it's a tool that is not available in another Autodesk software, it's a point for consideration on the transition period.

[Matt Morris]

When I first heard about ICE I thought it was just for particles, but its speeded up my character rigging workflow massively.

https://vimeo.com/50523730

Video showing a set of shapes automatically connected to face controls, and secondary deformers (dorritos) added, all in ice. (bit older, scuse the capture quality)

https://vimeo.com/77202592

Extending and reusing that work for these guys, also all the hair was ice (kristinka).

--
www.matinai.com

[Artur Woźniak]

We tried that for the last couple of years. Ice was self promoting and self evolving entity that seemed to be a splinter in the Autodesk's eye.

I think Ice was the most amazing feature that was developed within the Main Three and yet they still marketed the viewcube and viewport 2 to simplify the comparison.

I don't thing there is any chance of communication parallel (can I say that?) between Autodesk and the community. They killed it and now they only keep kicking the corpse while everybody watches.

I will stay with SI for as long as I can. I will use Maya, learn C4D and Houdini (modo I know a bit already), but I say, let move on. I don't want fake promises just to be disappointed again. You wanna talk to someone who listens (The Foundry, SideFX).

Artur

[Dan Yargici]

Shall we just keep this thread for it's original purpose and not turn it into a discussion?  i.e. posting work with descriptions of how ICE was used.

DAN

[Sofronis Efstathiou]

These excellent videos by Mr Sale have been invaluable for students looking to create their facial rigs. We have built on these and it’s been great. Really powerful stuff – and very, very artist friendly, especially as a number of our students are from a non-3D backgrounds – i.e. sculptors, graphic designers, painters, illustrators, 2D animators etc.

 

http://vimeo.com/26980409

 

http://vimeo.com/26996037

 

And the rest - http://vimeo.com/thejoncrow/videos/page:6/sort:date

 

By the way, thanks for making these available Adam – really appreciated!

 

Cheers

 

Sofronis Efstathiou
 
Postgraduate Framework Leader and BFX Competition & Festival Director

Computer Animation Academic Group

National Centre for Computer Animation

Email: sefst...@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Tel: +44 (0) 1202 965805

 

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Morris
Sent: 21 March 2014 11:39
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: What use is ICE really?

 

When I first heard about ICE I thought it was just for particles, but its speeded up my character rigging workflow massively.

 

https://vimeo.com/50523730

Video showing a set of shapes automatically connected to face controls, and secondary deformers (dorritos) added, all in ice. (bit older, scuse the capture quality)

 

https://vimeo.com/77202592

Extending and reusing that work for these guys, also all the hair was ice (kristinka).

 

 

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[Perry Harovas]

I understand the feelings you have Artur, but I agree with Dan in that we should keep this thread for it's purpose as started by Alastair.

With that in mind:

-Inter-object communication that can be used to extract things like contact maps, deformations, thickness and curvature to drive shading effects.

-The ability to read data from ICE into the renderer(s) and use that to control mixing of materials or lighting effects

-Debugging as a way to find the min/max of a range needed to achieve an effect

-Custom geometry deformers, with things like "Test Inside Geometry" or "Test Inside Null" or "Has Collided", etc.

--

Perry Harovas
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com

[Jacob Gonzalez]

Besides the all the amazing stuff you can do with (like some stuff Alistair has mentioned), ICE is also great to convert simple but tedious "everyday tasks" into flexible/easy to tweak workflows:

An small example: right now I am lighting a Stadium. So instead of placing rows of lights manually (both the geo and the actual arnold_spot_light) I populate the lights with ICE (simply emitting from a curve). I make changes to the setup very fast.

The traditional way would be: the modeller places all the lights by hand, and I place all the light sources by hand. And every change we make, we change every thing by hand........Even with a Python script will never as fast/ flexible and re-usable as with ICE!

A small, simple example but it makes my day :)

J

[Alastair Hearsum]

sorry our website isn't playing ball. Its the wrong link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZZOUq-FoG0
1) ice crowd

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 867290000)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.

DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system.

[Juan Brockhaus]

Hi,

totally agree with Jacob.

can't talk about the project at the moment, but...

I'm building shapes/objects made out of dominoes. I made different compounds to stack and pile dominoes in different ways and methods. And if the shapes/objects I have to create (and even the domino) change, it is all instantly updated.
Only right at the end I add a Sim node and the whole things collapses... (obviously controlled with nulls, forces, etc...) The Sim is the last 5% of what I use ICE for.

and another non-sim-ICE use example

http://www.themill.com/work/qoros/shredder.aspx

in most shots ICE to shred the car, keep rendernormals intact, bind HiRes to LowRes, etc (no sim, this is all hand animated...)

Juan

[David Barosin]

Here's a little personal indulgence.  An ICE mazes generator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfiBD9DnnjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR5X_mOFWKE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z3KCrf4Zbo

It was a great feeling to finally do something off the clock.  Softimage still gets me excited and is a big part of why I enjoy what I do.

Thanks Alastair for suggesting this. 

[Paul Griswold]

I typically use ICE for motion graphics.  I try to avoid simulation as much as possible so I can have artistic control over the results.

To me, fluid simulation is the absolute last thing I would be interested in or need.

-Paul

[Adam Seeley]

Maybe a look through the rray site would help to see the number of ways it's been used as well.
There used to be a way of filtering to just show ICE related entries but I can't see it there anymore.

http://www.rray.de/xsi/

The open beauty of ICE of course is that you can dig down into the compounds, cut bits out, replace bits, extract bits for use else where, combine trees and all so easily.
The fact that people can adapt research papers into open compounds that remain open and accesible is amazing.

If AD can create an equivalent in Maya in a nice Humanizzzed interface by the time Soft finally shuffles of it's mortal coil, then super-duper and yippee.
That seems to exist in Soft already of course, but that's another thread.

Adam.

_____________________

http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamseeleyuk
https://vimeo.com/adamseeley

---

From: Alastair Hearsum <hea...@glassworks.co.uk>
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Sent: Friday, 21 March 2014, 11:19

Subject: Re: What use is ICE really?

[Paul Doyle]

Sorry if it was already linked, but there's a nice vimeo group for ICE videos here: https://vimeo.com/groups/ice

Shows a lot of work as well as plugins and other capabilities.

[Ed Manning]

I can't speak for them, but as an occasional freelancer at PSYOP, I can say that some of their best/coolest work was critically dependent on ICE.  Maybe one of the guys from there could add specific, official examples (hint, hint)?

[Sebastian Kowalski]

http://www.sekow.com/subaru_carparts

„vegetation“ system, rigs (character, flowers, camera), instancing galore, procedural aov management and so many more.. whole job would not been possible without ICE.

http://www.sekow.com/catrice_color

more ’traditional’ simulation. dust, fluids and shatter.. additional render support 

but again, crucial in scene management. 

http://www.sekow.com/kaercher_breeze

dirt, bubbles and some fluids

http://www.sekow.com/schwab_rollover

pseudo swarm behavior and modeling

http://www.sekow.com/anz

neural networks out of strands, completely direct-able, no simulation involved at all.

https://vimeo.com/89426397

post it setup, stop motion behavior .. technical animation

there is so much more, I use it every friggin day. the most fun I have lately is in building whole scene management systems using just string type nodes.

the tight relationship to the render tree.. damn I could cry

.sebastian

——— 

http://www.sekow.com

[Emilio Hernandez]

Rigging

Shapes
https://vimeo.com/84282621

https://vimeo.com/56920748

https://vimeo.com/56543471

https://vimeo.com/56799629

Tools
https://vimeo.com/83064545

Cheers

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Morten Bartholdy]

Great initiative Alastair.

 

While I can't offer examples of ingenious ways to make good use of ICE - many others here can - I will take the opportunity to advocate for not only developing Bifrost to work in a similar fashion to ICE, but also take it one step further for those of us less technically inclined.

 

I love ICE, use Mootzoid and Exocortex plugins regularly and probably generally use ICE on 80-90% of my productions, one way or another, so don't get me wrong here. It is however also a fact that I spend way too much time trying to do stuff that should be very easy, but failing to do so because of context mismatches and incompatible data types, like when I want to use pointcloud data on a polygonal mesh or the other way around. Handling and controlling orientation comes to mind too - this has often taken too much time when all I want to do is something similar to the UI constraints, with choice of axis for orientation constraints etc.

 

So in order to make more of the (hopefully coming) power of Bifrost available to less technical artists, I would suggest to go further in creating higher level control nodes too, but certainly not sacrificing the low level access to the nuts and bolts for those who understand this.

 

Hoping I am not the only one wishing for something like this, I realize it would be a fase 4 in the Bifrost rollout :)

 

 

Morten

[Alastair Hearsum]

Great stuff

Keep it all coming everyone


A

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 867290000)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.

DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system.

[Morten Bartholdy]

I think the Polynoid guys are too busy to post, but big parts of their work is heavily ICE driven. I mention them spefically because they were so kind to give me access to a strand setup they used for this: 

 

http://www.polynoid.tv/infiniti-blue-essence/

I used it for creating similar flowy glowing energy streaks for a logo animation, which I can't show here as it is not released yet, but I talked to some Maya people here who said they had no idea how to do something like that and it would probably require a very skilled scripter/coder for Maya :)

 

 

Morten

[gareth bell]

We've been able to read hand animated objects in to an ICE pointcloud to enable easy transferral of hundreds of objects animations into a render scene on a single pointcloud; making a considerably simpler rendering setup.

ICE is great for lazy people like me ;)

---

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 13:11:27 +0000
From: hea...@glassworks.co.uk
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: What use is ICE really?

[Juan Brockhaus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-mwwnGLoZpw#t=23

the timelapse animation build up of all the houses/buildings/people was ICE driven. (only cranes were hand animated)

we seriously couldn't tell the clients that it took literally minutes to change the timing of the whole shot...

they would have changed it all the time ;-)

Juan

[Nick Angus]

Johnnie Walker: Ice scattering of objects, spice particle sims, tree leaves/fruit.

https://vimeo.com/album/2447847/video/50901027

 

Qantas: Water droplets and rain sims

https://vimeo.com/album/2447847/video/50901027

 

Abbotts: Grass, Oat particles stuck to bread, oat sims

https://vimeo.com/album/2447847/video/61127819

 

Ubank: Debris/paper, luggage, falling branches, snow impacts

https://vimeo.com/album/2447847/video/37924795

 

Nissin Polar Bears: All fur done with ICE, plus snow footprints displaced at rendertime using ICE data

https://vimeo.com/83473492

 

Cadbury: chocolate swirl, balloons

https://vimeo.com/65947988

 

And heaps more I can’t even remember

 

Cheers, Nick

[Ilija Brunck]

Hello everybody,

first of all, we are sorry about the absence in the last weeks. We've been super busy and it was hard to even find time to read through all the things going on here.

So maybe this is also a good time for a first general comment on the whole (quite sad) situation: 

We as a studio will for sure keep using Softimage over the coming years and not switch to another package. Besides all the sadness about the death of Softimage we see something good in the whole situation. We are quite sure all this creates lots of potential for innovation and that something great will come out of this. 

For us at the moment we are super happy with our pipeline and see little need for change. We'll carefully watch everything that's happening and will try to play a part in the development of the better things to come.

So, to comment on Projects done with ICE: Basically I can say we use it heavily in every project we are doing and I can without doubt say that we could not produce the work we do without ICE. Here's a couple of examples:

http://www.polynoid.tv/loom/

- All the spiderweb, the whole second abstract part of the film, fur and much more

http://www.polynoid.tv/infiniti-blue-essence/

- all ICE besides the car

http://www.polynoid.tv/mtv-ema-2011/

- effects, crowds, geometry distribution/creation, animation

http://www.polynoid.tv/lenovo-thinkpad/

- the carbon

http://www.polynoid.tv/fud/

- all ice.snow stuff, all cortana elements and much more

http://www.polynoid.tv/mtv-idol/

- crowds / effects

http://www.woodblock.tv/project/crime-investigation-ice/

- animation / effects

http://www.woodblock.tv/project/dragon-eternity/

- crowds / effects / animation 

As I said, for us it's an absolutely necessary tool in our pipeline and we can not imagine going back to a pre ICE world.

All the best from Berlin,

Ilija

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Morten Bartholdy <x...@colorshopvfx.dk> wrote:

I think the Polynoid guys are too busy to post, but big parts of their work is heavily ICE driven. I mention them spefically because they were so kind to give me access to a strand setup they used for this: 

 

http://www.polynoid.tv/infiniti-blue-essence/

I used it for creating similar flowy glowing energy streaks for a logo animation, which I can't show here as it is not released yet, but I talked to some Maya people here who said they had no idea how to do something like that and it would probably require a very skilled scripter/coder for Maya :)

 

 

Morten

 

 

 

 

--
Ilija Brunck

+573183232393 
+491773402874
il...@polynoid.tv
www.polynoid.tv

[pa...@bustykelp.com]

Some of my stuff

 

Making a renderer

https://vimeo.com/20648346

 

remapping topology

https://vimeo.com/43532240

 

transferring deformation to different topology

https://vimeo.com/26116783

 

image manipulation

https://vimeo.com/33588786

 

texture instance flow

https://vimeo.com/37304814

 

facial mocap solver

https://vimeo.com/40589904

 

muscles

https://vimeo.com/43913057

 

applying corrective shapes

https://vimeo.com/67402407

 

space invaders

https://vimeo.com/75699841

 

tree maker

https://vimeo.com/76144838

forest maker

https://vimeo.com/76411577

 

fur system

https://vimeo.com/80382153

 

anatomical deformation

https://vimeo.com/88245138

 

 

 

 

[Toonafish]

Ha ! I was just thinking Paul should post his ICE renderer video :-)

- Ronald

[Andy Goehler]

That sounds interesting, care to give me a hint?

Andy

On Mar 21, 2014, at 13:58, Sebastian Kowalski <li...@sekow.com> wrote:

procedural aov management

[Emilio Hernandez]

Another one

https://vimeo.com/83324855

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Chris Marshall]

These are actually particle tests but I thought looked interesting as experiments

--

Chris Marshall

Mint Motion Limited

029 20 37 27 57

07730 533 115

www.mintmotion.co.uk

[Chris Marshall]

Ah I appear to have posted nothing!

Sorry about that. Here are the links

https://vimeo.com/36448859

https://vimeo.com/37270403

https://vimeo.com/77203638

https://vimeo.com/76951979

https://vimeo.com/12483521

https://vimeo.com/7937077

[Ed Manning]

Some tests --

ICE modeling, animation, procedural "lighting" (I guess it's technically texturing)

https://vimeo.com/82347039

https://vimeo.com/79642973

https://vimeo.com/78064818

[olivier jeannel]

Chris, Some of them are 4 years ago, and still so inspirative !

[Ed Manning]

And although they include a lot of what's been mentioned, you get a real sense of the scope of things people do with ICE by looking here:

https://vimeo.com/groups/ice

https://vimeo.com/search/page:2/sort:relevant/format:thumbnail?q=softimage+ice

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=softimage%20ice&sm=3

Sort of a pity that it took something like the current crisis to get people from Autodesk to be aware of these things...

[Jeffrey Dates]

I think it would be an amusing exercise to do a comparison of technique and workflow for these projects.   What would it take to do the SAME effect in Maya!?

Side by side.  It would show how one framework is capable of so much more than 'just particles'.   Maya will have to tap every corner of it's toolset to achieve the same effects..  If it even can in all cases.

[Chris Marshall]

Thanks Olivier,
This was how I leared ICE, experiment experiment experiment. Some of these techniques have ended up in actual jobs, some not.

[Jonah Friedman]

Wow, where do I start? Every time there's a challenge or a problem, I reach for ICE. Virtually every project I've worked on over the last three years at Psyop NY has made use of ICE in at least some minor way, and most projects in a really major way.

By no means a complete list, and I'm absolutely not giving credit to enough people....

Also I want to stress that while this is mostly a list of things I worked on, a lot of the ICE tasks listed on here were NOT done by me. 

LG:

http://www.psyop.tv/lg-somethings-lurking/

This one takes me back. One of my first big ICE projects. ICE dust sharks, ice strands for carpet fibers, ice disintegration of dust sharks. 

JBL: 

http://www.psyop.tv/jbl-ear-of-the-tornado/

Infinite high detail ground plane was made using a hex tile system created in ICE. Tornado was simulated in houdini by Miguel but the particles were modified for rendering in ICE and rendered in Soft. 

Wolfenstein:

http://www.psyop.tv/bethesda-wolfenstein-the-new-order/

Blackbody emission sparks that instance lights to approximate the illumnation coming from the sparks. All the rain of course. ICE based tangents everywhere to control a ward shader. Also water surface that came from naiad was used to advect a bunch the oil slicks. 

Coke Zero:

http://www.psyop.tv/coke-zero-2012-coke-zero/

Our whole own crowd system which works in ICE, called BigAssCrowd. It works by playing back looking animations in any particular order using time instancing, and it knows where attachment points are for heads, hands, etc and so can instance big foam finger or foam cowboy hats on everything. 

Whole custom crowd system, built in 2 weeks together with Dave Barosin. 

Morrisons:

http://www.psyop.tv/morrisons-guest/

Cracking of the ginger bread man works via a tangent based tension map that creates data for stretching only along the tangent. In areas where stretching happens along the tangent, a displacement map of cracks against the tangent are turned on. We also had an artist control for biasing the tension, with interactive artist feedback. 

Development time: half day for proof of concept, 1.5 days for production version

On top of that there's all the various snow in the air, snow on the ground, glitter, and tons of crumbs and sugar crystals on the ginger bread guy. 

Also the bird used Ruffle, our entirely ICE based feather system which uses ICE to instance feathers that are made.. out of strands generated by ICE.

Telstra:

http://www.psyop.tv/telstra-big-night-in/

Made the Entwiner, which creates 3D knits entirely out of strands. The only downside was we had to re-model the characters using NURBs, and then deform those nurbs using the animation geometry. Those deformers were made in ICE, of course.

Mio:

http://www.psyop.tv/mio-nose-job/

Lots of mios. ICE feathers by Todd Akita in this one, and ICE haircuts. Lots of little ICE things too, like deforming render geometry with animation geometry, deforming softimage hair growing geometry with animation geometry. 

3M Post Its:

http://digitalcanvas.co/2014/03/05/digital-canvas-interviews-psyop/

Everything is an instance. Not sure how to even approach this job without a porgrammable procedural instancer. 

Fanta Waterfall:

http://www.psyop.tv/fanta-waterfall/

I didn't personally work on this, and these avatar jungles show what a couple people who were using ICE for almost the first time can pull of. 

Friskies:

http://www.psyop.tv/friskies-alice/

ICE instancing and Ruffle feathers everywhere. 

Anyway I can't complete this list because I have to get some work done today. It's hard to think of an area of work ICE hasn't touched. It's been amazing for us and the idea of losing it is very painful.

[Ed Manning]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jeffrey Dates <jda...@kungfukoi.com> wrote:

I think it would be an amusing exercise to do a comparison of technique and workflow for these projects.   What would it take to do the SAME effect in Maya!?

Side by side.  It would show how one framework is capable of so much more than 'just particles'.   Maya will have to tap every corner of it's toolset to achieve the same effects..  If it even can in all cases.

And many of these were done by artists who would never think of themselves as TDs or even script writers -- certainly any Maya solutions to most of these challenges would require scripting ability at a minimum, and probably a significant amount of work by bona fide TDs, possibly hard-coding nodes.

 

 

[Rob Chapman]

here is less traditional ICE particle stuff of mine

https://vimeo.com/85980324   - testing MR mila shaders with displacent - geometry provided by ICE

https://vimeo.com/83380348 - OPen VDB ICE nodes making a procedural cloud

https://vimeo.com/82245823 - diffuse reaction on a 2D Ice grid

https://vimeo.com/76553500 - Ice spring force constraint

https://vimeo.com/58959437 - strands growing random walks

https://vimeo.com/57583956 - converting Disney SeExpr into Ice nodes

https://vimeo.com/52592684 - faking mie scatter on geometry with a 1 high pixel hdri file

list goes on. ICE is not just particles!

[Jeffrey Dates]

Agreed Ed.

The fact ICE is accessible to generalists to do advanced technical FX without a TD, or scripting, is lost on Autodesk I'm afraid.

[Ed Manning]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Jeffrey Dates <jda...@kungfukoi.com> wrote:

Agreed Ed.

The fact ICE is accessible to generalists to do advanced technical FX without a TD, or scripting, is lost on Autodesk I'm afraid.

It certainly has been until now.  Perhaps if we keep clubbing them with it while we seem to have their attention... 

[Mirko Jankovic]

And after all of these  examples Softimage and with it ICE are axed leaving empty space for time when bifrost maybe some day will get near to it but juding by analysis from a lot of much more experienced people that will actually never happen and despite being hgih above eveything on evloutionary scle it will hit the wall and die off along with Softimage.... :(

[Stephen Davidson]

I haven't seen Zybrand Jacobs posting here, so I thought I should

post this:

https://vimeo.com/48832905

...a very useful set of grass growing Ice compounds

--

Best Regards,
  Stephen P. Davidson 
       (954) 552-7956
    sdav...@3Danimationmagic.com

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

                                                                             - Arthur C. Clarke

[Paul Griswold]

Someone PLEASE save all of this for the (hopeful) SIGGRAPH Softimage booth!  

[Stephen Davidson]

I have to ask.... Are you saying that AD doesn't know the value of ICE added to Softimage,

or they don't know the value of ICE being added to another one of their products?

If it is the later, then I would not be interested in helping AD with their product development.

They have already said, over and over, that Softimage is EOL. I think we are beating a

dead horse. If they don't know the value of what they killed, then so be it.

[Dan Yargici]

Can I suggest again that we keep this thread for it's intended purpose and not turn it into a discussion...

DAN

[Juan Brockhaus]

+1 Dan!

...and remember that Qatar job we did, where you populated the whole Stadium surrounding with Lights, Scaffolding, Structures, etc with ICE?
;-)

[pet...@skynet.be]

a few situations I remember where I found ICE to be an unexpected lifesaver:

-

Recreating these cartoon characters for a series – there were certain handdrawn traits in the concept art, to evoke certain materials. There was no straightforward 3D solution, not possible to model or rig it, the usual fur and particles was totally inappropriate for this, it ended up not looking good and creating rendertime overhead - and there was a hundred or so shots to do with up to 5 characters.

Roto-drawing (which the studio is experienced in ) the traits on top of the rendered animation was considered but not feasible for the time and budget. The client was ready to abandon it in order to get the production out of the door.

Using ICE I could generate those traits dynamically on the animated characters, respecting the way they were drawn in the concepts, with temporal consistency, and by transferring certain attributes from the surface to shaders I could seamlessly blend them with the underlying surface – and it’s very particular cartoony look.

Several weeks worth of estimated manual labor, which would also totally screw the shot’s workflow, ended up being a single evening for making an ICE setup – copy and paste onto a few bodyparts on the characters – done.

Thanks to reference models and the passes system, not a single thing had to be done per shot - all of which were already broken out and set up for rendering. The next iteration of the renders had the drawn traits at no extra cost. The producer didn’t understand how we had managed to get all the work done – thought we’d outsourced it to asia overnight.

-

I had to create this videowall/set (a grid of cubes and lights) that was dynamically changing. The idea was to have this set come alive, reacting to a videoclip – cubes rotation and scaling - doing waves and transitions and what not – only, there was no clip, no timing, nothing. I ended up generating and animating it in ICE, with states, probabilities, some logic nodes, driven with a handfull of nulls for different events. The whole thing non destructive, the timing totally adaptable.

What looked like a week of work to animate at least (a 5 minute sequence) and involving some complex setups, and was going to be totally unflexible, doing carefully timed and offset keyframes on hundreds of nulls  – took just a day and a half – and could be extended upon on a whim. I was kind of sad when it was over – as I found I only scratched the surface of what could be done.

-

I had to visualise a complex scenic setup - think of holographic projections, made up of suspended chains of ledlights – each on a rig – interacting with water - representing “ghosts” – all doing a choreography.

After thinking a bit of some shortcuts to illustrate the concept - which was all the client really needed - I ended up generating the whole thing “as is” – in ICE of course.  Every single led as a capsule particle, it’s light turning on or off – hundreds of chains, many thousands of leds – driven by volumes. I could even easily change the resolution of the whole system – to see how detailed the holographic image was going to be. How many LEDs would be needed and how much detail could be represented with them. Another of those “this is going to take so much time to do in 3D” setups that ends up being very simple in ICE.

 

Oh – sorry for digressing – just need bullet points.

 

“Complex interactive and dynamic, technical, procedural setups, done in a fraction of the time, requiring no TD skills” That’s what ICE is for me.

Particles, FX - that’s only scratching the surface of it – it’s applications are everywhere.

[Stephen Davidson]

my apologies.

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 12:28 PM, Dan Yargici <danya...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can I suggest again that we keep this thread for it's intended purpose and not turn it into a discussion...

DAN

[Jason S]

(I think this deserves to have it's own root, was in "Re: What use is ICE really?" )

[Bradley Gabe]

ICE driving custom deforms and shapes over Face Robot

http://vimeo.com/23593380

3 artists. 3 weeks.

[Bradley Gabe]

And a hundred other bizarre little experiments, unexpected projects, and clever hacks including:

• Rubik's cube solver
• Automated insect walk cycle
• Flocking behavior
• Motion analysis for muscle firing
• Real time performance capture interpolation
• Stop motion animation filter
• Theoretical biology experiments
• Bio-macromolecular modeling
• Logic-based constraint behavior
• Envelope volume retention
• Logic-based animation mixer switching
• MRI data interpolation
• Custom match moving rig
• UV mapping operators
• image to volume model interpolation
• image meta data parser (using pixel color values to precisely control texture distribution onto instances)

In summary, ICE is what made technical CG work fun again.

[Nils Engler]

Folding Paper
http://schnellhammer.net/blog/2011/06/skoda-paperworld/

Cutting and Disconnecting Geometry
http://vimeo.com/35326491

Semi-Automated Lighting Workflow using LIDAR Data and HDR Images
http://vimeo.com/81807399
http://vimeo.com/86325379

[Tim Crowson]

Am I the only one who finds it bizarre that we should illustrate to AD
why ICE is cool? Shouldn't the applications of its product be well-known
to them, considering the decision to kill it? I'm not saying this to be
facetious...but shouldn't they, as the entity that develops and
maintains it, be aware of how it has been used, and aware of the
capabilities of their own software?

Alastair, was the question posed because the person you spoke with was
genuinely unaware of what their product (ICE) does? Say it ain't so. "We
bought this and developed it, but we don't really know what it is..."

-Tim

[John Richard Sanchez]

The answer is self evident.

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Tim Crowson]

No I don't think it is. I know people are pissed off, but still...

Alastair is the one who reported the chat in the first place, so I'm just curious to get more info about the statements made by the AD rep. Was he asking this because he didn't know, or because he did know but was merely encouraging us to make a point?

-Tim

--

 

 

[Jean-Louis Billard]

I keep asking myself if anyone at Autodesk even considers the possibility that they might have made a big mistake?


Anyway, here’s some ICE stuff:

https://vimeo.com/68035569 — Neural network creation
https://vimeo.com/64077456 — ICE used to control the boat movement on the water, as well as for all the boat rigging and sails simulation
https://vimeo.com/60450003 — Used to create and then explode the ice…
https://vimeo.com/43619675 — ICE used for the grass, but also for a cobbled-stone-road-designer compound
https://vimeo.com/30435359 — Used for the crosshatching as well as some other inking
https://vimeo.com/14934033 — ICE strands
https://vimeo.com/89426397 — Post-its generated and controlled in ICE (you’ll likely have seen it in another thread)

Obviously ICE is also used in “invisible” ways in many other jobs, making things work behind the scenes.

Jean-Louis

Jean-Louis Billard

Digital Golem
BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563
UK: +44 (0) 7973 660 119
jean-...@digitalgolem.com
http://www.digitalgolem.com/
53 Rue Gustave Huberti
1030 Brussels

[Bk]

We should make an edit of all this ice work into a 2-3 mins showcase. That would really ram home the point.. Call it "what is ice?"

[Ed Manning]

On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 5:03 PM, Bk <pa...@bustykelp.com> wrote:

We should make an edit of all this ice work into a 2-3 mins showcase. That would really ram home the point.. Call it "what is ice?"

Agree, but I think we'd need more like 20 minutes to even scratch the surface.

 

[Jason S]

ICE  (a relatively friendly way to deal with otherwise complex stuff ) touches soo many things,
and is tied to the most versatile (and itself very fiendly) DCC app out there.

My god... how long will it take... (!?)

 Shallow Water SimAuthor: Gustavo Eggert Boehsupdated osAll ICEmisc scene fluids updated, osAll, ICEmisc, scene, fluids

Disclaimer: This is from the resourcedump thread on si-community.com so »some restrictions may apply« (but usually don't)

For those in the need to simulate SIMPLE water interactions FAST this is a shallow (2d) water simulator coupled with Lagoa, so it does not look toooooo cheap. It cant do curls and rolling waves, but it will spit some Lagoa particles for your viewing pleasure :D. It served quite well on a little student short, so maybe it can help others. I would love to keep working in it but no time for it, so here it goes [..]

Continue reading in the resourcedump thread linked above. Related: »Water Surface« by Felix Gebhard (moved below).

local backup: mFlow.scn

author site: http://gustavoeb.com.br

 Positive Mean Value Coordinates DeformationsAuthor: Ahmidou LyazidiosAll deformer ICEmisc workflow osAll, deformer, ICEmisc, workflow

A new ICE based cage defomer utilizing positive mean value coordinates (PMVC) resulting in a deformation with superior quality to that of the factory/legacy cage deformers. (PMVC is described in this Eurographics paper by Yaron Lipman et al.).

One requirements has to be met which is that the deformed object must be fully enclosed by the cage object.

local backup: PMVC_deformer.xsiaddon

author on vimeo / -community thread / An older but related thread on the »area«

 

 Silhouette Edge Drawing – AlphaAuthor: Jakob SchindeggerosAll ICEmisc strands osAll, ICEmisc, strands

A technique by VFX designer/director Jakob Schindegger, employing ICE to draw sketchy ink lines following the contour of a polygon mesh object. Research based on papers such as Artistic Silhouettes: A Hybrid Approach and Object Space Silhouette Algorithms.

Currenly in alpha with the following author warnings: Performance problems when used on meshes with a higher polycount temporal consistency not yet implemented.

For example images and tree setup instructions, see the download page — link below.

local backup: fak_SED.xsiaddon

author site: http://www.fakob.com / download: /2013/silh...development/

 Cable through SurfacesAuthor: unknownosAll ICEmisc strands osAll, ICEmisc, strands

Disclaimer: This is from the resourcedump thread on si-community.com so »some restrictions may apply« (but usually don't)

This plugin spotted by si-community user caledonian tartan: A small modification of the »Bezier Movement along Surfaces« compound. unfortunately i can't remember who was the author of this source... anyway, you can now use the new compound to create strands by/through many surfaces.

local backup: Cable through Surfaces.xsicompound

author link: n/a

 emReader 1.2Author: Eric MootzosAll ICEparticle ICEmisc osAll, ICEparticle, ICEmisc

From Eric's newly designed Mootzoid site: emReader is a procedural item which loads indexed geometry cache files. The geometry cache files are only referenced (instead of imported) and directly passed to the renderer when needed. The plugin consists of a kit that contains a "lx" file (Windows 64bit) for Modo 601 and above.

Some features: Quick loading and rendering of indexed geometry cache files without the need to import them Animatable file index (e.g. to make timewarps or reverse the sequence) Loads motion vectors (scalable), normal vectors and texture coordinates, if available.

Supported file formats: RealFlow .bin Wavefront .obj Softimage's factory Polygonizer .emp2 Mootzoid .emp2 (compatible with emPolygonizer3) Mootzoid .mzd (compatible with emPolygonizer4 and emTopolizer)

Post-load effects: Fix double edges Fix non-manifold edges Close holes Push Smooth Thickness Triangulation Quadrangulation

author site: http://www.mootzoid.com / download: /plugin/emreader

 LK FabricAuthor: Leonard KochosAll strands ICEmisc compilation fabric osAll, strands, ICEmisc, compilation, fabric

A large toolset of over 50 nodes for creating/animating the creation of fabric down to the threads and even to the fiber level. introduction video.

[..] it supports motionblur, strand-texturing directly in ICE, fabric flowing over multiple surfaces and many more things. This tool has come out of a series of commercials for Nike, which I got to work on at Royale this summer. They have graciously allowed me to share this tool-set with the community. Major thanks for that! Big thanks also go to Billy Morrison, Ciaran Moloney, Steven Caron and Andy Moorer who provided pages and pages of feedback during production and then used the tools to create all the pretty images.

Andy did a nice write-up about the production on the Softimage-mailing-list [..] (continue reading on the download page)

Watch these two spots on vimeo which are extensively featuring this plugin: Nike Tech Fleece / Nike Evolution.

author link: http://leonardkoch.com / download: /blog/2013/10/9/new-plugin-lk-fabric / -community thread

 FuzzAuthor: Paul SmithosAll strands python osAll, strands, python

A set of compounds along with a script that automates the setup of this ICE based system for realistic fur. Features automatic flow computation from a starting selection of points, as well as paintable ridges (matting effect) and clumping of the fur.

After the initial application, the fur remains configurable, including curved based modification of the flow. This plugin is a good example of how to use scripting to deploy ICE based tools for users that don't have a deep knowledge of ICE. On the same topic, have a look at Paul's ongoing scripting tutorial series on his vimeo channel.

Post any renders you create with this plugin in the si-community thread linked below. Also available: An introduction video (with a tip bucket).

local backup: fuzz.zip (follow the included instructions to install)

author site: http://www.bustykelp.com / vimeo channel / download @dropbox / -community thread

 ns_ThreadFromCurveAuthors: Niclas Schlapmann / Vincent Ullmannupdated osAll strands workflow fabric updated, osAll, strands, workflow, fabric

Niclas shares this compound resulting from following Vincent's tutorial »Strands from Strands«, which shows how to dynamically create strands following another strand which is created following the source curve object.

Demo video.

local backup: ns_ThreadFromCurve.xsicompound.

author site: http://www.enoni.de / download: /wordpress_v2/blog-2/downloads

 Convert between Mesh and UVAuthor: Sakana-Ya aka GOTETZosAll ICEmisc shadingworkflow deformer osAll, ICEmisc, shadingworkflow, deformer

Similar to ringpull's »UV Edit by Mesh« but utilizing ICE, the first of these two compounds converts a mesh into a flat representation of itself using the existing UV coordinates, disconnecting edges if neccessary.

The second compound allows to transfer the flat shape back as UVs to the original mesh, allowing in-viewport UV editing, and possibly opening up a lot more potential applications. Video introduction.

local backup: Convert Mesh to UV.xsicompound / Convert UV to Mesh.xsicompound (drag and drop from netview to an ICE tree)

author's vimeo channel / site: http://artifacts.sakura.ne.jp/sakanaya/works / blog: http://gotetz-log.blogspot.jp

 Strand Collision FrameworkAuthor: Mathias NordskogosAll ICEmisc strands scene osAll, ICEmisc, strands, scene

This set of ICE nodes simulates inter-strand collisions as well as strand self-collisions. Fwiw the author declares it to be in a »useable enough« state — see the demonstration video to get an impression of its speed, stability.

[..] Usage should be largely self-explanatory, with the zip containing a number of example scenes. The length correction factor before collision takes place corresponds to the bidirectional length correction in the original strand dynamics framework. Think of it was a wobbliness factor. A lot of the compounds have a Range input. These compounds are driven by various values, usually the collision force. We divide the input by the range value and clamp it between 0 and 1, so a range of 10 and an input value of 1 would give you 0.1, or a 10% effect. The lower the range the stronger the effect, with 0 disabling it completely.

Read more in the thread linked below, including usage and the limitations

local backup: StrandCollisionFramework.zip

author site: http://www.mayulive.com / download: /StrandCollisionFramework.zip / -community thread

 rsNonLinearShapesAuthor: rigstudio / Roberto Rubio CorralwinAll rigging python winAll, rigging, python

The shape animation produces a linear interpolation. With this tool you can create non linear shapes. This tool creates an ICE tree to manage the shape information. It is possible to add several non linear shapes to the same object. This tool is inspired on a procedure of Paul Smith: Arrays / Bezier Shape sequence.

Also have a look at the rigstudio team member's reels: Roberto Rubio, Juan Lara and Jaime Bescansa

local backup: rsNonLinearShape.zip (put in a plugins folder)

author site: http://rigstudio.com / download: /rsnonlinearshape / repository @github.com

 Impact CompoundAuthor: Tim MarinovosAll ICEmisc deformer scene osAll, ICEmisc, deformer, scene

This is a Softimage ICE compound that I made recently for a project and I decided to share it .I made a simple example what you can do with it and combination with XSI man and some softimage motion files :)

For the example I also used emFluid 5 beta witch is a great and very flexible fluid simulator.

Video available here. See the thread linked below for all the details.

local backup: Tim_Impact.xsicompound / Impact_demo.scn

author on vimeo

 Spherical Harmonics in ICEAuthor: Vladimir JankijevicosAll ICEmisc shadingworkflow cppsrc osAll, ICEmisc, shadingworkflow, cppsrc

Vladimir tests an application of spherical harmonics by using them to store a directional irradiance cache, subsequently using ICE to light the scene with global illumination inside the Softimage OGL viewport.

The primary motivation behind this, was to better understand what Spherical Harmonics were and how the math behind them works.

The scene in this video contains a polygon mesh which serves as environment. The lighting on the environment is calculated by an ICETree and contains only the direct component. Additionally the scene contains an Icosahedron which is used as the sampler. The evenly distributed points on the Icosahedron are used as direction vectors to shoot rays into the environment to calculate the Spherical Harmonic coefficients of the surrounding global illumination for each color channel separately. [..]

Continue reading here. This page also includes a video demostration.

local backup: SphericalHarmonics.xsiaddon (packaged for drag and drop)   spherical_harmonics.scn   sh_src.zip

author site: http://xsi.jankin.com

 Faster Polygon IslandsAuthor: Julian JohnsonosAll cppsrc ICEmisc scene osAll, cppsrc, ICEmisc, scene

This plugin identifies »polygons islands« — connected areas of a mesh and outputs the result as ICE data for further processing in one of 3 possible formats. This is a compiled operator, running faster than all current ICE implementations.

Eric Mootz's emTools has a suite of compounds to manipulate polygon islands with a particle cloud. They require a pre-calculated index array mapping vertices to their island index. Doing this in ICE directly is relatively slow - quite a bit of work has been done to get these ICE compounds as fast as possible (see Guillaume Laforge's original blog post and this thread on si-community.com) but a C++ ice node can usually run orders of magnitude faster. In the case of the node provided here it has proved to be as much as 10-15x faster than the ICE implementations (depending on the scene). I'm sure there's scope for more optimal C++ coding to make it faster still.

You can use the node to feed data into Eric's vertex island tools (sample scene in the .rar file, remember to install emTools first) or as a standalone utility node if you're manipulating islands in your own way. It takes geometry and point positions as inputs and can output the index array of points and their island index, a per point island index and an array of island centres. It's been compiled against 2013 SP1 64bit. Source code is included with the addon.

local backup: jj_Island_Indexer.1.0.0.xsiaddon   emTools_islands_combo.scn

author site: http://julianjohnsonsblog.blogspot.com / download: /2013/07/faster-polygon-islands.html

 Pavement CompoundAuthor: 2ndrealityosAll shader mentalray shadercompound ICEtopo private scatter osAll, shader, mentalray, shadercompound, ICEtopo, private, scatter

A scene including an ICE compound that places same-spaced rows of boxes or mesh instances between two curves.
 

 

local backup: pavement.xsicompoundp   ShaderCompoundPavement.xsirtcompound

author on vimeo / plugin on vimeo

 ICE KnittingAuthor: Nika RaguaosAll strands tutorialfiles scene fabric osAll, strands, tutorialfiles, scene, fabric

Downloadable files from Nika's online tutorial AKA its full name »3D knitting in softimage ICE retribution to Pingo - pain is temporary pride is forever )))« — recreating Pingo van der Brinkloev's cloth building approach from Cinema4D.
 

local backup: ice_knit_tut7.scn

author on vimeo / tutorial on vimeo

 LK Lightning 2.0Author: Leonard KochosAll strands ICEmisc commercial vegetation osAll, strands, ICEmisc, commercial, vegetation

Updated April 2013 — LK Lightning 2.0 is a major update of the LK Lightning toolset which gives the artist deep but user-friendly control over the creation of many types of strand systems (not only lightning effects but many things which can be created procedurally using strands like trees, algae, feathers, ivy). Just like the free previous version 1.51, even though this is a fully ICE based system, it is designed in a way so no previous knowledge of ICE is needed. Watch this video for an introduction of the new version features.

>From Leo's changelog page: Big changes: A new animation engine. Combining a more classical particle system workflow with LK Lightnings non-simulated nature. Completely revamped emitters. Housing most of the parameters for the new animation engine. Now allow for continuous emissions. Have much deeper control over the look and motion of the particles. Orientation controls added. The Orientation for Strands is now calculated. Gives you control over the Orientation for both particles and strands. Most values now per point instead of per object. This allows you to take control over behaviour on a per particle basis. A lot of randomization compounds specifically for LKL have been added to aid you in this. Mesher added. Gives you the ability to mesh strands or particles of any pointcloud. Allows you to render LK Lightning with any renderer, regardless of the depth of it's ICE support. Parameter and node renaming across the board. The naming scheme is now more in line with Softimage's usual terminology and also more internally consistent. [..]

LK Lightning 2.0 is available for €119 at Leo's website.

author link: http://leonardkoch.com/ / -community thread

 Legolize 0.2.1 betaAuthor: Ed SchifferosAll ICEparticle ICEmisc scatter osAll, ICEparticle, ICEmisc, scatter

Legolize 0.2 is a particle system inside Softimage ICE, created as a hobby. List of features :: Auto Construct slider, at random or uniform height Hollow trigger Transforms constraints Randomize rotation by 90o (useful when only one edge of the piece is beveled) Slight turbulence Offset in X and or Z Debug mode for the hollow effect You can change the input geometry's topology and the pieces won't jump around.

These below are NOT features, but useful tips that are shown in the video :: Define a color for the pieces from texture maps, vertex colors or randomize it by a gradient Delete pieces inside a null. UPDATE :: I've just made some modifications and released version 0.2.1, including the "Generate 3D Point Grid from Center" compound

Mentioned video demo to be found here. Also, a Gloob (Children's channel) bumper created with this compound.

local backup: Legolize.0.2.1.xsicompound   Generate 3D Point Grid from Center.xsicompoundp (needs to exist for the first compound to import correctly)

author site: http://edschiffer.com / author demo reel

 XOceanAuthor: Christian Schnellhammerwin64 ICEmisc scene fluids win64, ICEmisc, scene, fluids

Another project of mine was to create an ICE Node using the HOT (Houdini Ocean Toolkit). The HOT is a very stable implementation of the Tessendorf algorithm for ocean waves.

The Xocean node can be used as a deformer (by using a non-simulated ICETree on geometry objects) or for creating interesting particle simulations. The node outputs the displacement values as well as the eigenvectors and eigenvalues for each point in world space. The advantage using an ICE Node is that the outputs can be combined and reused in the ICE Tree (e.g. colorize foam or emitting particles where foam occures)

local backup: xocean_XSI2012_x64.xsiaddon (works on 2013+)   XOcean_Basic_Setup.scn   how-to screenshot

author site: rray.de / -community thread

 Explosion ForcesAuthor: Bradley LewisosAll ICEmisc osAll, ICEmisc

Downloadable file from Bradley's 2-part video tutorial Secret Recipes - Blowing Stuff Up in Softimage ICE

part 1 and part 2. The »secret recipes« page also features the turtorials »How to rig a train in 5 minutes« and »Midi Player Piano«
 

local backup: Explosion Forces 3.xsicompound

author site: http://andy.moonbase.net / download: /archives/1037 / -community thread

 Wheel RigAuthor: Andrew SkoblyanoffosAll ICEmisc deformer rigging scene osAll, ICEmisc, deformer, rigging, scene

Played a little with 'interactive playback' simulation environment mode. Some simple ICE Kinematics and some ICE mesh and nurb deformation – and here we have quite useful auto-rotated wheel rig. I used to do it with ScOps before, but it's much easy and comfortable to built such things with ICE. Note. If you hide nulls in viewport, it becomes a little bit buggy (but doesn't stop working at all:) ) . Strange but true.

Workflow video by the author is available.

local backup: Autorotation_wheels_ice.scn

author site: http://staplex.ru / download: /?p=556

 Feather BuilderAuthor: Fabricio ChamonosAll ICEmisc osAll, ICEmisc

Disclaimer: This is from the resourcedump thread on si-community.com so »some restrictions may apply« (but usually don't)

only works on straight curves and generates perfect mirrored feather barbs. It has some neat PPG logic for toggling fcurves UI display on/off.
 

local backup: Feather Builder.xsicompound

author site: http://iceduous.blogspot.com

 Strand TreeAuthor: Fabricio ChamonosAll ICEmisc vegetation osAll, ICEmisc, vegetation

Set of ICE compound nodes that allow the creation of plants and trees. See the author site / the si-community discussion for documentation, example scenes and videos.

Emitters: Emit Branches, Emit Leaves Grow Control: Even distribution grow, Random distribution grow Modifiers: Modify Branch Color by Iteration, Modify Branch Width by Iteration, Modify Particle Size by Iteration, Modify Value by Iteration, Modify Value by Normalized Strand Segment Debug: Debug Iteration Strand Effects: Deform Tree by Curve, Surface Grow Rendering: Tree Visibility Options, Use Geometry Branches Presets: Basic Tree, Pine Tree

Video demo 1, 2 and 3.

author site: http://iceduous.blogspot.com / download: /p/ice-compounds-plugins.html / -community thread / local backup

 Meshless Deformations in ICEAuthor: Julian JohnsonosAll ICEmisc deformer osAll, ICEmisc, deformer

Disclaimer: This is from the resourcedump thread on si-community.com so »some restrictions may apply« (but usually don't)

I've tried to clean it up as much as possible. There's some very agricultural ICE hacking in there. Possibly someone might find some use for it. I never had the time to explore it further. It's based on the paper: Meshless Deformations Using Shape matching here: MeshlessDeformations_SIG05.pdf

Available video: Compound Demonstration.

local backup: shape_matching_resourcedump.scn

author site: http://gustavoeb.com.br / download: /blog/?p=744&lang=en

 Add ICE Operators to MenusAuthor: Stephen BlairosAll ICEmisc workflow osAll, ICEmisc, workflow

The User Tools menu in an ICE Tree view has an Add Operator to Menu command that adds your compounds to menus, so you can apply them to the selected object. ?dd Operators to Menu?is implemented in VBScript in %XSI_HOME%\Addons\ICEUserTools\Application\Plugins\ICEUserTools.vbs.

Unfortunately, this command wasn? updated after 2011 Advantage Pack, so it doesn? know about the new ICE toolbar and menu structure.

So, here? a Python version that adds ICE operators to either the Particles > Create or Deform > Create menus in the ICE toolbar. When you apply the operators, they will be applied to all selected objects.

local backup: AddICEOperatorsToMenus.xsiaddon

author link: http://xsisupport.wordpress.com / download: ..your-ice-operators-to-menus

 stBend_PaperAuthor: Andrew SkoblyanoffosAll ICEmisc deformer rigging osAll, ICEmisc, deformer, rigging

ICE compound for bending paper effect. Inspired by Curriculum Vitae commercial. I was impressed by this video and thought of how could this compound work.. and, I think, I got the idea. It's quite simple - guess, they used more complex one in a real production - cause I didn't need any more from it, just checked the idea.

Workflow video by the author is available.

local backup: stBend_Paper.xsicompound

author site: http://staplex.ru / download: /?p=383

 stLeft_Right_WeightmapAuthor: Andrew SkoblyanoffosAll ICEmisc workflow osAll, ICEmisc, workflow

This compound calculates left and right-side weightmaps. One of the most-used compounds — I always use it in a face rigging.

Workflow video by the author is available. Related: Tips & Tricks - ICE Gradient Weightmap Control by TD Survival.

local backup: stCalc_LeftRite_WM.xsicompound

author site: http://staplex.ru / download: /?p=265

 Triggerfish Feather CompoundsAuthor: Triggerfish / Sue Sauerscene osAll strands ICEmisc scene, osAll, strands, ICEmisc

A suite of Feather creation and animation compounds, demonstrated in this tutorial (login required) by Sue Sauer on the Autodesk® Area website. Developed by Emmy-Award nominated South African film studio Triggerfish for their feature film »Adventures in Zambezia«.

A demo scene is available here ( direct link to .scn file for drag and drop). This suite/scene is for Softimage 2012, it's not confirmed working in higher versions.

local backup: TFfurandfeathers.xsiaddon

author link: http://triggerfish.co.za / download: /en/index.php/downloads/

 ICE MudAuthor: BiOssosAll ICEmisc deformer fluids osAll, ICEmisc, deformer, fluids

It's a basic ice tree setup for simulating muddy fluid surface. It has a smooth deformer in the simulation stack and the deformer connected to weightMap (shown in this screenshot). Geometry's corner edges didn't painted with weightMap so when you play the animation the actual geometry doesn't shrink.

 

author vimeo / download here

Simple Self CollideAuthor: Julien SilvestreosAll ICEmisc deformer osAll, ICEmisc, deformer

Julien's take on Paul Smith's Skin Collide concept. This deformer attempts to avoid self intersections by using ICE raycasting to push »inside« points to the outside.

local backup: SelfCollide_JS.xsicompound

author site: http://www.juliensivestre.com / blog: http://julien.silvestre.over-blog.com

 Wall of LightsAuthor: Ola MadsenosAll ICEmisc tutorialfiles scene osAll, ICEmisc, tutorialfiles, scene

Part of the downloadable files from Ola's online tutorial Wall of lights - How to set up a wall of animated light bulbs: Nine out of ten times you?e overegging the pudding by adding actual light source to the setup as you most likely could get away with a using really bright material on the object. But there is that one time you do need it, and this apparently is it. [..]

Visit Ola's blog caffeinabuse for a lot of technical insight and tutorials like this one, most of them including ready-to-use project files.

local backup: Wall_of_Lights.zip (project)

author blog: http://caffeineabuse.blogspot.de / tutorial: /2012/11/wall-of-lights-how-to-set-up-wall-of.html

Particle Goals defined by Animated MapsAuthor: Ola MadsenosAll ICEmisc tutorialfiles scene osAll, ICEmisc, tutorialfiles, scene

Part of the downloadable files from Ola's online tutorial Using an animated map to define particle goals in Softimage: There? a slight difference depending on what map you?e using. A texture map is essentially an image file connected to an object, and as such you need to tell ICE what to do with this information before you can make use of it. First you need to convert the RGB color of the image to a scalar value and store this information as a custom attribute. [..]

Visit Ola's blog caffeinabuse for a lot of technical insight and tutorials like this one, most of them including ready-to-use project files.

local backup: GoalLocation_using_AnimatedMaps.zip (project)

author's vimeo profile / tutorial on vimeo

 ICE Multistrand ClumpsAuthor: Nika RaguawinAll strands scene winAll, strands, scene

A scene file from this video tutorial, inspired by Paul Smith's SIMPLEFUR technique. Starting from an empty scene, Nika demonstrates how to created clumped strands as displayed in the thumbnail. (Update February 2013: There is a new video by Nika available on this topic)

 

 

author on vimeo / local backup

 Sand with SoftimageAuthor: Amin SadeghvandosAll ICEparticle scene osAll, ICEparticle, scene

Amin shares a scene file demonstrating realistically behaving sand using Thiago Costa's Lagoa system.

Demonstrational video available here.

local backup: Sand_Simulation_Lagoa.scn

author site: http://sobexsi.blogspot.cz / download: /2012/08/trmerge.html

Shape Blending using an image sequenceAuthor: Ola MadsenosAll rigging tutorialfiles scene ICEmisc osAll, rigging, tutorialfiles, scene, ICEmisc

Part of the downloadable files from Ola's online tutorial Shape blending in ICE using an image sequence which demonstrates how to use ICE to dynamically mix shapes on an object, bypassing the factory shape mixer/shape combiner nodes.

Visit Ola's blog caffeinabuse for a lot of technical insight and tutorials like this one, most of them including ready-to-use project files.

author blog: http://caffeineabuse.blogspot.de / tutorial: ../shape-blending-in-ice-using-image.html / local backup

 Motion Tools 1.1Author: Gustavo Eggert BoehsosAll ICEmisc python osAll, ICEmisc, python

Updated September 2012 to support polygon island pivots/rotation fixes. Motion Tools is a small collection of tools that aims to aid Motion Graphic work being created inside Softimage. The idea is to create a workflow for the creation, distribution and animation of instances as intuitive as the ones found in comercial solutions. Since it is created ontop of ICE the tools have speed and combustibility considerably superior to similar solutions.
 

Demo video available here. For demos of the previous beta versions, see here vor v0.1, here for v0.2 and here for v0.3.

author site: http://gustavoeb.com.br / download: /mtools / author's vimeo page / -community thread / local backup

ICE Rope RigAuthor: Vincent UllmannosAll ICEtopo ICEkinematics extrusion osAll, ICEtopo, ICEkinematics, extrusion

This compound creates a rope/tube along a series of Null controllers. Allows adding controllers between existing ones, controls edge-hardness with controller scale. Automatic even mesh subdivision. Configurable using a fcurve for thickness, roll parameters, custom profile etc.

Show related plugins: Power Extrude, TinyCurveExtrude, Custom_Loft, KP_CurveTools, keyvis Curve Tools, MX_Loft

local backup: 120706_Rope_Rig_v01.xsicompound

author site: http://vincentullmann.com / author on vimeo / -community thread

Delete Double EdgesAuthor: Guillaume LaforgeosAll ICEtopo osAll, ICEtopo

In a response on the mailing list to Olivier Jeannel asking for a quick way to remove double edges from a Cityengine import, Guillaume posted this compound which should also work in similar situations.

author site: http://frenchdog.wordpress.com / download: @ mailing list/ / local backup

Vertex Blur Plus PlusAuthor: Rob ChapmanosAll ICEmisc scene osAll, ICEmisc, scene

This compound generates a blurred vertex color map from an input vertex color map. Input color map must be set inside the compound. See this post for details. Has parameters for strength and distance.

Rob posted this in a si-community thread started by Pete, asking for a way to blur vertex colors using ICE.

author site: https://sites.google.com/site/tekanoice / -community thread / local backup

 DigiboardAuthor: Werner ZiemerinkosAll ICEmisc strands osAll, ICEmisc, strands

Digiboard displays a tronesque animated effect as shown in the thumbnail and this video.
 

The compound emits particles with strands, so create an empty point cloud with simulated ICE tree, and plug in a grid as emitter object..

author site: https://sites.google.com/site/tekanoice / -community thread / local backup

 WaveToSpectrumAuthor: Claude VervoortosAll ICEmisc deformer cppsrc osAll, ICEmisc, deformer, cppsrc

In case someone is interested, I've set up a Custom ICE Node that uses simple WAVE file loader and feeds it in a Fast Fourier Transform to get a Spectrum decomposition.

I've checked in the code on Github. I am by no mean a C++ expert nor a Softimage Plugin developer on that matter! So mileage may vary, better use a plain vanilla stereo WAVE (the one generated by Itunes worked for me), And I'd appreciate anything I would have missed or done wrongly. [..]

Cont'd on si-community. For visuals, see the demo, this introduction and this tutorial.

local backup: wave_spectrum.xsiaddon

author site: http://iceduous.blogspot.com / download @area

Winding compoundAuthor: Angel 07osAll ICEtopo osAll, ICEtopo

Similar to Simon Reeves' Dynamic XSI ICE Bar Tape, this compound allows wrapping a polygon strip around a cylinder like object employing collision detection/noise/thickness etc. Results can serve as a starting point for organic modeling for objects like taped wrists/ankles etc.

Demos: introduction / taped forearm demo.

author on vimeo / -community thread / local backup

 Kristinka Hair 3.1Author: Anto MatkovicosAll ICEparticle strands scene osAll, ICEparticle, strands, scene

Updated June 2012. The kH3 framework is a new and unique way to set up, style and simulate hair using ICE nodes.

A set of fully customizable ICE nodes Scalable, from only a few basic compounds for building basic hair, to very complex structures. Hair styling that always considers the whole shape of the hair. Styling works well for short and for long hair. Unlimited hair length, unlimited number of hair segments. Automatic, procedural generation of details - always with full control. Locks, clumps, curls, turbulence, are created by ICE compounds Additional modifiers, like cutting hairs by external geometry, constant strand length for key frame animation, resampling and subdividing strands, morphing with another hair, modulating hair's distribution over emitter, so user can increase density on most visible areas Full support for the Sofimage's built-in Strand Dynamics Framework simulation engine. Only factory ICE nodes were used, it should work nicely with any Softimage version from 7.01 on.

The 3.0 update adds a lot of new features, including a new method of guides-filler interpolation which allows for the filler strands to be generated inside the same point cloud as the guides. Version 3.1 adds new features written by Anto himself, as well as custom developments by Jonah Friedman from Psyop and Mihail Dzhurev from Chaos Group. Here's a TV ad created with the new version nodes.

Also available: documentation and an online tutorial. Note that bronco67 has created a video introduction for an earlier version available here. In case you want to apply kH3 nodes and dynamics on top of strands that were not generated by kH3 itself, here is a setup for that.

author site: http://www.matkovic.com / download: /anto/kristinka-hair.html / -community thread / local backup

 Knit Strand ProAuthor: Anto MatkovicosAll ICEparticle strands modeling fabric osAll, ICEparticle, strands, modeling, fabric

This plugin by Kristinka Hair author Anto Matkovic is a newer version of the 2009 release »Knit the Stand«, which generates realistic procedural fabric by interweaving ICE strands following the UV lines of a given NURBS surface. For increased realism it supports customizable weaving patterns, position noise, tip flattening etc..

The new version adds some major features: better distribution, now strand size always fits between neighboring strands, whatever deformation is used lighter in render time: strand segments are generated sparingly, also there are built-in strand resolution attributes default is spread in X-Z plane. NURBS surface is optional, strands will fit to NURBS only if NURBS is connected diagonal distribution, like common fabrics. Should be much faster than old one. Fitting on strand size rely on simple, 'parallel' computation, not on geometry query by distance.

Thumnail image above (large version) was created by Piotrek Marczak using the old version of this plugin. Follow the 5+ page thread on si-community (Note: Download of new version is on page 4 of that thread).

local backup: knit_strand_pro.rar

author site: http://www.matkovic.com / download: /anto/knit_strand_pro.rar / -community thread

 Emit from PolygonsAuthor: Felix GeremusosAll ICEmisc osAll, ICEmisc

This compound is thought to be used in a non-simulated environment and the emitter mesh should ideally consist of quads only. The idea behind this compound was to quickly create coral like structures by emitting instances from polygon centers and scaling them according to the polygon they've been emited from. This helps to prevent instances from penetrating each other, and also results in a more natural, organic look [..]

Go to the download page to read more about the usage of this compound.

author blog: http://felixgeremus.com / download: /?p=203 / -community thread / local backup

             

OMG... how long will it take... (!?) 

[Greg Punchatz]

"I keep asking myself if anyone at Autodesk even considers the possibility that they might have made a big mistake?"

If they are not, they have already lost the war.....to error is human, to fowl up like this and not question not only your recent decisions,  but all of them that led to this point, would be beyond stupid.....

---

Greg Punchatz

Sr. Creative Director
Janimation
214.823.7760
www.janimation.com

[Ed Manning]

RE: Jason's post and all the others.

A HUGE factor in ICE's usefulness, especially to non-CS type like me, is the fact that most compounds are "published" so that they can be opened and freely edited.  You learn a LOT by opening up other people's compounds.  And it makes it possible to build on something that's almost-but-not-quite-what-you-need -- which you can't do with a plug-in.

[Ludovick Michaud]

Control

Flexibility

Scalabity

Ludovick William Michaud
mobile: 214.632.6756

www.linkedin.com/in/ludovickwmichaud

+Shading / Lighting / Compositing

+CG Supervisor / Sr. Technical Director / Creative Director

[Jason S]

Ludo!!! :)

[Ludovick Michaud]

Always there Jason.

Always reading and watching :D

[Greg Punchatz]

Best thread EVER!!!!  I dare Carl Bass to watch ALL these videos and think the of killing Soft was the smart thing to do.... really....breath taking work.

 XSI and ICE could and CAN still be the Unity of the 3D DCCs if given the proper support of AD.  The original right click and upload compound was a great idea... and one that could make AD some money...the uploader could make some cash...every one is happy.

Would somebody be kind enough to forward this thread to Mr. Bass?

Softimage is dead...Long live XSI!!!!  (Vodka has kicked in)

[Jason S]

Yes (!)

along with Compounds, made of other Compounds, made of ...

[Ed Manning]

I really can't imagine a CEO of any company the size of AD taking the time to pay that much attention to videos he probably doesn't have the technical background or context to even follow them.

I doubt Bass even made, or had to sign off on, the decision to kill Soft, anyway.  

It would be nice to reach him on a personal level, I agree, but in a rational world, only in order to take advantage of his level of influence and control to reverse this decision.  Not likely, however.

[Greg Punchatz]

Well duh :) , but I had a shot of Vodka on an empty stomach ... and I don't drink, or at least I did not before this announcement. 

Carl is not a dumb man, and he might actually have a clue after watching these videos.

I am sure he knew this was going to happen. He might not realize however XSI is actually in better shape as of this moment than any of the 3d apps he owns.. because the mangers between him and us  don't really get the power that is there, well at least until now , and that there is a market he could own again.. the post house....

Bring back the Discreet Logic's BRAND AND CULTURE.... put Maya, Soft and all the finishing systems back into a culture that understands its users.

Put Soft in the hands of people who really care, give them ONE TENTH the money you are for maya or max, give XSI the power to compete within the company, let there be sharing of code between apps!  Its silly not to water all your plants to see which one will grow...and keep growing.

  I don't think is that there was anyone to champion XSI development after the whole "slow down boys,  you are making the Maya guys look bad episode"  that sucked the life out of anyone trying to innovate on the Softimage dev side of things.

Signed only a slightly less drunk Greg...

[Ed Manning]

would love to hear more about that 'slow down boys' episode... when was that?  Every year at SIGGRAPH?

#snark #sorry

[Andre De Angelis]

The scope and quality of work shows here is stunning and a tribute to the vision of those who designed XSI and ICE. At the risk of being non-constructive, this really does serve to underline the sheer scope of AD's short sightedness. They are killing an application that is 5 years ahead of Maya, so that they can focus on creating features and future products that one can only hope will offer the same power and flexibility....5 years from now.

It will be interesting to see what AD has to offer in 2 years from now and whether it even comes close to plugging the gaping holes that have created.

--
Andre De Angelis

[Tenshi S.]

+1

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I worked on 2 films in Softimage, Zambezia and Khumba. We had some very talented people but we were a fairly small crew so we needed a very efficient pipeline. The second film we worked on, Khumba, used ICE for fur, feathers, foliage generation, plant distribution and general set dressing, dust effects, fire effects etc. There may have been some rigging stuff as well, I wasn't that involved with that side of things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhE9aR8Qwzc

https://www.behance.net/gallery/Khumba-Plants-and-Distribution/6028177

http://www.popularmechanics.co.za/tech/triggerfish-animation-takes-cinema-audiences-by-storm/

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[Byungchul Kang]

Yes!! Ice crowd is very great!!  I have a lot of ice crowd r&d experiences on my jobs at MBC ( TV channel of South Korea ) about 10+ projects.

https://vimeo.com/73429479 

https://vimeo.com/52531138

https://vimeo.com/48785305

https://vimeo.com/40859520

https://vimeo.com/36810887

--

Byungchul Kang | MBC CG TEAM [http://imbc.com]
http://cgndev.com

[Tim Marinov]

Here some of my stuff done with ICE:

https://vimeo.com/80227846
Simple example of the custom ICE crowd system I've done based on Craig Reynolds Steering Behaviors paper.

https://vimeo.com/75137589
Impact compound

https://vimeo.com/41321274
ICE FeatherGenerator

https://vimeo.com/14156380
This one was done with XSI 7 long time ago.As I remember I done it all in one point cloud without any comp tricks and at that time there wasn't any other software except Houdini maybe that can do that so easily .

https://vimeo.com/17346298
https://vimeo.com/17347655

Just playing with ICE

https://vimeo.com/14153302

Dynamic ComputerMouse Rig

You can ignore the text below because most of it was said already in other threads but I am too emotional right now after looking at this great work with ICE and I felt I have to write it . Please excuse my English .

This is the worst decision Autodesk did, and I am sure will have big impact for them as a company !I am pretty sure that they are going to loose M&E industry in 3 to 4 years if they don't change their moves and reconsider some of their decisions...They lost and keep losing the most important think for them as a company the trust of their customers and this is something that they won't be able to win back easily. Because they are so big and greedy they forget to look down to their basis and see that what keeps them up there are humans and not toys  with which they can play their corporate games and shift them around.
Autodesk, It is true the Softimage community is small but you don't see the big picture here....you don't pissed only us but the entire CG industry. And BTW the bad word and the bad news  is something that spreads really fast .
Autodesk in case you are not aware what you are killing right now it's called ICE and is great and innovative technology, which I am sure that you won't be able to recreate in the next 2-3 years,and after that will be too late for you!You have it now and the big question is why don't use it as it is ?I think because the people that take the decision in this company are not aware what  they have or worst they don't care. I have a feeling also that you want to sell us only black boxes that are managed only by you, but I am telling you this won't work for you in the long term...By buying plugins and trying to put them together as a  black boxes you don't realize that what you are creating in the end is ugly frankenstein monster that nobody really likes.And now you are trying to force us to stare at this boxy monster Maya every day. No thanks, I prefer to work with the elegant dude called Houdini!
(BTW Not long after the acquisition I knew and many of us knew that Autodesk will make Softimage to fade out and then kill it. Actually Autodesk is very predictable company for me they proved many times in the past that you can't trust them ! So not long after acquisition I started to focus more on Houdini and now I am very happy about my decision at that time . SideFX is a company that makes their product with passion and love, they are first to implement the latest technology and always listen to their customers.)


Autodesk, ICE is great technology that opens the artistic creativity to go much further than any other solution you are offering. It is open enough to create your art in the way you want it to be created and is not dictated by the black box boundaries. The Result of this freedom you can find it in the most beautiful and visually rich project done last 5 - 6 years  ,all done by a great artists using the most artistic friendly and technically deep application that you have to offer Softimage . And you are ready to loose all of that including the artists as your customers...and maybe at some point some of the studios ?

here are some examples :

http://www.subaru-global.com/news2011n001100.html
https://vimeo.com/4060100
https://vimeo.com/24069938
https://vimeo.com/44672943
https://vimeo.com/23902379

for more check here : http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2739&start=180

I really hope Autodesk reconsider their decision .Hope dies last... But if they don't  I have where to go.

A

[Nuno Conceicao]

Jason, with this post you just kicked ass !!!

Did you just compiled this or took from some page? Its a huge collection of invaluable information, if not, can someone please compile this thread into a webpage or blog!!?! 

Awesome, lots of stuff I didnt knew or saw before!

Great post

[Andre De Angelis]

+ 1

[David Saber]

Yes it's very nice, does it exist online?

[Stefan Kubicek]

It looks like http://rray.de/xsi/

> Yes it's very nice, does it exist online?

--
-------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek
-------------------------------------------
keyvis digital imagery
Alfred Feierfeilstraße 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--

[Sebastien Sterling]

Frozen, snow Tech Demo, can anyone think of a reason why these sorts of behaviours, could not be reproduced in ICE ?

That would be a fun one to demonstrate at SIGGRAPH, funny to think, the technology existed several years before frozen was even in production.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/video-disney-reveal-frozen-snow-2852130

[Gustavo Eggert Boehs]

For one, ICE does not have a built in volume grid context.

Gustavo E Boehs
Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/

[Raffaele Fragapane]

You might have some chance with Lagoa, but nowhere near the same scale and cross-shot consistency. Things done for a test or one shot is one thing, having them happen over hundreds is a completely different challenge.

Stuff like that is a lot more down to the solvers than it is to anything else, but you could get close enough with Lagoa still, I'm sure.

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

[Sebastien Sterling]

I'm not a Tech Virtuoso so please indulge me, Is this "volume grid context" something that ICE can't deal with. or is it just a matter of their not being a specific solver written to demonstrate this behaviour, like Raff is saying for Lagoa.

Is it an inbuilt limitation, or just that such a compound hasn't ever been built ?

I'm just asking cause, as Raff pointed out, and from the Lagoa 1.0 demo, a lot of things "LOOK" similar (not suggesting their are solved the same way).

https://vimeo.com/13457383

[Emilio Hernandez]

For that kind of solution for bigger fluid volumes, you can go with a RealFlow/Softimage option.

You can read the solved cached grid fluid domain from Realflow into the ICE tree with all its attributes like, particle speed, etc.  I am not so sure, but I believe that latest emPoligonyzer can read those attributes and mesh it accordingly  and generate UV.

The workflow we have been using with Softimage/Realflow, looks like the Maya/Bifrost from the webinar video.

The advantage of having the solution of the grid domain in ICE is that you can still intereact with it further more.

From what I watched at that video, I believe that it is totally feasible to have a Softimage/Realflow solution just like Maya/Bifrost if someone could write the bridge as Realflow can be launched by command line in the background and python scripted as well.

You will get the grid fluid domain solved in realflow running in the background and get back the solution into the ICE tree.  With the additional splash and foam.

Cheers!

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Gustavo Eggert Boehs]

2014-03-22 20:47 GMT-03:00 Sebastien Sterling <sebastien...@gmail.com>:

Is this "volume grid context" something that ICE can't deal with. or is it just a matter of their not being a specific solver written to demonstrate this behaviour, like Raff is saying for Lagoa.

I'm not saying you cant do ice with ICE (:p). It is just that in the specific video you pointed to the guy specifically explains that they use particles to define the mass, but velocity and collision calculation happens on grids. ICE is great at dealing with particles, you can even build a grid with particles, but you dont have many tools for dealing with grids (which are often used in smoke simulatores) specifically, nor a native grid context (ie: no self.VolumePosition or GridPosition like we have PointPosition, VertexPosition, PolyPosition and so on...). I have no experience in trying to recreate such a thing in ICE, but I assume it is not easy to implement the nicest papers out there which describe dynamic and even adaptive ways to do this...

emFluid5, for example, is a not only a nice fluid solver but also a tool for creating and messing with such grids. but vanilla ICE does not have that.

[Andre De Angelis]

Fair point, but really, doesn't the very fact that emFluid5 exists and has been so elegantly implemented into ICE serve to illustrate the power and flexibility of ICE?  In fact, emFluid5 in ICE looks like a far more elegant and integrated solution than a stand alone app like Bifrost importing caches from Maya.

From what we've seen, Bifrost does one thing and one thing only, and furthermore, in it's present state it  appears it could interact with Softimage  just as effectively as it does with Maya.

[Jason S]

Thanks, but thank RRay !
(Thanks RRay! :)   Also was just the tip of a literally mile long list ! 

[Chris Marshall]

If the original didn't get through...

On 25 March 2014 12:10, Chris Marshall <chrisma...@gmail.com> wrote:

This was a simple effect using ICE to create welding on a logo, which was incredibly simple in ICE using input objects, ICE and polygonizer.
https://vimeo.com/90008824

 

[Oscar Gonzalez Diez]

Hi everyone,

Another lurker here. I have been a Softimage addict for nearly 20 years now. Thanks to ICE I have been able to have a very creative and experimental approach to TD work without any need for writing scripts. Its workflow, which has become an intrinsic part of my every day working needs, has the perfect poise of technical and artistic control, making possible to develop original tools and methods while still having fun... it simply rules.

Here are a few examples of ICE work.

https://vimeo.com/84659937 - Beatcam
Audio sync & animation rigs.
https://vimeo.com/79189726 - Forcefield look dev tests
Everything, rendered in ICE using emRPC by Mootzoid.
https://vimeo.com/78178475 - Vodafone "Add Power"
Egg to kitten opening transformation: ICE animation rigs, ICE hair
https://vimeo.com/73644980 - Sprint "Dream" look dev tests
Animation rigs
https://vimeo.com/73640024 - Film4 Werewolf
Ice hair, skin deformation, animation rigs.
https://vimeo.com/43841733 - Lexus "One Million Miles" look dev tests
Everything, rendered in ICE with emRPC.
https://vimeo.com/31812694 - LG "Sleeping beauty"
Dust breaking effect.
https://vimeo.com/31809971 - Lexus "Hello Someday" look dev tests. Everything.

Oscar

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Oscar González Diez

oscargonzalez.tv
wall.oscargonzalez.tv

vimeo.com/oscargonzalez