more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)

[Steven Caron]

is that a double negative? anyways, guess who isn't represented at this event.

http://area.autodesk.com/3dec

i am not one to spin doom and gloom stories. i am actually not bummed... rather i am just pissed off. right in softimage's back yard and zero representation!?

steven

[Jason Brynford-Jones]

That's odd, as I will be doing a brief Prezo this year.

I will talk to the organizers

Chin

[Steven Caron]

more than odd... a particularly glaring over sight in my opinion. but i am glad to here you will be representing softimage

s

[Darren Macpherson]

[

Bleh, just when we thought our voices had been heard.  Go give them hell Chin.

D

--

darren macpherson | 3d artist | +2772 355 0924 | www.darrenmacpherson.com | dar...@darrenmacpherson.com | skype: darren.macpherson

[Daniel Rajcic]

Hello again

Some more questions concerning lagoa. I'm afraid the deeper I dive into it, the more questions will pop up.

 

Right now I am trying to delete lagoa-particles when they hit an object. I added my geometry as an rigid body collider, so now the particles will collide with the object.

But when I now add something like "basic collide --> if true --> delete particle" to my tree, nothing happens. The particles still just interact with the collision object.

 

I saw that there is a "Lagoa_Collide" attribute available when using a get data node. But I can't use it in my scene. The problem is that I have many collision objects, but only one of them should delete particles (so they don't move miles away). So I cannot just check for collision, otherwise it will be applied to every collision object.

And at the same time I saw a "Lagoa_CollisionSkin" attribute. What is that for? The help doesn't find anything when searching for it.

 

 

cheers,

Daniel

[Piotrek Marczak]

Judging from their new website with poser like characters they are
trying to gain new customers/ hobbyists/ and 3ds max is perfect for
noobs who want to do their very first crap animation.

I mean if anyone is in this business for long, he knows what SI is, and
if he doesn't, he's either ignorant or/and idiot

W dniu 2010-11-24 00:34, Steven Caron pisze:

[Stefan Kubicek]

I guess that makes 80% of all people I know in this industry ignorants and idiots.
Doesn't sound too far off though.

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

[Guillaume Laforge]

Hello Daniel,

It is very easy to delete Particles using a delete node, but you shouldn't do that in a Lagoa Simulation.
As Lagoa is solving the density around each particles, if suddenly one is killed, it could give some weird motions to the particles around. It is really not a physically correct behavior (like trying to delete an atom in real life ;).

My advice is to cache the Lagoa simulation and use it in a new empty point cloud. From this point cloud you can delete any particle you want, as you want.

Please Thiago, correct me if I'm wrong ;).

Cheers

Guillaume Laforge
Software Developer / Développeur de logiciels
Softimage

Autodesk Canada Co.
10 Duke Street
Montreal, QC, H3C 2L7

Direct 514 954 7195

[Adsk_logo_4_sig_v03_crop.gif]

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Daniel Rajcic
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 3:13 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Lagoa - How do delete particles at collision?

Hello again
Some more questions concerning lagoa. I'm afraid the deeper I dive into it, the more questions will pop up. [Trauriges Smiley Emoticon]

[Thiago Costa]

ahm, you can delete points, yes it's not physical but won't cause any trouble to the solvers (except if you are doing elastic stuff you might get some weird velocity field in the end because you can unbalance the structure center) 

If it's liquids/grains type of thing, the only thing that will happen is that at the next step you will have a velocity field that points slightly to that deletion object. Because higher density zones tend to point to lower density zones (as the field tries tries to reach rest).

say you have this at t=0;

ooooooo

ooooooo

at t=1 you delete some

oooo

ooooo

It is possible that the upper row will point slightly to the kill zone  (depends on your pressure settings)

About your killing exercise, what you need is to find out is if it's close enough to the Collision geometry you desire AND is Lagoa_Collide at the same time.
The Delete should be done in the end, after all the Multiphysics finish executing because otherwise you can remove memory that's still being referenced and might crash.

-Thiago

[Daniel Rajcic]

Hi Guillaume
Thanks for the tip!
But I am wondering - if the simulation is cached, how can I detect collision
afterwards? Since I don't deal with an ICE tree anymore, but with a clip in
the mixer, how can I access the cached pointcloud, or even alter it?

Also, I don't think in my case it would create problems, but rather help my
lagoa simulation. I only want to delete particles that are far off. If I
don't delete them, polygonizer wont let me mesh the particles. I get an
error message telling me that some points are far, far away. So if one or
two particles are somewhere way out of the scene, I don't think killing them
will have an effect on the other particles.

cheers,
Daniel

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Guillaume Laforge" <guillaum...@autodesk.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 10:00 PM
To: <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Subject: RE: Lagoa - How do delete particles at collision?

> Hello Daniel,
>
> It is very easy to delete Particles using a delete node, but you shouldn't
> do that in a Lagoa Simulation.
> As Lagoa is solving the density around each particles, if suddenly one is
> killed, it could give some weird motions to the particles around. It is
> really not a physically correct behavior (like trying to delete an atom in
> real life ;).
>
> My advice is to cache the Lagoa simulation and use it in a new empty point
> cloud. From this point cloud you can delete any particle you want, as you
> want.
>
> Please Thiago, correct me if I'm wrong ;).
>
> Cheers
>
> Guillaume Laforge

> Software Developer / D�veloppeur de logiciels

[Daniel Rajcic]

Sorry for the double post.
Yes. I can delete particles within my Lagoa simulation easily. But I don't
know how to delete them when colliding with a certain object. I only figured
out how to delete particles on collision with any object. But not on certain
collisions.

Let's say I have four objects, A, B, C and D. I want the particles to
collide and interact with A,B and C. But I want to kill them when they
collide with D. How would I approach this?

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Guillaume Laforge" <guillaum...@autodesk.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 10:00 PM
To: <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>

Subject: RE: Lagoa - How do delete particles at collision?

> Hello Daniel,
>
> It is very easy to delete Particles using a delete node, but you shouldn't
> do that in a Lagoa Simulation.
> As Lagoa is solving the density around each particles, if suddenly one is
> killed, it could give some weird motions to the particles around. It is
> really not a physically correct behavior (like trying to delete an atom in
> real life ;).
>
> My advice is to cache the Lagoa simulation and use it in a new empty point
> cloud. From this point cloud you can delete any particle you want, as you
> want.
>
> Please Thiago, correct me if I'm wrong ;).
>
> Cheers
>
> Guillaume Laforge

> Software Developer / D�veloppeur de logiciels

[Guillaume Laforge]

As Thiago is there, I will just comment on how to delete particles from the cache cloud.

Deleting particles by volume using a "mixer cache cloud" is not the good way in fact :P.
Once the particles are outside the volume, they will reappear. So you should not use the mixer, but a Cache on File node.

- Create an empty point cloud
- Add a simulated ICETree
- Connect a Cache on File node an browse to your cached files.
- Add a Delete Particle by Volume (turn off, Use Falloff).

You're done !

Cheers

Guillaume

cheers,
Daniel

> Software Developer / Développeur de logiciels

[Daniel Rajcic]

Thanks Thiago.

I will try to figure out what you described. So far when I use the standard ICE test-collision nodes, nothing gets triggerd. What I mean is that Lagoa wont "see" those collisions.

 

cheers,

Daniel

[Daniel Rajcic]

Guillaume, I almost clicked the send button with an email saying it doesn't
work. Then I read your mail again, unchecked use falloff and now it works!
:)

thanks a lot.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Guillaume Laforge" <guillaum...@autodesk.com>

Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 10:46 PM

>> Software Developer / D�veloppeur de logiciels

[Guillaume Laforge]

Good news :)

I agree the default settings are not very intuitive in the Delete by Volume...

thanks a lot.

>> Software Developer / Développeur de logiciels Softimage

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Sounds about right on the global scale to me...

[Tim Leydecker]

bipeds rock.

hate to say it but it�s true. It�s as easy as it can get.

Fro my very own first hand experience as an intrigued test-user
of 3ds max, I must say that pretty much every aspect of the software
is intuitive, responsive and reliable enough to support even the most ignorant user.

It took me a couple of minutes to pick it up after 10 years not touching it.

Everything felt easy. Not perfect, not elegant, but easy.

Even rendering something with mental ray.

Now, if I where asked what software to start with as a hobbyist, aspiring artist,
or young professional I�d count up either 3DSMax+Mudbox or Cinem4D+AfterEffects.

Add mastering the principles of Vray to that and you gain options in architectural visualisation.

Mastering any of both combinations would surely land one a job here in Germany.

Compared to that, landing a job using Softimage will most likely require a more
solid, in depth knowledge of the program, involve a higher dayrate but also an
allready existing, solid trackrecord. Those jobs might be more rewarding but
they are also scarce. ICE is awesome. Modeling is awesome. Texturing, Shading
and lighting are heavily hindered by mentalray and would deserve a new concept.

It�s no coincidence I�m forgetting Maya. As long as setting up shading&rendering sucks
out of the box, Maya sucks. It�s not worth the hassle then, imho. Unless one resorts to
3rd parties.

Drawing the above in a conclusion, no wonder most people are tempted to pick the old horse first...

tim

[Szabolcs Matefy]

Haha. Biped sucks. Max is the least intuitive software I ever worked with (besides Cinema4d). Even Maya surpasses it with intuitivity (if there is such a word). Max is a clumsy, buggy, software compared to most of the others. I have a past with max, and these days when I have to work with max I export everything to Softimage and I do it twice faster than max artists here...including the importing and exporting passes...

But of course it's my personal opinion. If I were ina position of advisor, I'd advise Maya and Zbrush or Mudbox to learn. Unfortunately Softimage is not treated is it would deserve, and I myself considering to move to Maya, if I want to get job in the future.

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:53 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)

bipeds rock.

hate to say it but it�s true. It�s as easy as it can get.

Fro my very own first hand experience as an intrigued test-user
of 3ds max, I must say that pretty much every aspect of the software
is intuitive, responsive and reliable enough to support even the most ignorant user.

It took me a couple of minutes to pick it up after 10 years not touching it.

Everything felt easy. Not perfect, not elegant, but easy.

Even rendering something with mental ray.

Now, if I where asked what software to start with as a hobbyist, aspiring artist,

or young professional I�d count up either 3DSMax+Mudbox or Cinem4D+AfterEffects.

Add mastering the principles of Vray to that and you gain options in architectural visualisation.

Mastering any of both combinations would surely land one a job here in Germany.

Compared to that, landing a job using Softimage will most likely require a more
solid, in depth knowledge of the program, involve a higher dayrate but also an
allready existing, solid trackrecord. Those jobs might be more rewarding but
they are also scarce. ICE is awesome. Modeling is awesome. Texturing, Shading
and lighting are heavily hindered by mentalray and would deserve a new concept.

It�s no coincidence I�m forgetting Maya. As long as setting up shading&rendering sucks
out of the box, Maya sucks. It�s not worth the hassle then, imho. Unless one resorts to

[Gerbrand Nel]

Ha. that is, if working with Maya whilst you know about Softimage, can
be called a "future job"
Someone on this list once said: Maya and Softimage both have pros and
cons. Maya's con is that its a piece of shit, and soft's pro is that it
isn't :)
Wise words indeed.
Let the flaming begin
G

>>> i am not one to spin doom and gloom stories. i am actually not bummed.... rather i am just pissed off. right in softimage's back yard and zero representation!?
>>>
>>> steven
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3277 - Release Date: 11/24/10
>
>
>

[Tim Leydecker]

I�ve come to love *.fbx, too.

Regarding passes, let�s settle on a likely experience.

It�s great when a render engine helps in finding the best,
easiest, most convenient and least convoluted solution to
render a job-specific look.

It get�s frustrating the moment one has to work against the engine
or a specific implementation just to get at a specific look or element.

In an ideal world, *.hdr images are balanced and look good at the 0 +/-
exposure setting and the shooting position aligns perfectly with the
0/0/0 world coordinate system. Your reflections are crisp and you render a still.
Nothing ever flickers. The architectural material has the perfect preset.
You don�t bump, you displace. You just render the beauty. Your *.tif comes
into Photoshop and automagically, all the crap, including your backround is gone.
Your client likes it. It looks good on youtube. You�re a star. You get married. Again.

I would sure like that, or options&solutions to problems everyone runs into on a daily basis.

But that would be asked too much, I guess.

Cheers

tim

[Stephen Davidson]

I tried to learn Maya, to get a job in a Maya only shop.

It was not that hard to learn the basics, but Oh, my it was like 

modeling clay with boxing gloves on.

I didn't get the job and went happily back to Softimage.

I'm sure it's mostly familiarity with the interface,

but Maya seems so menu intensive to me.

2010/11/25 Szabolcs Matefy <szab...@crytek.com>

Haha. Biped sucks. Max is the least intuitive software I ever worked with (besides Cinema4d). Even Maya surpasses it with intuitivity (if there is such a word). Max is a clumsy, buggy, software compared to most of the others. I have a past with max, and these days when I have to work with max I export everything to Softimage and I do it twice  faster than max artists here...including the importing and exporting passes...

But of course it's my personal opinion. If I were ina  position of advisor, I'd advise Maya and Zbrush or Mudbox to learn. Unfortunately Softimage is not treated is it would deserve, and I myself considering to move to Maya, if I want to get job in the future.

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:53 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)

bipeds rock.

hate to say it but it´s true. It´s as easy as it can get.

Fro my very own first hand experience as an intrigued test-user
of 3ds max, I must say that pretty much every aspect of the software
is intuitive, responsive and reliable enough to support even the most ignorant user.

It took me a couple of minutes to pick it up after 10 years not touching it.

Everything felt easy. Not perfect, not elegant, but easy.

Even rendering something with mental ray.


Now, if I where asked what software to start with as a hobbyist, aspiring artist,

or young professional I´d count up either 3DSMax+Mudbox or Cinem4D+AfterEffects.

Add mastering the principles of Vray to that and you gain options in architectural visualisation.

Mastering any of both combinations would surely land one a job here in Germany.


Compared to that, landing a job using Softimage will most likely require a more
solid, in depth knowledge of the program, involve a higher dayrate but also an
allready existing, solid trackrecord. Those jobs might be more rewarding but
they are also scarce. ICE is awesome. Modeling is awesome. Texturing, Shading
and lighting are heavily hindered by mentalray and would deserve a new concept.

It´s no coincidence I´m forgetting Maya. As long as setting up shading&rendering sucks
out of the box, Maya sucks. It´s not worth the hassle then, imho. Unless one resorts to

3rd parties.

Drawing the above in a conclusion, no wonder most people are tempted to pick the old horse first...


tim

On 24.11.2010 10:48, Piotrek Marczak wrote:
> Judging from their new website with poser like characters they are trying to gain new customers/ hobbyists/ and 3ds max is perfect for noobs who want to do their very first crap
> animation.
>
> I mean if anyone is in this business for long, he knows what SI is, and if he doesn't, he's either ignorant or/and idiot
>
> W dniu 2010-11-24 00:34, Steven Caron pisze:
>> is that a double negative? anyways, guess who isn't represented at this event.
>>
>> http://area.autodesk.com/3dec
>>
>> i am not one to spin doom and gloom stories. i am actually not bummed... rather i am just pissed off. right in softimage's back yard and zero representation!?
>>
>> steven
>>
>
>
>

Best Regards,
  Stephen P. Davidson 
       (954) 552-7956

Check My BLOG

My Website is GREEN, Is yours?

[Szabolcs Matefy]

In ideal world, we shouldn't have this topic at all :D

[Juhani Karlsson]

Maya is nice. I just dont like apps with a lot of icons and maya is full of em. SI is very "text" based : )

2010/11/25 Szabolcs Matefy <szab...@crytek.com>

In ideal world, we shouldn't have this topic at all :D

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker

Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 4:16 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)

I´ve come to love *.fbx, too.

Regarding passes, let´s settle on a likely experience.

It´s great when a render engine helps in finding the best,

easiest, most convenient and least convoluted solution to
render a job-specific look.

It get´s frustrating the moment one has to work against the engine

or a specific implementation just to get at a specific look or element.

In an ideal world, *.hdr images are balanced and look good at the 0 +/-
exposure setting and the shooting position aligns perfectly with the
0/0/0 world coordinate system. Your reflections are crisp and you render a still.
Nothing ever flickers. The architectural material has the perfect preset.

You don´t bump, you displace. You just render the beauty. Your *.tif comes

into Photoshop and automagically, all the crap, including your backround is gone.

Your client likes it. It looks good on youtube. You´re a star. You get married. Again.

I would sure like that, or options&solutions to problems everyone runs into on a daily basis.

But that would be asked too much, I guess.


Cheers

tim



On 25.11.2010 15:56, Szabolcs Matefy wrote:
> Haha. Biped sucks. Max is the least intuitive software I ever worked with (besides Cinema4d). Even Maya surpasses it with intuitivity (if there is such a word). Max is a clumsy, buggy, software compared to most of the others. I have a past with max, and these days when I have to work with max I export everything to Softimage and I do it twice  faster than max artists here...including the importing and exporting passes...
>
> But of course it's my personal opinion. If I were ina  position of advisor, I'd advise Maya and Zbrush or Mudbox to learn. Unfortunately Softimage is not treated is it would deserve, and I myself considering to move to Maya, if I want to get job in the future.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker
> Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:53 PM
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)
>
> bipeds rock.
>

> hate to say it but it´s true. It´s as easy as it can get.

>
> Fro my very own first hand experience as an intrigued test-user
> of 3ds max, I must say that pretty much every aspect of the software
> is intuitive, responsive and reliable enough to support even the most ignorant user.
>
> It took me a couple of minutes to pick it up after 10 years not touching it.
>
> Everything felt easy. Not perfect, not elegant, but easy.
>
> Even rendering something with mental ray.
>
>
> Now, if I where asked what software to start with as a hobbyist, aspiring artist,

> or young professional I´d count up either 3DSMax+Mudbox or Cinem4D+AfterEffects.

>
> Add mastering the principles of Vray to that and you gain options in architectural visualisation.
>
> Mastering any of both combinations would surely land one a job here in Germany.
>
>
> Compared to that, landing a job using Softimage will most likely require a more
> solid, in depth knowledge of the program, involve a higher dayrate but also an
> allready existing, solid trackrecord. Those jobs might be more rewarding but
> they are also scarce. ICE is awesome. Modeling is awesome. Texturing, Shading
> and lighting are heavily hindered by mentalray and would deserve a new concept.
>

> It´s no coincidence I´m forgetting Maya. As long as setting up shading&rendering sucks
> out of the box, Maya sucks. It´s not worth the hassle then, imho. Unless one resorts to

[Alan Fregtman]

I like this quote from another guy:
"In Maya I workaround... In Soft I work." ;)

On 2010-11-25 10:12 AM, "Gerbrand Nel" <g...@cannonballbunny.com> wrote:

Ha. that is, if working with Maya whilst you know about Softimage, can be called a "future job"
Someone on this list once said: Maya and Softimage both have pros and cons. Maya's con is that its a piece of shit, and soft's pro is that it isn't :)
Wise words indeed.
Let the flaming begin
G

On 2010/11/25 04:56 PM, Szabolcs Matefy wrote:

>
> Haha. Biped sucks. Max is the least intuitive software I ever worked with (besides Cinema4d). Ev...

[Mirko Jankovic]

I LOVE SI!

[Steven Caron]

'it' being softimage obviously.

PS happy turkey day!

On Nov 25, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Agreed, max is a cranky sob. I actually have to use it more than
> ever now, for lighting and rendering, and miss it soo much.
>
> s
>
>
>
> On Nov 25, 2010, at 9:56 AM, "Szabolcs Matefy"

> <szab...@crytek.com> wrote:
>
>> Haha. Biped sucks. Max is the least intuitive software I ever
>> worked with (besides Cinema4d). Even Maya surpasses it with
>> intuitivity (if there is such a word). Max is a clumsy, buggy,
>> software compared to most of the others. I have a past with max,
>> and these days when I have to work with max I export everything to
>> Softimage and I do it twice faster than max artists
>> here...including the importing and exporting passes...
>>
>> But of course it's my personal opinion. If I were ina position of
>> advisor, I'd advise Maya and Zbrush or Mudbox to learn.
>> Unfortunately Softimage is not treated is it would deserve, and I
>> myself considering to move to Maya, if I want to get job in the
>> future.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-
>> bou...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker
>> Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:53 PM
>> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)
>>
>> bipeds rock.
>>

>> hate to say it but it´s true. It´s as easy as it can get.

>>
>> Fro my very own first hand experience as an intrigued test-user
>> of 3ds max, I must say that pretty much every aspect of the software
>> is intuitive, responsive and reliable enough to support even the
>> most ignorant user.
>>
>> It took me a couple of minutes to pick it up after 10 years not
>> touching it.
>>
>> Everything felt easy. Not perfect, not elegant, but easy.
>>
>> Even rendering something with mental ray.
>>
>>
>> Now, if I where asked what software to start with as a hobbyist,
>> aspiring artist,

>> or young professional I´d count up either 3DSMax+Mudbox or Cinem4D

>> +AfterEffects.
>>
>> Add mastering the principles of Vray to that and you gain options
>> in architectural visualisation.
>>
>> Mastering any of both combinations would surely land one a job here
>> in Germany.
>>
>>
>> Compared to that, landing a job using Softimage will most likely
>> require a more
>> solid, in depth knowledge of the program, involve a higher dayrate
>> but also an
>> allready existing, solid trackrecord. Those jobs might be more
>> rewarding but
>> they are also scarce. ICE is awesome. Modeling is awesome.
>> Texturing, Shading
>> and lighting are heavily hindered by mentalray and would deserve a
>> new concept.
>>

>> It´s no coincidence I´m forgetting Maya. As long as setting up sha
>> ding&rendering sucks
>> out of the box, Maya sucks. It´s not worth the hassle then, imho.

[Stefan Kubicek]

Knowing all three I mostly agree. The bread and butter stuff is very solid in Max. Polygon modeling,
particles, texturing, shading & rendering (not to forget the ton of renderers available, some of which are really good, like VRay,
and Final Toon), excellent hair rendering plugins and volumetric effects plugins (FumeFx, Afterburn) makes it an option that's very fast and cheap to produce with. I realised it sucks for bigger and more complex productions because some of it's concepts are a bit meh and feel glued on, and it generally does not scale so well. But for 95% of the industries daily output it's just fine. That includes working with Biped and CAT if you do character animation, even though they have their anomalies and bugs too. But you can really get a ton done in a very short amount of time if you're not after super duper high fidelity. Someone said 9 out of 10 games are produced with Max. Sounds reasonable, esp. game companies are usually on a very tight budget.
And except for the buttons in the modifier rollouts it's UI is highly customiseable, and easily so (the menus even without scripting, there's a dialogue that allows you to do that by clicking and dragging menu items around). For me that goes a long way.

That being said, Soft is quite a bit more intuitive and enjoyable when it comes to polygon modeling and complex character animation.
And particles are yet more flexible, but I feel that indeed it takes more time to getting into (not as much as Maya though). All that makes me using it for the majority of my work, although I'm nowhere close to using it to it's full potential. But it's nice to know I could if I wanted to. To me Mental Ray is the biggest Problem Soft has atm. I hope we get alternatives soon, we can hardly afford to run a mixed pipeline. That, and the fact that so many areas of the software are not accessible to scripting/programming (painting, menus, tools) is what really pisses me off. And that new stuff feels not really production ready. What about ICE kinematics everybody rambled about? Who's using it?
I played a round a little but got frequent crashes. Even the demo scenes crash often. Wtf?

Maya? Don't get me started :-(

> I like this quote from another guy:
> "In Maya I workaround... In Soft I work." ;)

Thanks for the credits :-)

--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Stefan Kubicek <s...@tidbit-images.com> wrote:
> To me Mental Ray is the biggest Problem Soft has atm. I hope we get alternatives
> soon, we can hardly afford to run a mixed pipeline.

3Delight for Softimage is there

[Stefan Kubicek]

I know, it has a lot of cool features, I just really miss fast raytracing and easy to use GI.
Also the last entry in the change log is from 2010-07-27. Is it still being developed?

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

it's fine, no bug fixes in the last 3 months just means that it works

[Morten Bartholdy]

3Delight works fine in 2011 SAP, but with the caveats you mentioned.

Arnold is the best best IMHO.

MB

--
Best Regards

Morten Bartholdy
3D/VFX Supervisor

[Ciaran Moloney]

The pointcloud based GI isn't as easy to use as Arnold, but the IBL can be really beautiful. And for crap loads of displacement or particles it's hard to beat. Also, I don't think that raytracing is quite as horribly slow as it used to be.

[Ciaran Moloney]

Also, there's so much Renderman shader info and resources to help you get going quickly.

[Tim Leydecker]

Maybe I´m completely wrong with my assumption that the majority
of Softimage and Maya betatesters from the bigger postproductions
and filmshops simply don´t touch the built in renderer much anymore.

This would at least give a hint why mentalray seems to lack reliability
in terms of implementation and useability, more so in Maya but also in
Softimage. mentalray itself sure is a great renderer, when used an implemented
correctly, but it seems these checks, feedbacks, bugreports and fixes don´t
get logged.

Many of the larger shops seem to have rolled their own pipelines years ago,
some going as far as throwing out the default shaders, the default lights,
the default environment shaders, etc.

Their own stuff works. They don´t test the default stuff, because theirs is better,
more flexible and accessible to revision anyway?

As I said, this is my impression.

Maybe also the reason why the mentalray implementation in 3DS Max is the best,
the userbase is bigger, there´s a larger group of out of the box users to
report and demand out of the box functionality, whereas in Softimage and
Maya, a higher percentage of people are used to modify and invent custom
solutions to "high-end" problems anyway, which might in the end also just
fuel the problem of out of the box functionality decreasing intensively.

Another thing might be awareness.

Not officially supporting the mr production shaders for several versions in Maya
isn´t the best way to underline reliability and built trust into an implementation.

Or maybe it´s just because ZAP lost interest an moved on, leaving the chunks lying
around. He proved his point of showing it´s possible, implementing it down to the
bolt would be tedious, not rewarding. There´s other more interesting problems?
Details and and working around limitations hinder a broad stroke? I´m wildly speculating.

Whatever.

I like Softimage most in terms of modeling and passes, I´m not good with ICE. I like the handling.
I´m frustrated about the amount of time I lost with Maya, in rendering and complicated workarounds.
I envy Max for how easy it can be, I´d second that, 90% of my jobs would have been easier in Max.

Cheers

tim

[k...@kim-aldis.co.uk]

Surely it means nobody's fixed any bugs, doesn't it?

[Piotrek Marczak]

Global scale? Probably, hehe. But I was talking mainly about my fellow artists here where I work. Maya fanboys are the worst.

Anybody seen this movie? Idiocracy of society is happening quicker than this movie prognosed

W dniu 2010-11-24 22:54, Raffaele Fragapane pisze:

[Ciaran Moloney]

Actually, they're pretty responsive for those on support. No idea why they haven't updated the change log or demo versions.

[James Bradford]

If you're a modeler I don't think studios care nearly as much what
software you specialize in. If they are strict, they generally make
you switch when you start. I know too many Max guys who had to switch
to Maya and vice versa when going to new studios. Places want to know
you can make great artwork, the software you used should be at the
bottom of the list of concern.

2010/11/25 Szabolcs Matefy <szab...@crytek.com>:

> Haha. Biped sucks. Max is the least intuitive software I ever worked with (besides Cinema4d). Even Maya surpasses it with intuitivity (if there is such a word). Max is a clumsy, buggy, software compared to most of the others. I have a past with max, and these days when I have to work with max I export everything to Softimage and I do it twice �faster than max artists here...including the importing and exporting passes...
>
> But of course it's my personal opinion. If I were ina �position of advisor, I'd advise Maya and Zbrush or Mudbox to learn. Unfortunately Softimage is not treated is it would deserve, and I myself considering to move to Maya, if I want to get job in the future.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Leydecker
> Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:53 PM
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)
>
> bipeds rock.
>

> hate to say it but it�s true. It�s as easy as it can get.

>
> Fro my very own first hand experience as an intrigued test-user
> of 3ds max, I must say that pretty much every aspect of the software
> is intuitive, responsive and reliable enough to support even the most ignorant user.
>
> It took me a couple of minutes to pick it up after 10 years not touching it.
>
> Everything felt easy. Not perfect, not elegant, but easy.
>
> Even rendering something with mental ray.
>
>
> Now, if I where asked what software to start with as a hobbyist, aspiring artist,

> or young professional I�d count up either 3DSMax+Mudbox or Cinem4D+AfterEffects.

>
> Add mastering the principles of Vray to that and you gain options in architectural visualisation.
>
> Mastering any of both combinations would surely land one a job here in Germany.
>
>
> Compared to that, landing a job using Softimage will most likely require a more
> solid, in depth knowledge of the program, involve a higher dayrate but also an
> allready existing, solid trackrecord. Those jobs might be more rewarding but
> they are also scarce. ICE is awesome. Modeling is awesome. Texturing, Shading
> and lighting are heavily hindered by mentalray and would deserve a new concept.
>

> It�s no coincidence I�m forgetting Maya. As long as setting up shading&rendering sucks
> out of the box, Maya sucks. It�s not worth the hassle then, imho. Unless one resorts to

[Serguei Kalentchouk]

So much Maya hate here ...
I love Softimage but in all honesty if I'm asked to set up a show
today I am going to go with Maya. While it has many serious
shortcoming I'm willing to put up with them for the extensive C++ API,
a very thorough command sdk and an option to override 90% of all menus
and callbacks. For a mid to large scale facility that is still the
most important aspect and bares much more consideration than a nice
poly modeling toolkit.

--
Technical Director @ Digital Domain

[Steven Caron]

definitely not from me, i would much rather be using maya then max right now. but that is OT...

 

they are all autodesk's products and they all deserve exposure at events like the one i linked.

[Adam Sale]

looks like they fixed the link now... Chin is now representing!
Carry on.... ;-)

[Steven Caron]

Yep! The squeaky wheel gets the oil. 

[John Payne]

I'll second that.  >definitely not from me, I would much rather be using maya then max right now

Having had to use all three apps this year I can say without any doubt Soft is superior, especially
for key based animation and polygon modeling.  

Max is like a McMansion, you have this tiny little house built in 1995 with all these additions
added on to make it habitable.  Just remember you still have to turn on the fireplace button
(animate) before you build a fire (Set Key) or you will burn down the whole place. Also, don't move
any logs around in the fireplace once the fire is going.  If you bought the FumeFX fireplace, that
fire looks pretty good, but it's still just a clay log with a gas pipe under it....

Maya is like an old mansion built in 2000 , it can take awhile to explore all the rooms.
They added onto it in 2005 with some Ncurtains and an Nfurnace.  Recently the owners have been jacking up
the rent while only throwing on a new coat of paint and putting in new light bulbs.  The foundation may starting to crack but the owners seem
not to care as long as the renters don't move out...

Soft is like living in a small house that is being renovated.  It's dusty, and not all of the rooms are complete.
You don't know which rooms you can live in without something falling down on your head or where you can
step without tripping on a power cord or hole in the floor.  Your also not sure the Contractor will finish the job.  Worse
there are rumors the owners might move the whole house and make it an extension of the Max McMansion.  It's frustrating
to live here at present but once the new architecture is in place it has great views and hopefully good light (if the vendors will only finish all the custom windows). Something to live in for a lifetime.
 
- John

--
John Wade Payne
Animator
johnwadepayne.com
johnwa...@gmail.com

[Eric Turman]

XD great analogy. A friend of mine used a "Max farm tractor" "Maya sports sedan" and "Softimage formula one racer" all with similar foibles, but I like the housing analogy.

--




-=T=-

[Guillaume Laforge]

Analogy always have a strong impact and is the best friend of marketing guys.
Less is more, but over-simplification of a concept is not always more.

The house comparison is funny btw :).

My ½ "before first coffee thought" ;)

Guillaume

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Turman
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 8:43 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: more lack of exposure (was Thanks Autodesk)

XD great analogy. A friend of mine used a "Max farm tractor" "Maya sports sedan" and "Softimage formula one racer" all with similar foibles, but I like the housing analogy.

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 10:41 AM, John Payne <johnwa...@gmail.com<mailto:johnwa...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I'll second that. >definitely not from me, I would much rather be using maya then max right now

Having had to use all three apps this year I can say without any doubt Soft is superior, especially
for key based animation and polygon modeling.

Max is like a McMansion, you have this tiny little house built in 1995 with all these additions
added on to make it habitable. Just remember you still have to turn on the fireplace button
(animate) before you build a fire (Set Key) or you will burn down the whole place. Also, don't move
any logs around in the fireplace once the fire is going. If you bought the FumeFX fireplace, that
fire looks pretty good, but it's still just a clay log with a gas pipe under it....

Maya is like an old mansion built in 2000 , it can take awhile to explore all the rooms.
They added onto it in 2005 with some Ncurtains and an Nfurnace. Recently the owners have been jacking up
the rent while only throwing on a new coat of paint and putting in new light bulbs. The foundation may starting to crack but the owners seem
not to care as long as the renters don't move out...

Soft is like living in a small house that is being renovated. It's dusty, and not all of the rooms are complete.
You don't know which rooms you can live in without something falling down on your head or where you can
step without tripping on a power cord or hole in the floor. Your also not sure the Contractor will finish the job. Worse
there are rumors the owners might move the whole house and make it an extension of the Max McMansion. It's frustrating
to live here at present but once the new architecture is in place it has great views and hopefully good light (if the vendors will only finish all the custom windows). Something to live in for a lifetime.

- John

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com<mailto:car...@gmail.com>> wrote:
definitely not from me, i would much rather be using maya then max right now. but that is OT...

they are all autodesk's products and they all deserve exposure at events like the one i linked.

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 4:33 AM, Serguei Kalentchouk <serguei.k...@gmail.com<mailto:serguei.k...@gmail.com>> wrote:
So much Maya hate here ...
I love Softimage but in all honesty if I'm asked to set up a show
today I am going to go with Maya. While it has many serious
shortcoming I'm willing to put up with them for the extensive C++ API,
a very thorough command sdk and an option to override 90% of all menus
and callbacks. For a mid to large scale facility that is still the
most important aspect and bares much more consideration than a nice
poly modeling toolkit.

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 12:07 AM, James Bradford <bradf...@gmail.com<mailto:bradf...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> If you're a modeler I don't think studios care nearly as much what
> software you specialize in. If they are strict, they generally make
> you switch when you start. I know too many Max guys who had to switch
> to Maya and vice versa when going to new studios. Places want to know
> you can make great artwork, the software you used should be at the
> bottom of the list of concern.
>

> 2010/11/25 Szabolcs Matefy <szab...@crytek.com<mailto:szab...@crytek.com>>:

johnwadepayne.com<http://johnwadepayne.com>
johnwa...@gmail.com<mailto:johnwa...@gmail.com>

--

-=T=-

[John Payne]

Hey Eric,  

Was sorry to hear about Raven.  I think Max as a farm tractor might be a little kind as  
tractors are pretty useful for pulling heavy objects.  

Seems like we have rehashed this thread in numerous ways over the past couple of years
and for those still following it I'd like to add one more thing (please indulge me).

This list is read by Soft TD's who have personally invested 1000's of hours of their own time to learn the SDK, VBscript,
followed by Jscript, and now Python.  People on this list have built some amazing tools with ICE and have advanced the
science and art of computer graphics.  I say a heart felt thank you to everyone who ever took the time
to freely release a plugin that helped me while I was down in the trenches.  As TD's we all know the superiority
of Softimage! And as TD's It's not just our work but our careers that are intertwined with the software. 

I am also emotionally invested in Softimage and it hurts me when the marketing folks at AD forget about us.
I'm frustrated because some producer can get 10 Maya artists for every Soft animator that I can dig up.  As
a Freelancer I'm constantly making the case for Soft and not always winning.   We all have much to lose if 
AD does not give Softimage the marketing and development support the software deserves.  I would prefer
to use my extra time to learn ICE and Python instead of C++ and Mel and hate working in 3DSmax.  

Okay - emotional outburst over, but I'm sure that many folks out there will echo my sentiment.
  
- John 

[Eric Turman]

Thanks John, I haven't been at Raven for over 7.5 years now though. Are you speaking of Raven's latest struggles, or are speaking of March 4th of 2002, the day 'Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Outcast' went gold?

Farm is tractor too good...okay how about a 3 horsepower lawn tractor then? XD

yep, I try to keep a positive attitude and support the Softimage crew, but I too would like to see Autodesk raise Softimage to the former glory that it enjoyed in the mid to late 90's

Cheers!

-=Eric

--




-=T=-

[John Payne]

yep, I'm referring to the latest layoffs....

[peter boeykens]

> yep, I try to keep a positive attitude and support the Softimage crew,
> but I too would like to see Autodesk raise Softimage to the former
> glory that it enjoyed in the mid to late 90's

Autodesk saved Softimage from either slow death or at least stagnation under the Avid umbrella.

 

If Softimage is not in its former position of glory - most of that can be tracked to unfortunate timing, events and decisions.

 

Sumatra took too much time in a key period when most of the current players in the industry were establishing themselves for the past decade.

When it finally appeared - way overdue - it was rather flawed and incomplete - and all too readily dismissed by the industry as a whole.

The rest is history - studios hung on to how they were set up.

Inhouse tools and knowledge became more important than the 3D platform of choice - while being rather tied in with that 3D software.

People coming from those studios spread their knowledge and experience - and inherently choice of platform.

Its been uphill ever since for Softimage.

 

Productions aren't being run anymore on crazy budgets and the will to innovate for the sake of it.

Its all staying within an ever tighter budget and timing - and that doesn't stimulate anyone to go and try new things out.

 

 

Next chapter is going to be the next generation of doing animation/CG/digital production or content creation - which will be (I hope) a symbiosis between film and game workflows - out of the box.

Realtime everything, centered around a standardized data-driven pipeline - hopefully open source - moving geometry, setups, animation, shading, scripting - between softwares - agnostic of applications - open to any tools that fit the job at hand.

 

Autodesk with its roster of applications -not only the 3 3D softs- can be a major player for this next generation - setting standards.

There's a few others that can be too: adobe (god forbid) - sony - nvidia/mentalimages are the first that come to mind.

Perhaps some major studios can decide to throw their internal tools on the market - especially if they are tools to bridge different studios.

ILM / Imageworks' Alembic initiative sounds like it could go in such a direction.

 

Even if I am still very Softimage minded - once this comes to be - I don't think we will care much about the current 3D softwares anymore.

 

just my very opinionated .02 E

[Stefan Kubicek]

On Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:25:42 +0100, peter boeykens <pet...@skynet.be> wrote:

> Next chapter is going to be the next generation of doing animation/CG/digital production or content creation - which will be (I hope) a
> symbiosis between film and game workflows - out of the box.
> Realtime everything, centered around a standardized data-driven pipeline

Speaking of realtime everything, I just stumbled over TwinMotion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOdfe7rmULM&feature=related

On a side note: Looks like more and more apps coming out which look very much like Modo (e.g. Clarisse, and Twin Motion above) . I know that the Modo SDK and can be licensed, I wonder if it's really being adopted so widely or if it's just a coincidence. Or is this a standard Qt skin?

[Rob Wuijster]

what is it with realtime 3D?
It reminds me of this: http://lumion3d.com/

No Modo skin btw ;-)

Rob

\/-------------\/----------------\/

-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
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[Gideon Klindt]

Well, all I know is that when I attend 3D events here I'm lucky out of a crowd of 150+ to find another SI user. Most of the time I at least get a respectable silence when I say what software I mainly use- which I guess is an improvement over wanting to club several MAX users each time. Still between the countless clueless students constantly getting churned out of schools, the local C4D craze here (it's ugly, but real) and the fact that just about ever AD rep at these events is only interested in MAX means SI is continually sidelined in places it shouldn't be.

There is just no reason for SI NOT to be the program of choice for higher end broadcast work, not just feature film and game work, but AD just seems to not market it that way or care to. I had to sit through a painful Maxon presentation last week where it was obvious that SI could gain market share. Thinking particles and mograph will only get you so far- where that road ends SI should begin in these people's minds...but it's not even a thought. Maxon has secured the mid and low (what ever that is) but there really is some low hanging fruit to be had in that market for what Maxon can't fulfill. The event before that was a studio showing us some things they had done in MAX- again it was painful (plus it's surprising the amount of plugins people buy to do things we all take for granted as of SI v.2).

While it's cool having everyone treat you like a ninja assassin of 3D because you use SI (even if I personally don't deserve it), it also has a way of alienating potential users who, wrongly think the program is too complex or only for the technically inclined. Really- ICE has gained SI more recognition, but it has also led to the perception that the program handles more like Houdini over all, which as we all know is about the furthest thing from the truth. I try to let people know about how elegant the work flow is, how well rounded the program is over all from rigging to weighting and rendering (well OK, just the passes and tree if we're talking mr), and how well thought out, but I know that all they see are ICE trees and their brain is frozen.

What I'm trying to say is that between the clueless masses that drool over mograph and Vray demos and the "GODS" of 3D TD-dom there is a group of people who don't even know they NEED and should want SI, and it's up to AD to decide when and if they want to take advantage of that market, because right now it's not happening and word of mouth only goes so far. While it's easy to just group this market and write it off with the "rest of them" I think it is in AD and our interest to secure this potentially lucrative and skilled middle ground.

[Eugen Sares]

Well spoken, Gideon!

The competition does not sleep: Modo 5.01
http://www.luxology.com/

Never worked with it, but this looks VERY slick! For about 1k$.
Heck it even does multi-res sculpting!
Animation features are far from complete, but they are working on it.

Kind of complementary to SI regarding features.
Hope this doesn't mean we never get better modelling/viewport/rendering
options for strategic reasons.

[Juhani Karlsson]

Modo is kickass. It is very focused on "creation" part of 3d, but as an pipeline tool it is quite limited.
Theres no proper SDK at the moment.
Anyways, I have used it since 101 with joy.

2010/12/16 Eugen Sares <soft...@keyvis.at>

[Tim Crowson]

Actually, with 501, the SDK is seriously beefed up.

Modo is not a full pipeline tool at all, but we've been able to use it for tasks in our existing pipeline and it's done a great job. It's a very versatile program. And now that we can convert Replicators to instances, I think we might be able to use those in our XSI pipeline too!

And honestly, its Preview Render (and now RayGL) just puts our XSI options to utter shame. If only it had a proper nodal shader tree.

-Tim C.

--

 

Tim Crowson Asset Artist

 

[John Payne]

Well said, and I would add that in NYC I have had the same experience.  C4D is catching on big here with After Effects artists who need 3D for their mo-graph
work.   Maya is everywhere and V-Ray has replaced Mental in Maya shops that do higher end work.  Soft is still holding out at a few places but
the user base is definitely older and more expensive.  Even the shops that used to be all XSI are now mixed between Maya and Soft and I'm worried
that Soft today is becoming the Houdini of 2005.  

My take on AD marketing is that from a sales point of view it sort of makes sense.
Under the hood (IMHO) Maya and especially Max are really showing signs of age .  The last two releases
have been 90% cosmetic.  Maya 2011 looks more like Max now, has shinier icons but what new features did AD really add?  
I'm sure AD knows that they have a limited time to squeeze as much money from Max and Maya before they have to move
on.  And I'm sure this played a large role in their acquisition of XSI from Avid, especially for the patents.

I wonder if they will keep the brands "Max" and "Maya", while overhauling both products and incorporating Softimage
technology, or build a new Uber software from the ground up with a shared core and separate subscription modules for "Games", "Entertainment"
"Archviz" and "Mo-graph"?  Probably the latter.... Anyone else care to speculate?

- John

[Gideon Klindt]

The lack of nodal shading and a pass system with overrides (Is there another package that comes close to SI in that department?) in Modo is a large issue for me and why I've augmented my mr rendering with Messiah's arnold based engine for now to pick up the slack. I have thought of picking up modo otherwise, but for the most part the existing tools in SI more than enable me to do what I need 95% of the time (main limitation is mr at times). I can honestly say that even for my not-so-power-user work, SI's over all solid one stop shop actually saves me a lot of time and means I almost always come in on budget for projects.

I didn't renew my subscription this year simply because the base package is still what I use for most of my paid work and most of that has not changed since the 6.5 cycle or earlier, not because it's not an over all good value on the market. I really wish there were still two tiers of SI (or even three) as 1/3 of the power is just sitting there un-tapped on my end most of the time.

Fewer "gotchas" in SI helps too- and is one reason I will not even look at C4D given that the package/flavor I would need is more expensive up front that SI, and still lacks key features I need and have grown accustom to (uh they don't even have color coded SRT numerical entries to match their gizmo?!?). Watching the Maxon demonstration showed a lot of power...but in a plug-in centric kind of way that just gives me the willies (like much of Max IMHO). I like SI because, even though it might not always be elegant, there are at least two ways to accomplish a goal- even if it isn't the original intent of that feature. You are not locked into what the developer "thinks" is the right thing to do- and I love that.

In the end I just hope all this fragmentation/specialization of the market isn't a bad thing- there is still something to be said for a start to finish package like SI. Unfortunately it seems that things are becoming more niche in 3D over all. At least there is a better attempt though by companies to play nice with data exchange etc. so maybe there is hope? I just really don't want to every have to use three 3D programs at once every time I go into a project...my head is already swimming with keystroke madness as is!

I fear that if AD keeps on shelving SI and specializing it it will lose the broader market it should have. The problem is that the current market IS smart- and will use what is good no mater what the marketing says/looks like. However, that limits the amount of general talent needed to fill in and up the ranks. While they might say the FND program was a failure, it only existed through three poorly handled market cycles (thanks to Avid). While FND is not needed again, marketing MUSCLE IS. It's the only piece of the puzzle missing IMHO because it's not the program and as of the 3 cycle, never has been.

[Gideon Klindt]

John, they could make a new SI, or even 2012 called Max or Maya and I'd buy it too. If they want to flavorize it that's cool too IMHO so long as they think about who the current base user is as well (IE experienced generalists and TDs) and keep a flavor of it that might not have all the "zing" out of the box, but is still the solid building blocks we know as SI.

As it's been said here before though- if they come out with an uber app and it's modeled after the MAX work flow and kill SI I'm out of here!

[PauloBarrelas]

I've been using Modo from 101 and it's my 1st choice regarding modeling/UVing and some times, rendering. This version has some serious updates and additions but they are working on it, in order to turn it into one complete package.

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Gideon Klindt <gideon...@gmail.com> wrote:

John, they could make a new SI, or even 2012 called Max or Maya and I'd buy it too. If they want to flavorize it that's cool too IMHO so long as they think about who the current base user is as well (IE experienced generalists and TDs) and keep a flavor of it that might not have all the "zing" out of the box, but is still the solid building blocks we know as SI.

As it's been said here before though- if they come out with an uber app and it's modeled after the MAX work flow and kill SI I'm out of here!

--
Paulo Barrelas

[Eugen Sares]

Does not look like max will go down in the near future:
http://www.the-area.com/maxturns20/interview_ken
(Search for XBR)
Max simply has the critical mass. It's used by so many people and earns AD
the big $... easy to invest heavily in it's development.
Is SI even out of the red?

The biggest problem here remains mray, IMHO. It fell far behind in the
last years.

Options?
VRay: I attended Rusko Ruskov's presentation in 10/2009 in Germany. Still
nothing.
Used it for long in max. It has a way of simply getting the job done in
time.
My workmates here in my shared office set up a 14-node renderfarm based on
Linux/C4D/Vray, cheap and legally.

mray on the opposite almost made me loose my mind this year. Who considers
it seriously anymore?
IRay falls far behind VRayRT 2.0, which was released a few days ago, too.

3Delight? Anyone?

All spotlights are on Arnold. Looks like the beta makes good progress.
Let's wish Marcos Fajardo godspeed. I actually believe it's he and his
fellows that could turn the fortune of SI.
We are lucky that by chance he decided to add A to SI first, and not to
Maya.

[Christopher Tedin]

I haven't checked out Maxwell Render in a while, but it looks like they
are getting faster with each version. The interactive renderer (not
supported in Soft yet) looks pretty quick, at least on my machine. Has
anyone had a chance to use it in production? For animations? It
officially supports Soft 2011 on Windows 32 and 64.

[Daniel H]

"...there is just no reason for SI NOT to be the program of choice for higher end broadcast work" - Gideon

I agree. SI can do anything C4D can do and more! Funny how they can slap the word "Broadcast" on the C4D box and then every AE mogo artist follows the Piped Piper. Amazing the amount of Marketing power encapsulated within a simple line of text.

-Daniel

[John Payne]

Hmm, thanks for the link.  I guess with XBR AD is going for the first option I speculated on - rebuild their
flag ship product and hold onto to the 3DS Max brand, even though when all is said and done
internally it will probably be a completely different animal than it is today.  I wonder how much of XBR
will be ported to Maya or even if that's possible with the SDK?    I just hope AD continues to develop
Soft as they have been doing for the next few cycles.  

- John

[Gideon Klindt]

"I agree. SI can do anything C4D can do and more! Funny how they can slap the word "Broadcast" on the C4D box and then every AE mogo artist follows the Piped Piper. Amazing the amount of Marketing power encapsulated within a simple line of text.

-Daniel"

To be fair, Maxon simply knows their market. Their integration with AE is very good and streamlined out of the box. Do I care about that? Not too much but hey I'm not their market. The thing is C4D can do things that yes, you can do in SI, but they have the stuff mostly canned. In 10 min you can do some "complex stuff" that would take maybe an hour or three to learn in SI. However, the the things you learned in SI would carry further on to other parts of the program. Once you reach the end of a canned XYZ WYSIWIG then you're at the mercy of the developer or have to get really creative with your work-arounds.

To give them credit they do have extensions to most major 3rd party render engines too.

I guess some people just view their 3D package as a kind of plug-in to the rest of their work flow...while many others feel it IS their main tool hence the different perspectives on what is needed.

[Gideon Klindt]

Oh, at first I had my hopes up that XBR would get rid of that horrible GUI and work flow...but it looks like it's not so:

http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/excalibur-xbr-project-features-3ds-max-revealed

http://ortega3d.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/3ds-max-2011/

So much for lofty dreams.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

Afaik XBR is the code name of total ui revamp of the ui and viewports of max. And on the maya side they have viewport 2.0, the qt rewrite, sdk work and more.  Viewport 2.0 = XBR, same tech different customization.

[Jens Lindgren]

So when does Softimage get the Viewport 2.0 treatment?

Sent from my iPhone

[Byron Nash]

Well put Gideon. I've been feeling kinda bummed here since my boss is pushing me to use Maya since it runs on a Mac. We bought a copy of Maya and brought in a bunch of Maya people to do a big job this month. Now that I've seen Maya up close in production it makes me really appreciate the elegance of Softimage. I was able to complete some difficult(for me) Lagoa fluid simulations and get them into the spot, but we can hardly get anything to come out of Maya with 6 people working around the clock. My results out of Softimage has some of the guys here talking about switching to Soft. So, I think people just need to witness some production to see the benefits of using Softimage. ICE is the best thing going for sure these days.

Byron 

[Eugen Sares]

Another XBR link:
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/excalibur_xbr_notes

"Excalibur (or XBR) is a restructuring of 3ds Max that is intended to
occur over three phases (not releases)"

"Phase one", assumedly the viewport enhancements, have been introduced
already into max.
So there are still many things to expect. Supposedly.

Frankenmax is lying there wired on the stretcher, 3rd lightning strikes,
bzzzzz!, smoke dissolves - a beautiful young lad!
ￜ~ￜ

[Robert Okker]

Nooo not that.
i hear from a lot of maya guys they hate it. and it's really unstable

[Christopher Tedin]

I love the interface of Soft. One of the main reasons I switched over. It's already Viewport 3.0, ahead of the curve.

[John Payne]

Hmm, where have I seen this before?

http://area.autodesk.com/th.gen/?:760x0:/userdata/fckdata/197/image/kenpimentel/Slide9.JPG

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 4:44 AM, Eugen Sares <soft...@keyvis.at> wrote:

Another XBR link:
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/excalibur_xbr_notes

"Excalibur (or XBR) is a restructuring of 3ds Max that is intended to occur over three phases (not releases)"

"Phase one", assumedly the viewport enhancements, have been introduced already into max.
So there are still many things to expect. Supposedly.

Frankenmax is lying there wired on the stretcher, 3rd lightning strikes, bzzzzz!, smoke dissolves - a beautiful young lad!

°~°

Am 16.12.2010, 23:47 Uhr, schrieb Gideon Klindt <gideon...@gmail.com>:

Oh, at first I had my hopes up that XBR would get rid of that horrible GUI
and work flow...but it looks like it's not so:

http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/excalibur-xbr-project-features-3ds-max-revealed

http://ortega3d.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/3ds-max-2011/

So much for lofty dreams.

[Gene Crucean]

Why are you guys scared of a few bugs if things will be good in the long run? I'm not. I say bring Qt. And bring OSX!!! (It would also mean a better linux version too. Keep that in mind. Screw mainwin)

Even though I like using the interface of Soft for the most part, it's far from perfect. Honestly? After using newer interfaces, it feels extremely archaic to me. You can't move windows around or drag and drop elements. You can't customize it easily or with any soft of flexibility

Also, just switching to Qt wouldn't mean the interface would look like max or maya. It allows complete flexibility when building a GUI.

--
[Gene Crucean] - [VFX & CG Supervisor/Generalist]
** Freelance for hire **

[Raffaele Fragapane]

I would love a Qt version, I think I made that clear enough over the years :p That said, "a few bugs" doesn't even begin describing what it might be like in the first year or two.

The Maya Qt port was years late (the first time I heard about it was shortly after 2008 was released, and it was pulled twice I believe), and even then, when it came out it crippled the application. Us and several other places all jumped onto 2011 several times when it came out and when the hotfixes came, and it's only now, a year or so later, that it's not completely unusable.

I tip my hat off at the maya team for sticking with it and furthering the modernization of an otherwise obsolete and clunky platform, but it's a risky endeavour at the best of times if you aren't consolidated in the market. 4.0 and 6.0 outrage anyone?

Still, wishing it will happen soon :)

[Alan Fregtman]

I'd be happy enough even if everything wasn't Qt, but if it came
preinstalled and you could import it from Python or whatever, that'd
be plain awesome.

I know there's ways to get it to work, but it's convoluted. I wish it
was simple.

That reminds me... Steven, is the Blur PySoftimage Qt integration
thing working for 64bit Soft now? I'm looking at
http://code.google.com/p/blur-dev/wiki/PySoftimage and it says it
supports Python 64bit. Is that correct? That's awesome if so. :)

-- Alan

[Steven Caron]

we have our plugin compiled for 64bit and it works with python 2.6+ 64bit . there are various reasons for not releasing it yet which are all out of my control.

and i agree with you, if we can just host qt apps/windows inside the softimage event loop natively it would be awesome.

s

[Raffaele Fragapane]

A Soft endorsed CDH host for Qt coming from soft (that works under linux too damnyou!) is pretty much #2 below a Qt port on our prio list.
If other people could mob AD for it it might help ;p

[Steven Caron]

we opted to not use the CDH and use QtWinMigrate (http://doc.trolltech.com/solutions/qtwinmigrate/winmigrate-walkthrough.html) specifically the QMfcApp but this is obviously windows centric.

this allowed us to make two simple custom commands in c++ that exposed the necessary classes to our custom built pyqt which exposes the QMfcApp. this allowed a 90% pure python implementation.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

We have the same running, except we do have linux support (all our propietary UIs are Qt), it still sucks compared to an official Soft solution because:
A) you can't embed or manage such windows within XSI, forcing people to make space for it and se them to "always on top"
B) you still have to weave your way around the main event loop one way or another, and you are limited into what you can pass back and forth to the rest of XSI
C) you have to write and maintain the thing yourself, which frankly I can't be arsed even looking into at home :p

Lacking a full Qt port, which is a massive undertaking, if there was a CDH host you could at the very least treat it as part of the XSI layout and window, and you wouldn't have the headaches of pumping threads and weaving your way around a rather touchy main event loop you have no control over, nor queriable intervals in.

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

[Steven Caron]

yep, same issues, except...

"you are limited into what you can pass back and forth to the rest of XSI"

i haven't run into any data passing issues yet, mind citing some examples?

s

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Anything and everything you can normally only do with relational views in example, like changing the state of part of your UI based on the state of an xsi view.

[Steven Caron]

ah yes, i tried to make some improvements to the anim mixer gui by wrapping it in a RV once, only to find out how limited i was.

s

[Stefan Kubicek]

+1

--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

[Stefan Kubicek]

Thanks for the update, I was just about to ask the same thing actually. Care to elaborate as to what problems keep you guys from releasing it?
I've been checking blur-dev almost on a daily basis since months now, only to see that same "Site Down for Updates" message since March :-)

Cheers,

Stefan

Hey guys,

I have taken down all the installations today for a general cleaning. I'll be uploading latest installers, code, and updating the wiki this week - so check back soon.

Eric
Blur Studio - Development

Blur Studio has long been a proponent of sharing its programming resources, and in keeping with that tradition, we have opened up this project to share our innovations with the public.
Disclaimer

This is our production code, we're releasing it out publicly, but as read-only for the time being as we are not equipped to handle multiple trunks and code changes coming from outside of the studio. All the code is being released "as-is", if it doesn't work, feel free to make an issue, and we will try to address it as we can, but we have limited resources, and as we are not a software house, this is not the primary goal of the studio - unsupported versions and operating systems will be considered very low priority for us as our number 1 priority is making sure our code works here at the studio.
Who is this site for?
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TDs - Our libraries can help bridge the gap between art and code
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Known Issues

PLEASE - see the KnownIssues page for any local changes, workarounds, and known issues before commenting or emailing. If you have a workaround to a problem, please add a comment to the page so others will know how to fix it as well. If you have an issue that you cannot fix, please add a new issue to the project so we can address it for you.

Thanks!
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[Steven Caron]

we are writing studio tools that spread across softimage and 3dsmax, both required custom pyqt/qt implementations... 3dsmax required python support too. eric our lead programmer is putting the 3dsmax one through its paces, i already put the softimage one through its paces and we are using it for some asset tracking tools as we speak. when eric feels comfortable that all bugs/crashes on the 3dsmax side are resolved and we have some tools built with it production tested he will release it. at the rate in which we are moving on this i think i wont be for months. i am sorry but we are very pressed for time and updating the site with the latest tools takes a lot lower priority than internal development.

s

[Stefan Kubicek]

I see, that's only logical. I was really just curious what to expect in the near future. Thanks a lot,

Stefan

[Steven Caron]

ya, i really want you guys to get a hold of it! but its not my choice :(

i promise the second it is online i will be making an announcement here.

s