from:"Christopher Crouzet"

Sure thing but be warned that I'm far from being a noise expert! :)


On 27 April 2017 at 17:21, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:

> Yes, exactly, I found the same. I'm quite relieved your experience mirrors
> mine as otherwise I've just been wasting a lot of my time! :)
>
> Would love you to beta test when it's ready (if you're interested).
> A
>
>
> On 27/04/2017 11:17, Christopher Crouzet wrote:
>
> I've just tried what you said and in fact the unified noise doesn't even
> seem to use the full [0, 1] range as one would expect from reading the doc.
> At least not in H13. Or maybe I did something wrong. If this turns out to
> be true, it'd kill the primary purpose of the node to bring coherency
> between the different noise types. Not great for lookdev as you said.
>
> This bring back blurry memories where I digged into the unified noise a
> couple of years ago and ended up coding my own, maybe because of this exact
> reason. But then I eventually lost the digital asset that I had built and
> ended up using the default noises instead :)
>
>
> On 27 April 2017 at 16:42, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:
>
>> The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs all
>> the noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its logic
>> from the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can easily have
>> access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:
>>
>> #include 
>> v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
>> f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);
>>
>>
>>
>> Aah, thanks for that Chris. Didn't realise you could access the noise
>> functions like that. Good to know :)
>>
>> Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise values
>> in `pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked the
>> min/max values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics for the
>> win! :)
>>
>>
>> Yep, that's what I've been doing. I'm concentrating on FBM modes of
>> evaluating the basic noise functions (noise(), xnoise(), snoise(),
>> onoise(), anoise) as that's what I tend to use the most. Unified Noise is
>> okay, but I still find problems with shifting offsets in the noise.
>>
>> For example, make a grid with 150 divisions, create a Unified Noise in a
>> Point VOP and set it to use Signature:->"3D Input, 3D noise", Noise
>> Type->"Perlin", Fractal Type "Standard (fBm)" add the vector output to the
>> point position and then try playing around with the Max Octaves,
>> Lacunarity, and Roughness. You'll see that you get a global uniform "DC"
>> offset along the each axis. That's not cool! If I'm using that as a noise
>> force, then it has just pushed all my particles in the (1,1,1) direction.
>> You'll also find that switching between noise types noticably changes the
>> amplitude range. Again, not great if I'm doing lookdev and I just want to
>> try a different noise type without changing the general magnitude force
>> amount.
>>
>> In addition to sampling the noise values, I'm doing some curve fitting to
>> that data in Python's scipy which smooths out some of the statistical
>> glitches with the sampling. It's giving some good results that don't
>> exhibit the DC offset that I mentioned above. All this should let me create
>> a replacement for the Anti-Aliased Noise VOP. I'm not dealing with the
>> anti-aliasing aspect yet though, so it won't be as good for shaders, but
>> the offset isn't quite so important in that context as it is for using it
>> for forces.
>>
>> Still need to do some testing and then package them up into VOPs, but
>> once they're ready I'll release them in siLib for everyone to try.
>>
>> A
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Christopher Crouzet
> *https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com>
>
>
>
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>
>
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>



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*https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com>
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Re: shameful houdini question

I've just tried what you said and in fact the unified noise doesn't even
seem to use the full [0, 1] range as one would expect from reading the doc.
At least not in H13. Or maybe I did something wrong. If this turns out to
be true, it'd kill the primary purpose of the node to bring coherency
between the different noise types. Not great for lookdev as you said.

This bring back blurry memories where I digged into the unified noise a
couple of years ago and ended up coding my own, maybe because of this exact
reason. But then I eventually lost the digital asset that I had built and
ended up using the default noises instead :)


On 27 April 2017 at 16:42, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:

> The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs all
> the noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its logic
> from the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can easily have
> access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:
>
> #include 
> v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
> f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);
>
>
>
> Aah, thanks for that Chris. Didn't realise you could access the noise
> functions like that. Good to know :)
>
> Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise values
> in `pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked the
> min/max values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics for the
> win! :)
>
>
> Yep, that's what I've been doing. I'm concentrating on FBM modes of
> evaluating the basic noise functions (noise(), xnoise(), snoise(),
> onoise(), anoise) as that's what I tend to use the most. Unified Noise is
> okay, but I still find problems with shifting offsets in the noise.
>
> For example, make a grid with 150 divisions, create a Unified Noise in a
> Point VOP and set it to use Signature:->"3D Input, 3D noise", Noise
> Type->"Perlin", Fractal Type "Standard (fBm)" add the vector output to the
> point position and then try playing around with the Max Octaves,
> Lacunarity, and Roughness. You'll see that you get a global uniform "DC"
> offset along the each axis. That's not cool! If I'm using that as a noise
> force, then it has just pushed all my particles in the (1,1,1) direction.
> You'll also find that switching between noise types noticably changes the
> amplitude range. Again, not great if I'm doing lookdev and I just want to
> try a different noise type without changing the general magnitude force
> amount.
>
> In addition to sampling the noise values, I'm doing some curve fitting to
> that data in Python's scipy which smooths out some of the statistical
> glitches with the sampling. It's giving some good results that don't
> exhibit the DC offset that I mentioned above. All this should let me create
> a replacement for the Anti-Aliased Noise VOP. I'm not dealing with the
> anti-aliasing aspect yet though, so it won't be as good for shaders, but
> the offset isn't quite so important in that context as it is for using it
> for forces.
>
> Still need to do some testing and then package them up into VOPs, but once
> they're ready I'll release them in siLib for everyone to try.
>
> A
>
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>



-- 
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*https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com>
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Re: shameful houdini question

Sorry, I can't really help as there are no `primpoints` function nor array
attributes in H13, so I can't try any of that. That being said you are
using @ptnum instead of @primnum.


On 27 April 2017 at 16:21, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank's Christopher, I'm just realizing that now :/
> i[]@toto  = primpoints(0, @ptnum);
> Won't work in a VOP Snippet, but I can bind the array in VOP later.
>
> crazy, it's one of the most used function...
>
> 2017-04-27 10:06 GMT+02:00 Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com>:
>
>> I think remembering that I also had the same thought back when I started
>> using Houdini but then it probably just sinked in... the logic in Houdini
>> is strong! :)
>>
>>
>> On 27 April 2017 at 14:53, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No complaints from me Christopher. It just spun my head a little the
>>> first time I found out. Although now it makes complete sense even if it is
>>> all a little 'like a circle in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel’.  ;)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 27 Apr 2017, at 08:27, Christopher Crouzet <
>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> @Olivier: Not all VEX functions have been ported to VOP nodes, so maybe
>>> `primpoints` is one of these? Use a wrangle! ;)
>>>
>>> @Jonathan: I guess the rationale is that there was no need write a brand
>>> new node only to repeat the same features already available elsewhere?
>>> Seems fair enough to me and it also follows Houdini's philosophy of putting
>>> together a few building blocks together to provide higher-level nodes.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 27 April 2017 at 13:54, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Funnily enough it all get’s a bit ‘pop will eat itself’ in that a VEX
>>>> Wrangle is in fact a digital asset and in that digital asset is a VOP and
>>>> in the VOP is a VEX snippet node and that generates that actual VEX code!
>>>>
>>>> As they used to say in one of my favourite 80’s US comedies ‘Soap’ -
>>>> “Confused, you will be!”.  :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 27 Apr 2017, at 07:03, Christopher Crouzet <
>>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Technically, VOP is just a wrapper around VEX, so you could say that
>>>> you're kinda using VEX... indirectly! :P
>>>>
>>>> @Steven I actually didn't reply to your question at all. I don't know
>>>> how I manage to misread emails that well but I'm pretty good at it!
>>>> Anyways, the function `pcfind` returns point numbers, so then you can just
>>>> loop over them and use the usual methods, such as for example `point
>>>> <http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/vex/functions/point>` to retrieve
>>>> other attributes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 27 April 2017 at 12:33, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Still in the VOP band wagon here :/
>>>>>
>>>>> 2017-04-27 7:22 GMT+02:00 Christopher Crouzet <
>>>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>>> The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs
>>>>>> all the noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its
>>>>>> logic from the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can 
>>>>>> easily
>>>>>> have access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> #include 
>>>>>> v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
>>>>>> f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The naming convention of these wrappers is detailed in the file. And
>>>>>> in newer versions of Houdini than my H13, they have added a 
>>>>>> `unified_noise`
>>>>>> function that makes it even easier to use.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise
>>>>>> values in `pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked
>>>>>> the min/max values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics 
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> the win! :)
>>>

Re: shameful houdini question

I think remembering that I also had the same thought back when I started
using Houdini but then it probably just sinked in... the logic in Houdini
is strong! :)


On 27 April 2017 at 14:53, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> No complaints from me Christopher. It just spun my head a little the first
> time I found out. Although now it makes complete sense even if it is all a
> little 'like a circle in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel’.  ;)
>
>
>
> On 27 Apr 2017, at 08:27, Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> @Olivier: Not all VEX functions have been ported to VOP nodes, so maybe
> `primpoints` is one of these? Use a wrangle! ;)
>
> @Jonathan: I guess the rationale is that there was no need write a brand
> new node only to repeat the same features already available elsewhere?
> Seems fair enough to me and it also follows Houdini's philosophy of putting
> together a few building blocks together to provide higher-level nodes.
>
>
> On 27 April 2017 at 13:54, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Funnily enough it all get’s a bit ‘pop will eat itself’ in that a VEX
>> Wrangle is in fact a digital asset and in that digital asset is a VOP and
>> in the VOP is a VEX snippet node and that generates that actual VEX code!
>>
>> As they used to say in one of my favourite 80’s US comedies ‘Soap’ -
>> “Confused, you will be!”.  :)
>>
>>
>>
>> On 27 Apr 2017, at 07:03, Christopher Crouzet <
>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Technically, VOP is just a wrapper around VEX, so you could say that
>> you're kinda using VEX... indirectly! :P
>>
>> @Steven I actually didn't reply to your question at all. I don't know how
>> I manage to misread emails that well but I'm pretty good at it! Anyways,
>> the function `pcfind` returns point numbers, so then you can just loop over
>> them and use the usual methods, such as for example `point
>> <http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/vex/functions/point>` to retrieve
>> other attributes.
>>
>>
>> On 27 April 2017 at 12:33, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Still in the VOP band wagon here :/
>>>
>>> 2017-04-27 7:22 GMT+02:00 Christopher Crouzet <
>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs all
>>>> the noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its logic
>>>> from the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can easily have
>>>> access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:
>>>>
>>>> #include 
>>>> v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
>>>> f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The naming convention of these wrappers is detailed in the file. And in
>>>> newer versions of Houdini than my H13, they have added a `unified_noise`
>>>> function that makes it even easier to use.
>>>>
>>>> Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise
>>>> values in `pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked
>>>> the min/max values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics for
>>>> the win! :)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> @Steven To answer your initial question, you can use
>>>> `pcimport(my_pc_handle, "point.number", my_ptnum_var);` to retrieve the
>>>> point number.
>>>>
>>>> The function `pcfilter` is handy only if you exactly want the behaviour
>>>> as they documented it. If for example you'd like to use a slightly
>>>> different weighting formula (based not only on distance but also on mass,
>>>> for example), then you'd have to write your own.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 27 April 2017 at 11:27, Andy Goehler <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Steven,
>>>>>
>>>>> same as Andy (Nicholas) here, VOPs mostly for Noise stuff, Wrangles
>>>>> for anything else.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers and have fun.
>>>>> Andy
>>>>>
>>>>> On Apr 27, 2017, at 12:47 AM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Just to understand how the power users are using this. Are you using
>>>>> wrangle nodes with vex snippets 100% of the time or are you using the

Re: shameful houdini question

@Olivier: Not all VEX functions have been ported to VOP nodes, so maybe
`primpoints` is one of these? Use a wrangle! ;)

@Jonathan: I guess the rationale is that there was no need write a brand
new node only to repeat the same features already available elsewhere?
Seems fair enough to me and it also follows Houdini's philosophy of putting
together a few building blocks together to provide higher-level nodes.


On 27 April 2017 at 13:54, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Funnily enough it all get’s a bit ‘pop will eat itself’ in that a VEX
> Wrangle is in fact a digital asset and in that digital asset is a VOP and
> in the VOP is a VEX snippet node and that generates that actual VEX code!
>
> As they used to say in one of my favourite 80’s US comedies ‘Soap’ -
> “Confused, you will be!”.  :)
>
>
>
> On 27 Apr 2017, at 07:03, Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Technically, VOP is just a wrapper around VEX, so you could say that
> you're kinda using VEX... indirectly! :P
>
> @Steven I actually didn't reply to your question at all. I don't know how
> I manage to misread emails that well but I'm pretty good at it! Anyways,
> the function `pcfind` returns point numbers, so then you can just loop over
> them and use the usual methods, such as for example `point
> <http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/vex/functions/point>` to retrieve
> other attributes.
>
>
> On 27 April 2017 at 12:33, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Still in the VOP band wagon here :/
>>
>> 2017-04-27 7:22 GMT+02:00 Christopher Crouzet <
>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>> The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs all
>>> the noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its logic
>>> from the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can easily have
>>> access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:
>>>
>>> #include 
>>> v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
>>> f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);
>>>
>>>
>>> The naming convention of these wrappers is detailed in the file. And in
>>> newer versions of Houdini than my H13, they have added a `unified_noise`
>>> function that makes it even easier to use.
>>>
>>> Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise values
>>> in `pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked the
>>> min/max values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics for the
>>> win! :)
>>>
>>>
>>> @Steven To answer your initial question, you can use
>>> `pcimport(my_pc_handle, "point.number", my_ptnum_var);` to retrieve the
>>> point number.
>>>
>>> The function `pcfilter` is handy only if you exactly want the behaviour
>>> as they documented it. If for example you'd like to use a slightly
>>> different weighting formula (based not only on distance but also on mass,
>>> for example), then you'd have to write your own.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 27 April 2017 at 11:27, Andy Goehler <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Steven,
>>>>
>>>> same as Andy (Nicholas) here, VOPs mostly for Noise stuff, Wrangles for
>>>> anything else.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers and have fun.
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 27, 2017, at 12:47 AM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Just to understand how the power users are using this. Are you using
>>>> wrangle nodes with vex snippets 100% of the time or are you using the VOP
>>>> sub graph for somethings?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>>>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Christopher Crouzet
>>> *https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com/>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Christopher Crouzet
> *https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com/>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
>
>
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> Softimage Mailing List.
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> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>



-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com>
--
Softimage Mailing List.
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Re: shameful houdini question

Technically, VOP is just a wrapper around VEX, so you could say that you're
kinda using VEX... indirectly! :P

@Steven I actually didn't reply to your question at all. I don't know how I
manage to misread emails that well but I'm pretty good at it! Anyways, the
function `pcfind` returns point numbers, so then you can just loop over
them and use the usual methods, such as for example `point
<http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/vex/functions/point>` to retrieve other
attributes.


On 27 April 2017 at 12:33, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Still in the VOP band wagon here :/
>
> 2017-04-27 7:22 GMT+02:00 Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com>:
>
>> The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs all
>> the noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its logic
>> from the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can easily have
>> access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:
>>
>> #include 
>> v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
>> f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);
>>
>>
>> The naming convention of these wrappers is detailed in the file. And in
>> newer versions of Houdini than my H13, they have added a `unified_noise`
>> function that makes it even easier to use.
>>
>> Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise values
>> in `pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked the
>> min/max values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics for the
>> win! :)
>>
>>
>> @Steven To answer your initial question, you can use
>> `pcimport(my_pc_handle, "point.number", my_ptnum_var);` to retrieve the
>> point number.
>>
>> The function `pcfilter` is handy only if you exactly want the behaviour
>> as they documented it. If for example you'd like to use a slightly
>> different weighting formula (based not only on distance but also on mass,
>> for example), then you'd have to write your own.
>>
>>
>> On 27 April 2017 at 11:27, Andy Goehler <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Steven,
>>>
>>> same as Andy (Nicholas) here, VOPs mostly for Noise stuff, Wrangles for
>>> anything else.
>>>
>>> Cheers and have fun.
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> On Apr 27, 2017, at 12:47 AM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Just to understand how the power users are using this. Are you using
>>> wrangle nodes with vex snippets 100% of the time or are you using the VOP
>>> sub graph for somethings?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Christopher Crouzet
>> *https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>



-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*https://christophercrouzet.com* <https://christophercrouzet.com>
--
Softimage Mailing List.
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Re: shameful houdini question

2017-04-26 Thread Christopher Crouzet

The `Unified Noise VOP`, which is a fairly useful node that outputs all the
noise values in the [0, 1] range, takes pretty much all of its logic from
the `pyro_noise.h` include file. Which means that you can easily have
access to the same functionalities in VEX, like so:

#include 
v@perlin = vnwrap_perlin3(v@P, 0, 0);
f@pflow = fnwrap_pflow1(v@P, {1, 2, 3}, 0);

The naming convention of these wrappers is detailed in the file. And in
newer versions of Houdini than my H13, they have added a `unified_noise`
function that makes it even easier to use.

Also, it's interesting to see how they managed to unify the noise values in
`pyro_noise.h`: they basically ran a lot of samples and picked the min/max
values of each noise to approximate their range. Statistics for the win! :)

@Steven To answer your initial question, you can use
`pcimport(my_pc_handle, "point.number", my_ptnum_var);` to retrieve the
point number.

The function `pcfilter` is handy only if you exactly want the behaviour as
they documented it. If for example you'd like to use a slightly different
weighting formula (based not only on distance but also on mass, for
example), then you'd have to write your own.

On 27 April 2017 at 11:27, Andy Goehler <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Steven,
>
> same as Andy (Nicholas) here, VOPs mostly for Noise stuff, Wrangles for
> anything else.
>
> Cheers and have fun.
> Andy
>
> On Apr 27, 2017, at 12:47 AM, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just to understand how the power users are using this. Are you using
> wrangle nodes with vex snippets 100% of the time or are you using the VOP
> sub graph for somethings?
>
>
>
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>

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Re: Houdini Digital Assets for Softies

2017-03-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Ah, I see. Might be worth submitting a bug to see what they say?



On 30 March 2017 at 18:47, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:

> Hi Chris,
> You get an error saying "Input data type does not match output for input
> 'input1'." I agree with you that it should work. If you look at passing in
> a non-array value, the VEX code looks like it would be perfectly happy
> receiving an array as it just calls "min(parm)".
>
> I figure it must be some sort of validation that's happening at a higher
> level in the Network Editor that's forbidding the array to be hooked up to
> it.
>
>
>
> On 30/03/2017 10:42, Christopher Crouzet wrote:
>
> Hey Andy,
>
> Seems reasonable?
>>
>
> I am not arguing against the creation of a GetArrayMinimum node, I was
> just being curious to understand what I was missing (the min() VEX
> function always seemed to work for me), so thanks for taking the time to
> explain!
>
> In fact I'm now curious to know why the MinVOP wouldn't work on arrays but
> unfortunately I don't have access to any of the *Array*VOP nodes in Houdini
> 13 so I cannot try it on my end. Does the node errors out when you connect
> a single array into the first input? If not, maybe you can check "View VEX
> Code" to see what's happening there? Since VOP compiles directly to VEX, I
> wouldn't have expected that it'd work in one case but not the other.
>
>
> On 30 March 2017 at 15:58, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Chris,
>> Yes, the min() VEX function does indeed work on arrays, but the Min VOP
>> unfortunately doesn’t.
>>
>> It works as a good example though. I don’t want to confuse things, but if
>> we assume for a moment that the Min VOP did actually work on arrays, I
>> think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to find a way to expose the functionality
>> better to an artist, as it’s fairly unusual to have a function that finds
>> the minimum of several inputs, as well as coping with feeding an array in.
>> Creating a node called "Get Array Min” that wraps the “Min” VOP, would make
>> things clearer at a small expense of duplication. Also, if someone hits Tab
>> and types “Array”, then they get to see all the nodes that work on arrays
>> include the new “Get Array Min” node. Without it, they wouldn’t ever see
>> the Min VOP and would risk overlooking that functionality.
>>
>> This way of thinking is similar to what SideFX have been doing with the
>> wrangle SOPs. (For those who don’t know, the Attribute Wrangle,Vertex
>> Wrangle, Point Wrangle, and Primitive Wrangle are all exactly the same
>> nodes, just with different presets applied.) I think this added verbosity
>> of “macro” nodes is okay in situations where it provides clarity and
>> requires the user to remember less. Just as long as you don’t end up with a
>> library of nodes that does nothing but translate the linguistic differences
>> between Softimage and Houdini, as that wouldn’t really help anyone in the
>> long run.
>>
>> But since the Min VOP doesn’t work, I imagine we would just wrap a VEX
>> snippet calling the min() function and make sure it looks as similar as
>> possible to the other VOPs. Seems reasonable?
>>
>> I rarely feel the need for storing arrays in attributes
>>
>>
>> Yep, arrays aren’t needed that often in attributes, but they’re essential
>> for some types of operations, e.g. edge relaxing, where you need to store
>> rest edge lengths. I would imagine that most people who have used a lot of
>> ICE find it quite comfortable to use arrays (e.g strands) and are an
>> essential part of their toolkit, so it makes sense to streamline Houdini's
>> workflow to support it.
>>
>> Maybe the first thing to do before porting a node/workflow from Softimage
>> would be to figure out how to do it best in Houdini, as a way to get more
>> familiar with Houdini's philosophy, and then balance the pros/cons of each
>> approach.
>>
>>
>> Exactly. See what I wrote in the first paragraph in my reply to Jordi
>> yesterday at 20:08 and I think you’ll see we’re thinking on the same lines.
>> Whatever gets made must feel like a natural extension of Houdini and be
>> highly compatible with the standard way of working in Houdini, rather than
>> working against it.
>>
>> I think there’ll be a lot of back and forth about how nodes are authored
>> and what expectations we need to have of them, so do get involved when it
>> moves across to the Google group.
>>
>> A
>>
>>
>>
>> On 30 Mar 2017, at 02:09, Christopher Crouzet <
>> c

Re: Houdini Digital Assets for Softies

2017-03-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Hey Andy,

Seems reasonable?
>

I am not arguing against the creation of a GetArrayMinimum node, I was just
being curious to understand what I was missing (the min() VEX function
always seemed to work for me), so thanks for taking the time to explain!

In fact I'm now curious to know why the MinVOP wouldn't work on arrays but
unfortunately I don't have access to any of the *Array*VOP nodes in Houdini
13 so I cannot try it on my end. Does the node errors out when you connect
a single array into the first input? If not, maybe you can check "View VEX
Code" to see what's happening there? Since VOP compiles directly to VEX, I
wouldn't have expected that it'd work in one case but not the other.


On 30 March 2017 at 15:58, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:

> Hi Chris,
> Yes, the min() VEX function does indeed work on arrays, but the Min VOP
> unfortunately doesn’t.
>
> It works as a good example though. I don’t want to confuse things, but if
> we assume for a moment that the Min VOP did actually work on arrays, I
> think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to find a way to expose the functionality
> better to an artist, as it’s fairly unusual to have a function that finds
> the minimum of several inputs, as well as coping with feeding an array in.
> Creating a node called "Get Array Min” that wraps the “Min” VOP, would make
> things clearer at a small expense of duplication. Also, if someone hits Tab
> and types “Array”, then they get to see all the nodes that work on arrays
> include the new “Get Array Min” node. Without it, they wouldn’t ever see
> the Min VOP and would risk overlooking that functionality.
>
> This way of thinking is similar to what SideFX have been doing with the
> wrangle SOPs. (For those who don’t know, the Attribute Wrangle,Vertex
> Wrangle, Point Wrangle, and Primitive Wrangle are all exactly the same
> nodes, just with different presets applied.) I think this added verbosity
> of “macro” nodes is okay in situations where it provides clarity and
> requires the user to remember less. Just as long as you don’t end up with a
> library of nodes that does nothing but translate the linguistic differences
> between Softimage and Houdini, as that wouldn’t really help anyone in the
> long run.
>
> But since the Min VOP doesn’t work, I imagine we would just wrap a VEX
> snippet calling the min() function and make sure it looks as similar as
> possible to the other VOPs. Seems reasonable?
>
> I rarely feel the need for storing arrays in attributes
>
>
> Yep, arrays aren’t needed that often in attributes, but they’re essential
> for some types of operations, e.g. edge relaxing, where you need to store
> rest edge lengths. I would imagine that most people who have used a lot of
> ICE find it quite comfortable to use arrays (e.g strands) and are an
> essential part of their toolkit, so it makes sense to streamline Houdini's
> workflow to support it.
>
> Maybe the first thing to do before porting a node/workflow from Softimage
> would be to figure out how to do it best in Houdini, as a way to get more
> familiar with Houdini's philosophy, and then balance the pros/cons of each
> approach.
>
>
> Exactly. See what I wrote in the first paragraph in my reply to Jordi
> yesterday at 20:08 and I think you’ll see we’re thinking on the same lines.
> Whatever gets made must feel like a natural extension of Houdini and be
> highly compatible with the standard way of working in Houdini, rather than
> working against it.
>
> I think there’ll be a lot of back and forth about how nodes are authored
> and what expectations we need to have of them, so do get involved when it
> moves across to the Google group.
>
> A
>
>
>
> On 30 Mar 2017, at 02:09, Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Regarding GetArrayMinimum: there is a min()
> <http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/vex/functions/min> function in VEX,
> or were you referring to something else?
>
> Note that I'm still using Houdini 13 where support for arrays is not as
> extended as in later versions, but I rarely feel the need for storing
> arrays in attributes, or even using arrays at all in my code. An example of
> exception would be to store the list of neighbouring indices for the
> downstream nodes to use, but then it's likely that putting all the logic in
> a single monolithic VEX instead wouldn't be such a bad approach.
>
> Maybe the first thing to do before porting a node/workflow from Softimage
> would be to figure out how to do it best in Houdini, as a way to get more
> familiar with Houdini's philosophy, and then balance the pros/cons of each
> approach.
>
>
> PS: I personally find it cool to see the list revived with Houdini
> discussions!
>
>

Re: Houdini Digital Assets for Softies

2017-03-29 Thread Christopher Crouzet

gt;
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> haha! :)
>
>
>
>
>
> Will leave this question hanging tonight in case anyone else wants
>
> to chime in. Final decision can happen tomorrow.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 29/03/2017 17:38, Olivier Jeannel
>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Autodesk lib ?
>
> N too rancorous...
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, March 29, 2017, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com>
>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> I'd probably go with
>
> something like Andy's siLib or softLib - it's a bit more
>
> obvious what it is. Probably the latter if it was up to me.
>
>
>
>
>
> What do you guys think? Any other suggestions?
>
>
>
>
> On 29/03/2017 17:14, Jonathan Moore wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I was thinking H20...
>
>
>
>
>
> On 29 March 2017 at 17:12, Andy
>
> Goehler <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com>
>
> wrote:
>
> In
>
> honor of inspiration how about?
>
>
>
>
>
> • softLib
>
>
> • siLib
>
>
> • ICELib
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 29, 2017, at 6:08 PM, Andy Nicholas
>
> <a...@andynicholas.com>
>
> wrote:
>
>
> >
>
>
> > Continuing the thread here:
>
>
> >
>
>
> > Any suggestions for a name?
>
>
> > A
>
>
> >
>
>
> > On 29/03/2017 17:00, Andy Nicholas wrote:
>
>
> >> I'm more than happy to help. I'm just
>
> unsure how much time I'll be
>
>
> >> able to devote to this as I'm pretty
>
> busy with some personal work at
>
>
> >> the moment.
>
>
> >>
>
>
> >> How about I set up something similar to
>
> Nick's on Github and we go
>
>
> >> from there?
>
>
> >>
>
>
> >> We need a name for it. Let's start a
>
> new thread on the list and move
>
>
> >> discussions over to that. Is that okay?
>
>
> >>
>
>
> >> A
>
>
> >
>
>
> > --
>
>
> > Softimage Mailing List.
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Re: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular direction?

2017-03-14 Thread Christopher Crouzet

gt; > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > Den 14. marts 2017 klokken 11:11 skrev p...@bustykelp.com:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > You can either
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Emit from the whole and delete the ones that aren't pointing in
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > right
> > > > > > direction, (based on comparing the normal angle to your preferred
> > > > > > vector)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Or create a weightmap on the object and use ICE to set the values
> > > > > > based
> > > > > > upon
> > > > > > the normal angle and use the weightmap in the Emit node. (This
> > > > > > wont
> > > > > > work
> > > > > > on
> > > > > > low poly meshes for obvious reasons)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Or make a duplicate of the surface, and use ICE to delete Polys
> > > > > > that
> > > > > > aren't
> > > > > > pointing in the right direction, then emit from the resulting
> > > > > > object.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Number 1 is the easiest to set up.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Paul
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -Original Message-
> > > > > > From: Morten Bartholdy
> > > > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 10:05 AM
> > > > > > To: Userlist, Softimage
> > > > > > Subject: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular
> > > > > > direction?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I have looked through the sample scenes but could not find
> > > > > > something
> > > > > > that
> > > > > > does this. I want to emit particles from surfaces of an object
> > > > > > that
> > > > > > faces
> > > > > > in
> > > > > > a particular direction, either a custom vector or fom polygons
> > > > > > facing
> > > > > > a
> > > > > > null.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > How can I do this?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Morten
> > > > > > --
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Re: houdini question (and where to ask)

2017-03-07 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I naively compared the AttribPromote with an AttribWrangle in detail mode,
and the results were much (much) faster with the AttribPromote, so I assume
it is multi-threaded and would be hard to beat with any sort of wrangle
trickery.

I'm still stuck with H13 so I didn't know about the numbers mode, that's
neat!


On 7 March 2017 at 16:43, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:

> Andy, the O(N) thing got me thinking and realized that instead of running
> the attrib wrangle in detail mode, which uses only a single thread, it'd be
> possible to generate say 4 points and, in a point wrangle, let each of
> these points process 1/4th of the array, thus effectively running the same
> logic on 4 threads! Another attrib wrangle is then needed in post to sum up
> the result from each point. Well, in all honesty I don't think there'll
> ever be a use case for it :)
>
>
> Yes absolutely! Definitely a good approach if you're after performance.
> It'd be interesting to do a comparison between that and an Attribute
> Promote SOP to see which is faster. I suspect (i.e. hope) the Attribute
> Promote SOP is multithreaded, so probably no major advantage.
>
> BTW, you don't even need to generate the 4 points as you've got the Run
> Over "Numbers" mode which will do the same. You can save the result into a
> detail array attribute and analyse it in a Detail Wrangle. Just takes a bit
> more management to set it up.
>
>
>
>
> On 07/03/2017 01:35, Christopher Crouzet wrote:
>
> Wow, I shouldn't have wrote that late last night, I completely mixed
> things up in my previous post, sorry!
>
> I'll try again! With a ramp, you have the source (input) values on the X
> axis, and the target (output) values on the Y axis. If either your source
> or target values aren't in the range [0, 1], you can remap them using a
> simple float parameter (to use as a simple multiplier if your desired lower
> bound is 0), or a float2 parameter to precisely control the desired range.
>
> It seems to be a standard practice in Houdini since they use it for some
> built-in nodes, such as the Pyro SHOP.
>
> Andy, the O(N) thing got me thinking and realized that instead of running
> the attrib wrangle in detail mode, which uses only a single thread, it'd be
> possible to generate say 4 points and, in a point wrangle, let each of
> these points process 1/4th of the array, thus effectively running the same
> logic on 4 threads! Another attrib wrangle is then needed in post to sum up
> the result from each point. Well, in all honesty I don't think there'll
> ever be a use case for it :)
>
>
> On 7 March 2017 at 01:14, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ok we agree.
>>
>>
>> On Monday, March 6, 2017, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> As far as I understood it Oliver, the spline version of the Houdini Ramp
>>> only operates in the zero to one range. You re-fit the values pre/post/ or
>>> both to suite your needs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I get that this doesn’t match the UX of FCurves in XSI, but I’ve always
>>> understood Ramp’s in Houdini to be more of a lower level discrete element
>>> in visual programing terms.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Olivier Jeannel
>>> *Sent:* 06 March 2017 17:31
>>> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
>>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <
>>> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>>> *Subject:* Re: houdini question (and where to ask)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Not sure I get it Christopher (not in front of H)
>>>
>>> Does your trick actualy change the graph visualy ?
>>>
>>> In short, can I see the negative x & y values ?
>>>
>>> On Monday, March 6, 2017, Christopher Crouzet <
>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Indeed, which is why I mentioned the “detail” mode which brings you back
>>> to O(N). Not saying that one approach is better than the other though, only
>>> that it is possible.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7 March 2017 at 00:12, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Yep it is possible, but you wouldn't want to do it because each
>>> calculation of the maximum value would be running across N points to
>>> calculate that. That'd make it an O(N^2) operation, albeit spread over
>>> multiple threads.
>>>
>>> It might seem like a pa

Re: houdini question (and where to ask)

2017-03-06 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Wow, I shouldn't have wrote that late last night, I completely mixed things
up in my previous post, sorry!

I'll try again! With a ramp, you have the source (input) values on the X
axis, and the target (output) values on the Y axis. If either your source
or target values aren't in the range [0, 1], you can remap them using a
simple float parameter (to use as a simple multiplier if your desired lower
bound is 0), or a float2 parameter to precisely control the desired range.

It seems to be a standard practice in Houdini since they use it for some
built-in nodes, such as the Pyro SHOP.

Andy, the O(N) thing got me thinking and realized that instead of running
the attrib wrangle in detail mode, which uses only a single thread, it'd be
possible to generate say 4 points and, in a point wrangle, let each of
these points process 1/4th of the array, thus effectively running the same
logic on 4 threads! Another attrib wrangle is then needed in post to sum up
the result from each point. Well, in all honesty I don't think there'll
ever be a use case for it :)


On 7 March 2017 at 01:14, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok we agree.
>
>
> On Monday, March 6, 2017, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> As far as I understood it Oliver, the spline version of the Houdini Ramp
>> only operates in the zero to one range. You re-fit the values pre/post/ or
>> both to suite your needs.
>>
>>
>>
>> I get that this doesn’t match the UX of FCurves in XSI, but I’ve always
>> understood Ramp’s in Houdini to be more of a lower level discrete element
>> in visual programing terms.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Olivier Jeannel
>> *Sent:* 06 March 2017 17:31
>> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <
>> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: houdini question (and where to ask)
>>
>>
>>
>> Not sure I get it Christopher (not in front of H)
>>
>> Does your trick actualy change the graph visualy ?
>>
>> In short, can I see the negative x & y values ?
>>
>> On Monday, March 6, 2017, Christopher Crouzet <
>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Indeed, which is why I mentioned the “detail” mode which brings you back
>> to O(N). Not saying that one approach is better than the other though, only
>> that it is possible.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7 March 2017 at 00:12, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yep it is possible, but you wouldn't want to do it because each
>> calculation of the maximum value would be running across N points to
>> calculate that. That'd make it an O(N^2) operation, albeit spread over
>> multiple threads.
>>
>> It might seem like a pain to have to do this in advance using an
>> Attribute Promote, but by doing so, it's actually forcing you to work in a
>> more efficient way. Go with it ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> On 06/03/2017 16:32, Christopher Crouzet wrote:
>>
>> It *is* possible to retrieve the maximum value in a VOP since nothing
>> stops anyone from manually iterating through all the points of the
>> geometry. This kind of operation might be more suited in “detail” mode
>> though.
>>
>> Also, having the ramp normalized to the [0, 1] range in both the X and Y
>> axis is usually “workarounded” by adding a float parameter for the
>> amplitude (Y axis) that is used as a global multiplier (making later
>> tweakings convenient!), and a float2 parameter for the target range (X
>> axis) that is then remapped using `fit("my_ramp", 0.0, 1.0, range_min,
>> range_max)` (which is also convenient for later tweakings!).
>>
>> Now, if you really want to have an actual FCurve, then just create a
>> simple float parameter, add all the keys however you want, then query it in
>> using `chf("my_param", the_time_in_seconds)` in VEX/VOP, or using the
>> equivalent expression.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6 March 2017 at 23:29, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Fabricio ,
>>
>>
>>
>> The Attribute Promote help page has approx 15 examples you can load.
>> Hopefully you might find something within the examples to inspires a
>> solution.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Olivier Jeannel
>> *Sent:* 06 March 2017 15:56
>> *To:* Official Soft

Re: houdini question (and where to ask)

2017-03-06 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Indeed, which is why I mentioned the “detail” mode which brings you back to
O(N). Not saying that one approach is better than the other though, only
that it is possible.


On 7 March 2017 at 00:12, Andy Nicholas <a...@andynicholas.com> wrote:

> Yep it is possible, but you wouldn't want to do it because each
> calculation of the maximum value would be running across N points to
> calculate that. That'd make it an O(N^2) operation, albeit spread over
> multiple threads.
>
> It might seem like a pain to have to do this in advance using an Attribute
> Promote, but by doing so, it's actually forcing you to work in a more
> efficient way. Go with it ;)
>
>
>
> On 06/03/2017 16:32, Christopher Crouzet wrote:
>
> It *is* possible to retrieve the maximum value in a VOP since nothing
> stops anyone from manually iterating through all the points of the
> geometry. This kind of operation might be more suited in “detail” mode
> though.
>
> Also, having the ramp normalized to the [0, 1] range in both the X and Y
> axis is usually “workarounded” by adding a float parameter for the
> amplitude (Y axis) that is used as a global multiplier (making later
> tweakings convenient!), and a float2 parameter for the target range (X
> axis) that is then remapped using `fit("my_ramp", 0.0, 1.0, range_min,
> range_max)` (which is also convenient for later tweakings!).
>
> Now, if you really want to have an actual FCurve, then just create a
> simple float parameter, add all the keys however you want, then query it in
> using `chf("my_param", the_time_in_seconds)` in VEX/VOP, or using the
> equivalent expression.
>
>
> On 6 March 2017 at 23:29, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Fabricio ,
>>
>>
>>
>> The Attribute Promote help page has approx 15 examples you can load.
>> Hopefully you might find something within the examples to inspires a
>> solution.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Olivier Jeannel
>> *Sent:* 06 March 2017 15:56
>> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <
>> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: houdini question (and where to ask)
>>
>>
>>
>> You can't get the "get maximum in set" when inside a vop.
>>
>> But, you get those options with the promote attribute sop.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, March 6, 2017, Oscar Juarez <tridi.animei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I would like to be proven wrong, but that would be the way, I mean in
>> your second pointvop you don't need to add another noise, your noise is
>> already saved in an attribute, when you promote just check off delete
>> original and you can access the same noise. Also noises have specific
>> output ranges, they come in the documentation, so you can always add a fit
>> node to change your range to what you need, in the geometry spreadsheet you
>> can also sort by value so you can see max and min.
>>
>>
>>
>> If you press X with your mouse over the noise output it will add a
>> visualization node, you can visualize on the viewport or in the geometry
>> spreadsheet the values. I know its not the same but as far as I know their
>> is no way to do the same as the get maximum in set node in a vopsop context.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 3:57 PM, Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> thanks everyone. The ramp parameter kind of works but as you say, is not
>> that user friendly and does not show the points below 0. (that's ok, but I
>> wonder if it is possible to write a custom widget in houdini)
>>
>>
>>
>> anyway, the thing I could not get right just yet is that sort of "get
>> maximum in set" thing. Sorry for using ICE language, I'm trying to be open
>> minded here, so please tell me if that`s not the correct mindset.
>>
>>
>>
>> so on this graph:
>>
>>
>>
>> [image: Imagem inline 1]
>>
>>
>>
>> ...how could I get the maximum value of the output noise node and compare
>> to a single point output of the same node?
>>
>>
>>
>> From what I can tell, I'd have to:
>>
>>
>>
>> 1- create this pointvop node with a turbnoise, then store the output
>> noise into an attribute (via bindexport?)
>>
>> 2- up one level -> drop an attrib promote (detail), set to maximum
>>

Re: houdini question (and where to ask)

2017-03-06 Thread Christopher Crouzet

;
>
>
> Le 6 mars 2017 14:36, "Olivier Jeannel" <facialdel...@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> in vop, bind and bind export node will get an set datas.
>
> Ramp Parameters is sort of fcurve.
>
> It's a bit weak in terms of curve manipulation, but does the job.
>
> It has 2 modes rgb (ramp) and spline.
>
> If you use several ramps in the same vop, name them with different name or
> they might not export.
>
>
>
> Le 6 mars 2017 14:28, "Fabricio Chamon" <xsiml...@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> ..sorry, hit send too soon.
>
>
>
> Question #1: are there any equivalents to ICE "get ... in set"? or or do I
> have to iterate and store values for later comparision? In other words:
> what is the best or recommended workflow to compare single point data with
> global point data?
>
>
>
> Question #2: any nodes that resemble a fCurve node, like we have in ICE?
> if not, what is the alternative?
>
>
>
> and finally, I can see this list is becoming more and more houdini-esque
> than ever..but, what is the best place to ask beginner questions like the
> above? houdini foruns, houdini list, odForce...
>
>
>
> thanks!
>
>
>
> 2017-03-06 14:23 GMT+01:00 Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com>:
>
> Hi, I'm slowly getting into houdini and this is my first attempt to port a
> really simple ridged fractal deformer made in ICE to houdini (using
> pointvop).
>
>
>
> Question #1: are there any equivalents to ICE "get ... in set"? or or do I
> have to iterate and store values for later comparision? In other words:
> what is the best or recommended workflow to compare single point data with
>
>
>
>
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Re: Houdini - Using an Attribute to drive an operator value

2017-03-02 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I also had issues figuring that out at first. There doesn't seem to be any
hard rule nor consitency and that's simply because not every node operates
on the same kind of data (nor provide support for the same feature set).
One way to know is to check if the $PT variable is available when typing an
HScript expression in a parameter. Which is not the case for the Peak SOP,
at least for me in Houdini 13.

But you know what? You can have the same result with a custom operator made
in less than 2 minutes. Create a VOP SOP, or an Attribute Wrangle SOP, and
for each point you only have to add the normal to the position, with the
coefficient value from your painted attribute.

Example in VEX: v@P += normalize(v@N) * f@my_painted_attribute;

On 2 March 2017 at 20:38, <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I’ve just started learning Houdini. I’m finding it hard to find knowledge
> on how to have an attribute, that I’ve created then painted, to drive ,say
> the per point value of a peak deformer node
>
> I have tried the point expression, but I get a load of errors.
>
> does anyone know please?
>
> thanks
> Paul ‘pooby’ Smith
>
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Re: [Houdini] Working with strands the Softimage way

2017-03-02 Thread Christopher Crouzet

 other frameworks (e.g.
> wire solver) and constraints.
>
> A
>
>
>
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Re: [Houdini] Working with strands the Softimage way

2017-03-02 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I've never used Softimage's strands but from looking at this page
<http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/ICE_strands_CreatingStrands.htm>,
it seems straighforward to reproduce in Houdini. If you emit particles and
advect their position by the velocity of your volume, then you can use the
Trail SOP to retrieve the position of each particle at each frame up to say
5 frames before, which will give you 5 points for each particle that you
only need to connect together using Add SOP (Polygons -> By Group -> Add By
Attribute -> 'id'). Then you can edit/animate your velocity field in SOP to
give some variation to your particles, or use some POP nodes in your DOP
network. Finally, you can define a 'width' attribute representing the width
of the resulting curves at each point and render as-is, or plug-in a
Polywire SOP as you mentioned to output some polygons.

On 2 March 2017 at 18:05, Tim Bolland <tim_boll...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> Hey guys, I'm after a little advice. I'm currently looking at building a
> some nice fluffy clouds made up of strands and from what I can see there a
> load of different ways to achieve something like this Houdini. Quite of few
> of the results I've seen demonstrated online are achieved by creating a
> velocity volume and drawing these the velocities out. These look nice but I
> cant really figure out a way to edit them afterwards. Other methods I've
> seen that look promising take points and running them through a Polywire,
> however there seem to a load of ways to group these points together and
> nothing is as succinct at position / strandposition
>
>
> What I'm wondering is what do you recommend? Is there a method of strand
> creation / manipulation that gives you a nice amount of flexibility and
> control? I've always been a huge fan of ICE strands, and the concept of
> starting with some points, building up strandpositions a long these points
> and controlling the properties of the strands by either the point ID or the
> strandposition ID.
>
>
> From what I can see there is not equivalent workflow that I can find, at
> least not out of the box. I can make polywires with ID's and manipulate
> this, but I'm still a little confused about the ID vs strandID context
> equivalent and how to manipulate each of them. Any advice would be
> appreciated.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Tim
>
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Re: thickness - avoiding self intersections

2016-12-12 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Have you tried using `AttribTransfer SOP` to transfer the UVs from the
original mesh onto the output of the node 'polyreduce1', and then merging?


On 12 December 2016 at 22:41, toonafish <ron...@toonafish.nl> wrote:

> you could try Meshmixer, it’s free and used for 3D printing but has a
> “hollowing” feature that might work.
>
> -Ronald
>
>
>
> On 12 Dec 2016, at 16:25, Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ...well and minutes after writing the e-mail I found a really reliable
> solution in houdini, that is messing with vdb to smooth the internal part.
> The vdbsmooth op retains the nice sharp corners while reducing
> intersections, that is exactly what I want! The only problem is how to
> merge both parts back while mantaining UVs. Houdini is giving me this
> warning: *"A mis-match of attributes on the inputs was detected. Some of
> the attribute values may not be initialized to expected values, i.e.: name,
> path, N, uv."*
>
> Of course this is me not handling the attribute transfer correctly, so any
> help is much appreciated! =)
>
> Tree and results:
>
> 
>
> 2016-12-12 12:55 GMT-02:00 Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Hey everybody,
>>
>> what are your choices when it comes to thickness/solidify (or whatever
>> you call it) geometry?
>> What software/operator or plugin you find most reliable to ouput a good
>> geo?
>>
>> I'm doing some fracture work lately, and I've always had problems to
>> solidify complex geometry (with varying thickness/sharp angles and
>> corners/etc). It ends up self-intersecting the inside part, which obviusly
>> causes problems when you have to shatter later on.
>>
>> Here's a good example, this is a corner piece from a rubiks cube (left
>> original, right solidified, bottom isolated internal result geo):
>>
>> 
>>
>> I've tried some options like:
>>
>> - apply the operator, then select the internal part and relax/smooth the
>> geo (not ideal, since it starts to degrade the original shape, to the point
>> it starts creating some internal/external intersections in some areas)
>>
>> - using blender, that has a nice feature on its thickness operator called
>> "clamp". It is exaclty what I need, but it's limited and does not work good
>> in this piece for some reason.
>>
>> I'm sure there are more smart options out there...maybe a vdb stuff for
>> the internal part, then converting it back to geo, but I'm out of ideas
>> right now.
>>
>> How would you approach this ? (mesh is attached, in case someone wants to
>> give it a shot).
>>
>> Thanks a lot guys!
>>
>
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Re: Houdini voronoi to Soft - disconnected faces?

2016-12-06 Thread Christopher Crouzet

For information, I also had issues with the Voronoi SOP creating a
suboptimal mesh output (disconnected points here and there) and found that
the scale of the object can greatly influence the quality of the fracture.
So just crank up the scale to reach a bounding box of around 100-1000 units
(don't go too high or this might cause floating-point issues), apply the
Voronoi SOP, and revert the scale back. Another helpful thing to do, as
recommended by SESI, is to avoid an input geometry with non-planar faces by
inserting a Divide SOP before the fracture.

Well, even with these 2 tips it still might not work depending on the input
geometry.


On 6 December 2016 at 21:29, Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ok solved exporting through a ROP node instead of file node. Now alembic
> imports fine and all faces are good. =)
>
> 2016-12-06 12:15 GMT-02:00 Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Well, unfortunatelly soft crashes everytime I try to import this alembic
>> mesh from houdini... so I went for objs.
>>
>> And I'm afraid I can't merge them in Soft because a) it will take quite
>> some time as the whole geo is dense and b) I'd have to leave a gap between
>> the pieces or else any adjacent pieces would get merged together... and I
>> want them to be single pieces.
>>
>> is that an export thing ? Because it works nicely inside houdini...
>>
>> 2016-12-06 12:07 GMT-02:00 nikaragua86 <nikaragu...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>> hi, i had the same issue, exported simulation from houdini to maya with
>>> alembic, i just merged vertices in maya
>>>
>>> 2016-12-06 17:00 GMT+03:00 Fabricio Chamon <xsiml...@gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> Hey gang,
>>>>
>>>> I'm doing a voronoi shatter in houdini and want to bring the result
>>>> back into softimage (exporting .obj to Soft 2015 SP2). The outside pieces
>>>> are disconected from the inside pieces, like this:
>>>>
>>>> [image: Imagem inline 1]
>>>>
>>>> I'm pretty sure it's me doing something wrong in houdini... My setup is
>>>> really simple: Import alembic mesh > vdb from polys > scatter > voronoi
>>>> with those points. Already tried to mess with all the voronoi parameters
>>>> and add a fuse node at the very end just before exporting. But I can't find
>>>> a way to have the outside/inside faces merged for each piece.
>>>>
>>>> any hints?
>>>>
>>>> Thank you
>>>>
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Re: Modulo ? Modulo ?

2016-04-11 Thread Christopher Crouzet

The 6/4 result is to be expected and is not related to a rounding issue but
simply to the nature of randomness—setting a ratio of 0.5 doesn't guarantee
a 50-50% split, it only means that the distribution will tend towards this
goal, especially when the number of samples will be high enough (and 10
samples definitely isn't much at all).


On 11 April 2016 at 17:06, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank's both of you :) Yes, I did use random probability, and it's exactly
> the translation of the Houdini expression explained by Christopher !
> I guess I was confused because (in Ice) when I input a ratio of 0.5, It
> returns 6 particles and 4 particles, instead of 5 and 5.
> I guess some rounding integer issue ...
> But thank's for the clarification :) I'm ashamed it was so obvious :/
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 11:34 AM, elhemp <elh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Test Random Probability Node?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Stephan.
>>
>> Am 11.04.2016, 10:57 Uhr, schrieb Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com
>> >:
>>
>> > Hi guys,
>> >
>> > This is a case that keeps coming every once in a while. I'm scratching
>> > my head on it this morning.
>> > In Ice, lets say you have 10 particles, and you want to "select" 60% of
>> > them randomly.
>> > ("select" means 60% with an attribute of 1, and 40% with an attribute of
>> > 0)
>> >
>> >
>> > How would you do that ?
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Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)

2016-03-03 Thread Christopher Crouzet

VOP graphs are being converted to VEX code, which means that for each VOP
node you'll find a corresponding VEX function, and most likely vice versa
too. If you want to see the generated code, just right click on the VOP
node, and select “View VEX Code...”. It can be informative to check it out
sometimes to help with debugging, but it's overly cluttered in comparison
to hand-written VEX code and thus can be hard to read.

Regarding the line `int pt1 = min(neighbours(input, pt0));`, it's picking
the neighbour with the smallest point number. The reason is simple—the
`Sort SOP` node reorder the points so for example the lowest point numbers
for a sort by X become the ones having the lowest X value. And hence, you
want the neighbour of `pt0` with the lowest point number to have `pt0` and
`pt1` representing the edge that matches the best to what's expected from
the sorting. If instead you'd simply do `int pt1 = neighbours(input,
pt0)[0];`, then you'd sometimes get what you'd hope, sometimes not.

Also yeah, there's never a single way to do things. If you compute a sort
of normal as you say for each point, that you can make in a predictable way
accross the entire mesh, then you'd probably avoid the problem that I
mentionned in my previous email. Maybe the `PolyFrame SOP` could be used
for that, but I don't know how it internally works and thus I don't know
how predictable it is. Worth a try! I only provided the scene this way to
give the idea that the essential of it can be done easily enough in
VOP/VEX. But it's always the remaining 10% that takes 90% of the time! :)

On 3 March 2016 at 21:28, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You seem very dispointed by Houdini Anto, are you ?
>
> On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 2:16 PM, Anto Matkovic <a...@matkovic.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you kindly Christopher,
>> Yes as far as I know, FE presents the whole points data as an array.
>> Beside that, at this moment I just feel FE as much better solution for me
>> (and for Olivier of course :) ), instead of H. Can't really say more for
>> now. Also really need to say, while I'm not programmer, unfortunately or
>> not I have to communicate with them every day, even in private life, so
>> maybe I become a bit resistant. I think we all know how is going with this
>> kind of people -  one has this or that opinion, another has completely
>> opposite, all long stories full of smart words. No need to waste your time
>> on me, let's say in short :)  Of course I've read everything you said here.
>> thanks again...
>>
>> --
>> *From:* Christopher Crouzet <christopher.crou...@gmail.com>
>> *To:* Softimage Mailing List <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, March 3, 2016 4:40 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)
>>
>> You can think of each geometry attribute as an array which length equals
>> the number of points (if dealing with points). VOPs simply iterate over
>> these points and process the graph for each of them. Since each attribute
>> is an array, at any time you can pick the value of any element with `Get
>> Attribute` provided you know the point number. This is so straightforward
>> that you can even do this outside of VOP/VEX, with the `point` expression
>> for example.
>>
>> Sometimes it can be useful to define attributes that can themselves hold
>> arrays, for example a list of neighbours, to then pass these down to other
>> nodes for further processing. That's why they added that feature in H14,
>> but otherwise there's no real need to directly create arrays yourself.
>> Shamefully, I haven't used Fabric Engine yet but from what you're saying
>> maybe they're just presenting the data differently by providing you with
>> the whole points data as an array instead of letting you directly work on a
>> per-point context? In any case, there's plently of good reasons to use
>> Fabric Engine but this definitely isn't one of them—just wrap your head
>> around how Houdini works instead, everything will eventually start to make
>> sense :)
>>
>> On 3 March 2016 at 05:43, Anto Matkovic <a...@matkovic.com> wrote:
>>
>> Nope. I think the only way to create an array directly in VOP, is pcfind
>> (pcopen that returns array), or array version of point neighbors. Or, to
>> stack the 'append' node several times :). There are examples how to loop
>> over arrays of indices, later in network, here:
>>
>> https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content=view=3148=412
>> By the way, had to do some pretty interesting networks :) for Kristinka
>> Hair for H - while everything worked at the end of day, anyway.
>>
>> If you'

Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)

You can think of each geometry attribute as an array which length equals
the number of points (if dealing with points). VOPs simply iterate over
these points and process the graph for each of them. Since each attribute
is an array, at any time you can pick the value of any element with `Get
Attribute` provided you know the point number. This is so straightforward
that you can even do this outside of VOP/VEX, with the `point` expression
for example.

Sometimes it can be useful to define attributes that can themselves hold
arrays, for example a list of neighbours, to then pass these down to other
nodes for further processing. That's why they added that feature in H14,
but otherwise there's no real need to directly create arrays yourself.
Shamefully, I haven't used Fabric Engine yet but from what you're saying
maybe they're just presenting the data differently by providing you with
the whole points data as an array instead of letting you directly work on a
per-point context? In any case, there's plently of good reasons to use
Fabric Engine but this definitely isn't one of them—just wrap your head
around how Houdini works instead, everything will eventually start to make
sense :)

Olivier, assuming that two poins are neighbour based on their point number
is quite a risky bet. Instead, there is a `Neighbour VOP` node for that so
you can pick P1 as being the first neighbour of P0. But then, to reflect
the sorting order of your points, it'd be better to retrieve the array of
all the neighbours and retrieve only the neighbour with the smallest point
number.

I've made an example scene for you—everything is happening in the node
named `rotate_each_prim`, where you'll find an `angle` parameter to play
with. I tried to keep the code as simple as possible and documented every
line to help you understanding it.

An issue is that the `Sort SOP` node fails when for example sorting the
points of the grid along the X axis since many points in that grid share
the same position in X, leaving no hint for the `Sort SOP` node to
prioritize one point over the other. In fact, sorting points by an axis
might be troublesome even on more organic geometries, so basing this effect
on the `Sort SOP` alone won't be enough to have predictible results, and
you'll end up with primitives rotating in a different direction than their
neighbours.

On 3 March 2016 at 05:43, Anto Matkovic <a...@matkovic.com> wrote:

> Nope. I think the only way to create an array directly in VOP, is pcfind
> (pcopen that returns array), or array version of point neighbors. Or, to
> stack the 'append' node several times :). There are examples how to loop
> over arrays of indices, later in network, here:
>
> https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content=view=3148=412
> By the way, had to do some pretty interesting networks :) for Kristinka
> Hair for H - while everything worked at the end of day, anyway.
>
> If you're around arrays and nodes, Fabric is waiting for You
>
>
> --
> *From:* Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
> *To:* "softimage@listproc.autodesk.com" <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 2, 2016 1:29 PM
> *Subject:* OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)
>
> Hello serious list :)
>
> I'm a bit confused with houdini vop array.
> While I managed to do it in vex, I would like to make a build array (like
> build array from set) of the pointposition (P) in VOP.
>
> I understand you need to for-loop on each Ptnum and probably append the P
> values and this will buid an array of P.
> But you know what ? Well I can't manage to make it work.
>
> I found no example on the net (sideFX, odforce).
> The doc is just words, no schemes, no graphics.
> The examples hips are bizarre, not so simple, and use the old loop node.
>
> So I'm wondering if someone from here could provide a screen shot of how
> that should be connected ?
>
> Thank you :)
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>

-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* <http://christophercrouzet.com>

mystic.hipnc
Description: Binary data
--
Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but if you already know which point you want an
attribute value of, then why would you want to store the values for every
point in an array? That'd be a lot of processing for nothing. No need to
iterate with a for loop neither. In VOP there's the `Get Attribute VOP`
node where you can specify a point/primitive/vertex number and retrieve an
attribute from it.

Cheers!


On 2 March 2016 at 22:12, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you so much for your time, explanations and examples Christopher.
> I'm taking those picture and will reproduce them :)
>
> Well, I wanted an array because I need to see if I could be able to
> retrieve the second element of an array (Ptnum =1 ) using  Get Element (I
> guess).
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Basically, arrays are a convenient structure to pass data around (and to
>> potentially make your code more readable, which won't apply to VOP). If all
>> you need is to perform a computation in place and directly use the result
>> in your VOP graph, then iterating over your points is all it takes—no array
>> needed.
>>
>> I don't know what what you're planning to do with that array of point
>> positions but I've attached a screenshot with a simple example. It iterates
>> over all the points, retrieve their position, and outputs the centre of
>> mass. Note that it's better to run this specific example in “detail” mode
>> to perform the computation only once, instead of once per point.
>>
>>
>> On 2 March 2016 at 21:32, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes I saw it, sorry, I thought there was another additionnal method with
>>> For Loop :
>>> "Instead, you should be able to just loop over each point with a `For
>>> Loop VOP` and do your computation directly in there"
>>> Have I misunderstood ? You're doing a for-loop without building an array
>>> in the end.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 3:26 PM, Christopher Crouzet <
>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I did attach a screenshot in my previous email, are you not seeing
>>>> anything? Or are you asking for the H13 for loop?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2 March 2016 at 21:20, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ah THANK YOU !
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm "aware" of the PCOpen+PcFilter to gather infos based on distance.
>>>>> I also use the PrimUV a bit and XYZ+PrimUV for location things.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd be curious on the For Loop Vop, if you have any pictures :/ Sorry
>>>>> to ask.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's a shame there's no tutorial or phylosophycal explanations of
>>>>> these basic loops ... It's like if everybody was a natural born coder...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Christopher Crouzet <
>>>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> It seems like they've extended the support for arrays in H14, which
>>>>>> makes it now possible to use them as geometry attributes. In the previous
>>>>>> versions I guess that there was no real point (but convenience) in 
>>>>>> creating
>>>>>> arrays in VOP since you couldn't pass them downstream with the geometry
>>>>>> data.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So if you're on H14+, it seems like you were on the right path? I've
>>>>>> attached a working screenshot that stores every point position in a
>>>>>> “output” vector array attribute.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If like me you're stuck with H13, you probably don't need to store
>>>>>> your point positions in an array at all. Instead, you should be able to
>>>>>> just loop over each point with a `For Loop VOP` and do your computation
>>>>>> directly in there. Now I've never used VOPs since I prefer writing 
>>>>>> directly
>>>>>> in VEX so I might be wrong :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also don't forget to use point clouds if you're after
>>>>>> distance-related queries.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2 March 2016 at 19:29, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
>>>>

Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)

Basically, arrays are a convenient structure to pass data around (and to
potentially make your code more readable, which won't apply to VOP). If all
you need is to perform a computation in place and directly use the result
in your VOP graph, then iterating over your points is all it takes—no array
needed.

I don't know what what you're planning to do with that array of point
positions but I've attached a screenshot with a simple example. It iterates
over all the points, retrieve their position, and outputs the centre of
mass. Note that it's better to run this specific example in “detail” mode
to perform the computation only once, instead of once per point.


On 2 March 2016 at 21:32, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes I saw it, sorry, I thought there was another additionnal method with
> For Loop :
> "Instead, you should be able to just loop over each point with a `For
> Loop VOP` and do your computation directly in there"
> Have I misunderstood ? You're doing a for-loop without building an array
> in the end.
>
> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 3:26 PM, Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I did attach a screenshot in my previous email, are you not seeing
>> anything? Or are you asking for the H13 for loop?
>>
>>
>> On 2 March 2016 at 21:20, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ah THANK YOU !
>>>
>>> I'm "aware" of the PCOpen+PcFilter to gather infos based on distance.
>>> I also use the PrimUV a bit and XYZ+PrimUV for location things.
>>>
>>> I'd be curious on the For Loop Vop, if you have any pictures :/ Sorry to
>>> ask.
>>>
>>> It's a shame there's no tutorial or phylosophycal explanations of these
>>> basic loops ... It's like if everybody was a natural born coder...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Christopher Crouzet <
>>> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It seems like they've extended the support for arrays in H14, which
>>>> makes it now possible to use them as geometry attributes. In the previous
>>>> versions I guess that there was no real point (but convenience) in creating
>>>> arrays in VOP since you couldn't pass them downstream with the geometry
>>>> data.
>>>>
>>>> So if you're on H14+, it seems like you were on the right path? I've
>>>> attached a working screenshot that stores every point position in a
>>>> “output” vector array attribute.
>>>>
>>>> If like me you're stuck with H13, you probably don't need to store your
>>>> point positions in an array at all. Instead, you should be able to just
>>>> loop over each point with a `For Loop VOP` and do your computation directly
>>>> in there. Now I've never used VOPs since I prefer writing directly in VEX
>>>> so I might be wrong :)
>>>>
>>>> Also don't forget to use point clouds if you're after distance-related
>>>> queries.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2 March 2016 at 19:29, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello serious list :)
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm a bit confused with houdini vop array.
>>>>> While I managed to do it in vex, I would like to make a build array
>>>>> (like build array from set) of the pointposition (P) in VOP.
>>>>>
>>>>> I understand you need to for-loop on each Ptnum and probably append
>>>>> the P values and this will buid an array of P.
>>>>> But you know what ? Well I can't manage to make it work.
>>>>>
>>>>> I found no example on the net (sideFX, odforce).
>>>>> The doc is just words, no schemes, no graphics.
>>>>> The examples hips are bizarre, not so simple, and use the old loop
>>>>> node.
>>>>>
>>>>> So I'm wondering if someone from here could provide a screen shot of
>>>>> how that should be connected ?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you :)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>>>>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Christopher Crouzet
>>>> *http://christophercrouzet.com* <h

Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)

I did attach a screenshot in my previous email, are you not seeing
anything? Or are you asking for the H13 for loop?


On 2 March 2016 at 21:20, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah THANK YOU !
>
> I'm "aware" of the PCOpen+PcFilter to gather infos based on distance.
> I also use the PrimUV a bit and XYZ+PrimUV for location things.
>
> I'd be curious on the For Loop Vop, if you have any pictures :/ Sorry to
> ask.
>
> It's a shame there's no tutorial or phylosophycal explanations of these
> basic loops ... It's like if everybody was a natural born coder...
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 3:13 PM, Christopher Crouzet <
> christopher.crou...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It seems like they've extended the support for arrays in H14, which makes
>> it now possible to use them as geometry attributes. In the previous
>> versions I guess that there was no real point (but convenience) in creating
>> arrays in VOP since you couldn't pass them downstream with the geometry
>> data.
>>
>> So if you're on H14+, it seems like you were on the right path? I've
>> attached a working screenshot that stores every point position in a
>> “output” vector array attribute.
>>
>> If like me you're stuck with H13, you probably don't need to store your
>> point positions in an array at all. Instead, you should be able to just
>> loop over each point with a `For Loop VOP` and do your computation directly
>> in there. Now I've never used VOPs since I prefer writing directly in VEX
>> so I might be wrong :)
>>
>> Also don't forget to use point clouds if you're after distance-related
>> queries.
>>
>>
>> On 2 March 2016 at 19:29, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello serious list :)
>>>
>>> I'm a bit confused with houdini vop array.
>>> While I managed to do it in vex, I would like to make a build array
>>> (like build array from set) of the pointposition (P) in VOP.
>>>
>>> I understand you need to for-loop on each Ptnum and probably append the
>>> P values and this will buid an array of P.
>>> But you know what ? Well I can't manage to make it work.
>>>
>>> I found no example on the net (sideFX, odforce).
>>> The doc is just words, no schemes, no graphics.
>>> The examples hips are bizarre, not so simple, and use the old loop node.
>>>
>>> So I'm wondering if someone from here could provide a screen shot of how
>>> that should be connected ?
>>>
>>> Thank you :)
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Christopher Crouzet
>> *http://christophercrouzet.com* <http://christophercrouzet.com>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>



-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* <http://christophercrouzet.com>
--
Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: OT Houdini build Array VOP question (and a bit of rant)

It seems like they've extended the support for arrays in H14, which makes
it now possible to use them as geometry attributes. In the previous
versions I guess that there was no real point (but convenience) in creating
arrays in VOP since you couldn't pass them downstream with the geometry
data.

So if you're on H14+, it seems like you were on the right path? I've
attached a working screenshot that stores every point position in a
“output” vector array attribute.

If like me you're stuck with H13, you probably don't need to store your
point positions in an array at all. Instead, you should be able to just
loop over each point with a `For Loop VOP` and do your computation directly
in there. Now I've never used VOPs since I prefer writing directly in VEX
so I might be wrong :)

Also don't forget to use point clouds if you're after distance-related
queries.

On 2 March 2016 at 19:29, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello serious list :)
>
> I'm a bit confused with houdini vop array.
> While I managed to do it in vex, I would like to make a build array (like
> build array from set) of the pointposition (P) in VOP.
>
> I understand you need to for-loop on each Ptnum and probably append the P
> values and this will buid an array of P.
> But you know what ? Well I can't manage to make it work.
>
> I found no example on the net (sideFX, odforce).
> The doc is just words, no schemes, no graphics.
> The examples hips are bizarre, not so simple, and use the old loop node.
>
> So I'm wondering if someone from here could provide a screen shot of how
> that should be connected ?
>
> Thank you :)
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>

-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* <http://christophercrouzet.com>
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Softimage Mailing List.
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Re: Continued use of Softimage question

2015-08-20 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Yes, you can!

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini14.0/nodes/shop/vm_geo_file


On 20 August 2015 at 21:46, Francois Lord flordli...@gmail.com wrote:

 What about disk space?
 Can you, in Mantra, reference alembic deforming geometry directly so it
 doesn't have to be part of the ifd file at each frame?


 On 2015-08-20 10:40, Sandy Sutherland wrote:

 At Sunrise we had 5 IFD generating machines (Engine lics), and I wrote a
 tool to submit renders from Houdini to RR that had the main render job wait
 for the IFD job to finish, before starting - easy to do.  The IFD
 generating was pretty quick, so we did not really have machines waiting to
 render.

 On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 3:30 PM, Ciaran Moloney moloney.cia...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Pretty sure that applies also to Mantra renders. But, most places have a
 smaller pool of engine licenses and export all frames to .ass or .ifd for
 rendering. Since export times are usually shorter than render times, it
 works out quite efficiently. But yeah, definitely another expense to
 consider.


 On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 11:53 AM, Mike Donovan  m...@smoke-mirrors.com
 m...@smoke-mirrors.com wrote:

  One thing that is a bummer with HTOA is that you will need to purchase
 a Houdini Engine license for every node on your farm unless all the
 geometry creation is done before rendering.



 This cost be quite steep … essentially a $500 additional cost to each
 Arnold license.









-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: Houdini: a few image plane questions

2015-06-16 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Hey Gerbrand,

You can save each extra image plane into their own file by setting the
`Different File` parameter. Note that this parameter is hidden when the
`Output Picture` parameter is set to the default value of `ip`, so just
change it to point to an actual file on disk. If you then want to save the
image planes directly into the RGB channels, then you can set the `Channel
Name` parameter to `C` but this won't always be an answer to your problems
if you decide for example to export the image planes for each component
and/or each light. So you'd better find a solution for After Effects. In
Nuke, the `Shuffle` node doest just that.

For the mattes, you have many ways but one that I dig is to use the `Forced
Matte` parameter, under the `Objects` tab of the Mantra node. This way, if
you'd like to split the render for different sets of objects, then you
could for example create a bundle named `@objects` that would contain all
the objects to render and, in the Mantra node dedicated to render your
specific object `OBJECT_SPHERE`, you could set `@objects ^OBJECT_SPHERE` in
the `Forced Matte` parameter to define every rendered object of your scene
as matte but the current object that you want to render. I find it to be
quite a flexible approach knowing that you can create smart bundles based
on name patterns such as `/obj/OBJECT_%`. In other words, this means that
you possibly have nothing to worry about if you decide later on to add more
objects into your scene—your matte for the sphere object will still work.


On 16 June 2015 at 21:36, Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys.
 I'm getting to the rendering part of this job, and have found image planes
 in mantra.
 They seem really cool, but I've hit a few snags.

 First of all, They seem to render into either one big EXR file, or into
 multiple exr files, but each image plane goes into its own exr channel.
 This makes them pretty useless in afterfx.
 Is there a way to get them to render like frame buffers in softimage,
 where each channel goes into its own exr, but not into some obscure channel
 within that exr.
 Alternatively, do you guys know of a fast way to export these channels
 into the rgba channels of a new exr?

 Second question.
 In softimage I used frame buffers to render mattes for objects in my scene.
 Can this be done with image planes?
 I tried creating a color parameter in my shader, and then calling that as
 a new image plane, but I just got a black frame and errors.
 Thanks for reading guys
 G




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Mr Otter animated series, all episodes on youtube (but only in french...)

2015-06-16 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Damn you Ahmidou, you killed my productivity for the day! :)


On 16 June 2015 at 16:31, christian papag...@gmail.com wrote:

 amazing style. love the outlines and how some of the textile patterns are
 2D mapped..

 On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 11:24 AM, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

   the aquarelle look works very well – nice stuff.

  *From:* Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
 *Sent:* Tuesday, June 16, 2015 2:55 AM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* Re: Mr Otter animated series,all episodes on youtube (but
 only in french...)

  C'est beau ;)

 On 16 June 2015 at 01:17, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 Yay ! I'll show it to my daughter !

 On 15 June 2015 at 17:06, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote:

   Hi everyone,
 I just noticed that the series I directed back in 2009 has been
 officially put on-line.
 It's was all Softimage with a pretty small budget and ICE was used a
 lot.
 The channel completely missed the audience by broadcasting it
 when the children were already at school, so I'm quite happy it can
 have a second life.

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-jD2oPDTvRrjpOWYNamRkQ/videos

 Cheers.


 ---
 Ahmidou Lyazidi
 Director | TD | CG artist
 http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
 https://vimeo.com/cappuccinofilms http://www.cappuccino-films.com









-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

2015-05-28 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I've just noticed that the exact same thread happened on the Fabric
mailing-list—someone asked for GATOR and I quoted that foot roll thingy in
my reply. I'm so predictable :)


On 28 May 2015 at 20:11, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Beware also to not implement any foot roll in your rigs.

 http://www.google.com/patents/US7545378


 On 28 May 2015 at 19:50, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Most likely covered by this one:
 Transfer of attributes between geometric surfaces of arbitrary
 topologies with distortion reduction and discontinuity preservation
 United States 7760201Issued July 20, 2010

 This describes how to transfer surface attributes (such as color, UVs,
 skinning) between two 3D geometries of different topologies and potentially
 different type (polygon mesh, NURBS, curve...). In particular, it describes
 methods to preserve surface discontinuitues (such as UV island seams) and
 reduce attribute distortion on the target surface.

 On 28 May 2015 at 08:42, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Jerome (now at Fabric - go team!) wrote GATOR. I'd ask him about doing
 it in Fabric but I think he'd stab me if I gave him any more work to do. I
 don't know if there are patents around the work and that's why other people
 haven't replicated it.

 On 28 May 2015 at 08:21, Marc-Andre Carbonneau 
 marc-andre.carbonn...@ubisoft.com wrote:

 Good morning Lucer,

 Do you remember who designed and coded GATOR?
 I'm just curious.
 Thanks!
 MAC


 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
 Sent: May-27-15 9:11 PM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

 GATOR was developed for/with one of our main game customers, Square I
 think.
 I'm not aware of a Gator sdk, what is that?
 There are attribute transfers in other apps, but it's generally
 separate tools for textures vs rigging things, reflecting on their
 architecture vs XSI

 On 27 May 2015 at 19:27, Matt Lind speye...@hotmail.com wrote:
  For the record, GATOR was introduced in late 2005 with XSI v5.0, not
  in 2008.
 
  GATOR was largely tailored for those switching applications and doing
  rigging in a film/video pipeline.  For games development, GATOR has
  less use out-of-the-box as the very things that made it nice for
  exchanging data between XSI and Maya, for example, were the very same
  features that tripped up game artists trying to do simpler things
 quickly in heavy repetition.
 
  I wrote a command based version of the tool using the GATOR SDK as
  artists needed more micro-management of meshes and transfers.  Artists
  used it to transfer UV's, normals, vertex colors, envelope weights,
  and many other features.  I also extended, as well as exposed, many
  features from the SDK GATOR did not expose directly such as
  transferring attributes in local space, by raycasting, distance
  limits, transferring only selected subcomponents, correcting
 numerical flaws found in UV transfer, and so on.
  However, my use of the GATOR SDK was not limited to replicating the
  tool as a command.  I also used it heavily for other tasks which
  weren't strictly related to attribute transfer tasks such as animation
  remapping, pose transfer, mesh fitting, and interactive editing of
  normals and symmetrical envelope weighting of asymmetrical characters.
 
  To hear other applications don't have a GATOR equivalent in this day
  and age is surprising considering it's so universally useful and isn't
  rocket science to develop.  If you know anything about tree data
  structures and linear algebra, you can write your own (even if it's
  not as efficient as GATOR).  What makes the GATOR SDK nice is the
  algorithm is very fast, accurate, and relatively easy to use.  Reverse
  lookups of subcomponents is a pain as GATOR worked on triangles, not
  polygons, but that's minor compared to all the benefits it provides.






 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: Geometry approximation in houdini

2015-05-22 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Dunno for the render times but you have the choice of yet another SOP node
for the sharpness: `EdgeCusp`.


On 22 May 2015 at 15:39, Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks Andy
 While I have your attention :)
 Are reflections and refractions stoopid slow in mantra, or is there a
 trick?
 The default glass shader renders forever in my scene.
 Thanks
 G

 On 22/05/2015 05:48, Andy Nicholas wrote:

 You can use the Normal SOP with it set to Vertex. You can set the angle
 there.

 The Facet SOP does something similar, but it will actually disconnect the
 points instead, rather than setting vertex normal attributes.

 A


  On 21 May 2015, at 20:04, Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys
 In soft we have a discontinuity angle slider under geometry
 approximation.
 Where do I find this in houdini?
 I have a low poly object that I need to render like a crystal, so i need
 the facets to be super hard, no smoothing over edges
 Thanks
 G







-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: Houdini cluster materials

2015-03-12 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I've got no idea what the `Merge` node internally does memory-wise but I
don't really care as an user because it is not made to be an optimization
method as you think. In proper data-flow graphs like the one exposed in
Houdini, certain nodes can generate new data streams while others can
manipulate the data from the stream they're being connected to. A `Merge`
node simply takes two—or more—data streams and put them into a single one.
This is a core concept when you have to deal with such graphs—it is so
essential that the `Merge` node is probably one of the most used nodes in
Houdini.

Groups in Houdini share roughly the same purpose than clusters from
Softimage. They are a core concept in Houdini as every node understand
them. What you can do with clusters, you can do with groups, and much more
out of the box.


On 10 March 2015 at 22:27, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote:

  Does it internally reinterpret duplicates (or hold in memory and scene
 description) the entire object as many times as there are local
 sub-object attibutes? (like Maya?)

 Which defeats the purpose of using merged objects as optimization method
 (despite Maya having a --not that much of an-- easier time dealing with
 large object counts)

 Because apart how soft can handle many-many polys at a time, (especially
 so today comparatively)
 you can very easily treat sub-objects (clusters) as just regular objects
 assinging properties like materials, visibility, ... selecting,
 transforming and sorting them in groups,
 therefore quite a bit further amplifying that maximum reach in scene
 complexity while remaining humanly manage-ably workable.
 (benefit also very much applicable for non-insanely-complex scenes)



 On 03/10/15 5:50, Gerbrand Nel wrote:

 Thanks man.. it really is that simple!!

 On 10/03/2015 06:16, Christopher Crouzet wrote:

 There's a `Material` node in the SOP context to apply different materials
 on a same object. You can insert it before you merge your objects or apply
 it to different groups.


 On 10 March 2015 at 11:09, Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys
 Quick houdini question.
 In soft I can make cluster for materials.
 In houdini I always end up with some merged thing with multiple objects
 in there.
 As far as I can tell, we assign materials at the object level, but what
 do I do if I want different materials for the different things that makes
 up my object?
 I know this is a RTFM question, but the FM is thick, and I'm lazy
 Thanks
 G




  --
  Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com






-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: Houdini cluster materials

2015-03-09 Thread Christopher Crouzet

There's a `Material` node in the SOP context to apply different materials
on a same object. You can insert it before you merge your objects or apply
it to different groups.


On 10 March 2015 at 11:09, Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys
 Quick houdini question.
 In soft I can make cluster for materials.
 In houdini I always end up with some merged thing with multiple objects in
 there.
 As far as I can tell, we assign materials at the object level, but what do
 I do if I want different materials for the different things that makes up
 my object?
 I know this is a RTFM question, but the FM is thick, and I'm lazy
 Thanks
 G




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT houdini questions

2015-02-02 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Disclaimer: I'm a total beginner and there's most likely better/easier ways
to do it.

If you want to constrain your object to a single point, one way would be to
create an expression on each of the translate channels of your object and
use the `point` function, such as: `point(/obj/path_to_geometry,
point_number, P, index)` where `index` is 0 for the position X, 1 for the
position Y and 2 for the position Z.

If you want your object to snap to an actual group of points, then the idea
that I've got is slightly more involved.
Basically, you'd need to put your points into a group and create an
`AttribWrangle` in which you'd loop over the points in the group and return
an average position.
Here's a working VEX snippet:

vector @clusterPosition = {0, 0, 0};

int count = 0;
int ptnum;
vector P;
int handle = pcopen(@OpInput1, P, {0, 0, 0}, 1e6, int(1e6));
while (pciterate(handle)) {
pcimport(handle, P, P);
pcimport(handle, point.number, ptnum);
if (inpointgroup(@OpInput1, group_name, ptnum)) {
@clusterPosition += P;
count++;
}
}

if (count  0) {
@clusterPosition /= count;
}


Note that the `pcopen` function creates a point cloud with a K-D tree, so
it's really overkilled here. I'll be looking forward a better answer to
that one! :)

Also both solution will match only the position. To also match the
orientation, you might want to use the attributes created by `PolyFrame`.


On 2 February 2015 at 22:01, philipp seis dpi...@gmail.com wrote:

 hey guys, i'd be super happy for any advice on an object to cluster
 Constraint in H,
 like i would use it for a dorrito

 2015-02-02 15:38 GMT+01:00 Jordi Bares Dominguez jordiba...@gmail.com:

 And the Rivet SOP too

  On 2 Feb 2015, at 12:55, a...@andynicholas.com wrote:
 
  You might want to check out the Creep SOP in that case.
 
 
  A
 
 
  On 02 February 2015 at 12:27 Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 
  Thanks guys!!
  What I want out of a surface deformer is the UV control.
  It's different than a cage or lattice because it lets you slide/deform
 things
  based on uv data, and offset along normals
  I find it very useful to model things where allot of detail has to
 follow a
  certain shape.
  I modelled some running shoes in the beginning of the year, and all of
 the
  parts followed this one master nurbs surface.
  I'll look into the ray sop and lattice, but I think a surface deformer
  digital asset might need to be made :)
  One that works like soft.
  This way I can engine it into bloody maya if I ever need to go to
 that dark
  place again.
  G
 
  On 02/02/2015 12:45, philipp seis wrote:
 
  Hi Gerbrand,
 
  from the top of my head i'd say, there should be a checkbox so
 that
  your curve
  won't get a surface.
  Then, here is a curve basics tutorial from peter quint:
  http://vimeo.com/40771484 http://vimeo.com/40771484
 
  I'd be interested in a deform by surface too. The Ray SOP gives a
  little bit of that
  behaviour out of the box, and the attribute transfer SOP as well,
 if
  match Point Position ( i guess that was the name) Checkbox is on.
 Those 2
  work on proximity.
  And finally you might want to try the Lattice SOP, which in
 Houdini is
  also customizable,
  ending up being very close to the cage deformer from Soft.
  And then, you could also add a Normal attribute to your SOP,
 with the
  point SOP, and create a VOPSOP in which you manipulate those. This
 might be
  the equivalent to an ICE closest point to location node.
  I'd consider myself a real houdini novice though, just trying to
  transfer my Softimage workflows, so please correct me if i'm wrong.
 
  I would like to add the question: How would you do a simple
 Object to
  Cluster Constraint ?
  So far i found only options that are uv based, like the rivet...
 
  best, Philipp
 
 
 
 
 
 
  2015-02-02 10:43 GMT+01:00 Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com
  mailto:nagv...@gmail.com :
  So 3 quick houdini questions if you don't mind:
   Why do I automatically get a surface on a closed curve?
   Can I kill it without killing the curve, or can I set it to
 never
  create?
   Is there something like deform by surface in soft for houdini?
   That is it for now :)
   Thanks
   G
 
 
 






-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Lets Hope Autodesk Buys the Foundry!

2014-12-19 Thread Christopher Crouzet

The Intel TBB library indeed provides a flow graph since v4.0—that's
interesting, thanks!


On 20 December 2014 at 00:58, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 I always talk about stuff from my programmer-colored glasses.  I say
 there isn't a lot of value in the fxtree code, or older
 compositing/paint code in general, because today anyone can download
 an image library, openimageio, and write you own fxtree-like
 compositor within a few days.  I think the Intel libraries might have
 you covered with all the threading and graph evaluation.  Want to
 write a paint app. you can look at the gimp source code, use the Cairo
 library for vector graphics, etc.  I tool the image lib from illusion,
 then wrote my own operator evaluation code, if I can do it it's not
 complicated. But I think there are open source libs for that too.

 Now doing correct floating point compositing, multi-channel workflows,
 tile based/memory management handling, that's a whole other ballgame.
 Then you go in 3d space, it's yet another ballgame. Nuke is another
 ballgame.
 The basics are always easy, and eventually the bar moves up and those
 basics become commoditized, which is the word I guess I should have
 used rather than worthless. That's why there are so many text
 editors these days, while it was a programming feat to make a text
 editor in the early days but today it's a well known problem.

 On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 2:32 AM, Matt Lind speye...@hotmail.com wrote:
  In your opinion, what would've needed to happen with the FXTree to make
 it a
  'real contender'.
 
  Matt
 
 



-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Humanize Maya effort alive? or - Effective customization??

2014-10-17 Thread Christopher Crouzet

And what are you demonstrating, Sebastien? A recalcitrant, chronic, and
annoying, selfishness with a strong flavor of stubbornness and whining.

I'm not defending AD nor Maya here, I highly dislike both of them. There's
a LOT of aspects in Maya that could/should be improved but everything has
been said hundreds of times already. If you think that constantly bashing
in such a way is going to help, I believe you're wrong. If I was a dev at
AD, I'd rather quit my job than having to deal with a community driven by
such behaviors.

Now I see two potential outcomes from wasting your energy and time
constantly bashing as soon as you stumble upon the word “AD”: higher blood
pressure and being blacklisted by potential recruiters on this list for
spending your time complaining instead of getting the shit done. How about
you spend instead your energy learning how to deal with Maya once for all?

And if you guys can't adapt to a different package because you're lacking
something as unimportant as sticky keys, then you should seriously think of
changing carreer. I mean it.

VFX softwares are in a transitional state atm and it's shit to be a user.
This will get better in the future but for now get over it.


On 17 October 2014 12:09, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
wrote:

 And in doing so you demonstrated a recalcitrant resistance to change
 improvement and bettering of the package, for any reason. Further consernes
 where raised about the UI and you dismissed them. The reason Maya users put
 up with this shit, is not an incentive to do nothing. I'm sure a lot of
 Maya artists would welcome a clean up in the UI, think of initiatives like
 CADjunkie ZEN. http://cadjunkie.com/zen if anything it shows you care,
 and that you are comited to exploring and optimising user experience.

 Thanks for sharing Jason S hadn't heard of that. I really hope they can
 pull it off.

  unless bought or bribed. i wouldn't worry too much about that, the
 French are notoriously stubborn i can attest to this :P

 On 17 October 2014 03:46, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 No, the question of this thread is specially about whether someone
 would build a softimage-like supra/sticky toolstack for Maya, and I'm
 the only one that actually answered with any information on the
 subject.


 On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 10:33 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote:
  On 10/16/14 9:59, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
 
  So there is no way we're going to break the hotkeys/marking menus for
  everyone else to jam in a softimage-like tool stack.
 
  Hum.. I hardly think the complaint is that it's not like Soft,  as
 opposed
  to it not (at-all) being as 'streamlined'.





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: maya uv tool broken?

2014-09-08 Thread Christopher Crouzet

If you haven't done it yet, you could forward this kind of request directly
to the dev: supp...@unfold3d.com
He's really friendly and has even been on this list for some times now.


On 8 September 2014 15:13, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

 If Maya is using the same Unfold3D as Softimage, then artists will still
 need to go to another software for UV layout because Unfold3D lacks very
 basic functionality required for certain types of work.  For example,
 unfolding a symmetrical object an having the resulting UVs laid out
 symmetrically to reflect the geometry's shape.  Unfold3D is very poor with
 that.


 Matt



 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
 Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2014 10:59 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: maya uv tool broken?

 Hello,

 Unfold3d is build directly in Maya 2015 and accessible directly from the
 UV Editor menu.
 Then, there is a Bonus Tools which is a mel script that takes you
 step-by-step into setting up things and then call unfold.  That's not a new
 tool, but it's been updated to use the new Unfold3d.  I figured that if you
 knew how to use Softimage's Unfold3D you may not need the Bonus Tools.

 It's worth checking out all the changes in UV Editor and unfolding in the
 two separate sections here:
 http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2015/ENU/?guid=New_in_Modeling

 The team has studied UVLayout; going to it shouldn't be necessary for
 anything.

 On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 11:48 AM, Manuel Huertas Marchena 
 lito...@hotmail.com wrote:
  I don't know The bonus tool predates 2015 and the new workflows .
  what
  do you mean? sorry it might be obvious but usually I use uvlayout for
  this type of task, so I am trying to find the best way to approach
  uvs inside maya to rely less in uvlayout for simple geo.
  My approach in xsi was usually do all (simple geo) uvs in xsi and
  complex geo unwrap, uvs packing, uv islands ratio inside uvlayout. I
  am now replacing xsi for maya and will like to keep the same workflow.
  So if the uvtool is supposed to be the new way of unwrapping
  meshes in maya 2015, I was asking why is not included by default? but
  again being a bit new, I am surely missing something obvious :)




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: maya uv tool broken?

2014-09-08 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Look, I don't know shit in UV unfolding but I don't need to be an expert to
see that being a bit more respectful towards the devs wouldn't hurt you.
They might not be awesome everyday artists like you, they might not
experience their tool in the same way than you do, and they're not perfect
neither, but they've had the lucidity to implement a crazy complex
algorithm to help out people like you to not spend days unfolding a single
complex mesh and to save your ass from crazy deadlines. If such a “small”
problem blinds you from seeing all the benefits that you're gaining from
using that tool, then it's really a shame.

The Softimage databse isn't the Unfold3D database, so just try contacting
them directly to see how it goes. I'm sure that if you kindly explain them,
they could help.


On 8 September 2014 15:30, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

 Something that basic should not require me contacting the dev.  It should
 be a standard benchmark in testing the product for release as this feature
 is a staple in games production.  If the devs are not checking this, then
 they clearly have not done their homework in understanding the problem(s)
 that need to be solved with such a tool.  It’s kind of like designing and
 building a space shuttle that takes off, lands, maneuvers well in orbit, is
 serviceable, economical and meets all other bullet points on the spec sheet
 except account for the fact the astronauts need to be able to survive the
 flight.



 And yes, I’ve made the issues known along with many others, but if memory
 serves, somebody had the brilliant idea of deleting all those reports from
 the Softimage database.





 Matt









 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Christopher
 Crouzet
 *Sent:* Monday, September 08, 2014 11:21 AM
 *To:* Softimage Mailing List

 *Subject:* Re: maya uv tool broken?



 If you haven't done it yet, you could forward this kind of request
 directly to the dev: supp...@unfold3d.com

 He's really friendly and has even been on this list for some times now.





 On 8 September 2014 15:13, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

 If Maya is using the same Unfold3D as Softimage, then artists will still
 need to go to another software for UV layout because Unfold3D lacks very
 basic functionality required for certain types of work.  For example,
 unfolding a symmetrical object an having the resulting UVs laid out
 symmetrically to reflect the geometry's shape.  Unfold3D is very poor with
 that.


 Matt



 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
 Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2014 10:59 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: maya uv tool broken?

 Hello,

 Unfold3d is build directly in Maya 2015 and accessible directly from the
 UV Editor menu.
 Then, there is a Bonus Tools which is a mel script that takes you
 step-by-step into setting up things and then call unfold.  That's not a new
 tool, but it's been updated to use the new Unfold3d.  I figured that if you
 knew how to use Softimage's Unfold3D you may not need the Bonus Tools.

 It's worth checking out all the changes in UV Editor and unfolding in the
 two separate sections here:
 http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2015/ENU/?guid=New_in_Modeling

 The team has studied UVLayout; going to it shouldn't be necessary for
 anything.

 On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 11:48 AM, Manuel Huertas Marchena 
 lito...@hotmail.com wrote:
  I don't know The bonus tool predates 2015 and the new workflows .
  what
  do you mean? sorry it might be obvious but usually I use uvlayout for
  this type of task, so I am trying to find the best way to approach
  uvs inside maya to rely less in uvlayout for simple geo.
  My approach in xsi was usually do all (simple geo) uvs in xsi and
  complex geo unwrap, uvs packing, uv islands ratio inside uvlayout. I
  am now replacing xsi for maya and will like to keep the same workflow.
  So if the uvtool is supposed to be the new way of unwrapping
  meshes in maya 2015, I was asking why is not included by default? but
  again being a bit new, I am surely missing something obvious :)





 --

 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com






-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Manuka. Weta Digitals new renderer. That hair...

2014-08-07 Thread Christopher Crouzet

For having seen a few early test renders, it was really, really,
impressive. Gollum became more realistic than ever even though the shaders
were the same.



On 7 August 2014 05:13, pedro santos probi...@gmail.com wrote:

 http://www.fxguide.com/featured/manuka-weta-digitals-new-renderer/

 Cheers

 --




 *-- [image:
 http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s202/animatics/probiner-sig.gif] Pedro
 Alpiarça dos Santos  Animator  3DModeler  Illustrator 
 http://probiner.x10.mx/ http://probiner.x10.mx/ *




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Fabric at Siggraph details

2014-07-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Sounds like we'll never have Splice on Mac! :)


On 30 July 2014 09:17, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 #Windows4Life #NonUniformScalingIsBestScaling etc etc :)


 On 30 July 2014 09:11, Andy Goehler lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Jul 30, 2014, at 14:05, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

  …(and people with their damn Macs)…

 Instead of criticizing peoples excellent taste for hardware and operation
 system, get to work on those ‘damn’ rounded rectangles :-)
 May the hexagon be with you.

 Andy





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Fabric at Siggraph details

2014-07-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Provocation 1 - 0 Paul :)

Awesome news and best luck for the Siggraph!



On 30 July 2014 09:28, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I might ask Rob Pieke to release his build :) I think we'll get it in for
 2.0, but it's still going to be limited due to OGL nonsense:
 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/creationplatform/N-jhukVLdxk/hRt66k42H6cJ


 On 30 July 2014 09:20, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Sounds like we'll never have Splice on Mac! :)


 On 30 July 2014 09:17, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 #Windows4Life #NonUniformScalingIsBestScaling etc etc :)


 On 30 July 2014 09:11, Andy Goehler lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 On Jul 30, 2014, at 14:05, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

  …(and people with their damn Macs)…

 Instead of criticizing peoples excellent taste for hardware and
 operation system, get to work on those ‘damn’ rounded rectangles :-)
 May the hexagon be with you.

 Andy





 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: 1/2 OT: Gorilla and a banana for Maya

2014-06-29 Thread Christopher Crouzet

In the lack of answer, I guess we shouldn't count too much on the future of
the API 2.0 :)



On 25 June 2014 11:33, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
wrote:

 A brave initiative Christopher, and thank you for laying it out plain for
 the less techsavvy,


 why are you using the maya python API 1.0 instead of 2.0 ?

 Why is Python API 2.0 not finished yet Luc Eric ?


 On 24 June 2014 17:31, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 When I initially patched the Maya Python API, it was with Maya 2010 and
 there was no API 2.0 back then. As of today, I didn't really think about my
 choice, I simply wanted to share the technique.

 That said, and remembering the state of the API 2.0, it could indeed have
 been the subject of the article/library but then I'm not sure if patching a
 yet unfinished API would be the wisest choice since it will have its gaps
 officially filled in over the releases, right?



 On 24 June 2014 12:12, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 why are you using the maya python API 1.0 instead of 2.0 ?




 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: 1/2 OT: Gorilla and a banana for Maya

2014-06-25 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Cheers Sebastien!

Here's a small follow up for the few that it might interest: Why I'm Not
Using the MEL and the Python Commands Layers of Maya
http://christophercrouzet.com/blog/post/2014/06/25/Why-I-m-Not-Using-the-MEL-and-the-Python-Commands-Layers-of-Maya



On 25 June 2014 11:33, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
wrote:

 A brave initiative Christopher, and thank you for laying it out plain for
 the less techsavvy,


 why are you using the maya python API 1.0 instead of 2.0 ?

 Why is Python API 2.0 not finished yet Luc Eric ?


 On 24 June 2014 17:31, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 When I initially patched the Maya Python API, it was with Maya 2010 and
 there was no API 2.0 back then. As of today, I didn't really think about my
 choice, I simply wanted to share the technique.

 That said, and remembering the state of the API 2.0, it could indeed have
 been the subject of the article/library but then I'm not sure if patching a
 yet unfinished API would be the wisest choice since it will have its gaps
 officially filled in over the releases, right?



 On 24 June 2014 12:12, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 why are you using the maya python API 1.0 instead of 2.0 ?




 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: 1/2 OT: Gorilla and a banana for Maya

2014-06-24 Thread Christopher Crouzet

When I initially patched the Maya Python API, it was with Maya 2010 and
there was no API 2.0 back then. As of today, I didn't really think about my
choice, I simply wanted to share the technique.

That said, and remembering the state of the API 2.0, it could indeed have
been the subject of the article/library but then I'm not sure if patching a
yet unfinished API would be the wisest choice since it will have its gaps
officially filled in over the releases, right?



On 24 June 2014 12:12, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 why are you using the maya python API 1.0 instead of 2.0 ?




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

1/2 OT: Gorilla and a banana for Maya

2014-06-23 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Hey gang,

as promised in a previous post, I've finished writing an article about how
to monkey patch external libraries in Python while using the Maya Python
API as a guinea pig. It took me a bit longer than planned because I also
decided to build a couple of open source libraries on that matter.

You can find the article and all the information over there: From Monkey
Patching the Maya Python API to Gorilla and Bananas
http://christophercrouzet.com/blog/post/2014/06/23/From-Monkey-Patching-the-Maya-Python-API-to-Gorilla-and-Bananas
.

And here's a short(er) version:

Monkey patching allows you to modify an existing 3rd-party library by
inserting some code of yours. Once the process is done, you can call the
extensions you've inserted as if they have always been part of that
3rd-party library.

The article uses Maya as a playground but the technique can definitely be
applied to about anything, which is what the library Gorilla
https://github.com/christophercrouzet/gorilla is all about. You write
your functions, classes, methods, properties, whatever, you tell them the
target to patch with the help of a Python decorator, and that's about it.
You can find more details in the documentation
http://gorilla.readthedocs.org/.

As a proof of concept for this project, I've developed a couple of
extensions for the Maya Python API. Say hi to Banana for Maya
https://github.com/christophercrouzet/banana.maya. This basically shows
that extending the API can be as simple as:

@gorilla.patch(OpenMaya.MFnTransform)
def whoAmI(self):
print(My name is %s % self.name())

Which allows you to fire the method through a call to `
OpenMaya.MFnTransform.whoAmI()`.

As for the extensions already in there, there's a shiny documentation
http://bananamaya.readthedocs.org/ for this one too.

Once again the `banana.maya` package is only a proof of concept, which is
why it's a bit empty. I've started to implement some methods that could
hopefully be useful to everyone (mainly retrieving/iterating through the
nodes in the scene) but I'm currently not using Maya anymore and don't have
any direct interest in developing those extensions much further. The
exception being if there's a need for it and if discussions can be
organized to implement the right features.

Note that I'm not saying that monkey patching the Maya Python API v1.0 is
the way to go and I acknowledge that there's better alternatives out there
for most cases.

That's about it. The code is yours, do what you want with it.

Cheers,
Christopher.

PS: Raff, I hope you'll appreciate the lack of vast sidereal space
in-between each statement that you've known me for :)

--
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: What was your biggest challenge/nightmare with Softimage and how did you overcome it?

2014-06-11 Thread Christopher Crouzet

You like trying to create sensational threads, don't you? Is your goal to
get as much replies as possible?
My own goal is to be a party pooper, sorry :)


On 11 June 2014 00:18, David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Mine was rigging 3 fully shaped based and IK/FK - eyes, mouth blends,
 etc.. anthropomorphic characters rigged in only one month.
 2 solid weeks coding expressions and then re-adapting to new characters,
 sculpting mouth (vocal) shapes for a whole
 week (synoptics included), and finally breaking rigs by 4th week. Ready
 and delivered.

 Things got worst when director wanted to add hair on top of all this for 2
 of the 3 charactersat final stage...

 Had to delete hairs on first render test showed to directors. Render time
 went up for 3 whole days (Quad-core machines with 16 gbs of RAM)
 for just 250 frames. Animators took them for a ride by the end of the
 month and everyone happy at former studio.


 So what was your challenge/nightmare and how did you do to get it out and
 deliver on time?


 *David Rivera*
 *3D Compositor/Animator*
 LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv
 Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv
 VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: What was your biggest challenge/nightmare with Softimage and how did you overcome it?

2014-06-11 Thread Christopher Crouzet

PS: funningly my Gmail marked your email as spam.



On 11 June 2014 10:52, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
wrote:

 You like trying to create sensational threads, don't you? Is your goal to
 get as much replies as possible?
 My own goal is to be a party pooper, sorry :)


 On 11 June 2014 00:18, David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com
 wrote:

 Mine was rigging 3 fully shaped based and IK/FK - eyes, mouth blends,
 etc.. anthropomorphic characters rigged in only one month.
 2 solid weeks coding expressions and then re-adapting to new characters,
 sculpting mouth (vocal) shapes for a whole
 week (synoptics included), and finally breaking rigs by 4th week. Ready
 and delivered.

 Things got worst when director wanted to add hair on top of all this for
 2 of the 3 charactersat final stage...

 Had to delete hairs on first render test showed to directors. Render time
 went up for 3 whole days (Quad-core machines with 16 gbs of RAM)
 for just 250 frames. Animators took them for a ride by the end of the
 month and everyone happy at former studio.


 So what was your challenge/nightmare and how did you do to get it out and
 deliver on time?


 *David Rivera*
 *3D Compositor/Animator*
 LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv
 Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv
 VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635




 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: OT: What was your biggest challenge/nightmare with Softimage and how did you overcome it?

2014-06-11 Thread Christopher Crouzet

That's indeed better! :) But not so constructive either for such a mailing
list IMO. Anyways...



On 11 June 2014 11:10, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com wrote:

 I much prefer these types of threads to the doom and gloom regurgitated
 topics.

 Though I'm not interested in the thread topic, I don't see anything wrong
 with it.

 Eric T.


 On 6/11/2014 10:52 AM, Christopher Crouzet wrote:

 You like trying to create sensational threads, don't you? Is your goal to
 get as much replies as possible?
 My own goal is to be a party pooper, sorry :)





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: First Softimage - Maya transition videos posted

2014-05-13 Thread Christopher Crouzet

The code flushing out after execution is indeed a bit annoying but you get
used to it. The combo Ctrl+A then Ctrl+Enter quickly becomes an automatism.

The two biggest annoyances for me were to code within the Script Editor (I
guess I'm too used to Sublime Text), and more importantly the persistence
of the variables. In my case this seemed to cause more bugs than the other
way around. Example: when refactoring a code and deleting some variables,
you expect the execution of the script to raise some errors if you forgot
to remove some occurences of those variables that you've deleted. With this
persistence thing, this will won't warn you of anything. If you're unlucky,
this will even preserve the expected behavior of the script. Then, when you
copy/paste the code in a library or when you reload Maya, bam.

I guess the Script Editor is not made to code your super complex functions
anyways, but to workaround those issues, I came to use a quick/hacky
solution.
The idea is to create a .py script file somewhere in which you define a
main function that contains your script and that you call at the end of the
file.

def main():
maya = 'workaround land'
print maya

main()


Then, just create a button in the shell that calls `execfile` with the path
of the .py file. The variables defined within the main function won't
pollute the environment—they won't persist.

There's probably ways to wrap this up more nicely but I couldn't be arsed.



On 13 May 2014 12:27, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 Exactly right.

 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 13 May 2014, at 17:13, Peter Agg peter@googlemail.com wrote:

 Basically I want my scripts to stay there - whether I run them or close
 the program. I'll delete them when I'm good and ready, damnit!


 On 13 May 2014 15:42, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com wrote:

 What do you mean? Close and reopen it and your scripts are still there.
 If you're talking about when you close Softimage, that is expected. That
 kind of functionality is weird to me in Maya. It's like reloading your last
 scene you had open before you closed the last time.





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: First Softimage - Maya transition videos posted

2014-05-13 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I've been wondering the same for some time... you can't imagine all the
complaints that my work colleagues had to endure when I started to use Maya
:)



On 13 May 2014 14:30, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 I don't know if I want to cry or laugh…

 Probably both… on a loop.

 jb


 On 13 May 2014, at 17:52, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 The code flushing out after execution is indeed a bit annoying but you get
 used to it. The combo Ctrl+A then Ctrl+Enter quickly becomes an automatism.

 The two biggest annoyances for me were to code within the Script Editor (I
 guess I'm too used to Sublime Text), and more importantly the persistence
 of the variables. In my case this seemed to cause more bugs than the other
 way around. Example: when refactoring a code and deleting some variables,
 you expect the execution of the script to raise some errors if you forgot
 to remove some occurences of those variables that you've deleted. With this
 persistence thing, this will won't warn you of anything. If you're unlucky,
 this will even preserve the expected behavior of the script. Then, when you
 copy/paste the code in a library or when you reload Maya, bam.

 I guess the Script Editor is not made to code your super complex functions
 anyways, but to workaround those issues, I came to use a quick/hacky
 solution.
 The idea is to create a .py script file somewhere in which you define a
 main function that contains your script and that you call at the end of the
 file.

 def main():
 maya = 'workaround land'
 print maya

 main()


 Then, just create a button in the shell that calls `execfile` with the
 path of the .py file. The variables defined within the main function won't
 pollute the environment—they won't persist.

 There's probably ways to wrap this up more nicely but I couldn't be arsed.



 On 13 May 2014 12:27, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 Exactly right.

  Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 13 May 2014, at 17:13, Peter Agg peter@googlemail.com wrote:

 Basically I want my scripts to stay there - whether I run them or close
 the program. I'll delete them when I'm good and ready, damnit!


 On 13 May 2014 15:42, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com wrote:

 What do you mean? Close and reopen it and your scripts are still there.
 If you're talking about when you close Softimage, that is expected. That
 kind of functionality is weird to me in Maya. It's like reloading your last
 scene you had open before you closed the last time.





 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com/





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: XSI GUI for Maya

2014-05-09 Thread Christopher Crouzet

As soon as one understands that Raff likes coming up with—sometimes
incorrect—arguments only for the fun of proving someone wrong and that he
will always have the last word, we're good :)

Sorry, I'm out of this discussion already.



On 9 May 2014 07:28, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm on your side on this Christopher, but please don't tell raff
 Shortcuts and UI are two different things—forcing an UI from a package
 with a different philosophy is just meaningless IMO. It's like playing a
 PS4 game with a Super Nintendo controller, it might have some shared
 controls but it's not the same interface and won't work but if you agree on
 not being able to jump, run, aim, and whatsoever.

 My custom shortcuts—which really are only slightly different from the
 original ones and that I definitely kept at Weta— are simply beyond
 understanding because I'm too awesome for the common of the mortals. Get
 used to that too! And I liked the idea to keep you away from my keyboard
 anyways :)



 On 8 May 2014 21:33, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.comwrote:

 That's why all animators had tablets.


 On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote:


 On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Raffaele Fragapane 
 raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Maybe he's had it physically beaten out of him at Weta and now wants to
 inflict the same on others ;)
 And yeah, whenever I was at Toph's desk the first thing was changing
 the bindings. Well, second thing, the first usually was berating him and
 tossing the mouse at the monitor.


 Raf sure knows how to throw a mouse at a monitor... he could be an MLB
 pitcher if he put his mind to it.

 
 Eric Thivierge
 http://www.ethivierge.com




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




 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: XSI GUI for Maya

2014-05-08 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Do you guys realize that it's the worst way possible to learn a new
software and the best way possible to make difficult any assistance between
you and your coworkers?
Maya interface stinks but modifying it will only break it even more.

Get used to it.



On 8 May 2014 11:01, Manuel Huertas Marchena lito...@hotmail.com wrote:

 whaat?!! didn't know something like that existed. Is there a link to the
 actual ui code/plugin?
 does someone know if its compatible with maya 2014+? ...sorry I just saw
 this, maybe this has been answered,
 I am very curious to try it..

 thanks


 -Manuel



 IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4755969/ | Portfolio
 http://envmanu.com http://envmanu.carbonmade.com/| 
 Vimeohttp://vimeo.com/manuelhuertasmarchena|
 Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelhuertas


 --
 From: danyarg...@gmail.com
 Date: Thu, 8 May 2014 15:54:05 +0100
 Subject: Re: XSI GUI for Maya
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/xsi_list/KkzGNexn1ME/Wn-m3RDVPOEJ

 DAN


 On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 3:22 PM, gareth bell garethb...@outlook.comwrote:

 Just out of idle curiosity.

 A while back someone posted a picture of an XSI UI/Skin that someone made
 for maya. Anyone know where that is?

 cheers





-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: XSI GUI for Maya

2014-05-08 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Shortcuts and UI are two different things—forcing an UI from a package with
a different philosophy is just meaningless IMO. It's like playing a PS4
game with a Super Nintendo controller, it might have some shared controls
but it's not the same interface and won't work but if you agree on not
being able to jump, run, aim, and whatsoever.

My custom shortcuts—which really are only slightly different from the
original ones and that I definitely kept at Weta— are simply beyond
understanding because I'm too awesome for the common of the mortals. Get
used to that too! And I liked the idea to keep you away from my keyboard
anyways :)



On 8 May 2014 21:33, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:

 That's why all animators had tablets.


 On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote:


 On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Raffaele Fragapane 
 raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Maybe he's had it physically beaten out of him at Weta and now wants to
 inflict the same on others ;)
 And yeah, whenever I was at Toph's desk the first thing was changing the
 bindings. Well, second thing, the first usually was berating him and
 tossing the mouse at the monitor.


 Raf sure knows how to throw a mouse at a monitor... he could be an MLB
 pitcher if he put his mind to it.

 
 Eric Thivierge
 http://www.ethivierge.com




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




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Softimage Python versus Maya Python

2014-05-06 Thread Christopher Crouzet

 needlessly. ;)
 From all of this I gather there is an original Python implementation,
 PyMEL and Maya Python 2.0.
 And some comments seem to imply none of them are any good...
 So where to actually start, if this is more of less true?
 What comes closest to our beloved Softimage Python scripting experience?


 Greetz
 Leendert

 --

 Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
 Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com




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




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: SDK: Envelope weight locking

2014-04-25 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Guillaume had a creative—but not so robust, no offence—solution for that
one.
It's in a thread from this list named Retrieving the lock flag of envelope
weights and dating from 27/05/2009. Good times :)



On 25 April 2014 19:27, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 Yep, I've asked the same thing a while ago... not possible.
 This is one great feature by the way. Does Maya have that ?


 On 25 April 2014 17:10, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com wrote:

 If I recall correctly, there is not. One of the other riggers found this
 limitation a year or so back.

 
 Eric Thivierge
 http://www.ethivierge.com


 On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 7:46 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.comwrote:

 There are commands to set and clear locks on weight values for a given
 point/deformer pair in an envelope (LockEnvelopeWeights(),
 ClearEnvelopeWeightLocks()), but I don’t see anything to read whether a
 point/deformer weight is locked or not.



 Anybody know if this is possible?



 Matt






-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Zoogloo Rigging Tools

2014-03-16 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Hey Greg, please correct me if I'm wrong but from your description and
after very quickly overlooking at your code, does it mean that you had to
write the code to build each rig component (block) twice? Once for each
software?



On 15 March 2014 06:57, Greg Maguire g...@inlifesize.com wrote:

 Hi guys,

 I'm enjoying the discussion regarding Fabric and the cross-DCC rigging
 project. I didn't want to hi-jack the thread so started this one. Apologies
 if it's redundant.

 I've been involved in building several rigging systems. So, much so that I
 co-founded Zoogloo with Andy Buecker in 2006 to rig for studios. We worked
 on 25 different projects over a three year period including, Spiderman3,
 Where The Wild Things Are, Happy Feet, Thundercats and more. Because we
 worked on animated features, episodic television, games and visual effects
 features and in Maya and in Softimage, we developed an in-house rigging
 system that took a different approach to any rigging system at the time and
 any that I have seen since.

 Having worked at ILM and witnessed the size of the team that had to be
 hired to translate between maya and ILM's proprietary tools, we decided to
 go further up the chain and develop a higher level rigging tool. We would
 not translate between softwares, we would instead issue each package
 instructions that would be built natively.

 i.e. a node based editor to build connections between blocks of body
 parts. A block would have characteristics built in, a 3-bone spine, or a
 9-boneIKFK spine or a Disney-foot or an ILM-head. Each block then passed
 their data to a python script built for maya or softimage natively. i.e. we
 had to write Disney-foot in python for Maya and python for Softimage.

 btw. You can tell from my poor explanation above which one of us did the
 majority of the coding! (thanks Andy, you rock!)

 It addressed the following issues:

 1. Developing rigs for Maya, Softimage and any other software (Fabric?)
 2. Developing rigs for games, animated features, episodic television and
 vfx.
 2. Naming convention mapping between all objects, controls for different
 studios.
 3. SQLite for storing, geom, transforms, weights.

 Anyway, to cut what could be an incredibly long story short we Opened
 Sourced the tools some time ago but didn't tell anyone. I thought some
 of our work might be of use to you guys:

 Two years amount of work here, it might speed things up.
 https://github.com/abuecker/Zoogloo-Tools

 Warmest regards.

 --

 *Greg Maguire* | Inlifesize
 Mobile: +44 7512 361462 | Phone: +44 2890 204739
 g...@inlifesize.com | www.inlifesize.com




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

2014-03-13 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Haha yeah I know it, thanks. I'm more into less touristic places though,
such as Cajamarca and Chachapoyas :)



On 13 March 2014 02:07, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Chris,

 There is a beach called Mancora just up north of where you are that I can
 recommend. It's a surfer spot and I remember some good vibes and waves ;)


 On Thursday, 13 March 2014, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Nah, I'm in Pimentel atm, next to Chiclayo, in the North.
 I will soon be heading South to Lima, Abancay and Arequipa before hitting
 Cuzco. Huacachina sounds fun, maybe I'll do a detour, thanks for sharing!

 Ok, let's try to not get any more OT... bring on Voodoo!!



 On 12 March 2014 14:34, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote:

 Are you in Huacacina? I loved my trip to Peru, it's one of my prefered
 place in the world !




 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: YOUR TOP 5

2014-03-13 Thread Christopher Crouzet

It would be more fair to regroup the list of top5 into distinct categories:
modelling, rigging, animation, rendering, FX ... and a general one for the
workflow, UI, and such.

Here's a quickie from my experience of using Maya in rigging/dev:

*Rigging*
- friendly weights painting and spreadsheet that works just the way they
are supposed to
- GATOR. And please don't compare this wonder to the Transfer Attributes of
Maya.
- being able to do *live* corrective shapes on a deformed mesh

*General*
- ICE
- the API... seriously, having a logical and consistent API that is easy to
use and don't need additional efforts to do simple dev tasks won't go in
the way of flexibility. I don't know of any dev who didn't complain
about Maya's API.
- proper and complete port of the API to Python


On 13 March 2014 04:54, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote:

  Hello

 It seems as if I may have some contact with Autodesk shortly! I want to be
 armed with some points. What I'd like is your top 5 features that make
 Softimage great that we'd miss if we migrated to something else.

 Please don't give me more than 5 and please don't go on too long
 describing them (It takes a while to read all the posts).

 Thanks

 Alastair

 --
  Alastair Hearsum
  Head of 3d
 [image: GLASSWORKS]
  33/34 Great Pulteney Street
 London
 W1F 9NP
 +44 (0)20 7434 1182
 glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)
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 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.




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a HOAX or not
but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
[...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be taking RHs
in house software and making it availbe to the public. IT is brilliant
software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or Max. [...]

Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's the actual
author of that comment?

On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.comwrote:

Hey Stefan!

A quickie before I bail on week-end.

I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to say that,
I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain Softimage because it's
being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the detriment of each
Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let me know if it's
beter.

I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages are not
necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the individuals.

Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!

On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote:

Hi Christopher,

cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround
software inevitably being shut down sooner or later because it's hard to
maintain part though.
I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to
minimize the risk of exposure to third party technology, but there are so
many people
that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because they can't
for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they don't know how to.
These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They deserve a
cost-effective solution to their production problems too, and that is
usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like Max, Maya,
Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications like Marvelous
Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover rarely-encountered niche
cases, compared to the vast amount of other stuff that is produced
everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one app for modeling,
another for animation, another for simulation, one for hair fur, etc..on
a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a different interface and
required a different way of thinking.
If you were working in a department and working with one of those, that
would be a different thing, but constantly jumping between those apps, and
having to transfer data between them, would soon drive you crazy. It's for
this reason everybody I have ever met in this industry was searching for
the one tool to rule them all. Even Lightwave, that consists of only two
parts (modeler and layout), can drive you nuts.
Modern software is modular, I think it's well possible to maintain and
improve it, even change the paradigms it's built on, it just needs a bit of
forward thinking and the will to do it. I remember stories about whole
parts of Soft having been rewritten when the old one turned out to be
insufficiently designed (the animation mixer in particular), I'm not sure
in how far this is really true, or if it was only marketing blurb.

What I can imagine is a Fabric-based host application which others can
interface with to form a consistent application as demand arises,
the hard part will be to draw the line between Fabric Engine, this base
application (done by somebody else?), and the actual modules, yet done by
others, and agreeing on a standard that those developers are willing to
agree on and don't feel hindered by, as it's frequently the case with
complex APIs that are lacking the one but crucial feature X for which you
have to wait a full year until the next release to have it implemented
after kindly asking the developers several times. I'm not saying it's not
doable, just not entirely easy. I'm not saying small standalone apps are
not desirable either, I just think they make more sense for special
purposes rather than for standard stuff, unless the standard stuff they do
is done in a true, outstandingly nice new way.

Your 2 cents will worth a few bitcoins quickly Christopher. I'm in.

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 9:34 PM, Christopher Crouzet
christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

My 2 cents on this:
http://christophercrouzet.com/blog/post/2014/03/07/Softimage-Has-Been-Killed%2C-the-Future-of-CG-Softwares-Is-Now-in-TD-s-Hands

I'm looking forward to the future, how about you?

--
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

--
---
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--

--
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

Sweet, thanks Paul!

On 12 March 2014 11:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

I just pinged Brad to ask him - I'll let you know if he gets back to me
(or he may contact you directly)

On 12 March 2014 12:33, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
wrote:

I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a HOAX or
not but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
[...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be taking RHs
in house software and making it availbe to the public. IT is brilliant
software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or Max. [...]

Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's the
actual author of that comment?

On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
wrote:

Hey Stefan!

A quickie before I bail on week-end.

I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to say
that, I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain Softimage because
it's being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the detriment of each
Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let me know if it's
beter.

I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages are not
necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the individuals.

Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!

On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote:

Hi Christopher,

cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround
software inevitably being shut down sooner or later because it's hard to
maintain part though.
I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to
minimize the risk of exposure to third party technology, but there are so
many people
that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because they
can't for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they don't know how
to.
These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They deserve a
cost-effective solution to their production problems too, and that is
usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like Max, Maya,
Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications like Marvelous
Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover rarely-encountered niche
cases, compared to the vast amount of other stuff that is produced
everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one app for modeling,
another for animation, another for simulation, one for hair fur, etc..on
a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a different interface and
required a different way of thinking.
If you were working in a department and working with one of those, that
would be a different thing, but constantly jumping between those apps, and
having to transfer data between them, would soon drive you crazy. It's for
this reason everybody I have ever met in this industry was searching for
the one tool to rule them all. Even Lightwave, that consists of only two
parts (modeler and layout), can drive you nuts.
Modern software is modular, I think it's well possible to maintain and
improve it, even change the paradigms it's built on, it just needs a bit of
forward thinking and the will to do it. I remember stories about whole
parts of Soft having been rewritten when the old one turned out to be
insufficiently designed (the animation mixer in particular), I'm not sure
in how far this is really true, or if it was only marketing blurb.

Your 2 cents will worth a few bitcoins quickly Christopher. I'm in.

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 9:34 PM, Christopher Crouzet
christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

My 2 cents on this:
http://christophercrouzet.com/blog/post/2014/03/07/Softimage-Has-Been-Killed%2C-the-Future-of-CG-Softwares-Is-Now-in-TD-s-Hands

I'm looking forward to the future, how about you?

--
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

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

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

That would indeed be a great news! A software fine-tuned for years by its
own users on intense productions can only be welcomed.
I'm just wondering how they're planning to grab some market from Maya
though. Would their credibility be enough for some to make a transition
from Autodesk?


On 12 March 2014 12:02, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yes it was Brad, but he doesn't know anything more than what he said in
 his post. From what I read on the Voodoo webpage it seems like they're
 trying to make it work for Prana first.

 I'm guessing here, but I suppose if that goes well then much of the work
 to make Voodoo more generic would be done and it would be closer to a
 commercial product. It could be quite awesome to have a new DCC on the
 scene - Voodoo looks amazing.


 On 12 March 2014 12:40, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 Sweet, thanks Paul!



 On 12 March 2014 11:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just pinged Brad to ask him - I'll let you know if he gets back to me
 (or he may contact you directly)


 On 12 March 2014 12:33, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a HOAX or
 not but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
 [...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be taking
 RHs in house software and making it availbe to the public. IT is brilliant
 software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or Max. [...]

 Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's the
 actual author of that comment?



 On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey Stefan!

 A quickie before I bail on week-end.

 I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to say
 that, I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain Softimage 
 because
 it's being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the detriment of each
 Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let me know if it's
 beter.

 I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages are
 not necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the individuals.

 Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!



 On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote:

  Hi Christopher,

 cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround
 software inevitably being shut down sooner or later because it's hard to
 maintain part though.
 I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to
 minimize the risk  of exposure to third party technology, but there are 
 so
 many people
 that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because they
 can't for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they don't know how
 to.
 These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They deserve
 a cost-effective solution to their production problems too, and that is
 usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like Max, Maya,
 Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications like 
 Marvelous
 Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover rarely-encountered 
 niche
 cases, compared to the vast amount of other stuff that is produced
 everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one app for modeling,
 another for animation, another for simulation, one for hair  fur, 
 etc..on
 a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a different interface 
 and
 required a different way of thinking.
 If you were working in a department and working with one of those,
 that would be a different thing, but constantly jumping between those 
 apps,
 and having to transfer data between them, would soon drive you crazy. 
 It's
 for this reason everybody I have ever met in this industry was searching
 for the one tool to rule them all. Even Lightwave, that consists of only
 two parts (modeler and layout), can drive you nuts.
 Modern software is modular, I think it's well possible to maintain
 and improve it, even change the paradigms it's built on, it just needs a
 bit of forward thinking and the will to do it. I remember stories about
 whole parts of Soft having been rewritten when the old one turned out to 
 be
 insufficiently designed (the animation mixer in particular), I'm not sure
 in how far this is really true, or if it was only marketing blurb.

 What I can imagine is a Fabric-based host application which others
 can interface with to form a consistent application as demand arises,
 the hard part will be to draw the line between Fabric Engine, this
 base application (done by somebody else?), and the actual modules, yet 
 done
 by others, and agreeing on a standard that those developers are willing 
 to
 agree on and don't feel hindered by, as it's frequently the case with
 complex APIs that are lacking the one but crucial feature X for which you
 have to wait a full year until the next release to have it implemented
 after kindly asking the developers several times. I'm

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

Hopefully they'll announce something soon enough if they want to grab the
attention of Softimage users before they jump onto another ship.



On 12 March 2014 12:20, Christopher Crouzet
christopher.crou...@gmail.comwrote:

 That would indeed be a great news! A software fine-tuned for years by its
 own users on intense productions can only be welcomed.
 I'm just wondering how they're planning to grab some market from Maya
 though. Would their credibility be enough for some to make a transition
 from Autodesk?



 On 12 March 2014 12:02, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yes it was Brad, but he doesn't know anything more than what he said in
 his post. From what I read on the Voodoo webpage it seems like they're
 trying to make it work for Prana first.

 I'm guessing here, but I suppose if that goes well then much of the work
 to make Voodoo more generic would be done and it would be closer to a
 commercial product. It could be quite awesome to have a new DCC on the
 scene - Voodoo looks amazing.


 On 12 March 2014 12:40, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sweet, thanks Paul!



 On 12 March 2014 11:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just pinged Brad to ask him - I'll let you know if he gets back to me
 (or he may contact you directly)


 On 12 March 2014 12:33, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a HOAX or
 not but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
 [...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be taking
 RHs in house software and making it availbe to the public. IT is 
 brilliant
 software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or Max. [...]

 Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's the
 actual author of that comment?



 On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey Stefan!

 A quickie before I bail on week-end.

 I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to say
 that, I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain Softimage 
 because
 it's being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the detriment of 
 each
 Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let me know if 
 it's
 beter.

 I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages are
 not necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the individuals.

 Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!



 On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote:

  Hi Christopher,

 cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround
 software inevitably being shut down sooner or later because it's hard to
 maintain part though.
 I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to
 minimize the risk  of exposure to third party technology, but there are 
 so
 many people
 that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because they
 can't for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they don't know 
 how
 to.
 These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They deserve
 a cost-effective solution to their production problems too, and that is
 usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like Max, Maya,
 Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications like 
 Marvelous
 Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover rarely-encountered 
 niche
 cases, compared to the vast amount of other stuff that is produced
 everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one app for modeling,
 another for animation, another for simulation, one for hair  fur, 
 etc..on
 a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a different interface 
 and
 required a different way of thinking.
 If you were working in a department and working with one of those,
 that would be a different thing, but constantly jumping between those 
 apps,
 and having to transfer data between them, would soon drive you crazy. 
 It's
 for this reason everybody I have ever met in this industry was searching
 for the one tool to rule them all. Even Lightwave, that consists of only
 two parts (modeler and layout), can drive you nuts.
 Modern software is modular, I think it's well possible to maintain
 and improve it, even change the paradigms it's built on, it just needs a
 bit of forward thinking and the will to do it. I remember stories about
 whole parts of Soft having been rewritten when the old one turned out 
 to be
 insufficiently designed (the animation mixer in particular), I'm not 
 sure
 in how far this is really true, or if it was only marketing blurb.

 What I can imagine is a Fabric-based host application which others
 can interface with to form a consistent application as demand arises,
 the hard part will be to draw the line between Fabric Engine, this
 base application (done by somebody else?), and the actual modules, yet 
 done
 by others, and agreeing on a standard that those developers are willing 
 to
 agree on and don't feel hindered

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

I only some some bits of it but my Peruvian internet connection capting the
Wi-Fi from 2 buildings away doesn't allow me to check videos :'(


On 12 March 2014 12:46, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 My problem with RH software (Vodoo) is, can we trust them to do support ?
 RH is not in a good shape and they want to sell their software.. good..
 but what if it fails and they decide to stop support after a year or two.
 They don't really have a foot in that buisness yet so it sounds risky.
 A lot of people thought or maybe still think the same of Fabric. It sounds
 risky to be the first user of a new software, you got no idea if it will
 actually be popular or not.
 Otherwise no doubt that it is an awesome software but quality isn't the
 only thing that drive the decision to adopt a package.

 Christopher if you haven't seen the demo video , it's right there :
 http://rhythm.com/labs/


 On 12 March 2014 10:26, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 Hopefully they'll announce something soon enough if they want to grab the
 attention of Softimage users before they jump onto another ship.



 On 12 March 2014 12:20, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 That would indeed be a great news! A software fine-tuned for years by
 its own users on intense productions can only be welcomed.
 I'm just wondering how they're planning to grab some market from Maya
 though. Would their credibility be enough for some to make a transition
 from Autodesk?



 On 12 March 2014 12:02, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yes it was Brad, but he doesn't know anything more than what he said in
 his post. From what I read on the Voodoo webpage it seems like they're
 trying to make it work for Prana first.

 I'm guessing here, but I suppose if that goes well then much of the
 work to make Voodoo more generic would be done and it would be closer to a
 commercial product. It could be quite awesome to have a new DCC on the
 scene - Voodoo looks amazing.


 On 12 March 2014 12:40, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sweet, thanks Paul!



 On 12 March 2014 11:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just pinged Brad to ask him - I'll let you know if he gets back to
 me (or he may contact you directly)


 On 12 March 2014 12:33, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a HOAX
 or not but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
 [...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be taking
 RHs in house software and making it availbe to the public. IT is 
 brilliant
 software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or Max. [...]

 Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's the
 actual author of that comment?



 On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey Stefan!

 A quickie before I bail on week-end.

 I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to
 say that, I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain Softimage
 because it's being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the 
 detriment
 of each Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let me 
 know
 if it's beter.

 I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages are
 not necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the individuals.

 Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!



 On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote:

  Hi Christopher,

 cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround
 software inevitably being shut down sooner or later because it's hard 
 to
 maintain part though.
 I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to
 minimize the risk  of exposure to third party technology, but there 
 are so
 many people
 that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because they
 can't for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they don't know 
 how
 to.
 These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They
 deserve a cost-effective solution to their production problems too, 
 and
 that is usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like 
 Max,
 Maya, Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications like
 Marvelous Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover
 rarely-encountered niche cases, compared to the vast amount of other 
 stuff
 that is produced everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one 
 app
 for modeling, another for animation, another for simulation, one for 
 hair 
 fur, etc..on a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a 
 different
 interface and required a different way of thinking.
 If you were working in a department and working with one of those,
 that would be a different thing, but constantly jumping between those 
 apps,
 and having to transfer data between them, would soon drive you crazy. 
 It's
 for this reason everybody I

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

*only saw


On 12 March 2014 12:58, Christopher Crouzet
christopher.crou...@gmail.comwrote:

 I only some some bits of it but my Peruvian internet connection capting
 the Wi-Fi from 2 buildings away doesn't allow me to check videos :'(


  On 12 March 2014 12:46, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 My problem with RH software (Vodoo) is, can we trust them to do support
 ?
 RH is not in a good shape and they want to sell their software.. good..
 but what if it fails and they decide to stop support after a year or two.
 They don't really have a foot in that buisness yet so it sounds risky.
 A lot of people thought or maybe still think the same of Fabric. It
 sounds risky to be the first user of a new software, you got no idea if it
 will actually be popular or not.
 Otherwise no doubt that it is an awesome software but quality isn't the
 only thing that drive the decision to adopt a package.

 Christopher if you haven't seen the demo video , it's right there :
 http://rhythm.com/labs/


 On 12 March 2014 10:26, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hopefully they'll announce something soon enough if they want to grab
 the attention of Softimage users before they jump onto another ship.



 On 12 March 2014 12:20, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 That would indeed be a great news! A software fine-tuned for years by
 its own users on intense productions can only be welcomed.
 I'm just wondering how they're planning to grab some market from Maya
 though. Would their credibility be enough for some to make a transition
 from Autodesk?



 On 12 March 2014 12:02, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yes it was Brad, but he doesn't know anything more than what he said
 in his post. From what I read on the Voodoo webpage it seems like they're
 trying to make it work for Prana first.

 I'm guessing here, but I suppose if that goes well then much of the
 work to make Voodoo more generic would be done and it would be closer to a
 commercial product. It could be quite awesome to have a new DCC on the
 scene - Voodoo looks amazing.


 On 12 March 2014 12:40, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sweet, thanks Paul!



 On 12 March 2014 11:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just pinged Brad to ask him - I'll let you know if he gets back to
 me (or he may contact you directly)


 On 12 March 2014 12:33, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a HOAX
 or not but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
 [...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be
 taking RHs in house software and making it availbe to the public. IT 
 is
 brilliant software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or Max.
 [...]

 Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's the
 actual author of that comment?



 On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey Stefan!

 A quickie before I bail on week-end.

 I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to
 say that, I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain 
 Softimage
 because it's being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the 
 detriment
 of each Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let me 
 know
 if it's beter.

 I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages
 are not necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the 
 individuals.

 Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!



 On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.comwrote:

  Hi Christopher,

 cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround
 software inevitably being shut down sooner or later because it's 
 hard to
 maintain part though.
 I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to
 minimize the risk  of exposure to third party technology, but there 
 are so
 many people
 that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because
 they can't for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they 
 don't know
 how to.
 These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They
 deserve a cost-effective solution to their production problems too, 
 and
 that is usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like 
 Max,
 Maya, Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications 
 like
 Marvelous Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover
 rarely-encountered niche cases, compared to the vast amount of other 
 stuff
 that is produced everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one 
 app
 for modeling, another for animation, another for simulation, one for 
 hair 
 fur, etc..on a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a 
 different
 interface and required a different way of thinking.
 If you were working in a department and working with one of
 those, that would be a different thing, but constantly jumping 
 between
 those apps

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

Well, I've literally been in the middle of nowhere for 6 weeks now. I'm
surrounded with desert, and there's nothing to do over here. But that's
cool, it gives me time to do my stuff and raise my voice when not fighting
with the internet connection! :)

Can't wait to see what you'll come up with with Fabric!



On 12 March 2014 13:01, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 Christopher : I have never seen you more active on the web than those
 days... don't you have to visit the country or something ? I thought you
 were on vacation ;-)


 On 12 March 2014 10:59, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 Yep I can really imagine that you must have been thru a lot of convincing
 to finally get your foot in a place. Took you what ? 2 years ? I expect the
 same for Vodoo.. if they indeed succeed... it won't be before a couple of
 years.

 I'm learning seriously Fabric now because I can't imagine myself just
 switching to Maya... even if it's probably going to be the case, I want at
 least to spice it up with something good. And with the SceneGraph 2.0, it
 sounds that it could be a first step before moving to 100% Fabric.


 On 12 March 2014 10:51, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Now we have a global site license with MPC  it is a lot easier to cover
 that kind of concern. It is certainly hard at first and you have to do a
 lot of convincing - we'll be eternally grateful to the guys at Hybride for
 jumping in and being the people that really went for it first. My view
 though is that if everyone just waits then you can guarantee that there'll
 be no change - we structure our deals in a way that gives people confidence
 over the long-term.

 I'm going to talk about some stuff soon that relates to this same idea
 of studios and individuals asserting more control over the destiny of their
 tools.


 On 12 March 2014 13:46, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 My problem with RH software (Vodoo) is, can we trust them to do
 support ?
 RH is not in a good shape and they want to sell their software..
 good.. but what if it fails and they decide to stop support after a year or
 two. They don't really have a foot in that buisness yet so it sounds risky.
 A lot of people thought or maybe still think the same of Fabric. It
 sounds risky to be the first user of a new software, you got no idea if it
 will actually be popular or not.
 Otherwise no doubt that it is an awesome software but quality isn't the
 only thing that drive the decision to adopt a package.

 Christopher if you haven't seen the demo video , it's right there :
 http://rhythm.com/labs/


 On 12 March 2014 10:26, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hopefully they'll announce something soon enough if they want to grab
 the attention of Softimage users before they jump onto another ship.



 On 12 March 2014 12:20, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 That would indeed be a great news! A software fine-tuned for years by
 its own users on intense productions can only be welcomed.
 I'm just wondering how they're planning to grab some market from Maya
 though. Would their credibility be enough for some to make a transition
 from Autodesk?



 On 12 March 2014 12:02, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yes it was Brad, but he doesn't know anything more than what he said
 in his post. From what I read on the Voodoo webpage it seems like 
 they're
 trying to make it work for Prana first.

 I'm guessing here, but I suppose if that goes well then much of the
 work to make Voodoo more generic would be done and it would be closer 
 to a
 commercial product. It could be quite awesome to have a new DCC on the
 scene - Voodoo looks amazing.


 On 12 March 2014 12:40, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sweet, thanks Paul!



 On 12 March 2014 11:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just pinged Brad to ask him - I'll let you know if he gets back
 to me (or he may contact you directly)


 On 12 March 2014 12:33, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 I didn't manage to contact the author yet to check if it was a
 HOAX or not but check out the comment #2 by Brad Hielbert:
 [...] Since their bankruptcy, the new owners are going to be
 taking RHs in house software and making it availbe to the public. 
 IT is
 brilliant software that FAR out paces the capabilities of Maya or 
 Max.
 [...]

 Maybe there's hope? Someone here knows the guy to check if he's
 the actual author of that comment?



 On 7 March 2014 17:30, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey Stefan!

 A quickie before I bail on week-end.

 I think that there has been a misunderstanding. I didn't mean to
 say that, I was referring to Autodesk not wanting to maintain 
 Softimage
 because it's being costly and they'd rather focus on Maya to the 
 detriment
 of each Softimage user. I've updated the line to reflect this, let 
 me know
 if it's beter.

 I

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

Nah, I'm in Pimentel atm, next to Chiclayo, in the North.
I will soon be heading South to Lima, Abancay and Arequipa before hitting
Cuzco. Huacachina sounds fun, maybe I'll do a detour, thanks for sharing!

Ok, let's try to not get any more OT... bring on Voodoo!!



On 12 March 2014 14:34, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote:

 Are you in Huacacina? I loved my trip to Peru, it's one of my prefered
 place in the world !




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users

When I had to move over to Maya, Gator, ICE, the weights painting tool and
the Weights Editor were definitely the most missed.
So missed that I would prototype deformers in ICE and convert them in code
for Maya. I also wrote a small workflow to allow me to paint the weights
and to model corrective shapes in Softimage, to then import them back in
Maya.

But for the operator stack, I don't think you'll be able to get a such
thing. There's actually one UI that shows an operator stack in Maya with
the possibility to reorder deformers but it is more a failed attempt than a
proper working tool. And I'm not even sure if it would work out with the
nodal structure that Maya relies on.

As for changing the model in a rig, it is just a node to update. So
theorically it's simple but of course it breaks all the deformers applied
to it. Hence the need like in every software that I know of to have a clean
workflow to easily export/import/convert mesh attributes. Or maybe have I
already forgot how Softimage works? :)



On 7 March 2014 11:59, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys...

 What do you want to see added to Maya ?
 Autodesk is saying they will add Softimage features to the other
 packages... What is that ?

 As a Rigger, here is what I will miss the most

 - Gator
 - ICE : Especially to create custom deformers
 - Proper weights painting tools
 - Weights Editor !
 - The Operator Stack, reorder, delete operator...
 - Being able to change modeling whith Envelope, Shapes already applied to
 the mesh
 - Blend shape workflow

 I would really like to hear Autodesk plan to incorporate some of those
 features in Maya.
 I'm guessing there not all super easy to merge, but some of them would be
 considered as amazing new feature by the Maya users.

 J/




-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users

And I believe you're breaking the NDA here?



On 7 March 2014 12:47, Nic Sievers siev...@gmail.com wrote:

 I believe Maya 2015 adds a new unfold3D tool...


 On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 9:37 AM, Manuel Huertas Marchena 
 lito...@hotmail.com wrote:

 uv unfold please!!

 ...really dont like maya uv's tools!



 IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4755969/ | Portfolio
 http://envmanu.com http://envmanu.carbonmade.com/| 
 Vimeohttp://vimeo.com/manuelhuertasmarchena|
 Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/manuelhuertas


 --
 Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 17:30:22 +
 Subject: Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users
 From: sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com


 the ability to show/hide components, like in every other DCC ever made.

 the ability to relax selections of polygons edges and vertexes.

 neither of these should prove to be too difficult... baby steps


 On 7 March 2014 17:23, Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com wrote:

 You nailed right there Jeremie, basically being flexible when rigging,
 every day I go splitting geometry, regatoring meshes, and merging again,
 transfering everything seamlessly.

 Multi attribute editor, it's really stupid that when you select multiple
 things you only see one at a time in the attribute editor, there is the
 spreadsheet editor but that sucks in comparison.


 On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote:

  Maya 2039 (rewritten)

 On 03/07/14 12:06, Mirko Jankovic wrote:

 stable non destructive workflow








-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

My 2 cents on this:
http://christophercrouzet.com/blog/post/2014/03/07/Softimage-Has-Been-Killed%2C-the-Future-of-CG-Softwares-Is-Now-in-TD-s-Hands

I'm looking forward to the future, how about you?


-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Softimage Has Been Killed, the Future of CG Softwares Is Now in TD's Hands

Hey Stefan!

A quickie before I bail on week-end.

I totally agree with you when you say that all-rounded packages are not
necessarily a bad thing for the smaller shops and the individuals.

Got to go now, cheers and thank for the comments!

On 7 March 2014 17:09, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote:

Hi Christopher,

cice blog post. I can't entirely agree on the allround software inevitably
being shut down sooner or later because it's hard to maintain part though.
I too feel like it's worth investing into proprietary software to minimize
the risk of exposure to third party technology, but there are so many
people
that do not write code, hence their own tools, either because they can't
for time or monetary reasons, or simply because they don't know how to.
These are mainly the single user shows and small shops. They deserve a
cost-effective solution to their production problems too, and that is
usually catered for by big, all-in-one CG applications like Max, Maya,
Softimage, C4D. Yes, there are special-purpose applications like Marvelous
Designer, RealFlow, SpeedTree,etc, but they cover rarely-encountered niche
cases, compared to the vast amount of other stuff that is produced
everywhere every day. Imagine you'd have to use one app for modeling,
another for animation, another for simulation, one for hair fur, etc..on
a daily basis and concurrently. And each one had a different interface and
required a different way of thinking.
If you were working in a department and working with one of those, that
would be a different thing, but constantly jumping between those apps, and
having to transfer data between them, would soon drive you crazy. It's for
this reason everybody I have ever met in this industry was searching for
the one tool to rule them all. Even Lightwave, that consists of only two
parts (modeler and layout), can drive you nuts.
Modern software is modular, I think it's well possible to maintain and
improve it, even change the paradigms it's built on, it just needs a bit of
forward thinking and the will to do it. I remember stories about whole
parts of Soft having been rewritten when the old one turned out to be
insufficiently designed (the animation mixer in particular), I'm not sure
in how far this is really true, or if it was only marketing blurb.

Your 2 cents will worth a few bitcoins quickly Christopher. I'm in.

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 9:34 PM, Christopher Crouzet
christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

My 2 cents on this:
http://christophercrouzet.com/blog/post/2014/03/07/Softimage-Has-Been-Killed%2C-the-Future-of-CG-Softwares-Is-Now-in-TD-s-Hands

I'm looking forward to the future, how about you?

--
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: I'm sure this is one of many...

2014-03-04 Thread Christopher Crouzet

While we're there, can you please remove your massive signature too? It's
both poorly designed (big images, text difficult to read) and annoying.
If you were trying to give a professional look to your email with those,
it's a miss, sorry.



On 4 March 2014 10:54, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 E, can you stop doing this now Emilio, it's really annoying...


 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote:






 2014-03-04 9:30 GMT-06:00 Arvid Björn arvidbj...@gmail.com:

 That was truly depressing. I was nodding in agreement, but I didn't
 smile. =/

 The 2 pieces of software that I've truly enjoyed working with, Shake and
 Soft, both buried by suits trying to cover their asses.

 How can you own something, yet be unable to appreciate its value? Surely
 there must be a more lucrative use for this technology they stole so
 cheaply only a few years back.




 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 3:28 PM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote:

 ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r77WyKNsIkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r77WyKNsIk







-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: I'm sure this is one of many...

2014-03-04 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Wow, I wouldn't like to be you. Life sounds hard when all of it seems to
gravitate around a software.
Good luck!



On 4 March 2014 11:04, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote:

 What is really annoying is that we complain, and complain and do nothing
 about it really.

 Some of us have the chance to stick with Softimage forever until something
 really better comes out.

 Some of us in the need of no finding jobs will have to switch to Maya for
 a serious film work studio for hire.

 Some of us will have to start evaluating the options of other softwares
 and grab not only one, but two or three to work the way we do.

 ADSK is not only retiring Softimage. It is attempting against our way of
 life, the way we work, the way we think, the way we create things, and the
 way we do business.

 That is really annoying.








 2014-03-04 9:54 GMT-06:00 Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com:

 E, can you stop doing this now Emilio, it's really annoying...


 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote:






 2014-03-04 9:30 GMT-06:00 Arvid Björn arvidbj...@gmail.com:

 That was truly depressing. I was nodding in agreement, but I didn't
 smile. =/

 The 2 pieces of software that I've truly enjoyed working with, Shake
 and Soft, both buried by suits trying to cover their asses.

 How can you own something, yet be unable to appreciate its value?
 Surely there must be a more lucrative use for this technology they stole so
 cheaply only a few years back.




 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 3:28 PM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote:

 ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r77WyKNsIkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r77WyKNsIk








-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: I'm sure this is one of many...

2014-03-04 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Indeed! :)

Thanks for removing the signature!



On 4 March 2014 11:12, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote:

 Good thing is that we all are different.  Don't you think?


 2014-03-04 10:10 GMT-06:00 Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com:

 I respect your point of view.




 2014-03-04 10:07 GMT-06:00 Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com:

 While we're there, can you please remove your massive signature too?
 It's both poorly designed (big images, text difficult to read) and annoying.
 If you were trying to give a professional look to your email with those,
 it's a miss, sorry.



 On 4 March 2014 10:54, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 E, can you stop doing this now Emilio, it's really annoying...


 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 5:48 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote:






 2014-03-04 9:30 GMT-06:00 Arvid Björn arvidbj...@gmail.com:

 That was truly depressing. I was nodding in agreement, but I didn't
 smile. =/

 The 2 pieces of software that I've truly enjoyed working with, Shake
 and Soft, both buried by suits trying to cover their asses.

 How can you own something, yet be unable to appreciate its value?
 Surely there must be a more lucrative use for this technology they stole 
 so
 cheaply only a few years back.




 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 3:28 PM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.comwrote:

 ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r77WyKNsIkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r77WyKNsIk







 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com






-- 
Christopher Crouzet
*http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Non-spherical eye while keeping iris circular

2013-11-18 Thread Christopher Crouzet

Hey Enrique! :)

An idea could be to fit a NURBS sphere to the shape of your outer eye, then
use it to constrain the deformers onto its surface, and finally slide those
deformrs using UV coordinates.

I did something like that a whle ago: http://vimeo.com/2466613
In this video the eyes are spherical but they definitely could be anything
else.



On 18 November 2013 11:56, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.comwrote:

 hey oliver,
   Thanks for the reply, that would work if the pupil was a separate piece
 of geometry and is exactly how i do it on other characters.

 Sorry I should have been more specific.

 Basically I'm trying to make the Pixar eyes.  Where the iris is cut into
 the eyewhite, and actually goes inside of it.  This one i have not been
 able to figure out for a while.



 On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 6:51 PM, olivier jeannel 
 olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote:

 I'm not a specialist in toon, but I would keep the Lattice on the Eye
 (the white deformed sphere) and make a separate Iris object that would be
 shrinkwarped on it. So that the Roundness of the Iris wouldn't be
 affected by the stretch of the global eye.
 Maybe a ClosestLocation in Ice would give even more control and speed...


 Le 18/11/2013 10:58, Enrique Caballero a écrit :

  Hey everyone,
   Does anyone have any tips on how to rig a non spherical eye while
 maintaining a perfectly circular iris?

 I have done it in the past with starting with a spherical eye, using a
 lattice to deform it and then using blendshapes to counter the squashing
 effect on the iris. But this method is clunky and you can see discrepancies
 in the interpolation.

 Any tips would be welcome, this question has bothered me for some time.

 -E

Re: what

2013-10-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I love Houdini and I love the sneak peeks they've been doing for the v13.
The quality and the robustness of the software is not to be proved anymore,
and seeing them taking the piss of their own features by using
self-derision shows that they are also a cool bunch and can have fun,
unlike the very formal, serious and boring prejudices that everyone has
about them.

I think that's a clever approach and it shows that they've got balls to do
things unlike almost every other boring sneak peeks out there.
And having heard about the quality and friendliness of their dev team, I
can only respect this choice even more.



On 30 October 2013 23:52, Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com wrote:

 Both SI and Houdini are amazing kits.  However, one decides not to market
 it's strengths or at all while the other fails to do a single bit of
 quality check on outgoing material.

 Honestly, I feel bad for the talented RnD staff behind the scenes who
 probably worked really hard to get the technology in there only to have it
 shat on by people further down the line.  Please, have a little respect and
 do them justice for their hard work.

 peace,

 -Lu


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 3:36 PM, Eric Lampi ericla...@gmail.com wrote:

 Oh this is Houdini? I thought it was a demo of a Fallout 3 expansion pack
 ;)

 Eric

 Freelance 3D and VFX animator

 http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 6:25 PM, Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com wrote:

 Houdini Sneak Peeks are as bad as Autodesk's Marketing from Softimage...

 Boom.

 -Lu


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Ben Rogall 
 xsi_l...@shaders.moederogall.com wrote:

  Those mandibles don't seem to be bouncing quite the way real
 mandibles bounce.


 On 10/30/2013 4:45 PM, Mc Nistor wrote:

 by the way, sneak peak #3 fro SideFX is up
 https://vimeo.com/78203795
 :)


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:39 PM, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.com wrote:

 That's great, I have all that is needed then, no need for
 computer/internet. ;)


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:37 PM, Eric Lampi ericla...@gmail.comwrote:

  You need a la bit of string, a bottle of molasses, some pocket lint
 from a priest, a handful of roofing nails, 2 slinkys, a wombat and build 
 a
 bonfire built at a crossroads by the light of the full moon.

  Or a computer with an internet connection.

 Freelance 3D and VFX animator

 http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work


  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:30 PM, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.comwrote:

  OOOK
  I think I got it. How do I unsubscribe from this list?


  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:22 PM, David Barosin dbaro...@gmail.com
  wrote:

  we can hear you ;)


  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:20 PM, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.comwrote:

  I don't understand how this works... where am I posting?!
  google is getting more and more retarded

Re: what

2013-10-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

To unsubscribe: mail softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with subject
unsubscribe and reply to the confirmation email.



On 30 October 2013 23:56, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.com wrote:

 If by now you didn't figure that I'm new on this platform, well... I'm new
 to this platform so can someone please tell me how do I disable these email
 notifications I get whenever someone replies?
 I didn't find anything in my account settings. Am I missing something?


 On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:52 AM, Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com wrote:

 Both SI and Houdini are amazing kits.  However, one decides not to market
 it's strengths or at all while the other fails to do a single bit of
 quality check on outgoing material.

 Honestly, I feel bad for the talented RnD staff behind the scenes who
 probably worked really hard to get the technology in there only to have it
 shat on by people further down the line.  Please, have a little respect and
 do them justice for their hard work.

 peace,

 -Lu


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 3:36 PM, Eric Lampi ericla...@gmail.com wrote:

 Oh this is Houdini? I thought it was a demo of a Fallout 3 expansion
 pack ;)

 Eric

 Freelance 3D and VFX animator

 http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 6:25 PM, Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.comwrote:

 Houdini Sneak Peeks are as bad as Autodesk's Marketing from Softimage...

 Boom.

 -Lu


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Ben Rogall 
 xsi_l...@shaders.moederogall.com wrote:

  Those mandibles don't seem to be bouncing quite the way real
 mandibles bounce.


 On 10/30/2013 4:45 PM, Mc Nistor wrote:

 by the way, sneak peak #3 fro SideFX is up
 https://vimeo.com/78203795
 :)


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:39 PM, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.com wrote:

 That's great, I have all that is needed then, no need for
 computer/internet. ;)


 On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:37 PM, Eric Lampi ericla...@gmail.comwrote:

  You need a la bit of string, a bottle of molasses, some pocket
 lint from a priest, a handful of roofing nails, 2 slinkys, a wombat and
 build a bonfire built at a crossroads by the light of the full moon.

  Or a computer with an internet connection.

 Freelance 3D and VFX animator

 http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work


  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:30 PM, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.comwrote:

  OOOK
  I think I got it. How do I unsubscribe from this list?


  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:22 PM, David Barosin 
 dbaro...@gmail.com wrote:

  we can hear you ;)


  On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:20 PM, Mc Nistor nisc...@gmail.comwrote:

  I don't understand how this works... where am I posting?!
  google is getting more and more retarded

Re: File size limit?

2013-10-11 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I would totally go on strike if I had to deal with a 2GB environment within
a single scene!


On 10 October 2013 23:21, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.comwrote:

 Plenty cases, such as environment bakes with multiple passes and complex
 geo, where the 2GB limit is crippling and referencing is a workaround and
 not just a smarter way to go about it.
 It's kinda silly that this type of limitation is still around, and
 generally so common.


 On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 2:23 AM, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 At first glance, saving 2GB of data into a single scene doesn't sound
 like a good practice anyways... can't you offload some logical pieces using
 referenced models?



 On 10 October 2013 16:50, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.comwrote:

  Thanks a lot guys! Tough luck... we're on 2012...


 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX

 On 10/10/2013 10:46 AM, Srecko Micic wrote:

 There was limitation like that but on 2014 version is now 4gb I think
 (on Linux it is still  2GB limit).


 On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Sergio Mucino 
 sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote:

  Hello everyone. I just wanted to know if it's true that SI files have
 a size limit. I'm working on a file I cannot save. Every time I try to,
 Softimage tells me that certain elements were not saved, and that I should
 contact Softimage. If I try to open said fail, SI crashes almost
 immediately. People here at work are telling me that apparently, SI cannot
 save/load files over 2 GB. I just wanted to confirm this is true so I can
 take appropriate actions. Thanks!

 --
 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX




  --
 Micic Srecko
 ---
 Mail:
 srecko.mi...@gmail.com
 Skype:srecko.micic
 ---
 3D/Graphic Portfolio:
 http://www.coroflot.com/SreckoM





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

Re: File size limit?

At first glance, saving 2GB of data into a single scene doesn't sound like
a good practice anyways... can't you offload some logical pieces using
referenced models?



On 10 October 2013 16:50, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote:

  Thanks a lot guys! Tough luck... we're on 2012...


 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX

 On 10/10/2013 10:46 AM, Srecko Micic wrote:

 There was limitation like that but on 2014 version is now 4gb I think (on
 Linux it is still  2GB limit).


 On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Sergio Mucino 
 sergio.muc...@modusfx.comwrote:

  Hello everyone. I just wanted to know if it's true that SI files have a
 size limit. I'm working on a file I cannot save. Every time I try to,
 Softimage tells me that certain elements were not saved, and that I should
 contact Softimage. If I try to open said fail, SI crashes almost
 immediately. People here at work are telling me that apparently, SI cannot
 save/load files over 2 GB. I just wanted to confirm this is true so I can
 take appropriate actions. Thanks!

 --
 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX




  --
 Micic Srecko
 ---
 Mail:
 srecko.mi...@gmail.com
 Skype:srecko.micic
 ---
 3D/Graphic Portfolio:
 http://www.coroflot.com/SreckoM

Re: Unofficial Softimage user voice

And also, shouldn't the votes require a proper authentication to make sure
each vote is legit?
Sounds like I can vote as much as I want as anonymous and after clearing
the cache of my browser.


On 10 October 2013 17:23, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote:

 on the first day, weren't votes unlimited? What happened to these
 votes after you set the limits?  It is possible that some early
 suggestions have a disproportionate number of votes?

Re: File size limit?

What's stopping you from using referenced models within each of your rig? I
can't remember if it's buggy or not to have nested referenced models but
just check how it goes. You could for example put your geo in a model and
reference it within your rig.

On top of that, and if it's not already the case, you'll have a nice
rigging structure where the data (geo) is splitted from the logic (rig).
Exactly like how every respectable piece of code is designed, which makes
it easy to reuse or swap things around.



On 10 October 2013 18:14, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote:

  Not really. These are rig files, and have multiple resolutions stored
 inside which are then split by the publishing system. They are not scene
 files (in the traditional sense of the word).


 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX

 On 10/10/2013 11:23 AM, Christopher Crouzet wrote:

 At first glance, saving 2GB of data into a single scene doesn't sound like
 a good practice anyways... can't you offload some logical pieces using
 referenced models?



 On 10 October 2013 16:50, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote:

  Thanks a lot guys! Tough luck... we're on 2012...


 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX

   On 10/10/2013 10:46 AM, Srecko Micic wrote:

 There was limitation like that but on 2014 version is now 4gb I think (on
 Linux it is still  2GB limit).


 On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:35 PM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com
  wrote:

  Hello everyone. I just wanted to know if it's true that SI files have a
 size limit. I'm working on a file I cannot save. Every time I try to,
 Softimage tells me that certain elements were not saved, and that I should
 contact Softimage. If I try to open said fail, SI crashes almost
 immediately. People here at work are telling me that apparently, SI cannot
 save/load files over 2 GB. I just wanted to confirm this is true so I can
 take appropriate actions. Thanks!

 --
 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX




  --
 Micic Srecko
 ---
 Mail:
 srecko.mi...@gmail.com
 Skype:srecko.micic
 ---
 3D/Graphic Portfolio:
 http://www.coroflot.com/SreckoM

Re: Unofficial Softimage user voice

While looking for security breaches, I might have abused a little bit by
giving 4 votes to the PyQt topic without being logged in... but I won't do
it again, I swear!
That said, I did really wish for that feature a while ago! :)



On 10 October 2013 19:49, Gregory Ducatel gduca...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi,

 First of all, I just double check if there was any voting abuse during
 the first hours when the site was setup to an unlimited voting
 measure. And no, people were not abusive...

 Now it is 20 votes/users, I am trying to see how AD can provide
 feedback regarding the status of a suggestion in order to give back
 voting points to the site users and provide a active environment.

 Also, if AD is willing to provide me with a list of suggestions and
 requests already in there system, I will be more that happy to add
 those suggestion inside this users voice system so it will be
 accessible for everyone.

 Cheers,

 Greg

Re: [Job] Blur's looking for a Character Rigger

2013-10-08 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I've heard that candidates need to be good at Quake 3 too?


PS: BC VIP Studio, here's a proper job ad, take note!


On 8 October 2013 19:08, Jeremie Passerin gerem@gmail.com wrote:


 Hey guys,

 I thought it might help if I post that here :

 *Blur Studio is looking for an experienced Rigger with knowledge of
 Softimage rigging tools including; joint and skeleton creation, skinning
 and weighting, IK setup, blend-shapes and deformers. Qualified candidates
 should have a solid understanding of anatomy and articulation of realistic
 humans and creatures. Experience with Python is strongly recommended. Basic
 modeling skills as well as a good understanding of polygonal mesh flow and
 traditional animation principles is a bonus. *
 *Please submit reel, resume and salary requirement to j...@blur.com*
 *
 *
 I'll be the one reviewing the applications and I'd like to add that I'll
 be paying attention to the quality of the deformations. Lot's of high
 quality production work to do. Knowledge of python/softimage sdk is
 definitely a plus (I could use help to develop tools here !)
 Also, I know it's sad but we might not be able to get a visa (No H1B left
 for this year), so we will probably consider American or people with a US
 work visa first. But you can still apply anyway.

 thanks,
 Jeremie

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Re: SetValue question...

2013-10-07 Thread Christopher Crouzet

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1911281/how-do-you-get-list-of-methods-in-a-python-class

But if you simply want to inspect the methods just for your own information
and not with the objective to do some sort of dynamic object manipulations
in your code, then the SDK doc should be your best friend for this - it
even lists the inherited methods and properties without you having to
manually check the doc for each parent class.
And new methods are highlighted in yellow:
http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/softimage2014/en_us/sdkguide/si_om/X3DObject.html



On 7 October 2013 15:34, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote:

  Thanks a lot for the awesomely clear explanation Matt. I'll start getting
 into the Object Model documentation and see what I can start using.
 Just to cut it a bit shorter, what are the standard inspection methods
 available in Softimage (using Python)? I would like to be able to inspect
 the classes and properties for any given object (from an OO perspective,
 not necessarily scene objects) if possible.
 Thanks again!


 *Sergio Mucino*
 Lead Rigger
 Modus FX

 On 04/10/2013 6:52 PM, Matt Lind wrote:

  SetValue() and the accompanying GetValue() are commands.  Commands
 essentially work from scratch every time they are invoked.

 ** **

 When using SetValue() to set the name of the cluster in your example,
 SetValue() needs to parse the string of the cluster name and the ‘.Name’
 parameter, then search the entire scene graph to see if that parameter
 exists.  If so, set the value as specified in your arguments (test).
 Actions performed by commands are logged in the script editor and often
 invoke events or other validations of the application before the task(s)
 are allowed to be performed or completed.  While functional and flexible,
 you can imagine this loop of having to re-parse the entire scene graph to
 set a value can be rather inefficient.  Enter the Scripting object model.*
 ***

 ** **

 The scripting object model is similar to working with a DOM in a web
 browser or other application where the graph is exposed for direct
 manipulation.  The methodology of working in the object model is to get a
 reference to an object (node) in the graph, then use the object’s available
 methods and properties to do work.  Because you have a reference to an
 existing object, you don’t have to explicitly get names of things you want
 to manipulate.  You can work in more generic and abstracted terms to make
 your code more universal and bulletproof.  Although you’ll often have to
 write more code to do the same work in the scripting object model compared
 to commands, your code will be significantly more efficient as it doesn’t
 have re-parse the scene graph for every operation you want to carry out,
 nor will it trigger many of the validations and events.  Actions performed
 using the object model are also not logged, so that overhead is eliminated
 as well.

 ** **

 Rewriting your code using the scripting object model would look something
 like the example below (Jscript).  I added ‘a lot’ of verbosity and error
 checking for learning purposes, so don’t let the size of the code scare you
 away.  The name of the game is to get a reference to an object in the scene
 graph (provided by the selection in this case), then traverse that graph
 using the obtained object’s properties and methods until you get what you
 want.  Notice I didn’t use any commands in the entire code snippet.  If you
 remove the LogMessage() statements and run this on a large polygon
 selection you’ll find it runs much faster than anything using SetValue().*
 ***

 ** **

 ** **

 for ( var i = 0; i  Selection.Count; i++ ) {

 ** **

 var oItem = Selection(i);

 

 if ( oItem.IsClassOf( siCollectionItemID ) ) {

 

 // selected item is a collection item (eg;
 a subset of something)

 

 var oSubComponent = oItem.SubComponent;***
 *

 var oObject   =
 oSubComponent.Parent3DObject;

 

 // debug

 LogMessage(

 Object:  +
 oObject.FullName +

 \n   Object Type:  +
 oObject.Type +

 \n  Object Class:  +
 Application.ClassName( oObject ) +

 \n SubComponent Type:  +
 oSubComponent.Type +

 \nSubComponent Class:  +
 Application.ClassName( oSubComponent ),

 siComment

 );

Re: Looking for artists

2013-09-25 Thread Christopher Crouzet

From what I can remember, the previous person on this list that we had no
idea of his identity was no one else than this dear creativesheep. Just
saying.



On 25 September 2013 19:10, Andres Stephens drais...@outlook.com wrote:

 Oh that’s good to hear! I am sad to hear I missed my chance to present
 myself, but I’m glad you found your team!

 Good luck on the project, and don’t mind the naysayers. Keep up the work
 and cant’ wait to hear more on what you guys are doing/break downs!

 -Draise


 *From:* softimage.l...@bcvipstudio.com
 *Sent:* Wednesday, September 25, 2013 11:48 
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 Hello again respected community of Softimage artists.

 We want to thank you all for participating in our recrutiment process in
 any way, by sending the mail or not.

 By simple reading this post and having a good time, criticizing our html,
 frameless table based site, trying to expose who we are, making fun of us,
 or taking us as an opportunity, you were part of this process.

 The ones that send the e-mail, got back a peronalized presentation letter.
 Explaining further details about our studio and if still interested, how to
 continue with the recrutiment process.

 Some continued with the process, some didn't.

 We want to thank specially this guys that crossed the mysterious e-mail
 barrirer and took the chance, and recieved and read our letter.
 Regardless if they continued or not with the process.

 And as we said. Once we have our Softimage team complete, we will announce
 it here.

 Our Softimage team is complete.

 We still have some registrars to review.  We will review them in case we
 need extra hands for, as far as we know, this is the right place to hire
 the available cream of the cream of Softimage great talented artists, and
 lovers as we are.

 Our new Softimage team confirms this last statement.

 Thank you all.

 Sincerely,
 *
 *
 *BC VIP Studio*
 Team Recrutiment

 PS. We are moving on to recruit Real Flow, Vue, Nuke and After Effects
 mograph specialists.  We are setting up this process and it is not ready
 yet. We will have it running by next week.  But if you have besides
 Softimage any of these skills, and are interested in becoming a team member
 of BC VIP Studio, send an e-mail with your info at:
 recruitm...@bcvipstudio.com



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Re: [C++] passing a STD:vector in context.PutAttribute

2013-09-24 Thread Christopher Crouzet

I'm no expert and can't be sure but at first glance I'd say no - even if
the internal structures of both the `std::vector` and the `CValueArray`
were identical, or if the `CValueArray` was just a simple wrap of a
`std:vector`, it would be unsafe to do a type cast, especially if you had
to modify the data afterwards.

If explicit conversion methods were provided by the Softimage API, like in
the `CString` class, it probably would do a copy anyways of the entire
array.
Then it would possibly provide a pointer to the internal structure like
what the `CString::GetWideString` method does.

There might be a workaround to use CValueArray with OpenMP but
unfortunately I don't know much about this (and don't have access to
Softimage to try things out), sorry.


Cheers!
Christopher.



On 24 September 2013 10:38, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello list people,
  I'm working on a C++ command and I'm using openMP to multitrhead the
 computation.
 As Softimage Arrays don't play nice with openMP I'm stuck with
 STD::vectors.
 Now I would like that command to output that vector (that is
 multidimentional by the way),
 so I was wondering if there was a magical wat to cast it in a CValue in a
 valid way without
 rebuilding the whole thing as CValues Arrays?
 Thanks!

 ---
 Ahmidou Lyazidi
 Director | TD | CG artist
 http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
 http://www.cappuccino-films.com

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Re: Looking for artists

2013-09-22 Thread Christopher Crouzet

With your lack of transparency, your elusive descriptions, you betting on
people's curiosity, and your choice of catchy lines such as VIP,
talents, and seats are limited, it sounds like all you're trying to do
is to catch the ones still hoping for the American dream. It's really just
missing a blinking yellow FREE!!! tag on a red background, and you're
done.

Just saying that whatever your thing is, you've been doing very well at
managing to make it sound not trustworthy in every possible way.


PS: and it has been scientifically proved that websites using HTML tables
for non-tabular data can't be serious.


On 22 September 2013 21:02, BC Artist Pool
softimage.l...@bcvipstudio.comwrote:


 Hello Eric.  Yes our site is just one week old as we are new!

 And yes, neither we have seen this before for 25 years.

 All we can say is that the kitchen has been cooking this for about two
 years ago from now.  And it is time to start delivering the dishes.

 We can tell you what we are not.

 We are not a talent place site.
 We do not charge artists any fee.
 We are not a site that will ask you to enroll and pay a subscritpion, so
 other studios can come up and see your profile.

 We are a new studio gathering talent all over the globe.

 Seats are limited.  Once we have our team completed, we will stop sending
 invitations and we will announce it here.

 What pill will you take?

 The red pill, or the blue pill?

 Send the mail and discover what is behind that old corridor with light at
 the end that is at our site.

 Sincerely,

 *BC VIP Studio*
 Artist Pool


   Original Message 
 Subject: Re: Looking for artists
 From: Eric Lampi ericla...@gmail.com
 Date: Sun, September 22, 2013 11:19 am
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 Sorry, but to not personally introduce yourself is weird, especially on
 this list. I don't think I have ever seen such a request in the 15 or so
 years I have been on the list.
 So I would like to ask you a couple questions:

 What is your name? Where are you currently based? Is your business model
 to act as a placement/talent scout?

 Your website appears to be only about a week old. Also, on that website
 there are no links. No reference to any credits, clients, work or contact
 info. Sorry to be so cagey, but on a few occasions I have entertained a few
 vague requests like yours in the past, thinking they were a legit studio
 only to find out it was just someone who wants a list of artists to act as
 a go-between of some kind between the artists and other studios.

 A little transparency would be appreciated.

 Thanks,
 Eric

 Freelance 3D and VFX animator

 http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work


 On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 1:10 PM, softimage.l...@bcvipstudio.com wrote:

 Hello Sebastian,

 We are working hard to create something different, where a lot of effort
 and hard work has been put into, just to reach the step of start sending
 invitations.

 We cannot reveal the curtain so easy.

 We decided to post here first, knowing that this one would be a tough
 bone to chew.  Most of the artists here are experienced and very high
 skilled.

 And we are not asking for weird or strange stuff at this moment.  All we
 are saying is to send an e-mail to an address if you are interested.

 We can't see how this will harm you in anyway.

 So if you are curious, the least you can do is send an e-mail and see
 what happens next.

 What we can assure you, is that we are not going to ask you to give away
 any credit card number ;)

 It's up to you, if you want to open a new door or keep it closed.

 Have a good one.

 *
 *
 *BC VIP Studio*
 Artist Pool

   Original Message 
 Subject: Re: Looking for artists
 From: Sebastian Kowalski l...@sekow.com
 Date: Sun, September 22, 2013 4:54 am
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 hey bc vip studio artist pool…

 would be nice having some more information about that studio.
 its a bit weird being a start up studio with places in ny, lon, van and
 mexico city.
 as good talent is rare to find, you should put a bit more effort in it.

 maybe its just me, but that call sounds a bit blatant for my taste.

 take care

 -sebastian


 Am 22.09.2013 um 04:41 schrieb BC Artist Pool 
 softimage.l...@bcvipstudio.com:

 If for some reason your mail to artist.invitat...@bcvipstudio.com or
 studio.invitat...@bcvipstudio.com is being rejected, please try again.
 We are moving the server as we are recieving more applications than
 expected.

 Thank you and sorry for the inconvinience.

 Sincerely,


 *BC VIP Studio*
 Artist Pool


   Original Message 
 Subject: Re: Looking for artists
 From: Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
 Date: Sat, September 21, 2013 7:14 pm
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 Hello, What does BC stand for :) ?


 On 22 September 2013 02:10, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote:

 Great!  Count me in!

 Cheers!




 2013/9/21 BC Artist Pool softimage.l...@bcvipstudio.com

  Hello

Re: Autodesk 2014 Extensions Released - Softimage Left Out

2013-09-20 Thread Christopher Crouzet

My only ideas right now are:
- creating a mailing list Blabla and other bullshit about Autodesk
marketing so we can move unconstructive posts away from this one while
keeping the freedom of speech.
- sadly unsubscribing from this list after joining 6+ years ago and having
had the pleasure to meet with many of its talented contributors.

Which one should I go for?


On 20 September 2013 16:44, Octavian Ureche okt...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys,

 A couple of days ago, autodesk officially released its 2014 app extensions.
 Softimage is missing from that list along with motionbuilder (which is
 being ported to maya anyway).

 I don't think i am adding any fuel to the fire. I believe autodesk is
 doing that.
 Please don't blame me for opening up yet another chapter of the what the
 hell is going on with softimage, because it's pretty clear they are
 shoving it down there with a dedicated mocap app.
 Checking the autodesk website over and over again pretty much confirms it.
 No extension for softimage this time.

 Any ideas as to why?

 Cheers,
 Octavian

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Re: weightpaint bug

2013-08-30 Thread Christopher Crouzet

It's been there forever, and not only in absolute mode. It's probably due
to a floating point rounding error. It's so easy to fix that it has never
been a problem.
The fix: select your whole mesh, then make sure no locks are set in the
Weight Editor, click on any deformer column to select all the values for
that deformer, and add 0 with the normalize option turned on.


PS: I remember stumbling upon the website of your company a few years
ago... I had a good time fighting that yellow character! :)



On 30 August 2013 16:20, wavo w...@fiftyeight.com wrote:

  Hi list,


 I've discovered a strange behavior when weightpaintig on an envelope,when
 painting in absolut-mode sometimes affected points are  not distributed at
 100 percent, the weighteditor also shows a red error confirmation.  I
 didn't found a  known bug  in the releasenotes.
 same in 2012sap 2014 -/-sp1 sp2
 To reproduce this behavior do the following:
 Create an high detailed symmetrical shape(sphere) add some symmetrical
 bones(y-z plane) and make an envelope,than change the values by painting in
 add and smooth-mode watch an  locked weight-edtor-window.

 tia if confirmed


 *Walter Volbers***
  Senior Animator

 *FIFTYEIGHT*** 3D
 **Animation  Digital Effects GmbH

 Kontorhaus Osthafen
 Lindleystraße 12
 60314 Frankfurt am Main
 Germany

 Telefon +49 (0) 69.48 000 55.50
 Telefax +49 (0) 69.48 000 55.15

 *mailto:w...@fiftyeight.com w...@fiftyeight.com
 http://www.fiftyeight.com
 *

  
 ESC*58*
 Eine Kooperation der escape GmbH und der FIFTYEIGHT3D GmbH

 *http://www.ESC58.de
 *
  **

Re: Maya Xgen

2013-08-10 Thread Christopher Crouzet

http://nerdreactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/the-hobbit-nori.jpg

You've got 2 weeks, make sure you don't forget any plait!



On 10 August 2013 07:22, Eric Lampi ericla...@gmail.com wrote:

 This just came across my feed on Facebook. It's so damned annoying to
 see them make a huge deal out of this kind of pedestrian crap. OK the
 hair stuff was nice, but is anyone really that impressed with a hair
 styling tool? Exactly how often do you say to yourself Oh no!! How am
 I ever going to style the hair on these ALL of these characters!!??


 Eric

 Freelance 3D and VFX animator

 http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work


 On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 10:55 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com
 wrote:
  It was more than that... It was the speed and interaction time. For
 example the interaction time  when simply changing tree counts or sizes..
 And when he painted a wight map it was beyond stupid slow. If its a view
 port 2.0 issue .. Maybe he should turn it off... It's sad
 
  The hair demo and some of the work flow / UI looked great.. Then the
 needless expressions and dog slow tree scene made me forget about the good
 parts.
 
  Sent from my iPhone
 
  On Aug 9, 2013, at 9:27 AM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
  On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 7:46 AM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com
 wrote:
  I thought the hair stuff looked very very nice... but the tree demo was
  simply sad. It SEEMED much slower than ICE for only a few low poly
 trees,
  and like you said I would expect it to very fast and scalable. The
 video
  makes it seem like just the opposite.  It seems with Arnold standins I
 can
  handle much larger data sets in ISC...based on the demo video.
 
  You mean it's slow orbiting and panning the viewport? XGen is not
  doing anything afaik during these operation. the slowness must be a
  combination of all the shadows and effects of the viewport 2.0 setup
  he's using combined with the camtesia capture
 
  Is there a way to get this data into soft? I could see using the hair
 tools
  as my first step into the dark side ;). Could I write out Arnold .ass
 files?
 
  Thanks
  G

Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

How about you guys click on the Softimage icon from your desktop and do
your magic instead of wasting your time whining about some marketing
bullshit? ;)



On 8 August 2013 19:29, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net wrote:

 to take it one step further If you click on the Maya link, and then
 click on products
 at the top of the page, Softimage is not listed. I think they are pushing
 people to the
 Suite, but that is unclear.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

  Wow. Just wow. So anyone interested in checking out softimage and does a
 quick search would get a diversion like this from AD. Very telling.



 On 8/8/2013 11:35 AM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:

 Autodesk Softimage visual effects and 3D game development software
 enables artists to create stunning character animation and visual effects.

  Yes game development and they haven;t even try to make good connection
 to most popular game engines as well
 But they trying so hard to kill SI and it still doesn;t help says
 something how good actualy itis, after all updates given to Maya and still
 hard to push people from SI to it.. he


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
  wrote:

  For those of us who dont seem to get the paid results could you copy
 and paste ?

  ;)
  --
 *From:* Stephen Davidson [magic...@bellsouth.net]
 *Sent:* 08 August 2013 06:20 PM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want
 my moneyback!

   I think I can shed light on where Autodesk is going, as far as
 Softimage is concerned.
 Go to Google and search for Autodesk Softimage.
 What is the first paid search result?
 This is the one that Autodesk marketing paid Google money to display.
 There is your answer.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Steffen Dünner 
 steffen.duen...@gmail.com wrote:


 2013/8/8 Eugen Sares sof...@mail.sprit.org

 Wait, wasn't there a 3rd 3D application among those?


  Yes, this: http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/extensionmudbox
  :(

 Cheers
  Steffen
 --

 PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93

 Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93




  --

  Best Regards,
 *  Stephen P. Davidson**
**(954) 552-7956
 *sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

 *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


  - Arthur C. Clarke

 http://www.3danimationmagic.com

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 contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not 
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 subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the 
 contrary.



 --
 *Rares Halmagean
 ___
 *visual development and 3d character  content creation.
 *rarebrush.com* http://rarebrush.com/




 --

 Best Regards,
 *  Stephen P. Davidson**
**(954) 552-7956
 *sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

 *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


- Arthur C. Clarke

 http://www.3danimationmagic.com

Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

It's not about ignorance. With all my respect, as everyone I'm not so happy
to see how things have been going since Autodesk took over Softimage, but
do you think that talking on a mailing-list about Google Ads and relating
each little marketing glitch in order to elaborate a conspiracy theory will
help at all? If it actually does something, I bet it's probably pissing off
the remaining devs trying their best to save things with their means and it
must help the marketing guys to think we're just a bunch of fanboys not
even worth dealing with (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit).

As for me, I chose to focus on actively looking for a solution rather than
hoping for the best and linking my own future to a software's destiny. My
whole working experience taught me how to be dynamic and adapt to my
environment, so even if the whole industry had to stop, I won't need any
planning, I'd be ready for that. We'll all be, I'm sure.

Anyways, get used to it, every software dies at some point, better be ready
sooner than later. I'm sure that you, like all the clever boys that we are
on this mailing list, have already started to think on how to move on. And
I know that it can be trickier for a company to move things around, but in
the very worst case, Softimage will still work as it is and you're already
rocking with it, so it's not too bad. On top of this, it sounds like we can
now count on Fabric Engine to push things forward without having to ditch
all our existing pipelines, so how could we not roll even more in the
future? ;)



On 8 August 2013 22:26, Gene Crucean emailgeneonthel...@gmail.com wrote:

 Ignorance is bliss isn't it Christopher? I don't know about you but I like
 planning for my future.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 10:43 AM, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 How about you guys click on the Softimage icon from your desktop and do
 your magic instead of wasting your time whining about some marketing
 bullshit? ;)



 On 8 August 2013 19:29, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net wrote:

 to take it one step further If you click on the Maya link, and then
 click on products
 at the top of the page, Softimage is not listed. I think they are
 pushing people to the
 Suite, but that is unclear.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

  Wow. Just wow. So anyone interested in checking out softimage and does
 a quick search would get a diversion like this from AD. Very telling.



 On 8/8/2013 11:35 AM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:

 Autodesk Softimage visual effects and 3D game development software
 enables artists to create stunning character animation and visual effects.

  Yes game development and they haven;t even try to make good
 connection to most popular game engines as well
 But they trying so hard to kill SI and it still doesn;t help says
 something how good actualy itis, after all updates given to Maya and still
 hard to push people from SI to it.. he


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Angus Davidson 
 angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote:

  For those of us who dont seem to get the paid results could you copy
 and paste ?

  ;)
  --
 *From:* Stephen Davidson [magic...@bellsouth.net]
 *Sent:* 08 August 2013 06:20 PM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want
 my moneyback!

   I think I can shed light on where Autodesk is going, as far as
 Softimage is concerned.
 Go to Google and search for Autodesk Softimage.
 What is the first paid search result?
 This is the one that Autodesk marketing paid Google money to display.
 There is your answer.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Steffen Dünner 
 steffen.duen...@gmail.com wrote:


 2013/8/8 Eugen Sares sof...@mail.sprit.org

 Wait, wasn't there a 3rd 3D application among those?


  Yes, this:
 http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/extensionmudbox :(

 Cheers
  Steffen
 --

 PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93

 Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93




  --

  Best Regards,
 *  Stephen P. Davidson**
**(954) 552-7956
 *sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

 *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


- Arthur C. Clarke

 http://www.3danimationmagic.com

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 confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please 
 notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy 
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 Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between

Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

Apart of saying that we've got the biggest, does it really matter that
Fabric Engine doesn't favor Softimage or any specific app at all? Knowing
that I can code high performance stuff in Fabric and that I can use it in
whatever 3D softwares still alive at a certain time sounds pretty neat to
me as it is.

As for the future, sorry but I don't own a crystal ball _yet_! I'm living
in the present and take things as they come, ready to react... for now, I
thought that it would be a pretty good time to have a break from that
industry and so far I'm enjoying the view, maybe you guys should do the
same instead of stressing out! :)

Btw, do you guys know the algorithm behind the Google Ads? Because you
know, it could potentially return an ad even though you search for
Autodesk in my pants.



On 9 August 2013 00:08, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net wrote:

 Yes, Fabric Engine is doing more for the survival of Softimage than most.
 But even they are looking to support other 3D apps, as they should, so it
 will not be something that will be a specific advantage to Softimage users.

 I am always testing the waters on newer, different software. It is just
 such a HUGE
 deal to learn a different platform, after you have felt comfortable with
 one
 for so long.
 I feel for the large houses. I am just a lowly single freelancer.
 Much easier for change, but still, no small matter..

 The Google Ads was not a conspiracy theory, just an observation.
 Autodesk paid for that ad placement, so they are responsible for it.
 Google did not do this randomly.

 So, Christopher, what do you see as a future solution to our industry?
 Microsoft keeps try to sell me Windows 8. Somehow I don't see myself
 animating on a touch-pad. BUT...you never know! ;)

 ... if someone could come out with a touch-pad, large, and with a pressure
 sensitive pen ...


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 It's not about ignorance. With all my respect, as everyone I'm not so
 happy to see how things have been going since Autodesk took over Softimage,
 but do you think that talking on a mailing-list about Google Ads and
 relating each little marketing glitch in order to elaborate a conspiracy
 theory will help at all? If it actually does something, I bet it's probably
 pissing off the remaining devs trying their best to save things with their
 means and it must help the marketing guys to think we're just a bunch of
 fanboys not even worth dealing with (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit).

 As for me, I chose to focus on actively looking for a solution rather
 than hoping for the best and linking my own future to a software's destiny.
 My whole working experience taught me how to be dynamic and adapt to my
 environment, so even if the whole industry had to stop, I won't need any
 planning, I'd be ready for that. We'll all be, I'm sure.

 Anyways, get used to it, every software dies at some point, better be
 ready sooner than later. I'm sure that you, like all the clever boys that
 we are on this mailing list, have already started to think on how to move
 on. And I know that it can be trickier for a company to move things around,
 but in the very worst case, Softimage will still work as it is and you're
 already rocking with it, so it's not too bad. On top of this, it sounds
 like we can now count on Fabric Engine to push things forward without
 having to ditch all our existing pipelines, so how could we not roll even
 more in the future? ;)



 On 8 August 2013 22:26, Gene Crucean emailgeneonthel...@gmail.comwrote:

 Ignorance is bliss isn't it Christopher? I don't know about you but I
 like planning for my future.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 10:43 AM, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 How about you guys click on the Softimage icon from your desktop and do
 your magic instead of wasting your time whining about some marketing
 bullshit? ;)



 On 8 August 2013 19:29, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.netwrote:

 to take it one step further If you click on the Maya link, and
 then click on products
 at the top of the page, Softimage is not listed. I think they are
 pushing people to the
 Suite, but that is unclear.


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Rares Halmagean 
 ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

  Wow. Just wow. So anyone interested in checking out softimage and
 does a quick search would get a diversion like this from AD. Very 
 telling.



 On 8/8/2013 11:35 AM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:

 Autodesk Softimage visual effects and 3D game development software
 enables artists to create stunning character animation and visual 
 effects.

  Yes game development and they haven;t even try to make good
 connection to most popular game engines as well
 But they trying so hard to kill SI and it still doesn;t help says
 something how good actualy itis, after all updates given to Maya and 
 still
 hard to push people from SI to it.. he


 On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 6:33 PM, Angus Davidson

Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!