Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer
+1! Absolutely out of this world! How you guys got all this done so fast is mind blowing. Integrated into SI too, not just an export plugin. This is truly ground breaking! On 3/14/2013 10:06 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Let me tell you that I just put my hands on this baby and wow!!! This is going to rock the rendering world. And for Softimage Awsome guys congratulations on this one. My quadro 3000 finally is awake!!! 2013/3/14 Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com mailto:s...@shedmtl.com killer congrats to you and team Nicolas!! sly *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED** *V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/http://www.shedmtl.com/http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM On 3/14/2013 10:35 PM, Nicolas Burtnyk wrote: Hey guys, I'm going to respond to the last few messages regarding the importance of speed later, but in the meantime here is a video of some live rendering in Softimage. http://youtu.be/fjCguRdSlV0 -Nicolas On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:17 PM, pete...@skynet.be mailto:pete...@skynet.be wrote: you are right of course, as always. what is really needed is a fine balance between quality and speed, at a pricepoint that is affordable yet high enough to sustain development, and available before my retirement. *From:* Andy Moorer mailto:andymoo...@gmail.com *Sent:* Thursday, March 14, 2013 9:02 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer Well said, but speed is still important, deadlines are tight and particularly in the iterative direction phase often re-rendering takes much more time than making a directed change. Dailies reflect this... A series of several directed tweaks to a shot can stretch over several days in part to allow time to make changes and get them rendered... A major limitation to working with rendered VFX elements versus composite effects which can often be altered in near realtime. Sent from my iPad On Mar 14, 2013, at 4:21 AM, pete...@skynet.be mailto:pete...@skynet.be wrote: Please also bear in mind that we're still just in alpha and constantly improving performance. We're kind of obsessed with speed :) speed is great of course – but IMO it’s not the most important factor. over the years we have all been doing productions with rather long rendertimes, running into hours per frame and more. The bottom line was rarely “it has to be rendered in X amount of time” – clients couldn’t care less. It has to be good enough first and rendered in time for delivery. it’s been a long time I’m looking forward for a viewport/GPU mental ray replacement in softimage. Hopefully staying below 5 minutes for complex HD images and within 1 minute for more simple stuff – but more importantly, it should have the bells and whistles of a modern raytracer, and deliver production quality rendering – that can be very precisely tweaked by the user. It’s very frustrating to get a promising image very fast, but not being able to make the image really final - some remaining artifacts, sampling problem or no ability to finetune this or that effect or simply lack of a feature you really require – so in turn you have to bite the bullet and go back to good old offline rendering – and the corresponding rendertimes will be twice as frustrating. Very extensive support for lighting features – not just GI / AO / softshadows / softreflections – but also SSS, raytraced refractions, motion blur, volumetrics, ICE support, instancing, hair – and a good set of shaders and support for the rendertree and as many of the factory shaders as possible. Mental ray never became the standard it was because of speed – but because of what one can achieve with it. (and then you have to turn off a few things left and right for final renders in order to make rendertimes acceptable) Obviously in this day and age it’s features are getting long in the tooth as well, which opens the door wide open for others – but it remains a reference for what a renderer should at least aspire to. just some thoughts and hints of what matters to me when considering a new renderer. -- -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer
Yes it does. On 3/15/2013 9:31 AM, Guillaume Laferriere wrote: I wonder how this looks with a render region with alpha blending turned on. The renderer would need to output RGBA and support the render region. Does it? GL From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Len Krenzler Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 11:13 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer I only have a GTX470 and it flies even with that! I'm testing a scene right now with 4.5 mil polys and a 12k HDR lighting texture as well as other large textures and no problem. On 3/15/2013 8:58 AM, Tim Crowson wrote: I've been really impressed with the performance and integration so far. I still need to throw some heavy scenes at it thow. But considering what it can do on a single card, I can't wait to see how it will run once multiple cards are supported. Either way, this is already a win for the Softimage community. Big thanks to Nicolas and his team! -Tim On 3/15/2013 9:32 AM, Mirko Jankovic wrote: actualy I already have an 580 in another comp so that itself is not problem :) On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.commailto:emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Well Mirko as Len said. You might just reconsider going back to Nvidia. CUDA is coming strong on a lot of apps. And getting first than ATI. You can buy a GTX 470 for 200 bucks. 2013/3/15 Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.commailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com well honestly... I'm on gaming cards because pro cards really are not justified with price in my case, and with gaming line ati right now is twice the speed of nvidia really... so just for rendering t o sacrifice all viewport performance.. I'm not sure that is something I would be willing to do :) not sure how mixing cards on same board would work with different drivers and everything to have one nvidis just for rendering.. anyway that is all different story and not really relevant in this case. in any case this is so refreshing On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Len Krenzler l...@creativecontrol.camailto:l...@creativecontrol.ca wrote: You might want to move back just for this...just sayin'... On 3/15/2013 7:35 AM, Mirko Jankovic wrote: u soo nice! now just to wait for OpenCL version whenever it comes.. I moved away from nvidia completely :) On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:33 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.commailto:emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Everything is supported Mirko! It is like having the old and crumpy MR reborn with power, speed and awsome result. Integration with Softimage is seamless. 2013/3/15 Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.commailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com hey I haven't really seen if region rendering is supported as well or only preview window? just wondering On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Len Krenzler l...@creativecontrol.camailto:l...@creativecontrol.ca wrote: +1! Absolutely out of this world! How you guys got all this done so fast is mind blowing. Integrated into SI too, not just an export plugin. This is truly ground breaking! On 3/14/2013 10:06 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Let me tell you that I just put my hands on this baby and wow!!! This is going to rock the rendering world. And for Softimage Awsome guys congratulations on this one. My quadro 3000 finally is awake!!! 2013/3/14 Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.commailto:s...@shedmtl.com killer congrats to you and team Nicolas!! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COMhttp://www.shedmtl.com/ http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM On 3/14/2013 10:35 PM, Nicolas Burtnyk wrote: Hey guys, I'm going to respond to the last few messages regarding the importance of speed later, but in the meantime here is a video of some live rendering in Softimage. http://youtu.be/fjCguRdSlV0 -Nicolas On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:17 PM, pete...@skynet.bemailto:pete...@skynet.be wrote: you are right of course, as always. what is really needed is a fine balance between quality and speed, at a pricepoint that is affordable yet high enough to sustain development, and available before my retirement. From: Andy Moorermailto:andymoo...@gmail.com Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 9:02 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer Well said, but speed is still important, deadlines are tight and particularly in the iterative direction phase often re-rendering takes much more time than making a directed change. Dailies reflect this... A series of several directed tweaks to a shot can stretch over several days in part to allow time to make changes and get them rendered... A major limitation to working with rendered VFX elements versus composite effects which can often be altered in near realtime. Sent from my iPad
Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer
No kidding! I can't imagine why Nvidia/Arc/MR whatever they're called now couldn't have done this years ago. Between them and AD they can't even get they're basic features working. Money should be directed to these 3rd party guys as much as possible. AD must have called me about 10 times to renew my sub. This time I said no, I think I'll spend that on the guys getting results. If you haven't tried this yet, do! On 3/15/2013 1:54 PM, Mirko Jankovic wrote: Just thinking.. you really have to wonder why AD as huge company with resources that are probably hard to imagine by any of us never got to make ANYTHING nearly great as anything like what we see from 3rd party guys around. If you think about it like 99% of progress is NOT made by big companies. Really need to think in which direction money flow could start to change.. away from AD-like and more towards guys like Redshift team :) All the best! On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 8:47 PM, Christian Gotzinger cgo...@googlemail.com mailto:cgo...@googlemail.com wrote: Excuse the language, but: Holy shit! Mighty impressive stuff! On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 3:35 AM, Nicolas Burtnyk nico...@redshift3d.com mailto:nico...@redshift3d.com wrote: Hey guys, I'm going to respond to the last few messages regarding the importance of speed later, but in the meantime here is a video of some live rendering in Softimage. http://youtu.be/fjCguRdSlV0 -Nicolas -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Announcing Redshift - Biased GPU Renderer
Exactly! This is VERY interesting. Hope I can test (sent request already) :) On 3/13/2013 12:33 PM, Nicolas Burtnyk wrote: Yes - I'll try to make a video of that if I can get set up correctly for it. Note that this is 2 mins on a GTX 470 which is nothing special in terms of GPUs. You can expect significantly better times with a GTX 580 for example. I don't have official times for that card, but I'd guess under 1.5 minutes. These kinds of times really underscore the power of biased rendering. When you need to reduce noise, you have a lot more options than let's just throw a ton more samples at the whole thing. On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:28 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: The classroom is _really_ 2min render ? Congrats to you, sending a request :) Le 13/03/2013 19:18, Steven Caron a écrit : congrats to you and your team! i was wondering when we would see/hear about your work. it would be great to see a video demonstration of redshift in softimage. On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Nicolas Burtnyk nico...@redshift3d.com mailto:nico...@redshift3d.com wrote: Hello folks, In March of last year, 2 colleagues and I left our jobs as software developers in the games industry to form our own company - Redshift. Our goal was to apply our experience with graphics hardware to the problem of offline rendering. Artists friends had been asking us for years why Mental Ray and other renderers were not taking advantage of the GPU. As the ideas bounced around in our heads, we figured we'd take a crack at it. As it turns out, it's really freakin' hard, but not impossible! Today, we're very excited to announce the official launch of Redshift v0.1 alpha, to our knowledge, the world's first fully GPU-accelerated biased renderer. Redshift supports multiple GI solutions: Brute-Force GI, Irradiance Caching (aka Final Gather), Irradiance Point Cloud (aka Light Cache) and Photon Mapping (GI and Caustics). All are fully GPU-accelerated and perform many times faster than similar CPU-based offerings. A problem that plagues many GPU renderers on the market is that they are limited by the available VRAM on the graphics card (and most systems have significantly less VRAM than main memory). Redshift addresses this by using an out-of-core architecture for geometry and textures allowing you to render scenes with tens of millions of polygons and gigabytes of textures with off-the-shelf, inexpensive hardware. Redshift currently integrates directly with Softimage 2011 through 2013 and Maya 2011 through 2013 on Windows XP or higher. 3ds Max support is in development. To run Redshift, you'll need an NVidia graphics card supporting compute 1.2 or higher with 1GB VRAM or more. You can check out our website http://www.redshift3d.com for more info. We're currently in closed alpha, and looking to find some interested alpha testers on this list. Our goals for alpha are to shake out bugs and gather feedback from users to help focus our development efforts. If you're interested in taking Redshift for a spin, drop me an email at nico...@redshift3d.com mailto:nico...@redshift3d.com. Some sample renders: http://s3.redshift3d.com/jp_studio_icp_1280.png http://s3.redshift3d.com/mazda_1024.png http://s3.redshift3d.com/AI_V8_S10_1200.png And the classroom scene from the Octane Render thread from a couple weeks ago. 2 minutes on a single GeForce GTX 470. http://s3.redshift3d.com/classroom.png I'd also like to thank all of those on this list who've answered my various questions about the XSI SDK. Your help has made our integration of Redshift with Softimage very strong. Cheers! Nicolas -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Something new we made
Wow, that is stunning! Just amazing. Len Krenzler On 3/7/2013 2:14 PM, john clausing wrote: here's a little something we made recently https://vimeo.com/61292772 john clausing www.actionart.ca
Re: Mia architectural highlights, bug?
Hehe..open the window first? I usually just turn it off and replace the specular highlight with Holger's baSpecular shader. Just turn off diffuse in that shader and you have two specular layers to work with. Just plug it into the additional color on the Architectural shader. This gives nice specular control without the Architectural weirdness. Cheers - Len On 2/15/2013 12:30 AM, Stefan Andersson wrote: So it's been years since I had to use mental ray in production... Now two weeks into the production we are seeing a lot of highlight artifacts in the renders, which doesn't appear if you use some other shader than Mia. A quick google search and it seems that other have this problem too. So, any mental ray ninja tips for someone that is about to throw the computer out of the window? Regards Stefan -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Playmobil Dragons Trailer
Very cool, nicely done! On 2/1/2013 1:24 AM, philipp seis wrote: Hello ! Here is our new contribution against boring childhoods ;). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTDQUaP4FBU It's made in Softimage and Arnold. all the best, philipp -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: HEY THE AREA
No kidding. I haven't even been able to log in at all for a couple months. Tech support has been 0 help. On 1/14/2013 8:44 AM, adrian wyer wrote: http://cgmemes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/keep-me-signed-in-yeah-right.html hehehehe Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77 Margaret St. London W1W 8SY ++44(0) 207 580 0829 adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com blocked::blocked::blocked::mailto:adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com www.fluid-pictures.com blocked::blocked::blocked::http://www.fluid-pictures.com/ Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales. Company number:5657815 VAT number: 872 6893 71 -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: OT Utopia people
I would assume that sites like this need a critical mass of people using them to be effective. I'm not sure SI only would be enough and would it be much different from the Jobs section of the si-community? As a note, there hasn't been a new job posted there in about 3 months so not exactly highly active thing. On 1/8/2013 2:28 PM, olivier jeannel wrote: Exactly, we should have something similar _and free._ Le 08/01/2013 21:04, Eric Lampi a écrit : Perhaps I am misunderstanding you? (If so, sorry) You're not advocating using this service but think a similar, free service should be set up? On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 2:53 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: That was my point, no need to pay. But the site interface is well done. I was thinking something like that for us could be cool. Maybe hosted @ si community or RRay. That's just an idea. But I pretty like what's happening at the moment with the softimage community. Small community, very helpfull and active (lots of tuts and giveaways). I believe this kind of tool could help being even more organized. Just a thought Le 08/01/2013 20:34, Eric Lampi a écrit : From the website: Working with TV, Film, VFX or New media? It's free to join utopiapeople and we represent you on a non-exclusive basis. We take a 15% fee on agency bookings (not permanent). I am absolutely against this sort of thing. Paying someone else a hefty fee just to get introduced to a company that desperately needs you? Be careful what you wish for, it might not work out for us in the long run, and I think that as an industry, we really better off discouraging these people as much as possible. What's next? You supply your own software and workstation? Oh yeah, wait... That's already happening to some people. Eric On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Andy Nicholas a...@andynicholas.com mailto:a...@andynicholas.com wrote: It's free to register, but they take 15% commission from your daily rate. On 08 January 2013 at 17:40 Javier Vega javierelas...@gmail.com mailto:javierelas...@gmail.com wrote: it is a paying service? Im user of Utopia People, but I think that is a paying service just for the companies that search freelancers here. For the freelancers is free. Javier Vega jav...@zao3d.com mailto:jav...@zao3d.com http://www.zao3d.com http://blog.zao3d.com El 08/01/2013, a las 18:36, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr escribió: Does anyone know this site service ? http://www.utopiapeople.com/ I think the concept is great. I won't use it since this is a paying service (for what I've red). Would be nice to have something similar for xsi lancers around the globe. Olivier -- Freelance 3D and VFX animator http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work -- Freelance 3D and VFX animator http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Softimage companies
There's a significant list here: http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=36t=2777hilit=softimage+studios On 11/23/2012 7:27 AM, Sandy Sutherland wrote: Hi all, Sorry to bother again - I know there are a couple of sites listing companies that use Softimage and I have looked there - they seem to be fairly old as some of the links go to no-where or some of the companies look like they have moved over to the dark side. Is there a good up to date list somewhere I can use to get an idea of companies doing worthwhile work in softimage? Thanks S. __ Sandy Sutherland mailto:sandy.sutherl...@triggerfish.co.za | Technical Supervisor http://triggerfish.co.za/en http://www.facebook.com/triggerfishanimation http://www.twitter.com/triggerfishza -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Mental Ray Features, Integration Autodesk's failure
I'm guessing not. This discussion has been kicked around a few thousand times. It sure would be nice just to see the basic features hooked up. Other render engines aren't always a good option, there's precious little support for volume rendering for example... If MR is going to continue to ship with SI, sure would be nice to connect all the features at least :-( Hope the new dev team is listening. Am I the only one frustrated disappointed by this? etm -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: render curves
3Delight is a pretty easy solution. The trial is free unlimited time even for commercial use and 2 threads is more than enough to render a few curves. It's basically, drop 3Delight in, select it and hit render. It does very nice AA and will render curves real fast. Might still be a good solution. http://www.3delight.com/en/index.php?page=3DFS_overview On 11/6/2012 7:46 AM, Ponthieux, Joey wrote: Everyone, Thanks for the great responses. I'm really intrigued by the 3Delight solution but I'd much rather have a native way to deal with this in Soft. I'm embarrassed to ask, having been away from CGI for almost two years, but how would you apply a strand to a nurbs circle with ICE? Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center 6 E. Taylor St. B1244 R216A MS264 Hampton, VA, 23681 Phone: 757-864-6754 EMail:j.ponthi...@nasa.gov Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. On 11/5/2012 3:18 PM, Christian Keller wrote: Strands is the way to go. If you have lots of then and you want fast rendersolition try that and emRenderpointcloud from Eric Mootz -- christian keller visual effects|direction m +49 179 69 36 248 f +49 40 386 835 33 chris3...@me.com mailto:chris3...@me.com gesendet von meinem iDing Am 05.11.2012 um 17:09 schrieb Mathieu Leclaire mlecl...@hybride.com mailto:mlecl...@hybride.com: Why don't you simply create ICE Strands from your curves? You can render strands using the particle size attribute to drive the rendered pixel width as long as you set the ICE attribute ShapeSizeAbsolute to false. -Mathieu Vladimir Jankijevic wrote: it's not possible for arnold with the sitoa exporter because sitoa won't export any softimage curves. what you could do though, is extend it to do that. But then again, it's maybe easier to make an ICE compound to generate strands along the curves and export with the current sitoa and render with arnold. cheers On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 4:29 PM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com mailto:alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote: Seems like you need to make your own shader. It is possible for Arnold I think. In case you are using Arnold, I will ask our awesome shader developer to know more and keep you posted. Sent from my iPhone On 2012-11-05, at 10:08 AM, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com mailto:s...@tidbit-images.com wrote: I believe 3Delight will render curves too. Hi yall, So I'm curious to know if in the last several years there has been a curve rendering solution. What I need is the ability to render a curve as a set pixel width line. Sort of like Illustrator but within 3D space. It doesn't need to be OpenGL supported, in fact I'd rather it not be as I am not looking for a hardware or display render solution. Instead I'm looking for a software solution that has a similar appearance but renders in 3D space and preferably with anti-aliasing. Has any shader been developed in Soft that can support this? Thanks -- --- Stefan Kubicek Co-founder --- keyvis digital imagery Wehrgasse 9 - Grüner Hof 1050 Vienna Austria Phone: +43/699/12614231 tel:%2B43%2F699%2F12614231 --- www.keyvis.at http://www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at mailto:ste...@keyvis.at --- -- This email and its attachments are --confidential and for the recipient only-- -- --- Vladimir Jankijevic Technical Direction Elefant Studios AG Lessingstrasse 15 CH-8002 Zürich +41 44 500 48 20 tel:%2B41%2044%20500%2048%2020 www.elefantstudios.ch http://www.elefantstudios.ch --- -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: render curves
Here's a sample of 3Dlight curves. I forgot to mention you have to turn on curve rendering in the 3Delight object properties. attachment: Circle.jpg
Re: render curves
There's one potential solution here: http://frenchdog.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/render-curve-compound-update/ On 11/5/2012 7:51 AM, Ponthieux, Joey wrote: Hi yall, So I'm curious to know if in the last several years there has been a curve rendering solution. What I need is the ability to render a curve as a set pixel width line. Sort of like Illustrator but within 3D space. It doesn't need to be OpenGL supported, in fact I'd rather it not be as I am not looking for a hardware or display render solution. Instead I'm looking for a software solution that has a similar appearance but renders in 3D space and preferably with anti-aliasing. Has any shader been developed in Soft that can support this? Thanks -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Disney buying LucasFilm and a episode 7 in 2015!! So this is what the Mayans were talking about.
Yep. But I guess you can take a lot of pain for $4B. I thought it couldn't get any worse but hmmmaybe it can. Mickey Mouse and light sabres, that'll be great. On 10/31/2012 3:24 AM, Jens Lindgren wrote: Is it only me that thinks George looks sad on the press images? http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/sites/default/files/styles/490_scale/public/DisneyLucasFilm_489x295_0.jpg And this one just makes me feel sick, and I can see the pain in George eyes. http://sverigesradio.se/diverse/appdata/isidor/images/news_images/4283/2563142_520_387.jpg /Jens On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 10:09 AM, Thomas Volkmann li...@thomasvolkmann.com mailto:li...@thomasvolkmann.com wrote: Disney to the rescue They can't make it any worse than it already is, so chances are that it will get better from now on It's not Autodesk that bought it :) Sofronis Efstathiou sefstath...@bournemouth.ac.uk mailto:sefstath...@bournemouth.ac.uk hat am 31. Oktober 2012 um 07:28 geschrieben: In case you never saw it the first time...hehehehe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrIfeature=youtube_gdata_player Sent from my Android phone using TouchDown (www.nitrodesk.com http://www.nitrodesk.com) -Original Message- From: Eric Thivierge [ethivie...@gmail.com mailto:ethivie...@gmail.com] Received: Wednesday, 31 Oct 2012, 5:13 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com [softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com] Subject: Re: Disney buying LucasFilm and a episode 7 in 2015!! So this is what the Mayans were talking about. Its for everything, literally. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com [http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/Images/QueensAwardLogo.jpg] BU is a Disability Two Ticks Employer and has signed up to the Mindful Employer charter. Information about the accessibility of University buildings can be found on the BU DisabledGo webpageshttp://www.disabledgo.com/en/org/bournemouth-university This email is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and delete this email, which must not be copied, distributed or disclosed to any other person. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Bournemouth University or its subsidiary companies. Nor can any contract be formed on behalf of the University or its subsidiary companies via email. -- Jens Lindgren -- Lead Technical Director Magoo 3D Studios http://www.magoo3dstudios.com/ -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: tying a bow on a christmas present
I haven't used it for this exact purpose but Power Extrude does a nice job of updating the geometry to follow an animated curve. Won't help with the curve animation but might be useful for the ribbon geo. http://vimeo.com/27256396 On 10/11/2012 10:03 AM, Andi Farhall wrote: I'm going for a standard bow that you would tie your shoe laces with. Seeing as i've plenty of experience with that one *From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* 11 October 2012 16:24 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: tying a bow on a christmas present Got a reference image as to what kind of bow you're after? There are many kinds of bows. Some simpler than others. On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Andi Farhall andi.farh...@primefocusworld.com mailto:andi.farh...@primefocusworld.com wrote: Me and my big mouth It seemed so simple before actually attempting it, tying a ribbon around a bottle into a bow. No slight of hand allowed, must be viewed in all it's glory. I'm looking for any direction whatsoever that may give me a fighting chance, bearing in mind i'm not a character animator and my early attempts of shape animation a spline look like twitchy spaghetti. any pointers gratefully recieved, cheers, Andi. Andi Farhall | Senior 3D Animator T: +44 (0)20 7565 1000 tel:%2B44%20%280%2920%207565%201000 | M: +44 (0)7976 263 989 tel:%2B44%20%280%297976%20263%20989 A: 37 Dean Street, London, W1D 4PT, UK http://spylon.tumblr.com/ -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: OT: Recommended CAD Formats for importing
I've used IGES into MoI a lot for this and it's always worked great. What issues were you having? I find the meshing options you have in MoI to be excellent and fast. In version 2 the meshing got a lot faster and handles larger files better. Quick and simple, it doesn't get a lot easier than that. The only thing that I ran into was with very large assemblies because MoI is still a 32bit program, I ran out of RAM and had to do it in separate sections. On 10/9/2012 8:50 AM, Byron Nash wrote: I am going to receive some CAD models from a vendor and they have asked what format I prefer them in. Every time I have gotten CAD data it has been a huge pain in the neck. I have tried Rhino, MOI and Maya and eventually gotten the data through with much effort. What formats do you find work the best? I have access to the three apps listed as well as Softimage of course. Is STEP better than IGES? Thanks for any advice. I'd like to ask for the best thing and not have to go back to the source for a second try because of failure. -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Softimage CIP Data - Screen Resolution
What amazes me also is that there seems to be some at less than 1000 and quite a few at around 1000. Would there even be any viewport left at that point? I'll have to try it for fun. Why would anyone use a multi thousand dollar software package on a $10 monitor...hmmm... On 9/27/2012 2:37 PM, Marc-Andre Carbonneau wrote: Ya and thats called bragging Votch. ;) Were mostly on 24 here. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Votch Sent: 27 septembre 2012 16:28 To: softimage Subject: Softimage CIP Data - Screen Resolution I was poking around in the CIP data preview and noticed an interesting stat. Everybody at Whiskytree has an Apple 30" Cinema Display. Is it possible we represent the .11% of Softimage users :) -- _____ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: zoom limits
I've always wondered about that too. Seems odd and maybe should be added to the small annoying things list. On 9/20/2012 3:02 PM, David Gallagher wrote: Is there a way to make the navigation tool (I use the Alt key) not have limits when you get close to the camera interest? I just realized I can use the zoom tool separately to get in closer. That certainly helps, but I'm curious why there's a limit at all and how to change it. Dave G -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: In case you missed it..
That's great to hear! I'd have to agree, SI is a fantastic and very complete solution for small to mid size shops. Hopefully, there is some targeted advertising in this area. On 9/13/2012 1:39 PM, Maurice Patel wrote: Still reading, and the discussion has been stimulating as we start planning for next year's activities (can't say more rev accounting at all that) maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:25 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: In case you missed it.. Softimage is without-a-doubt the best choice for small shops and freelancers (out of the 3 products Autodesk offers). Could it be that nobody is left who really knows what Softimage has/can do? So... Maurice, if you're still reading, maybe you can consider some of this? Softimage comes with Softimage Illusion, also known as the FXTree. It's a fully featured, node-based compositor that's built right into the app. See: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/compositing_intro_AboutXSIIllusion.htm FaceRobot, a $100,000 facial animation system comes included with Softimage! See: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Category:FaceRobot CrowdFX - crowd simulations. Why invest in Massive? See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Toyh0_doko Lagoa Multiphysics - https://vimeo.com/13457383 Syflex cloth - ICE version! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtdAvvo0KU The Softimage Animation Mixer - a non-linear animation editor: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/animmixer1.htm Then there are all the included animation rigs rigging guides that automatically build a functional, well made rig for you. Anyone else care to add? -PG -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: In case you missed it..
There are superb examples scattered all over. The problem is, they're scattered all over. Perhaps we should start a thread for Maurice featuring the best of the best so he has something to easily pick from. I always think of this one http://www.subaru-global.com/news2011n001100.html as one of the most memorable. On 9/13/2012 2:39 PM, john clausing wrote: posting cool spots, movies, etc. that were made with the software. i really think the MOST important way to build Softimage is getting students using it..full stop :) *From:* Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.com *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Sent:* Thursday, September 13, 2012 4:26 PM *Subject:* RE: In case you missed it.. One area I would like to get feedback on is how do we get the right things happening on facebook? Advertising is way beyond our budgets in general and not very effective unless we have a very specific call to action (e.g. upgrades), as a result most advertsing is driven by sales promos. However I actually think there are better and more viral ways of getting the word out. Recently we have been having more success with SM. We have had a lot of success with our Softimage page (now at over 20,000) as well as the Digital Media page http://www.facebook.com/AutodeskDigitalMedia , which for the reasons described here, is becoming a bit of a second Softimage home. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Len Krenzler Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 3:49 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: In case you missed it.. That's great to hear! I'd have to agree, SI is a fantastic and very complete solution for small to mid size shops. Hopefully, there is some targeted advertising in this area. On 9/13/2012 1:39 PM, Maurice Patel wrote: Still reading, and the discussion has been stimulating as we start planning for next year's activities (can't say more rev accounting at all that) maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:25 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: In case you missed it.. Softimage is without-a-doubt the best choice for small shops and freelancers (out of the 3 products Autodesk offers). Could it be that nobody is left who really knows what Softimage has/can do? So... Maurice, if you're still reading, maybe you can consider some of this? Softimage comes with Softimage Illusion, also known as the FXTree. It's a fully featured, node-based compositor that's built right into the app. See: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/compositing_intro_AboutXSI Illusion.htm FaceRobot, a $100,000 facial animation system comes included with Softimage! See: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Category:FaceRobot CrowdFX - crowd simulations. Why invest in Massive? See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Toyh0_doko Lagoa Multiphysics - https://vimeo.com/13457383 Syflex cloth - ICE version! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtdAvvo0KU The Softimage Animation Mixer - a non-linear animation editor: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/animmixer1.htm Then there are all the included animation rigs rigging guides that automatically build a functional, well made rig for you. Anyone else care to add? -PG -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca http://www.creativecontrol.ca/ - l...@creativecontrol.ca mailto:l...@creativecontrol.ca -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: In case you missed it..
Started a thread here: http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=36t=2739p=22739#p22739 for collecting the best ever samples. Hopefully there will be lots to pick from shortly so it won't take much of your time to post away... On 9/13/2012 2:26 PM, Maurice Patel wrote: One area I would like to get feedback on is how do we get the right things happening on facebook? Advertising is way beyond our budgets in general and not very effective unless we have a very specific call to action (e.g. upgrades), as a result most advertsing is driven by sales promos. However I actually think there are better and more viral ways of getting the word out. Recently we have been having more success with SM. We have had a lot of success with our Softimage page (now at over 20,000) as well as the Digital Media page http://www.facebook.com/AutodeskDigitalMedia , which for the reasons described here, is becoming a bit of a second Softimage home. Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Len Krenzler Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 3:49 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: In case you missed it.. That's great to hear! I'd have to agree, SI is a fantastic and very complete solution for small to mid size shops. Hopefully, there is some targeted advertising in this area. On 9/13/2012 1:39 PM, Maurice Patel wrote: Still reading, and the discussion has been stimulating as we start planning for next year's activities (can't say more rev accounting at all that) maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 12:25 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: In case you missed it.. Softimage is without-a-doubt the best choice for small shops and freelancers (out of the 3 products Autodesk offers). Could it be that nobody is left who really knows what Softimage has/can do? So... Maurice, if you're still reading, maybe you can consider some of this? Softimage comes with Softimage Illusion, also known as the FXTree. It's a fully featured, node-based compositor that's built right into the app. See: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/compositing_intro_AboutXSI Illusion.htm FaceRobot, a $100,000 facial animation system comes included with Softimage! See: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Category:FaceRobot CrowdFX - crowd simulations. Why invest in Massive? See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Toyh0_doko Lagoa Multiphysics - https://vimeo.com/13457383 Syflex cloth - ICE version! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtdAvvo0KU The Softimage Animation Mixer - a non-linear animation editor: http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/animmixer1.htm Then there are all the included animation rigs rigging guides that automatically build a functional, well made rig for you. Anyone else care to add? -PG -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: A sad day, in this part of the country, for digital artists.
Good. Hope he ends up on street. On 9/10/2012 8:10 AM, Eric Thivierge wrote: Not sure the school will still have the dynamic as there is no local studio to supervise. We'll have to wait and see. Also, it may have been Mr. Textor's plan if he indeed was trying to pull a con, however it didn't work out for him. He's in the hole quite a lot of money in that he owns like 23% of the stock and has tanked since its original offering price. He had put up 2 houses as collateral and borrowed from another one of the investors so I don't believe he is in good shape here. Maybe a failed con if he was indeed trying to con. Costly if so. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: A sad day, in this part of the country, for digital artists.
There probably should be a line going back some of the Florida State officials who almost certainly got a nice kickback in there somewhere :) On 9/10/2012 9:38 AM, Stephen Davidson wrote: I don't know if this flow chart will make our discussion list, but I will try and send it. It helps a person understand the complexities of this deal (robbery) On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 11:35 AM, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net mailto:magic...@bellsouth.net wrote: oops...sorry typo... I mean 16 million... total compensation...but what is a few million among thieves ;) http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=DDMG.KofficerId=1618552 On an interesting note... the link below used to have specifics, but all the info has been removed since I first saw ithm http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=120183privcapId=99881previousCapId=7186024previousTitle=MK%20Capital Here are the specifics of the investments: State of Florida Cash Grants $20.0 million Tax rebates – resalable $19.9 City of Port St. Lucie, Florida Cash Grants $10.0 Land (appraised value) $10.5 Low-interest building and equipment lease financing $39.9 City of West Palm Beach, Florida Cash Grants $10.0 Land (appraised value) $9.8 Low-interest financing $15.0 Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co. $50.0 TOTAL $185.1 million On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com mailto:ethivie...@gmail.com wrote: I haven't read anywhere in any of the recent articles about him getting 116 mil... got any links? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 12:53 AM, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net mailto:magic...@bellsouth.net wrote: Oh, I'm sure that is not the case. Textor managed to get 116 million out of his various deals and this kind of pump and dump scheme, as far as the stock goes is quite common. The way it works is you buy short (you are betting on it going down) as well as selling the initial shares before the crash. Records show that Textor did, indeed exercise his options before the crash. You can be sure that he is NOT hurting. On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com mailto:ethivie...@gmail.com wrote: Not sure the school will still have the dynamic as there is no local studio to supervise. We'll have to wait and see. Also, it may have been Mr. Textor's plan if he indeed was trying to pull a con, however it didn't work out for him. He's in the hole quite a lot of money in that he owns like 23% of the stock and has tanked since its original offering price. He had put up 2 houses as collateral and borrowed from another one of the investors so I don't believe he is in good shape here. Maybe a failed con if he was indeed trying to con. Costly if so. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson** **(954) 552-7956 tel:%28954%29%20552-7956 * sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com http://www.3danimationmagic.com -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson** **(954) 552-7956 tel:%28954%29%20552-7956 * sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com http://www.3danimationmagic.com -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson** **(954) 552-7956 *sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com http://www.3danimationmagic.com -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Rumors about 3ds Max and MotionBuilder
I think the rumor is so popular because it's everyone's collective wishful thinking that Max would somehow end :) I think the chance of that approaches 0 as my math teacher used to be fond of saying... On 9/4/2012 10:21 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote: Been there, tried that, failed, quit my job in the end and am now my own boss. At least you're not using Maya for game dev as I had to for five years of my life ;-) Evil times! Because I use it at work at the moment and need to convince them to switch to softimage :) On 4 September 2012 16:51, Stefan Kubicek s...@tidbit-images.com wrote: Why? I wish the rumours were true (about max) On 4 September 2012 15:53, Ciaran Moloney moloney.cia...@gmail.com wrote: How about integrating Momentum and ImplosiaFX? That would be a super combo! Ciaran On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Ben Houston b...@exocortex.com wrote: SlipstreamVX 2 isn't even out yet! :-) We have thought about integrating SlipstreamVX to the Momentum product and having both interact with each other, but we haven't yet decided on this. We do have Fury 2 and ImplosiaFX 2 scheduled for release for Softimage in the next little while though. Best regards, -ben On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Jens Lindgren jens.lindgren@gmail.com wrote: BTW Exocortex is committed to the Softimage user community, it is both good business for us and it is very personally rewarding. :-) Nice to hear that Ben, but I think you just have to prove it by porting Slipstream 2 to ICE ;) /Jens On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 3:24 PM, Ben Houston b...@exocortex.com wrote: Here is an official Autodesk response (via Chris Vienneau) to the various rumors for what it is worth: http://forums.cgsociety.org/**showpost.php?p=7406885**postcount=55http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=7406885postcount=55 BTW Exocortex is committed to the Softimage user community, it is both good business for us and it is very personally rewarding. :-) Best regards, -ben On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 6:02 PM, J Atkinson inishee...@gmail.com wrote: I know it sounds crazy, but I wouldn't doubt it. I still think ADs plan was to shift most animators away from 3ds max when they came out with 3ds max design. push arch viz to a specialized app, port ice to Maya and now all of a sudden you have 1 major 3d app to support instead of 3. JA __**__ From: Daniel H Sent: 03-Sep-12 17:19 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.**comsoftimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Rumors about 3ds Max and MotionBuilder Rumors are a-fly'in around Twitter and the Web about the possible fate of 3ds Max and MotionBuilder. I can't imagine Autodesk ever decommissioning 3ds Max since it has such a high user base. With all of the recent Autodesk upheaval I'm a bit concerend about where Softimage will end up, although it seems SI can't be killed and has survived worse. I guess we will see how all of these rumors pan out. ***Long live Softimage!*** http://www.reddit.com/r/vfx/**comments/z8o09/autodesk_is_no_** longer_going_to_develop_**3dsmax_andhttp://www.reddit.com/r/vfx/comments/z8o09/autodesk_is_no_longer_going_to_develop_3dsmax_and http://forums.cgsociety.org/**showthread.php?f=59t=1068562** page=1pp=15http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=59t=1068562page=1pp=15 Daniel VFXM -- Best regards, Ben Houston Voice: 613-762-4113 Skype: ben.exocortex Twitter: @exocortexcom http://Exocortex.com - Passionate CG Software Professionals. -- Jens Lindgren -- Lead Technical Director Magoo 3D Studios -- Best regards, Ben Houston Voice: 613-762-4113 Skype: ben.exocortex Twitter: @exocortexcom http://Exocortex.com - Passionate CG Software Professionals. -- - Ciaran -- --**- Stefan Kubicek Co-founder --**- keyvis digital imagery Wehrgasse 9 - Grüner Hof 1050 Vienna Austria Phone:+43/699/12614231 --- www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at --- -- This email and its attachments are --confidential and for the recipient only-- -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Small Annoying Things
One more that's extremely annoying. No color management in the viewport modes except for HQVP. If we have it on HQ why not the others? Can't be that hard. -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?
NO. On 8/18/2012 12:44 PM, David Gallagher wrote: Mobile is so overrated. Does anyone actually get anything done on a mobile device? -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Windows 8 - anyone?
I liked Vista a lot too. If you disable some of the very stupid web oriented crap it outperforms Win7 by a good margin. I have 2 identical machines, 1 on Win7 and one on Vista and main programs such as SI, PS, Avid MC all open in half the time and run better overall and Aero works smoother. And the best thing is I can still hide the taskbar in Vista. On Win7 it's like a F*ing virus that you can't get rid of. Long live Vista. It was a real WS OS before the toys took over. On 8/18/2012 3:42 PM, Sam Bowling wrote: You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people didn’t). -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Graphic card for a workstation again
So...does that mean some of that tech (something similar to PantaRay for example) will find it's way into SI soon, therefore the reason to buy Nvidia? :-) On 8/17/2012 10:51 PM, Chris Chia wrote: Nah Ben, that's not the reason! ;) I think Nvidia research has spent a lot of effort in understanding what the production studios really need... Take a look at this interesting article: http://www.nvidia.com/object/wetadigital_avatar.html Chris On 18 Aug, 2012, at 12:11 PM, Ben Houston b...@exocortex.com wrote: Chris Chia and I think a few others in the Singapore Softimage team are ex-NVIDIA guys. ;-) -ben On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 12:06 AM, Mirko Jankovic mirko.janko...@aeonproduction.com wrote: Any reason for that kind of personal preference, when all tests shows that nvidia is staying in the dust behind ati? btw talking about gaming cards here, not overpriced quadros :) If someone else was buying and not interested in budget then fine but when waging performance / price wise as mentioned before in some tests back right on this list hd7970 got better results than quadro 5000 which is couple times more expensive :) nvidia gtx cards can;t even compete heheeh -- Best regards, Ben Houston Voice: 613-762-4113 Skype: ben.exocortex Twitter: @exocortexcom http://Exocortex.com - Passionate CG Software Professionals. -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Graphic card for a workstation again
A lot of people that were testing on XSIbase were getting drastically better performance from the ATI cards (about 2x-3x) and the point selection problem seemed to be gone. The latest Nvidia GTX cards (after the 2xx series) seem to be intentionally hobbled. The conclusion on the XSIbase forum seemed heavily in favor of the ATI. On 8/17/2012 12:36 PM, Leoung O'Young wrote: Trying to decide on a graphic card for a workstation. I was doing some research, there is suppose to be a good discussion in the XSIbase forum but the site comes up with a virus warning. Any thought on the list of cards?. Normally I would stay with the Nvidia but I have read good things about the AMD/ATI Radeon HD7970 We are using Nvdia GTX 260 right now and it works fine but would like to upgrade for the next workstation. $400 to $600 CAN Nvidia Geforce GTX 670 AMD/ATI Radeon HD7970 $200 to $250 CAN NVIDIA Quadro 600 by PNY 1.0GB DDR3 PCI-E16 DVI Display Port Fermi Workstation Video Card Nvidia GTX 550TI, 560, 570, 580 Thanks, Leoung -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Cad models resource..
Nice! Thanks for posting! On 8/9/2012 10:55 AM, Adam Seeley wrote: Hi Peeps, You may have seen it already but... http://grabcad.com/ It's a mixed bunch, but lot's of nicely detailed cad/engineering type bits for use. Great for test renders etc. Adam. -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: Cad models resource..
I've found that MoI (http://moi3d.com/) works great if you can get it as an IGES file. Once you get it into MoI, it's meshing tools are top notch. Export to SI is easy from there. On 8/9/2012 11:12 AM, Cristobal Infante wrote: Hi Adam, Whats the best way of getting them into xsi? On 9 August 2012 17:55, Adam Seeley adam_see...@yahoo.com mailto:adam_see...@yahoo.com wrote: Hi Peeps, You may have seen it already but... http://grabcad.com/ It's a mixed bunch, but lot's of nicely detailed cad/engineering type bits for use. Great for test renders etc. Adam. -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
Re: test
Fine signal so far :) On 7/18/2012 3:02 PM, Daniel Brassard wrote: Sorry for the noise!
Re: Boolean
I think it's gotten a lot better, however, according to the forum it may not work on 2013. I've only used it a little so I'm not sure how much of that has been addressed but the tests I did seemed a pretty close match for most materials as far as look. Only testing your scene will tell I guess. The booleans looked great with nice clean edges on sub-d objects. Probably a better result visually than trying to boolean your object geometry unless you use extremely high poly counts and then you know how unstable that is. On 6/26/2012 6:22 PM, Stephen Davidson wrote: The problem I had, in the past, with using 3Delight is that it changes the texture mapping and overall look of the render. Also, I couldn't get multiple clusters with multiple materials to work, which I use a lot. I did try it several years ago, though. Anyone using 3Delight, currently, that can verify if these issues have been addressed? On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Len Krenzler l...@creativecontrol.ca mailto:l...@creativecontrol.ca wrote: If you're OK with booleans at render time then 3Delight does a nice job of that. Might be worth looking into, the trial (2core) is free. On 6/26/2012 11:28 AM, Stephen Davidson wrote: I was trying to find the same thing and found BoolTrace which is part of the Binary Iris addon. This is supposed to do boolean functions on solid models, at render time, though the use of it as a shader. It was tough to find as Binary Iris seems to have gone away. I found id it via the wayback machine. http://web.archive.org/web/20080627113211/http://binaryiris.com/main/?id=BoolTrace However, I could not get this to work in 2013 SP1. The render seems to break after installing the addon. If anyone has a better solution for Booleans in Softimage, it would be appreciated. Any modeling compounds in ICE, maybe? I searched the Area, but didn't find anything. I did see a post on using a transparent plane, that has the primary rays turned off, but I haven't tried that yet.
Re: Boolean
If you're OK with booleans at render time then 3Delight does a nice job of that. Might be worth looking into, the trial (2core) is free. On 6/26/2012 11:28 AM, Stephen Davidson wrote: I was trying to find the same thing and found BoolTrace which is part of the Binary Iris addon. This is supposed to do boolean functions on solid models, at render time, though the use of it as a shader. It was tough to find as Binary Iris seems to have gone away. I found id it via the wayback machine. http://web.archive.org/web/20080627113211/http://binaryiris.com/main/?id=BoolTrace However, I could not get this to work in 2013 SP1. The render seems to break after installing the addon. If anyone has a better solution for Booleans in Softimage, it would be appreciated. Any modeling compounds in ICE, maybe? I searched the Area, but didn't find anything. I did see a post on using a transparent plane, that has the primary rays turned off, but I haven't tried that yet.
Re: Who has switched to Vray and loves it?
The absolute number 1 issue for me is no volume rendering. That's a show stopper for me. Hope to see this in the future. Len - www.actionart.ca On 6/21/2012 4:03 PM, Kamen Lilov wrote: I'd like to chime in to this discussion. What are the things in VRay/XSI you hate most? A missing feature, clumsy configuration, poor documentation, any kinds of instabilities, etc? Disclosure: I run the XSI integration team at ChaosGroup so, obviously, I am not impartial to this discussion. But I am keen on making the product work well for all you VFX folks out there :) and I can take criticism. Shoot at will :)
Re: Never a dull moment in MR land: 'FATAL: mental ray has encountered a fatal error condition...'
I had a similar problem not long ago. Try enable convert textures to memory maps. Even though my scene wasn't anywhere near the memory limit this fixed it. Not sure why but it's worth a try. On 4/25/2012 8:24 PM, Tim Crowson wrote: Hi Chris, I'm afraid there's not a lot to go on. I'll try to see if I can notice a pattern. Also, the automated reporting system popped up twice and I sent reports in both times. - This is with build 10.5.98.0 on Windows 7 64 - It has happened 4 times in the last 48 hours. - It's not always the same scene file, but it is always with the same referenced models (which do include ICE instances and strands, non of which are animated) - all crashes occurred at the end of a frame (specifically switching to the next pass), when multiple single-frames passes were selected and I ran render selected passes - 1 other crash (which resulted in a no explicit error, but just a 'failed to save' dialog) occurred in a blank scene, when launching Firefox from the taskbar. I only mention this because of what Matt said about web services... in case that sheds any light. - In the case of the Fatal Mental Ray error, 3/4 crashes occurred while Firefox was in focus, with the render in the background. The 4th happened without any browser or evident web client running. XSI was the only 'app' running. Again, I know that's not very specific. I'll see what else I can determine if it happens again. -Tim C. On 4/25/2012 7:26 PM, Chris Chia wrote: Hi Tim, Is your crash specific to a particular working file? What are the steps to reproduce the crash? What version of SI are you using? Regards, Chris Softimage QA Analyst On 26 Apr, 2012, at 4:14 AM, Tim Crowsontim.crow...@magneticdreams.commailto:tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com wrote: I just had the same exact crash again, with no web browser or email client running. FWIW. -Tim On 4/25/2012 1:58 PM, Matt Lind wrote: This isn’t a mental ray specific issue. I have had the same instability when using netview or Internet Explorer for general use while writing scripts and other basic tasks. There’s some kind of conflict going on between the Softimage core and web services on your computer. Matt From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Crowson Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 9:56 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Never a dull moment in MR land: 'FATAL: mental ray has encountered a fatal error condition...' I'm rendering a frame locally, which renders fine as long as XSI is front and center. But on occasion, if I have gmail up and am checking messages while rendering in the background, I'll get the following error... 'FATAL: mental ray has encountered a fatal error condition. It has been disabled for the rest of this XSI session. Please save your work and contact Softimage support' To which I must add... 'They were forced to eat Robin's minstrels, and there was great rejoicing... yay' Any idea why this might happen? It's happened twice in the last 24 hours, and the only common condition seems to be that I've got Firefox up on top checking my email. And don't tell me switch to Arnold. We already know that. -- Tim Crowson Lead CG Artist mime-attachment.gif Magnetic Dreams Animation Studio, Inc. 2525 Lebanon Pike, Building C. Nashville, TN 37214 Ph 615.885.6801 | Fax 615.889.4768 |www.magneticdreams.comhttp://www.magneticdreams.com tim.crow...@magneticdreams.commailto:tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com -- --
Re: Intro to the new team (was RE: Softimage development)
, simulations, rendering, etc. either. Sure, we don't have the 10-15 year histories with Soft that the old team had, but we're happy to say that they're still around (even many from the acquisition who eventually moved to other Autodesk teams) and still helping out when there's a need. But that should go down as we become more familiar with the code. So here goes: Hsiao Ming Chia - Core, Ref Models. From NVIDIA, worked on games middleware and runtime engines for 8 yrs. Yury Khmel - Core, ICE, FaceRobot. 12+ years, last 5 as an architect in games development. John Tensuan - Rendering, Data Management. Last in Ubisoft doing rendering and engine systems. Ho Chung Nguyen - ICE, Simulation. Wrote core libraries for math, physics simulation, rendering while at LucasArts. Joany Yang - UI, SDK. Mainly engaged in UI projects using COM, MFC, C++, etc while at another team at Autodesk. Me? I just manage the team so am the overhead :-) If you're ever in Singapore, we'd love to meet you. Regards, Chun Pong -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau Sent: Wednesday, 18 April, 2012 10:38 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Softimage development On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 3:26 AM, Mirko Jankovic mirko.janko...@aeonproduction.com mailto:mirko.janko...@aeonproduction.com wrote: It is a bit bad that even after so many concerns displayed from customer about Softimage and AD's plans for it, that not a single official line of word was put out. Is it so hard to let people know what is going on and where does it all lead? Actually, you're getting a lot of official information right here in this thread. None of us moving to the new Maya FX Montreal team, which is led by me, are really doing it to quit Softimage, it's just a natural evolution of thing. As written previously, this was planned and we've been hiring and training a whole lot of new group of great people to work on Softimage. So what does that mean? Well first it means that Autodesk is committed to continuing the development of Softimage - otherwise we wouldn't be spending so much effort building a new team. We worked a lot on this! I interviewed every single one of these guys - and some we rejected. The new guys have backgrounds in game production, real time shader, physics, etc. They're bring new ideas and skills. And it also means that Autodesk is renewing its effort on the Maya FX's toolset, which is not super interesting to you guys obviously, but is that a thing that makes sense. It's hard to leave Softimage, but it's also hard to not get excited with the new projects. We're going to Digital Domain and ILM this week with Duncan. New experiences! If we can just stop hitting the S key to orbit the camera, everything will be fine. -- _ Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions Phone: 780.463.3126 www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca
