RE: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
Wow, very nice information. However, there were times, when I was told I am fairly expensive with my 100Euros (without VAT) rate per day...And I'm in Eastern Europe as well, and the statement was made by a company in the UK. Cheers Szabolcs -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of olivier jeannel Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 4:41 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling Thank's Tim :) Pretty precize :D Le 17/11/2012 16:06, Tim Leydecker a écrit : Given you´re mail account, you´re based in France. That´s EU territory. 19% VAT. I guess remote work, home office. Your own equipment, hardware and software. Your own hours plus the above overhead. You guess it would take you 4-5 days to complete the task. Adding 3 revision steps to that means another 3 days of handling your milestones, e.g. communication and revision loops with your client. That´s 7-8 days for finishing a 3 D character model. That´s very fast and seems to not include the concept/art-direction bit too much. Especially when working with a fresh client who may only be able to judge finished, e.g. fully built, textured, shaded and lit renderings. I would suggest a small boutique shop price per day, which is at least around 750 EUR/day. Because that´s what you do, besides modeling. Coming from a graphics design backround, list prices I can relate to range in the 60 EUR/hr range but would not include additional fees for usage of artworks. These fees for, let´s say a worldwide, unlimited use of your character may easily be factor 10. For a reason. Cheers, tim On 17.11.2012 15:24, olivier jeannel wrote: Ah thank's, that helps. Well, the clients seems rather new in the 3d field. (nothing like Lionsgate, or big studio) So I'm not sure how they'll react to the range of price. Thank's a lot for your examples :) Le 17/11/2012 14:58, Octavian Ureche a écrit : I remember doing a commercial for a studio here (eastern europe), and we outsourced a horse model to a friend of mine who now happens to work at lionhead. Point was, it took him 3 days, i recall, to do it, and it cost 1000 euros. And that was 4 or 5 years ago, and it wasn't considered that expensive, and we're talking eastern europe here. Don't know if the prices have changed that much since then in the modelling area, but i thought it might be food for thought. But the guy had an impressive portfolio even back then. On the other hand, i had a friend who recently hired a ubisoft guy with a rather poor portfolio to model a toycar, and he did it for 400 in 4 days. Don't know if it matters whether it's cartoony or realistic, but i think your portfolio will also help dictate the amount of money that you can or can't charge. On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 3:02 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: Ok Thank you ! So, 400$ * 4 or 5 days for 1 character is not over-priced according to you ? Le 16/11/2012 22:47, Stephen Davidson a écrit : I would then price it per day. 8 hour days. I charge approx. $400/day (314.2924 euros) On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 3:51 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: I won't be able to be that precise, as I usualy don't count in hours. Thus I think for modelling a 1 character 4 or 5 days is a maximum. But, really I'd like someone to give me a price example. are you usually speaking in hundreds or thousands of euros ? I don't really know... Le 16/11/2012 16:36, Stephen Davidson a écrit : I always estimate per hour. I have found that I can be quite accurate with an hourly estimate by breaking down the modeling to it's most basic components. For example, on a character model, how long to model each eye. How long to model basic body shape. How long to model hands, face, expressions (if needed), clothes... you get the idea. Then, add up all the tasks, and you will have a fairly accurate estimate. It takes practice, as my early quotes were not so accurate. I have been working in 3D since before Softimage version 1 so I have gotten more accurate over the years. On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 4:59 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: Hi guys, Now that I'm starting enjoying playing with Ice and particle stuff, clients are asking for ...modelling job ^^ I realize I never charged separatly for this task alone. So my question is how much do you (freelance, homeworkers) charge for 1 character modeling ? (How much do you keep in your pocket in the end (forget the taxes))
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
This is interesting, and i think it mostly revolves around making certain things clear beforehand. Notice that whenever you do the math based on what an employee's rate would be, you always come up with ridiculously low sums of money from a freelance perspective. At first glance, 100 eur/day to me feels like borderline insulting for a freelance rate. But, if we do a little basic math, at that rate, an employee would get 2k / month, and that includes healthcare and vacation. Which for eastern european standards, is a very good salary. Now as a freelancer, jobs are usually scarce (except if u're on a roll, which i don't think happens that often). So you need to plan your lifestyle accordingly. Backup plans and savings are crucial. Also as a freelancer you have to add extra expenses to your rates, like electricity, renderfarm costs (if u'r pulling heavy stuff that you can't possibly render at home), subcontracting costs (we all need a hand from time to time), rent for the apt you're living in, food, heating or cooling expenses etc. That adds a considerable amount of money to that rate. Something which does not apply to an employee which basically gets all this for free at the working place (apart from food maybe). The studio on the other hand adds these to it's hourly rate, which includes employee expenses. So while in theory, 100 eur/day sounds like a good fulltime salary, for a freelancer, it would give a whole new meaning to life (survival training might be necessary here). Keep in mind, everything i wrote, is based on eastern european experience, but i presume it's the same everywhere else. Numbers vary, but the theory stays the same. Peace, O On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 10:32 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Wow, very nice information. However, there were times, when I was told I am fairly expensive with my 100Euros (without VAT) rate per day...And I'm in Eastern Europe as well, and the statement was made by a company in the UK. Cheers Szabolcs -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of olivier jeannel Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 4:41 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling Thank's Tim :) Pretty precize :D Le 17/11/2012 16:06, Tim Leydecker a écrit : Given you´re mail account, you´re based in France. That´s EU territory. 19% VAT. I guess remote work, home office. Your own equipment, hardware and software. Your own hours plus the above overhead. You guess it would take you 4-5 days to complete the task. Adding 3 revision steps to that means another 3 days of handling your milestones, e.g. communication and revision loops with your client. That´s 7-8 days for finishing a 3 D character model. That´s very fast and seems to not include the concept/art-direction bit too much. Especially when working with a fresh client who may only be able to judge finished, e.g. fully built, textured, shaded and lit renderings. I would suggest a small boutique shop price per day, which is at least around 750 EUR/day. Because that´s what you do, besides modeling. Coming from a graphics design backround, list prices I can relate to range in the 60 EUR/hr range but would not include additional fees for usage of artworks. These fees for, let´s say a worldwide, unlimited use of your character may easily be factor 10. For a reason. Cheers, tim On 17.11.2012 15:24, olivier jeannel wrote: Ah thank's, that helps. Well, the clients seems rather new in the 3d field. (nothing like Lionsgate, or big studio) So I'm not sure how they'll react to the range of price. Thank's a lot for your examples :) Le 17/11/2012 14:58, Octavian Ureche a écrit : I remember doing a commercial for a studio here (eastern europe), and we outsourced a horse model to a friend of mine who now happens to work at lionhead. Point was, it took him 3 days, i recall, to do it, and it cost 1000 euros. And that was 4 or 5 years ago, and it wasn't considered that expensive, and we're talking eastern europe here. Don't know if the prices have changed that much since then in the modelling area, but i thought it might be food for thought. But the guy had an impressive portfolio even back then. On the other hand, i had a friend who recently hired a ubisoft guy with a rather poor portfolio to model a toycar, and he did it for 400 in 4 days. Don't know if it matters whether it's cartoony or realistic, but i think your portfolio will also help dictate the amount of money that you can or can't charge. On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 3:02 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: Ok Thank you ! So, 400$ * 4 or 5 days for 1 character is not over-priced according to you ? Le 16/11/2012
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
I think it's overall true every where. On a side note, I'd add that in France when a company hire someone at 100 e/day (salary) it cost 200e/day to the company due to taxes. And on the 100e, the worker has to release back some money for his own taxes, of course. On the over side, the freelance /seems/ to cost more but you can join him on weekend and on holydays ;) Le 19/11/2012 10:25, Octavian Ureche a écrit : This is interesting, and i think it mostly revolves around making certain things clear beforehand. Notice that whenever you do the math based on what an employee's rate would be, you always come up with ridiculously low sums of money from a freelance perspective. At first glance, 100 eur/day to me feels like borderline insulting for a freelance rate. But, if we do a little basic math, at that rate, an employee would get 2k / month, and that includes healthcare and vacation. Which for eastern european standards, is a very good salary. Now as a freelancer, jobs are usually scarce (except if u're on a roll, which i don't think happens that often). So you need to plan your lifestyle accordingly. Backup plans and savings are crucial. Also as a freelancer you have to add extra expenses to your rates, like electricity, renderfarm costs (if u'r pulling heavy stuff that you can't possibly render at home), subcontracting costs (we all need a hand from time to time), rent for the apt you're living in, food, heating or cooling expenses etc. That adds a considerable amount of money to that rate. Something which does not apply to an employee which basically gets all this for free at the working place (apart from food maybe). The studio on the other hand adds these to it's hourly rate, which includes employee expenses. So while in theory, 100 eur/day sounds like a good fulltime salary, for a freelancer, it would give a whole new meaning to life (survival training might be necessary here). Keep in mind, everything i wrote, is based on eastern european experience, but i presume it's the same everywhere else. Numbers vary, but the theory stays the same. Peace, O On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 10:32 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.com mailto:szabol...@crytek.com wrote: Wow, very nice information. However, there were times, when I was told I am fairly expensive with my 100Euros (without VAT) rate per day...And I'm in Eastern Europe as well, and the statement was made by a company in the UK. Cheers Szabolcs -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 olivier jeannel Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 4:41 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling Thank's Tim :) Pretty precize :D Le 17/11/2012 16:06, Tim Leydecker a écrit : Given you´re mail account, you´re based in France. That´s EU territory. 19% VAT. I guess remote work, home office. Your own equipment, hardware and software. Your own hours plus the above overhead. You guess it would take you 4-5 days to complete the task. Adding 3 revision steps to that means another 3 days of handling your milestones, e.g. communication and revision loops with your client. That´s 7-8 days for finishing a 3 D character model. That´s very fast and seems to not include the concept/art-direction bit too much. Especially when working with a fresh client who may only be able to judge finished, e.g. fully built, textured, shaded and lit renderings. I would suggest a small boutique shop price per day, which is at least around 750 EUR/day. Because that´s what you do, besides modeling. Coming from a graphics design backround, list prices I can relate to range in the 60 EUR/hr range but would not include additional fees for usage of artworks. These fees for, let´s say a worldwide, unlimited use of your character may easily be factor 10. For a reason. Cheers, tim On 17.11.2012 15:24, olivier jeannel wrote: Ah thank's, that helps. Well, the clients seems rather new in the 3d field. (nothing like Lionsgate, or big studio) So I'm not sure how they'll react to the range of price. Thank's a lot for your examples :) Le 17/11/2012 14:58, Octavian Ureche a écrit : I remember doing a commercial for a studio here (eastern europe), and we outsourced a horse model to a friend of mine who now happens to work at lionhead. Point was, it took him 3 days, i recall, to do it, and it cost 1000 euros.
Re: Render Region won't refresh
I'm not sure if this would help, but I had a similar problem when I was writing an script that included freezing certain stacks to preserve certain deformers. Render Region just stopped working every time I ran the script, but after a SI restart everything was back to normal. I just dropped the freezing function and it worked as it should. At the end I really didn't need the freeze function and I didn't have time to dig into it so I'm not sure where exactly was the problem. Maybe some of your tools can be doing something wrong? M.Yara
Re: page turning effects with ICE
you can concatenate your strings: prefix + integer + suffix. Now for integer - string conversion there is Eric's emTools freely available: http://www.mootzoid.com/wb/pages/documentation/emtools.php#IntegerToString 2012/11/18 Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com Hey guys. Thought I would put this out there. One of my artists is creating the effect of a page turning effect on a book. The idea is to have hundred of pages being flipped magically by another character. The easiest way I found without using ICE was to take a single page attach a series of chains to it, animate a singe page turn, cache it, then duplicate the page, and offset the resulting caches. Works really well, especially if I use 5 or 6 different chain animations to vary things up. We wanted to try and use ICE to see how we could come up with a compound for this mixing vector nodes and shome shapes. So far we have been able to achieve most of what is needed with rotate vector and mixing in a few target shapes that activate based on angle. What we would like to do is construct a string, for example polymsh.cls.shape.pageOneFlopLeft_Integer.positions where Integer is a value read off a custom parameter from a given object If anyone has a sample Ice tree that does something like this, or can point me to a sample scene or reference that may help me work through this, I would be most grateful. Adam
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
Over here in the US I see a lot of people working for in-house freelance rates from home on their own equipment. This seems unwise to me since hardware/software and other costs are not really taken into account. To me, there is a difference between going into a company and working with their clients on their equipment versus working at home on your own setup. I think these trends are creating a false sense of value to clients. In the long run freelancers cannot maintain this economy and the clientele will be accustomed to artificially low rates. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Yep. I consider the 100 EURO / day as a it’s-just-1 cent-above-to-say-no rate…but I was told it’s way above the average, so it was funny. Especially knowing that how much the client charges for the models I made :D ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Octavian Ureche *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 1:34 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling ** ** Yap, forgot about tax expenses (they changed the legislation here a couple of years ago, and now they roam around 5% for small companies, so one tends to neglect that). Other places have it much higher, from what it seems. ** ** Also forgot to add a very important expense (bad eastern european habit...) that has a very strong influence on rate: software maintance/upgrade costs, and also leasing costs for specialised tools. ** ** As a sidenote, i found out through the years, that sometimes it is better to incorporate than to work as a legal freelacer, as taxes are usually lower this way (5% vs 20% here - insane, right?). But this one may really only apply to this part of the world. Also as a freelancer suing someone is a lot harder (or at least threatening to sue - that one usually does the trick). Plus, getting an accountant and starting to tackle the financial side of a business is a must, as it opens up a world of hurt, knowledge and possibilities which every artist should go through to survive in this industry. ** ** Cheers, Octav ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 12:10 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: I think it's overall true every where. On a side note, I'd add that in France when a company hire someone at 100 e/day (salary) it cost 200e/day to the company due to taxes. And on the 100e, the worker has to release back some money for his own taxes, of course. On the over side, the freelance *seems* to cost more but you can join him on weekend and on holydays ;) Le 19/11/2012 10:25, Octavian Ureche a écrit : This is interesting, and i think it mostly revolves around making certain things clear beforehand. Notice that whenever you do the math based on what an employee's rate would be, you always come up with ridiculously low sums of money from a freelance perspective. At first glance, 100 eur/day to me feels like borderline insulting for a freelance rate. But, if we do a little basic math, at that rate, an employee would get 2k / month, and that includes healthcare and vacation. Which for eastern european standards, is a very good salary. Now as a freelancer, jobs are usually scarce (except if u're on a roll, which i don't think happens that often). So you need to plan your lifestyle accordingly. Backup plans and savings are crucial. Also as a freelancer you have to add extra expenses to your rates, like electricity, renderfarm costs (if u'r pulling heavy stuff that you can't possibly render at home), subcontracting costs (we all need a hand from time to time), rent for the apt you're living in, food, heating or cooling expenses etc. That adds a considerable amount of money to that rate. Something which does not apply to an employee which basically gets all this for free at the working place (apart from food maybe). The studio on the other hand adds these to it's hourly rate, which includes employee expenses. So while in theory, 100 eur/day sounds like a good fulltime salary, for a freelancer, it would give a whole new meaning to life (survival training might be necessary here). ** ** Keep in mind, everything i wrote, is based on eastern european experience, but i presume it's the same everywhere else. Numbers vary, but the theory stays the same. ** ** Peace, O ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 10:32 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.com wrote: Wow, very nice information. However, there were times, when I was told I am fairly expensive with my 100Euros (without VAT) rate per day...And I'm in Eastern Europe as well, and the statement was made by a company in the UK. Cheers Szabolcs -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
RE: Render Region won't refresh
Have you tried a simple thing like renaming the user folder to _BAK - restarting soft - setting up any workgroups etc.. you may have had - then trying again - see if it fixes it - I have found a lot of issues can be solved by trashing teh user prefs and starting over - in fact once I have my user folder going, I make a copy of it - then it is easy to rename the copy - and copy it again - then you don't need to reattach workgroups etc.. each time. S. Sandy Sutherlandmailto:sandy.sutherl...@triggerfish.co.za | Technical Supervisor [http://triggerfish.co.za/en/wp-content/uploads/udf_foundry/images/logo.png] http://triggerfish.co.za/en [http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v2/ym/x/lFV-lsMcC_0.png] http://www.facebook.com/triggerfishanimation [https://si0.twimg.com/a/1349296073/images/resources/twitter-bird-white-on-blue.png] http://www.twitter.com/triggerfishza From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Byron Nash [byronn...@gmail.com] Sent: 19 November 2012 16:26 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Render Region won't refresh I can't pinpoint the cause but it seems like I'm not the only one running into this. Switching passes and fiddling with shaders seems to trigger it. I am not using any other renderers though. I'll just keep restarting Softimage to fix it. Thanks for the feedback. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 6:03 AM, Martin furik...@gmail.commailto:furik...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not sure if this would help, but I had a similar problem when I was writing an script that included freezing certain stacks to preserve certain deformers. Render Region just stopped working every time I ran the script, but after a SI restart everything was back to normal. I just dropped the freezing function and it worked as it should. At the end I really didn't need the freeze function and I didn't have time to dig into it so I'm not sure where exactly was the problem. Maybe some of your tools can be doing something wrong? M.Yara
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
Bidding at a per day rate, or per hour rate, is meaningless to most of your clients. That is why I bid a job with specific amount for a specific job. I use my per/hour rate as a guide to help me come up with a figure for the specific project. A project that might take me 20 hours to complete could take a novice more than twice that amount of time. I have over 25 years experience so I have learned a lot of shortcuts along the way. I also notice that my modeling skills have improved, over the years, that makes my 3D workflow much more efficient. The cost of hardware and software have been reduced, drastically over the last 25 years, so that is a consideration in my bids. I also have a home office, instead of an office located within a video production facility, which also reduces my operating costs over 10 years ago, when being in a video production facility had a big advantage. With on-line collaboration, and delivery, doing 3D animation business, out of a home office, has never been easier and cheaper. It actually costs me less to operate that 10 years ago. The biggest expensemarketing my services. Next step... move my studio onto a boat. ;) On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 9:24 AM, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote: Over here in the US I see a lot of people working for in-house freelance rates from home on their own equipment. This seems unwise to me since hardware/software and other costs are not really taken into account. To me, there is a difference between going into a company and working with their clients on their equipment versus working at home on your own setup. I think these trends are creating a false sense of value to clients. In the long run freelancers cannot maintain this economy and the clientele will be accustomed to artificially low rates. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Yep. I consider the 100 EURO / day as a it’s-just-1 cent-above-to-say-no rate…but I was told it’s way above the average, so it was funny. Especially knowing that how much the client charges for the models I made :D ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Octavian Ureche *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 1:34 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling ** ** Yap, forgot about tax expenses (they changed the legislation here a couple of years ago, and now they roam around 5% for small companies, so one tends to neglect that). Other places have it much higher, from what it seems. ** ** Also forgot to add a very important expense (bad eastern european habit...) that has a very strong influence on rate: software maintance/upgrade costs, and also leasing costs for specialised tools.*** * ** ** As a sidenote, i found out through the years, that sometimes it is better to incorporate than to work as a legal freelacer, as taxes are usually lower this way (5% vs 20% here - insane, right?). But this one may really only apply to this part of the world. Also as a freelancer suing someone is a lot harder (or at least threatening to sue - that one usually does the trick). Plus, getting an accountant and starting to tackle the financial side of a business is a must, as it opens up a world of hurt, knowledge and possibilities which every artist should go through to survive in this industry. ** ** Cheers, Octav ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 12:10 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: I think it's overall true every where. On a side note, I'd add that in France when a company hire someone at 100 e/day (salary) it cost 200e/day to the company due to taxes. And on the 100e, the worker has to release back some money for his own taxes, of course. On the over side, the freelance *seems* to cost more but you can join him on weekend and on holydays ;) Le 19/11/2012 10:25, Octavian Ureche a écrit : This is interesting, and i think it mostly revolves around making certain things clear beforehand. Notice that whenever you do the math based on what an employee's rate would be, you always come up with ridiculously low sums of money from a freelance perspective. At first glance, 100 eur/day to me feels like borderline insulting for a freelance rate. But, if we do a little basic math, at that rate, an employee would get 2k / month, and that includes healthcare and vacation. Which for eastern european standards, is a very good salary. Now as a freelancer, jobs are usually scarce (except if u're on a roll, which i don't think happens that often). So you need to plan your lifestyle accordingly. Backup plans and savings are crucial. Also as a freelancer you have to add extra expenses to your rates, like electricity, renderfarm costs (if u'r pulling heavy stuff that you can't possibly render at home),
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
Very good points guys. I can totally relate to the conveying value principle. I met a couple of very successful freelancers in my time, that charged what to me seemed like insane rates, even for an average looking after effects job, just because they knew how to sell themselves and talk business lingo to clients. And they are still doing that, and still getting tons of gigs. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Daniel H vfxc...@gmail.com wrote: In general, most artists are terrible practitioners of business and pricing. Obviously every model can vary greatly in detail and complexity. Stephen Davidson has it correct by evaluating time per component and then charging by an hourly rate to establish a starting base point. You must also master how to convey value to your client. You can't just spit-out an overall price or a day rate, because this leaves questions unanswered. The client will ask themselves, why this rate, is this high or low in comparison to other artists, what all am I getting for this price, what is this figure based on, how do I know if this is a fair price, can they deliver what I want and on time, do they understand what I expect, what is it going to cost if I want to make changes, etc. Here are some main points you need to cover and convey in the written proposal to your client. 1. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand my client's goals and the results they are after. 2. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand the deadline my client excepts out of me and its importance. 3. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand the quality my client is after. 4. I will demonstrate in writing that my client may make modifications and how those changes will be handled. 5. I will help my client understand the complexity and time this is going to take. 6. I will help my client understand the quality I can provide and/or with portfolio samples. 7. I will help my client understand this project is worth the price because of the above reasons. Because I have learned how to convey a detailed understanding of a project, and how to convey value before presenting high prices to my potential client, is why I beat other proposals 99 percent of the time. You need to price the project based on time, the quality you can provide, and based on its value to your client. Always put yourself in the client's place and ask the questions they would ask, then turn around and answer those questions in your proposal and you will be a bazillion miles ahead of what most artists normally do. Daniel VFXM On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:24 AM, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote: Over here in the US I see a lot of people working for in-house freelance rates from home on their own equipment. This seems unwise to me since hardware/software and other costs are not really taken into account. To me, there is a difference between going into a company and working with their clients on their equipment versus working at home on your own setup. I think these trends are creating a false sense of value to clients. In the long run freelancers cannot maintain this economy and the clientele will be accustomed to artificially low rates. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Yep. I consider the 100 EURO / day as a it’s-just-1 cent-above-to-say-no rate…but I was told it’s way above the average, so it was funny. Especially knowing that how much the client charges for the models I made :D ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Octavian Ureche *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 1:34 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling ** ** Yap, forgot about tax expenses (they changed the legislation here a couple of years ago, and now they roam around 5% for small companies, so one tends to neglect that). Other places have it much higher, from what it seems. ** ** Also forgot to add a very important expense (bad eastern european habit...) that has a very strong influence on rate: software maintance/upgrade costs, and also leasing costs for specialised tools.** ** ** ** As a sidenote, i found out through the years, that sometimes it is better to incorporate than to work as a legal freelacer, as taxes are usually lower this way (5% vs 20% here - insane, right?). But this one may really only apply to this part of the world. Also as a freelancer suing someone is a lot harder (or at least threatening to sue - that one usually does the trick). Plus, getting an accountant and starting to tackle the financial side of a business is a must, as it opens up a world of hurt, knowledge and possibilities which every artist should go through to survive in this industry. ** ** Cheers, Octav ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 12:10 PM, olivier jeannel
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Daniel. You also provide excellent information about the content of your quotes. All excellent points, listed, in your post. I did forget to mention something that a lot of artists omit in their quotes, although you touch on it as cost of making changes. You also have to have some sort of statement that gives you the right to charge extra monies when content changes. This is where your per hour rate is used to figure the added charge for content change. Here is my disclaimer, stated at the end of each of my quotes: This estimate is provided based upon the information available to me, at the time the estimate was created. Any changes to the script, requirements, length of animation or added/subtracted elements to the animation will add to, or subtract from, the total estimate dollar amount. This Estimate is valid for 60 days from the creation date. Every effort has been made, in this estimate, to be as accurate as possible. Unforeseen costs can apply wherever applicable. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Daniel H vfxc...@gmail.com wrote: In general, most artists are terrible practitioners of business and pricing. Obviously every model can vary greatly in detail and complexity. Stephen Davidson has it correct by evaluating time per component and then charging by an hourly rate to establish a starting base point. You must also master how to convey value to your client. You can't just spit-out an overall price or a day rate, because this leaves questions unanswered. The client will ask themselves, why this rate, is this high or low in comparison to other artists, what all am I getting for this price, what is this figure based on, how do I know if this is a fair price, can they deliver what I want and on time, do they understand what I expect, what is it going to cost if I want to make changes, etc. Here are some main points you need to cover and convey in the written proposal to your client. 1. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand my client's goals and the results they are after. 2. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand the deadline my client excepts out of me and its importance. 3. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand the quality my client is after. 4. I will demonstrate in writing that my client may make modifications and how those changes will be handled. 5. I will help my client understand the complexity and time this is going to take. 6. I will help my client understand the quality I can provide and/or with portfolio samples. 7. I will help my client understand this project is worth the price because of the above reasons. Because I have learned how to convey a detailed understanding of a project, and how to convey value before presenting high prices to my potential client, is why I beat other proposals 99 percent of the time. You need to price the project based on time, the quality you can provide, and based on its value to your client. Always put yourself in the client's place and ask the questions they would ask, then turn around and answer those questions in your proposal and you will be a bazillion miles ahead of what most artists normally do. Daniel VFXM On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:24 AM, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote: Over here in the US I see a lot of people working for in-house freelance rates from home on their own equipment. This seems unwise to me since hardware/software and other costs are not really taken into account. To me, there is a difference between going into a company and working with their clients on their equipment versus working at home on your own setup. I think these trends are creating a false sense of value to clients. In the long run freelancers cannot maintain this economy and the clientele will be accustomed to artificially low rates. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Yep. I consider the 100 EURO / day as a it’s-just-1 cent-above-to-say-no rate…but I was told it’s way above the average, so it was funny. Especially knowing that how much the client charges for the models I made :D ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Octavian Ureche *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 1:34 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling ** ** Yap, forgot about tax expenses (they changed the legislation here a couple of years ago, and now they roam around 5% for small companies, so one tends to neglect that). Other places have it much higher, from what it seems. ** ** Also forgot to add a very important expense (bad eastern european habit...) that has a very strong influence on rate: software maintance/upgrade costs, and also leasing costs for specialised tools.** ** ** ** As a sidenote, i found out through the years, that sometimes it
Re: page turning effects with ICE
this will not be possible because all the references get resolved before the execution of the ICE tree. Cheers Vladimir On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com wrote: The integer to string will help a lot. Is there any sort of string to reference node available? Or does this work some other way? On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 3:17 AM, Fabricio Chamon xsiml...@gmail.comwrote: you can concatenate your strings: prefix + integer + suffix. Now for integer - string conversion there is Eric's emTools freely available: http://www.mootzoid.com/wb/pages/documentation/emtools.php#IntegerToString 2012/11/18 Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com Hey guys. Thought I would put this out there. One of my artists is creating the effect of a page turning effect on a book. The idea is to have hundred of pages being flipped magically by another character. The easiest way I found without using ICE was to take a single page attach a series of chains to it, animate a singe page turn, cache it, then duplicate the page, and offset the resulting caches. Works really well, especially if I use 5 or 6 different chain animations to vary things up. We wanted to try and use ICE to see how we could come up with a compound for this mixing vector nodes and shome shapes. So far we have been able to achieve most of what is needed with rotate vector and mixing in a few target shapes that activate based on angle. What we would like to do is construct a string, for example polymsh.cls.shape.pageOneFlopLeft_Integer.positions where Integer is a value read off a custom parameter from a given object If anyone has a sample Ice tree that does something like this, or can point me to a sample scene or reference that may help me work through this, I would be most grateful. Adam -- --- Vladimir Jankijevic Technical Direction Elefant Studios AG Lessingstrasse 15 CH-8002 Zürich +41 44 500 48 20 www.elefantstudios.ch ---
Re: Semi OT : Charging the modelling
In general, I have found the same to be true. Young CG artists are terrible at contracts negotiations and general understanding how to price their work. There have been several threads over at VFXSoldier.com that discuss, and while it's a blog that focuses mostly on the film industry, those issues have an effect on all of us. I often wonder why there isn't more education in art schools regarding the basics. While at Pratt, I had a conversation with someone on the administration that stated they weren't training people for jobs, obviously there was a disconnect between the reality of why most people went to an art school in the first place and the idealized world where it's simply art for art's sake and if you make a living from it, that wasn't the point. I saw some mention about the tax burden these companies face. What they don't tell you is how many government subsidies they are taking advantage of. It's easy to get caught up in the explanations why you should take lower rate, in the back of your mind always think It's not my problem because ultimately, it really isn't unless you choose to make it so. I'm not saying you shouldn't negotiate, but you need to take care of yourself first, and it requires a little backbone sometimes to gently push back when you are faced with a situation where you're giving too much. Something else to consider, often you're negotiating rates with business people, and they will always try to get you as low as they can, especially if you're young and they think you're clueless. It's more of a game whereas many artists have a more emotional response. It's business, not personal. I've learned a lot since I started out and once I was solidly in the clueless category. You live and learn! Eric On Nov 19, 2012 10:02 AM, Daniel H vfxc...@gmail.com wrote: In general, most artists are terrible practitioners of business and pricing. Obviously every model can vary greatly in detail and complexity. Stephen Davidson has it correct by evaluating time per component and then charging by an hourly rate to establish a starting base point. You must also master how to convey value to your client. You can't just spit-out an overall price or a day rate, because this leaves questions unanswered. The client will ask themselves, why this rate, is this high or low in comparison to other artists, what all am I getting for this price, what is this figure based on, how do I know if this is a fair price, can they deliver what I want and on time, do they understand what I expect, what is it going to cost if I want to make changes, etc. Here are some main points you need to cover and convey in the written proposal to your client. 1. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand my client's goals and the results they are after. 2. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand the deadline my client excepts out of me and its importance. 3. I will demonstrate in writing that I understand the quality my client is after. 4. I will demonstrate in writing that my client may make modifications and how those changes will be handled. 5. I will help my client understand the complexity and time this is going to take. 6. I will help my client understand the quality I can provide and/or with portfolio samples. 7. I will help my client understand this project is worth the price because of the above reasons. Because I have learned how to convey a detailed understanding of a project, and how to convey value before presenting high prices to my potential client, is why I beat other proposals 99 percent of the time. You need to price the project based on time, the quality you can provide, and based on its value to your client. Always put yourself in the client's place and ask the questions they would ask, then turn around and answer those questions in your proposal and you will be a bazillion miles ahead of what most artists normally do. Daniel VFXM On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:24 AM, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote: Over here in the US I see a lot of people working for in-house freelance rates from home on their own equipment. This seems unwise to me since hardware/software and other costs are not really taken into account. To me, there is a difference between going into a company and working with their clients on their equipment versus working at home on your own setup. I think these trends are creating a false sense of value to clients. In the long run freelancers cannot maintain this economy and the clientele will be accustomed to artificially low rates. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 8:16 AM, Szabolcs Matefy szabol...@crytek.comwrote: Yep. I consider the 100 EURO / day as a it’s-just-1 cent-above-to-say-no rate…but I was told it’s way above the average, so it was funny. Especially knowing that how much the client charges for the models I made :D ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
Re: Any Softies at Autodesk Uni next week?
I am there Sun-Wed c From: Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com Reply-To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Date: Monday, 19 November, 2012 1:46 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Any Softies at Autodesk Uni next week? Aside from Todd and myself, is there anyone else on list that will be in Vegas next week? Adam
RE: Expression Question
An Expression is an operator in Softimage. When an operator's output ports drive a parameter, the parameter is under full control of the operator. As long as the parameter is driven by the operator, the only control you have is the parameter value via the operator's output. The only way to regain manual control of the parameter is to mute or delete the operator. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Byron Nash Sent: Monday, November 19, 2012 10:28 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Expression Question I have a simple expression question. I have some custom parameters driving the animation of other objects. I would like to have a check box that should link one parameter to the other. It sort of works but the value does not change when I disable the check box. Here is my expression. cond( AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Lock_Wheel_Height == 1, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Front_Wheel_Height, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Rear_Wheel_Height ) In case it's not obvious from the expression, I have two sliders, Front_Wheel_Height, and Rear_Wheel_Height. And a checkbox called Lock_Wheel_Height. According to my expression, shouldn't the Rear_Wheel_Height slider be adjustable when the check box is off? I have the expression on the Rear_Wheel_Height. When I disable the check box, the slider jumps to a fixed value and will not change. When I enable it, it follows the first slider as expected. Thanks, Byron
Re: Expression Question
OK, good to know. I was trying to apply how expressions work in After Effects I guess. I'll break it out into more objects. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Peter Agg peter@googlemail.com wrote: Yeah, the usual way around it is to have 2 different objects with 2 different drivers/operators, then you can blend a constraint between the two of them via a custom parameter. On 19 November 2012 18:34, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: An Expression is an operator in Softimage. When an operator’s output ports drive a parameter, the parameter is under full control of the operator. As long as the parameter is driven by the operator, the only control you have is the parameter value via the operator’s output. The only way to regain manual control of the parameter is to mute or delete the operator. ** ** Matt ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Byron Nash *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 10:28 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Expression Question ** ** I have a simple expression question. I have some custom parameters driving the animation of other objects. I would like to have a check box that should link one parameter to the other. It sort of works but the value does not change when I disable the check box. Here is my expression. ** ** *cond( AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Lock_Wheel_Height == 1, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Front_Wheel_Height, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Rear_Wheel_Height )* ** ** In case it's not obvious from the expression, I have two sliders, Front_Wheel_Height, and Rear_Wheel_Height. And a checkbox called Lock_Wheel_Height. According to my expression, shouldn't the Rear_Wheel_Height slider be adjustable when the check box is off? I have the expression on the Rear_Wheel_Height. When I disable the check box, the slider jumps to a fixed value and will not change. When I enable it, it follows the first slider as expected. ** ** Thanks, Byron
RE: Expression Question
You don't need more objects, you need more parameters. If you create an 'offset' parameter for each of the custom parameters you already have, you can add them into your expression to give you the control you want without having to resort to additional objects and constraints. Basically, you're making the expression a little more complex to save from adding unnecessary stuff to the scene. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Byron Nash Sent: Monday, November 19, 2012 10:51 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Expression Question OK, good to know. I was trying to apply how expressions work in After Effects I guess. I'll break it out into more objects. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Peter Agg peter@googlemail.commailto:peter@googlemail.com wrote: Yeah, the usual way around it is to have 2 different objects with 2 different drivers/operators, then you can blend a constraint between the two of them via a custom parameter. On 19 November 2012 18:34, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.commailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: An Expression is an operator in Softimage. When an operator's output ports drive a parameter, the parameter is under full control of the operator. As long as the parameter is driven by the operator, the only control you have is the parameter value via the operator's output. The only way to regain manual control of the parameter is to mute or delete the operator. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Byron Nash Sent: Monday, November 19, 2012 10:28 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Expression Question I have a simple expression question. I have some custom parameters driving the animation of other objects. I would like to have a check box that should link one parameter to the other. It sort of works but the value does not change when I disable the check box. Here is my expression. cond( AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Lock_Wheel_Height == 1, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Front_Wheel_Height, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Rear_Wheel_Height ) In case it's not obvious from the expression, I have two sliders, Front_Wheel_Height, and Rear_Wheel_Height. And a checkbox called Lock_Wheel_Height. According to my expression, shouldn't the Rear_Wheel_Height slider be adjustable when the check box is off? I have the expression on the Rear_Wheel_Height. When I disable the check box, the slider jumps to a fixed value and will not change. When I enable it, it follows the first slider as expected. Thanks, Byron
Re: Expression Question
I just moved the conditional to the next layer down(a null) that is driving the rotation. I think I worded that wrong. On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 2:12 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: You don’t need more objects, you need more parameters. ** ** If you create an ‘offset’ parameter for each of the custom parameters you already have, you can add them into your expression to give you the control you want without having to resort to additional objects and constraints.** ** ** ** Basically, you’re making the expression a little more complex to save from adding unnecessary stuff to the scene. ** ** Matt ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Byron Nash *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 10:51 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Expression Question ** ** OK, good to know. I was trying to apply how expressions work in After Effects I guess. I'll break it out into more objects. ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Peter Agg peter@googlemail.com wrote: Yeah, the usual way around it is to have 2 different objects with 2 different drivers/operators, then you can blend a constraint between the two of them via a custom parameter. ** ** ** ** On 19 November 2012 18:34, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: An Expression is an operator in Softimage. When an operator’s output ports drive a parameter, the parameter is under full control of the operator. As long as the parameter is driven by the operator, the only control you have is the parameter value via the operator’s output. The only way to regain manual control of the parameter is to mute or delete the operator. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Byron Nash *Sent:* Monday, November 19, 2012 10:28 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Expression Question I have a simple expression question. I have some custom parameters driving the animation of other objects. I would like to have a check box that should link one parameter to the other. It sort of works but the value does not change when I disable the check box. Here is my expression. *cond( AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Lock_Wheel_Height == 1, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Front_Wheel_Height, AWD_Mower.Mower_Controls.Rear_Wheel_Height )* In case it's not obvious from the expression, I have two sliders, Front_Wheel_Height, and Rear_Wheel_Height. And a checkbox called Lock_Wheel_Height. According to my expression, shouldn't the Rear_Wheel_Height slider be adjustable when the check box is off? I have the expression on the Rear_Wheel_Height. When I disable the check box, the slider jumps to a fixed value and will not change. When I enable it, it follows the first slider as expected. Thanks, Byron ** ** ** **
Re: Any Softies at Autodesk Uni next week?
oh yeah... here we go On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 10:31 AM, carl callewaert c...@fundi3d.com wrote: I am there Sun-Wed c From: Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com Reply-To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Date: Monday, 19 November, 2012 1:46 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Any Softies at Autodesk Uni next week? Aside from Todd and myself, is there anyone else on list that will be in Vegas next week? Adam
PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
Hi Folks, I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? [Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] inline: image001.gif
Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
nearest i can figure is something isn't getting loaded in time when Qt asks for it. how many workgroups do you have and what position is it in the list of workgroups? On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i haven't seen this yet, so it works locally? btw, its the jo and steven edition. dont forget jo! On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: Hi Folks, ** ** I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? ** ** ** ** ** ** [image: Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] ** ** image001.gif
RE: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
My apologies to Jo! I think you are probably onto it with workgroup load order, I will look into this and report back. Many thanks Steve N From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Tuesday, 20 November 2012 1:10 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 nearest i can figure is something isn't getting loaded in time when Qt asks for it. how many workgroups do you have and what position is it in the list of workgroups? On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.commailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: i haven't seen this yet, so it works locally? btw, its the jo and steven edition. dont forget jo! On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.commailto:n...@altvfx.com wrote: Hi Folks, I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? [Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] inline: image001.gif
RE: 16 bit tif from photoshop not working in softimage?
also, i believe a .tx format is actually a tif or exr format underneath. the extension is really just to say to the user this has been processed by the maketx utility. Just try to add a .tif to the file and you know :-) Or you can open the file in a text editor and see that the file starts with the tif magic id II. unfortunately many apps have not implemented the full API of Tiff and support multiple channels. I do not like .TIFF from the developer view. They made a file format which can do a lot. You could add anything, not only images. But digging into the format itself is complex. Not like .IFF, which can also do everything (even maya scene files are actually the .IFF format). MAC and PC save the format differently, RGB + CMYK + YCbCr + CIE Lab, 5 different compressions (lzw required a paid license), prefilters.. TIFF has pages (I think the official paper has about 100 pages) for its specification, IFF only 1-2 pages. Therefore I can understand if not all features are implemented by every app. .exr is a complete different story. It just works because you have a complete loader/writer because it is open source or you can download a compiled .dll. You can not make any mistake. Beside one, you can forget to implement the cropped region on load. (Like Adobe!! Anyone would like to join to report it that they increase the priority for that bug?) Holger Schönberger technical director The day has 24 hours, if that does not suffice, I will take the night _ From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2012 12:21 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: 16 bit tif from photoshop not working in softimage? yep :) ...i am converting them to an optimal rendering format for arnold during publish... also, i believe a .tx format is actually a tif or exr format underneath. the extension is really just to say to the user this has been processed by the maketx utility. On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 3:03 PM, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Arnold has the maketx commandline utility to make .tx files out of textures. At work we made a batch job for the farm that converts a scene's textures to (mipmapped) .tx for Arnold's sake. In the renderer options somewhere there is a toggle to make Arnold use .tx files if it finds them in the same root as the texture paths. It's pretty handy. On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 3:40 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: its not for softimage, its for arnold. arnold uses open image io which does support automatic mip mapping but we dont use it much... i can't be sure that softimage uses available mip map levels for displaying in the viewport. s
Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
Are there any local plugins referencing that plugin in the user plugins? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: It doesn’t appear to be workgroup related, it fails to load even when it is the sole workgroup. It is a strange one, as it certainly finds the dll when you manually hit ‘reload’ (without having to trace back the path) ** ** N ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven Caron *Sent:* Tuesday, 20 November 2012 1:10 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 ** ** nearest i can figure is something isn't getting loaded in time when Qt asks for it. how many workgroups do you have and what position is it in the list of workgroups? ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote:*** * i haven't seen this yet, so it works locally? btw, its the jo and steven edition. dont forget jo! ** ** ** ** On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: Hi Folks, I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? [image: Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] ** ** ** ** image001.gif
Re: Importing FBX from Maya to SI
Hi Debdas, which version of softimage are you using ? Ivan On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Debdas Mohanty devj...@gmail.com wrote: Ya Sandy, for temporary use, i am doing this but that's not the wise solution and my studio will not allow me to install 2 versions of SI. For the next project, I am trying to incorporate XSI in our pipeline. For smaller things like this I cant go back to older version every time.. Thanks a lot for your help..
RE: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
No, we keep nothing local, I am starting to suspect it is the latest build on our machines as it is a new rollout, it works fine from my laptop running all the same software. May be one of those strange glitchy windows things... Thanks for your reply Eric. N From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge Sent: Tuesday, 20 November 2012 2:18 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 Are there any local plugins referencing that plugin in the user plugins? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.commailto:n...@altvfx.com wrote: It doesn't appear to be workgroup related, it fails to load even when it is the sole workgroup. It is a strange one, as it certainly finds the dll when you manually hit 'reload' (without having to trace back the path) N From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Tuesday, 20 November 2012 1:10 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 nearest i can figure is something isn't getting loaded in time when Qt asks for it. how many workgroups do you have and what position is it in the list of workgroups? On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.commailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: i haven't seen this yet, so it works locally? btw, its the jo and steven edition. dont forget jo! On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.commailto:n...@altvfx.com wrote: Hi Folks, I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? [Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] inline: image001.gif
Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
Are there QT dlls in the 2013 install directory? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: No, we keep nothing local, I am starting to suspect it is the latest build on our machines as it is a new rollout, it works fine from my laptop running all the same software. May be one of those strange glitchy windows things… ** ** Thanks for your reply Eric. ** ** N ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Eric Thivierge *Sent:* Tuesday, 20 November 2012 2:18 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 ** ** Are there any local plugins referencing that plugin in the user plugins?** ** Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: It doesn’t appear to be workgroup related, it fails to load even when it is the sole workgroup. It is a strange one, as it certainly finds the dll when you manually hit ‘reload’ (without having to trace back the path) N *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven Caron *Sent:* Tuesday, 20 November 2012 1:10 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 nearest i can figure is something isn't getting loaded in time when Qt asks for it. how many workgroups do you have and what position is it in the list of workgroups? On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote:*** * i haven't seen this yet, so it works locally? btw, its the jo and steven edition. dont forget jo! On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: Hi Folks, I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? [image: Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] ** ** image001.gif
RE: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013
None that I can find From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge Sent: Tuesday, 20 November 2012 3:16 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 Are there QT dlls in the 2013 install directory? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.commailto:n...@altvfx.com wrote: No, we keep nothing local, I am starting to suspect it is the latest build on our machines as it is a new rollout, it works fine from my laptop running all the same software. May be one of those strange glitchy windows things... Thanks for your reply Eric. N From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge Sent: Tuesday, 20 November 2012 2:18 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 Are there any local plugins referencing that plugin in the user plugins? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.commailto:n...@altvfx.com wrote: It doesn't appear to be workgroup related, it fails to load even when it is the sole workgroup. It is a strange one, as it certainly finds the dll when you manually hit 'reload' (without having to trace back the path) N From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Tuesday, 20 November 2012 1:10 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: PYQT dll fails to load in 2013 nearest i can figure is something isn't getting loaded in time when Qt asks for it. how many workgroups do you have and what position is it in the list of workgroups? On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.commailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: i haven't seen this yet, so it works locally? btw, its the jo and steven edition. dont forget jo! On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.commailto:n...@altvfx.com wrote: Hi Folks, I am having an issue with PYQT (the awesome Steve Caron edition) in Soft 2013, it fails to load the plugin from our network workgroup, if we go to the plugin manager and reload it then works fine. Has anyone had this happen as yet? [Description: ALT_signature_NANGUS] inline: image001.gif
