For what it's worth - ICE Kinematics has offered me little for rigging beyond working out the maths I need to re-write into a scripted operator. ICE modelling, however, means that I now have a standard facial rigging setup which means what used to take me a day or two now takes a few hours. And that's in addition to things like deformers which have been mentioned already.
Slowly but surely I'm finding that the times not using ICE are what's situational - whenever I run into an area where it isn't implemented at all or well everything starts feeling like a grind again. Though, by the same token, if I jump into Houdini for a while then ICE starts feeling limited again, so I guess these things work in cycles. :) On 10 August 2012 07:12, Sam Bowling <sbowl...@cox.net> wrote: > For me ICE is very situational (I never said it wasn’t useful). I’ve > spent a good deal of time researching ICE and have made a few useful (if > situational) compounds, but my projects tend to be measured in days and I > don’t have the time to do a ton of research on building rigs (or whatever) > in ICE. The last I heard about rigging in ICE is that that it tended to be > buggy and wasn’t really recommended so I haven’t really looked into it too > much since if was first introduced. My limited programming knowledge along > with my memory not being as good as it used to means that I spend a lot of > time relearning things in ICE every time I need to use it. I can’t count > how much time I’ve spent trying to do something in ICE that seems like it > would be easy only to find it nearly impossible. More often than not it > ends up being easier and quicker for me to do things the old fashioned way. > As for VP2, I don’t think they should have even released it in it’s > current state. It’s still quicker and more accurate to do small preview > renders then deal with that thing, IMO. > > I haven’t jumped ship yet, but there’s a good possibility that I will not > be renewing my subscription this time around unless they release some > really impressive stuff. The last few upgrades have just felt like wasted > money to me. > > > *From:* Raffaele Fragapane <raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> > *Sent:* Thursday, August 09, 2012 8:51 PM > *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com > *Subject:* Re: Siggraph - Softimage? > > This is stuff that goes in cycles. > If you don't need crowds, a viewport API, various additions to ICE, the > fCurve editing additions and so on of course the last couple upgrades won't > be very convenient for you. > > Personally, I have very little use for the VP2 stuff (beside the fact it > stuffed royally and irreparably quite a few things for some people over in > TVC), but I had been begging and crying for a viewport API for probably > close to 8 years now. > > At some point Maya will go through a cycle of stuff you have no use for, > while in the other camp the things Soft had been lagging behind on will be > added, and the grass will yet again be greener on the other side. > IE: if you need a decently rendered fire without plugins, currently Maya > is more or less your only option, but if you need crowds OOTB then Soft is. > > By all means, diversify if there's any point in another app for you, or > get a suite, but I wouldn't write off 2012 and 2013 in general (we planned > or did moves to both over here in example, and we don't up versions > overnight for no good reason in film). > > Calling ICE situational though usually means you haven't bothered rather > than not having found it useful. > If there is ONE thing that improves my day to day work every single time > it gets extended that's ICE. > If you think it's something just for the occasional dust puff you're > sorely mistaken. I'm writing this with a graph in front of me that over a > few days went from a prototype to representing a sizable chunk of a rig > that featurePerDay is cheaper than anything I've done before, and an order > of magnitude faster than the equivalent expression-y/constrain-y > alternative, and I'm coming out of a two year span on a project where every > single deformation on very large and complex creatures would have been > literally impossible or prohibitively expensive without ICE, which was used > as a deformation tool, as a seamless bridge to our propietary system, and > as a pipeline crutch for reference geometry injection. > > Be mindful of kneejerking yourself into something that will most likely > require months to years to barely be able to be back to the par your work > and cost sits at now. > > > On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Sam Bowling <sbowl...@cox.net> wrote: > >> CrowdFX.... I'm finding it harder and harder to find a reason to upgrade >> this software. I love the program, but there's just nothing new being added >> other ice stuff and that is really situational in use. I really can't think >> of anything added in 2013 that I needed for day to day use. I thought maybe >> there would be a few useful goodies added in the SAP, but that's out for >> this year. I guess it's time I start looking in to Max or Maya since they >> still seem to be getting some useful development. >> >>
