FBX exporting and features
Guys, Does anybody know if there is possibility to add time markers in XSI and export them in FBX file? Cheers Szabolcs ___ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. Crytek GmbH - http://www.crytek.com - Grüneburgweg 16-18, 60322 Frankfurt - HRB77322 Amtsgericht Frankfurt a. Main- UST IdentNr.: DE20432461 - Geschaeftsfuehrer: Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
Scale of your scene becomes important here, as you will likely find numerical inaccuracies in one end of the animation if you don't make sure the scale is somewhere between what is comfortable in either end. If possible, it can help you to do transitions between LOD versions of your scene in obscuring cloudlayers or motionblurred camera shakes. It requires a lot of hard work making it seamless - no satellite generated map will get you all the way in, and I have often found it difficult to get sufficient detail in the middle range between satellite texturemaps and aerial stills. Prepare for a lot of landscaping, and, going into a city with skyscrapers, a fair amount of citymodeling too. Good luck! Morten Den 12. november 2013 kl. 13:41 skrev Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com mailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul
Re: How to trigger particle emissions?
This https://vimeo.com/1392786 is nice to understand progressive changing of state. Could be with a weightmap. For the destination, you could play with goals compound. Or for a better understanding make your own following this : https://vimeo.com/1502921 Le 12/11/2013 15:24, Morten Bartholdy a écrit : I am looking to emit particles from a modeled volume, but starting in one place and then gradually from an area moving through the object. Imagine a solid item starting to dissolve into dust which flies away, but not the whole thing at once but starting in one place, then gradually dissolving all of it. I guess I will need to work with states, but the factory sample scenes were not incredibly helpful here, so I am wondering if there are any tutorials or other places to look for this type of effect. Morten
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
If it's any use, Andrew Kramer of Videocopilot has a nice old free tutorial on doing an Earth zoom and how to line up multiple textures of increasing resolution: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/earth_zoom/ Have you tried this map site? -- http://www.flashearth.com/ It uses Microsoft and Yahoo map data, and unlike Google's, they don't watermark all over it. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:20 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: http://www.allallsoft.com/ That things grabs square kilometers of datas, but I think Googlemap has some kind of quantity restrictions. I remember the Microsoft Visual Earth equivalent to Googlemap offered less restrictions, pictures are less nice though. Le 12/11/2013 15:12, olivier jeannel a écrit : There are programs that allow to grab images from google earth or microsoft equivalent at certain (rather high) level of detail. Also OSM openstreetmap are good bases to grab. Programs like City Engine comes to mind. But in the end, it depends if your client has a decent budget, or just enoug to pay the copyrights. Le 12/11/2013 14:25, Paul Griswold a écrit : We're going to have a conference call today so I can get more info from the director, but I'm guessing they're going to want a fairly fast move. What about map data? Google Earth Pro has some good high res imagery, but their licensing requires credits on screen while the images are shown. Same thing goes for DigitalGlobe. This is for a documentary, so a lot is going to be determined by the budget. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul
RE: How to trigger particle emissions?
Hi Morten, No need to use states. I wrote a tutorial for 3D World on a similar subjects a couple of years ago which might help you get started. http://caffeineabuse.blogspot.se/2011/07/ice-destruction.html cheers ola From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Morten Bartholdy Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 3:24 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: How to trigger particle emissions? I am looking to emit particles from a modeled volume, but starting in one place and then gradually from an area moving through the object. Imagine a solid item starting to dissolve into dust which flies away, but not the whole thing at once but starting in one place, then gradually dissolving all of it. I guess I will need to work with states, but the factory sample scenes were not incredibly helpful here, so I am wondering if there are any tutorials or other places to look for this type of effect. Morten
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
...and I guess you probably already know of NASA's Blue Marble page where you can download relatively fresh Earth textures at a whopping 21K res: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_cat.php?categoryID=1484 Those are probably better/cooler for the space images than the consumer map data. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.comwrote: If it's any use, Andrew Kramer of Videocopilot has a nice old free tutorial on doing an Earth zoom and how to line up multiple textures of increasing resolution: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/earth_zoom/ Have you tried this map site? -- http://www.flashearth.com/ It uses Microsoft and Yahoo map data, and unlike Google's, they don't watermark all over it. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:20 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: http://www.allallsoft.com/ That things grabs square kilometers of datas, but I think Googlemap has some kind of quantity restrictions. I remember the Microsoft Visual Earth equivalent to Googlemap offered less restrictions, pictures are less nice though. Le 12/11/2013 15:12, olivier jeannel a écrit : There are programs that allow to grab images from google earth or microsoft equivalent at certain (rather high) level of detail. Also OSM openstreetmap are good bases to grab. Programs like City Engine comes to mind. But in the end, it depends if your client has a decent budget, or just enoug to pay the copyrights. Le 12/11/2013 14:25, Paul Griswold a écrit : We're going to have a conference call today so I can get more info from the director, but I'm guessing they're going to want a fairly fast move. What about map data? Google Earth Pro has some good high res imagery, but their licensing requires credits on screen while the images are shown. Same thing goes for DigitalGlobe. This is for a documentary, so a lot is going to be determined by the budget. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul
Pick multiple element with py
Hi guys, me again :) One quick question, how would one go about editing the pick element command in python so that it takes in multiple selections whilst the shift modifier is down? destMDLPicked = si.PickElement(c.siModelFilter, 'Pick Destination Model', 'Pick Destination Model') destMDLObject = destMDLPicked[2] Thanks in advance, Ogi.
Re: Pick multiple element with py
http://darkvertex.com/wp/2012/07/05/xsi-picking-forever-in-python/ On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 10:31:52 AM, Ognjen Vukovic wrote: Hi guys, me again :) One quick question, how would one go about editing the pick element command in python so that it takes in multiple selections whilst the shift modifier is down? destMDLPicked = si.PickElement(c.siModelFilter, 'Pick Destination Model', 'Pick Destination Model') destMDLObject = destMDLPicked[2] Thanks in advance, Ogi.
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
One of the cheats, to keep the project within budget, is to fly through some clouds, masking the change from an earth texturemap, to satellite photos. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:20 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: http://www.allallsoft.com/ That things grabs square kilometers of datas, but I think Googlemap has some kind of quantity restrictions. I remember the Microsoft Visual Earth equivalent to Googlemap offered less restrictions, pictures are less nice though. Le 12/11/2013 15:12, olivier jeannel a écrit : There are programs that allow to grab images from google earth or microsoft equivalent at certain (rather high) level of detail. Also OSM openstreetmap are good bases to grab. Programs like City Engine comes to mind. But in the end, it depends if your client has a decent budget, or just enoug to pay the copyrights. Le 12/11/2013 14:25, Paul Griswold a écrit : We're going to have a conference call today so I can get more info from the director, but I'm guessing they're going to want a fairly fast move. What about map data? Google Earth Pro has some good high res imagery, but their licensing requires credits on screen while the images are shown. Same thing goes for DigitalGlobe. This is for a documentary, so a lot is going to be determined by the budget. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
RE: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- [cid:image001.gif@01CEDF9E.37293F80] -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! attachment: winmail.dat
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
How would I be able to check this? I'm using the stock compound that comes with SI 2012, and the one we got from the web called "Dual Quaternion Deformation.2.0.xsicompound". The latter didn't improve things. On 12/11/2013 12:42 AM, Ahmidou Lyazidi wrote: At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
Thanks Raffaele! We'll keep investigating. Cheers! On 11/11/2013 11:48 PM, Raffaele Fragapane wrote: By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- [cid:image001.gif@01CEDF9E.37293F80] -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
Disney gave a talk at Siggraph this year about their implementation of DQ.
I haven't checked, but if you're lucky the talk material might be up on the ACM
library.
http://s2013.siggraph.org/attendees/talks/events/enhanced-dual-quaternion-skinning-production-use
On Tuesday, November 12, 2013, Sergio Mucino wrote:
Thanks Raffaele! We'll keep investigating. Cheers!
On 11/11/2013 11:48 PM, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:
By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as
it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper
focused on).
We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and
we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's
not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or
downstream from DQ unaltered.
As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that,
but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no
noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do.
On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino
sergio.muc...@modusfx.comjavascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'sergio.muc...@modusfx.com');
wrote:
I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual
Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm
using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things
properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a
non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is
scaled down).
First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the
calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't
work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound,
which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference.
Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to
fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and
multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made
no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down.
I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I
just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there
(I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the
envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong
deformations.
Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks!
--
--
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it
and let them flee like the dogs they are!
--
Technical Director @ DreamWorks Animation
Sergio Mucino_Signature_email.gifimage/gif
RE: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
V3.0 was added quite a while ago. Right-click on the compound in the preset manager and choose Open Containing Folder. What's the version number on the file name? gray From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sergio Mucino Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 11:58 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. [cid:image001.gif@01CEDFA0.08A007F0] On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- [cid:image001.gif@01CEDF9E.37293F80] -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! attachment: winmail.dat
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
I want to be careful with what imagery I use. All the sites I've researched so far require you to post their logo on screen the entire time you use their satellite imagery. I don't want to be the guy that got the production sued because I pissed off Google's lawyers. I think some well placed clouds will hide a lot when we get really close to the ground. But overall, my guess is the director really doesn't have any idea what things cost budget is going to dictate a lot. Thanks! Paul On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.netwrote: One of the cheats, to keep the project within budget, is to fly through some clouds, masking the change from an earth texturemap, to satellite photos. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:20 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: http://www.allallsoft.com/ That things grabs square kilometers of datas, but I think Googlemap has some kind of quantity restrictions. I remember the Microsoft Visual Earth equivalent to Googlemap offered less restrictions, pictures are less nice though. Le 12/11/2013 15:12, olivier jeannel a écrit : There are programs that allow to grab images from google earth or microsoft equivalent at certain (rather high) level of detail. Also OSM openstreetmap are good bases to grab. Programs like City Engine comes to mind. But in the end, it depends if your client has a decent budget, or just enoug to pay the copyrights. Le 12/11/2013 14:25, Paul Griswold a écrit : We're going to have a conference call today so I can get more info from the director, but I'm guessing they're going to want a fairly fast move. What about map data? Google Earth Pro has some good high res imagery, but their licensing requires credits on screen while the images are shown. Same thing goes for DigitalGlobe. This is for a documentary, so a lot is going to be determined by the budget. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956 %28954%29%20552-7956 *sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
Re: Pick multiple element with py
Bonus function to get modifier key states for anyone confused by bitmasks
in Python:
def getModifierStates():
bits = Application.GetKeyboardState()('Shift')
return { 'shift': bool( bits 1 ),
'ctrl': bool( bits 2 ),
'alt': bool( bits 4 ) }
print getModifierStates()
You can take my pickForever() function and in the while 1: part, change
it for while getModifierStates()['shift']:.
;)
On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:33 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.comwrote:
http://darkvertex.com/wp/2012/07/05/xsi-picking-forever-in-python/
On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 10:31:52 AM, Ognjen Vukovic wrote:
Hi guys,
me again :)
One quick question, how would one go about editing the pick element
command in python so that it takes in multiple selections whilst the
shift modifier is down?
destMDLPicked = si.PickElement(c.siModelFilter, 'Pick Destination
Model', 'Pick Destination Model')
destMDLObject = destMDLPicked[2]
Thanks in advance,
Ogi.
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
Hmmm... interesting. There are three DQ compounds in there. What would appear to be a 1.0 (since it has no version number), a 2.2, and a 3.0. There are differences internally for each compound version, and after examining the files I've been working on, it seems we've been using v3.0 (even though there are three DQ compounds in the folder, only one is displayed in SI's node list, which I guess means SI will list the one with the highest version number). On 12/11/2013 12:09 PM, Grahame Fuller wrote: V3.0 was added quite a while ago. Right-click on the compound in the preset manager and choose Open Containing Folder. What's the version number on the file name? gray From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sergio Mucino Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 11:58 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. [cid:image001.gif@01CEDFA0.08A007F0] On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- [cid:image001.gif@01CEDF9E.37293F80] -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
After you import an ICE Compound to the ICE Tree, right click on the node and go to properties. You can see the version number in there. Yes the highest versioned compound is used as well. The rig is probably changing bone lengths instead of scaling which is probably where you're hitting the problems. On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 1:06:06 PM, Sergio Mucino wrote: Hmmm... interesting. There are three DQ compounds in there. What would appear to be a 1.0 (since it has no version number), a 2.2, and a 3.0. There are differences internally for each compound version, and after examining the files I've been working on, it seems we've been using v3.0 (even though there are three DQ compounds in the folder, only one is displayed in SI's node list, which I guess means SI will list the one with the highest version number). On 12/11/2013 12:09 PM, Grahame Fuller wrote: V3.0 was added quite a while ago. Right-click on the compound in the preset manager and choose Open Containing Folder. What's the version number on the file name? gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sergio Mucino Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 11:58 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. [cid:image001.gif@01CEDFA0.08A007F0] On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- [cid:image001.gif@01CEDF9E.37293F80] -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
Comments below... On 12/11/2013 1:11 PM, Eric Thivierge wrote: After you import an ICE Compound to the ICE Tree, right click on the node and go to properties. You can see the version number in there. Yes the highest versioned compound is used as well. [SM]: Ah, nice! There's also a little sub-menu from where I can apparently switch version numbers... neat! The rig is probably changing bone lengths instead of scaling which is probably where you're hitting the problems. [SM]: The deformers are actually a bunch of nulls that are constrained to objects constrained to other objects that are constrained to a path (it'd take me time to explain the entire rig... this is just a part concerning the deformers). The scaling is handled by a master control at the top of the hierarchy, and the rig elements inherit the scale change. Everything works fine, and if I stick to using linear deformations (using an envelope operator), things are peachy. The problems start when I disable the envelope operator and use the DQ node in ICE instead. On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 1:06:06 PM, Sergio Mucino wrote: Hmmm... interesting. There are three DQ compounds in there. What would appear to be a 1.0 (since it has no version number), a 2.2, and a 3.0. There are differences internally for each compound version, and after examining the files I've been working on, it seems we've been using v3.0 (even though there are three DQ compounds in the folder, only one is displayed in SI's node list, which I guess means SI will list the one with the highest version number). On 12/11/2013 12:09 PM, Grahame Fuller wrote: V3.0 was added quite a while ago. Right-click on the compound in the preset manager and choose Open Containing Folder. What's the version number on the file name? gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sergio Mucino Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 11:58 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. [cid:image001.gif@01CEDFA0.08A007F0] On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose
RE: semi OT: flying from space to street level
A remarkable resource for the low altitude image data you might need is at the USGS. http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ You will be most interested in the High Resolution Orthoimagery from the Aerial Imagery dataset, though they have a lot of other data as well . This is largely unprocessed aerial photos which at a minimum have been geo-referenced, but not much more. You will have to register with the site to get access to the high resolution data. As to your concern regarding public domain access, copyright, etc, I do recommend you contact USGS directly for information regarding usage rights. There is a web portal contact and phone number listed from their site. -- Joey Ponthieux LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical Services NASA Langley Research Center __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:10 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level I want to be careful with what imagery I use. All the sites I've researched so far require you to post their logo on screen the entire time you use their satellite imagery. I don't want to be the guy that got the production sued because I pissed off Google's lawyers. I think some well placed clouds will hide a lot when we get really close to the ground. But overall, my guess is the director really doesn't have any idea what things cost budget is going to dictate a lot. Thanks! Paul On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.netmailto:magic...@bellsouth.net wrote: One of the cheats, to keep the project within budget, is to fly through some clouds, masking the change from an earth texturemap, to satellite photos. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:20 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frmailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: http://www.allallsoft.com/ That things grabs square kilometers of datas, but I think Googlemap has some kind of quantity restrictions. I remember the Microsoft Visual Earth equivalent to Googlemap offered less restrictions, pictures are less nice though. Le 12/11/2013 15:12, olivier jeannel a écrit : There are programs that allow to grab images from google earth or microsoft equivalent at certain (rather high) level of detail. Also OSM openstreetmap are good bases to grab. Programs like City Engine comes to mind. But in the end, it depends if your client has a decent budget, or just enoug to pay the copyrights. Le 12/11/2013 14:25, Paul Griswold a écrit : We're going to have a conference call today so I can get more info from the director, but I'm guessing they're going to want a fairly fast move. What about map data? Google Earth Pro has some good high res imagery, but their licensing requires credits on screen while the images are shown. Same thing goes for DigitalGlobe. This is for a documentary, so a lot is going to be determined by the budget. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.commailto:etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.commailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul -- Best Regards, Stephen P. Davidson (954) 552-7956tel:%28954%29%20552-7956 sdavid...@3danimationmagic.commailto:sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com http://www.3danimationmagic.com
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
No need to worry about this for now anymore. We tested a linear deformation rig (standard envelope), and the animator much preferred it to the ICE/DQ rig, so we'll leave it at that. We live to fight another day! Thanks a lot everyone! On 12/11/2013 1:25 PM, Sergio Mucino wrote: Comments below... On 12/11/2013 1:11 PM, Eric Thivierge wrote: After you import an ICE Compound to the ICE Tree, right click on the node and go to properties. You can see the version number in there. Yes the highest versioned compound is used as well. [SM]: Ah, nice! There's also a little sub-menu from where I can apparently switch version numbers... neat! The rig is probably changing bone lengths instead of scaling which is probably where you're hitting the problems. [SM]: The deformers are actually a bunch of nulls that are constrained to objects constrained to other objects that are constrained to a path (it'd take me time to explain the entire rig... this is just a part concerning the deformers). The scaling is handled by a master control at the top of the hierarchy, and the rig elements inherit the scale change. Everything works fine, and if I stick to using linear deformations (using an envelope operator), things are peachy. The problems start when I disable the envelope operator and use the DQ node in ICE instead. On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 1:06:06 PM, Sergio Mucino wrote: Hmmm... interesting. There are three DQ compounds in there. What would appear to be a 1.0 (since it has no version number), a 2.2, and a 3.0. There are differences internally for each compound version, and after examining the files I've been working on, it seems we've been using v3.0 (even though there are three DQ compounds in the folder, only one is displayed in SI's node list, which I guess means SI will list the one with the highest version number). On 12/11/2013 12:09 PM, Grahame Fuller wrote: V3.0 was added quite a while ago. Right-click on the compound in the preset manager and choose Open Containing Folder. What's the version number on the file name? gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sergio Mucino Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 11:58 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. [cid:image001.gif@01CEDFA0.08A007F0] On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
make sure your director understands that just downloading a map from nasa and sticking it on a sphere is not going to allow you to zoom to street level - actually, manhattan is hardly distinguishable on those maps – get the highest res that is available, zoom in and you’ll be sorely disappointed – and that a google printscreen is not going to allow you to zoom out, (well, a few hundred printscreens is more like it) - it is just going to look like a lousy 2D zoom on a photograph. It’s exactly like Morten says, it’s the difficult part in between those two that will sell the zoom. And everything you can model ofcourse on ground/city level – decent hires roof imagery is not so easy to come by. I’m not a big fan of a cloud transition, especially if it serves to cut out the middle part of the zoom, going from an earth scene to a city scene. But it can facilitate the task considerably... The camera movement is crucial - you’re likely to go from a top down (-90 degree angle) to a somewhat horizontal view – and where/when exactly you do that rotation determines what you really need to model – a couple of houses, a city block, a whole city or even the landscape around it? As for ref: the opening scene of Ted is one of the best takes on the “earth to street level”zoom I’ve seen. http://iloura.com/film/opening-sequence-of-ted-vfx-breakdown/ (video is unavailable for me but you might have more luck) Go rent it, perhaps even look at it together with the director – make him see how much work is involved. hint: if the budget is for a two week job for one person, you know what time it is . From: Morten Bartholdy Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 3:06 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level Scale of your scene becomes important here, as you will likely find numerical inaccuracies in one end of the animation if you don't make sure the scale is somewhere between what is comfortable in either end. If possible, it can help you to do transitions between LOD versions of your scene in obscuring cloudlayers or motionblurred camera shakes. It requires a lot of hard work making it seamless - no satellite generated map will get you all the way in, and I have often found it difficult to get sufficient detail in the middle range between satellite texturemaps and aerial stills. Prepare for a lot of landscaping, and, going into a city with skyscrapers, a fair amount of citymodeling too. Good luck! Morten Den 12. november 2013 kl. 13:41 skrev Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com: Depends on so many factors -- how quickly you're moving, does your landing zone stay in frame the whole time or do you fly over the horizon to get there, can you fly through clouds to create a transition, etc. etc. Mainly try very hard to map out a single smooth trajectory and stick to it -- don't try to use, say, an aerial still from the wrong perspective for a section. Try to keep everything truly 3D -- there's a surprising amount of parallax on things like landforms, clouds and buildings when you're moving ridiculously fast. It's also super hard to match color, sun angle, contrast, detail, and noise from multiple stills at different scales. Good luck, let us see the final! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul wlEmoticon-smile[1].png
Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling...
The bone lenght shouldn't be a problem, it not used in the deformation, only the SRT are. Le 13 nov. 2013 à 05:11, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com a écrit : After you import an ICE Compound to the ICE Tree, right click on the node and go to properties. You can see the version number in there. Yes the highest versioned compound is used as well. The rig is probably changing bone lengths instead of scaling which is probably where you're hitting the problems. On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 1:06:06 PM, Sergio Mucino wrote: Hmmm... interesting. There are three DQ compounds in there. What would appear to be a 1.0 (since it has no version number), a 2.2, and a 3.0. There are differences internally for each compound version, and after examining the files I've been working on, it seems we've been using v3.0 (even though there are three DQ compounds in the folder, only one is displayed in SI's node list, which I guess means SI will list the one with the highest version number). On 12/11/2013 12:09 PM, Grahame Fuller wrote: V3.0 was added quite a while ago. Right-click on the compound in the preset manager and choose Open Containing Folder. What's the version number on the file name? gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sergio Mucino Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 11:58 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... I guess you're talking about SI 2014. We're on 2012, so no go for us on this one. Thanks! Still good to know. [cid:image001.gif@01CEDFA0.08A007F0] On 12/11/2013 11:56 AM, Grahame Fuller wrote: Right, the shipped version 3.0 should support scaling, but it doesn't handle animated bone length. gray From:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ahmidou Lyazidi Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 12:42 AM To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: DQ Deformation compound and scaling... At some point the factory compound was updated to support scaling. The current version of the scaling compound is 3.0 which one are you using ? --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/11/12 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com By default DQ doesn't consider scaling. The original paper omits it too as it's not that common at bone anim level in games (which is what the paper focused on). We had the same issue with the DQ compounds when they were offered and we tested them, so we ended up cooking our own to account for scaling. It's not that hard to do, but it's more than just adding scaling up or downstream from DQ unaltered. As it's work done for Animal I can't disclose details, sorry about that, but if it's worth anything to you to know: it's perfectly possible with no noticeable effect on performance and not particularly hard to do. On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com wrote: I have an interesting issue at hand. It seems that the shipping Dual Quaternion Deformation ICE compound does not take into account scaling. I'm using it for one of our rigs, and scaling down the rig scales things properly, but the deformations on the mesh are still being calculated in a non-scaled space, it seems (they are quite exaggerated when the rig is scaled down). First, I thought I could try fixing it myself by multiplying the calculated deformations by the scale factor from the rig, but that didn't work. I googled a bit, and found a Dual Quaternion Deformations 2 compound, which seems to support scaling. I downloaded it, but it made no difference. Taking a closer look at it, it's doing exactly what we were doing here to fix the first compound (taking the matrix from the mesh, inverting it, and multiplying it by the vector coming from the skinning nodes), but it made no difference. The deformations are still not scaling down. I turned off the ICE tree and re-enabled my envelope (it's still there, I just mute it when enabling the ICE tree), and the deformations are ok there (I just need to use DQ on this mesh, that's why I'm not using the envelope), but re-enabling the ICE DQ deformer gives me the wrong deformations. Has anyone seen this before? Any known cures for this ailment? Thanks! -- [cid:image001.gif@01CEDF9E.37293F80] -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it!
vray artifacts
Just curious...playing around with vray. I'm getting an occasional white artifact here or there with reflective/glossy surfaces. Is there a setting or quick fix to kill them? The 1 billion options in vray doesn't make it easy. Kris
Re: vray artifacts
Nevermind...sub pixel mapping and clamp output did it...cool! Kris On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Kris Rivel krisri...@gmail.com wrote: Just curious...playing around with vray. I'm getting an occasional white artifact here or there with reflective/glossy surfaces. Is there a setting or quick fix to kill them? The 1 billion options in vray doesn't make it easy. Kris
Mootz!!! What we reallly need is EM_SewingMachine
Forget my request to move on to em_tree (although I want it) but here is a plug in I think a lot of us need. Something like Marvelous Designer but inside Softimage and most importantly without such a embarrassing bad nameJ Might be a good place to start thinking about using FABRIC engine to drive your plug ins. and you could open up a new revenue steam, buy selling it to maya users for twice as much ;) Seriously there is nothing like Marvelous Designer for high end work... (did I say I hate that name and every time I say or read it I think of Billy Crystal) Thanks for hearing our plea! Greg From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:46 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Cloth Character Workflow in Soft Never heard of Qualoth, there don't seem to be many examples on there site, though there client list is extensive to say the least On 10 November 2013 00:25, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In film, people love Maya nCloth. But another one that comes up a bit is Qualoth. also a maya plug-in. http://www.qualoth.com http://www.qualoth.com/
spreadsheet - setting UIItems in combo box items
I have many spreadsheet queries which display information stored in custom properties in the scene. Some of the custom property parameters are integers represented by combo boxes in their respective PPGs. When I dump the values of those parameters into the spreadsheet, the spreadsheet only shows integers. I would like to convert the cells with those values to be combo boxes with the same label/value pairs as the combo boxes of the custom properties. I see some of the native Softimage spreadsheet queries have this capability, but I don't see any documentation how to do it. I have dissected some of those queries and they use GUID/CLSID values to pull the combo box enumerations. Anybody know how to display a combo box in a cell of a spreadsheet query for custom spreadsheet queries? Thanks, Matt
Re: Mootz!!! What we reallly need is EM_SewingMachine
Cloth, hair/fur, Sculpt, it's what is missing, we need a character pipe :P Maya only wins this because it has them, there archaic and most good stuff is third party, but they are available. On 13 November 2013 02:17, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Forget my request to move on to em_tree (although I want it) but here is a plug in I think a lot of us need. Something like Marvelous Designer but inside Softimage and most importantly without such a embarrassing bad name J Might be a good place to start thinking about using FABRIC engine to drive your plug ins… and you could open up a new revenue steam, buy selling it to maya users for twice as much ;) Seriously there is nothing like Marvelous Designer for high end work... (did I say I hate that name and every time I say or read it I think of Billy Crystal) Thanks for hearing our plea! Greg *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Sebastien Sterling *Sent:* Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:46 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Cloth Character Workflow in Soft Never heard of Qualoth, there don't seem to be many examples on there site, though there client list is extensive to say the least On 10 November 2013 00:25, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In film, people love Maya nCloth. But another one that comes up a bit is Qualoth. also a maya plug-in. http://www.qualoth.com
Re: Mootz!!! What we reallly need is EM_SewingMachine
we too have arcaic hair/fur and cloth :p so... we only miss arcaic sculpt now :D Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/ http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/blog 2013/11/12 Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com Cloth, hair/fur, Sculpt, it's what is missing, we need a character pipe :P Maya only wins this because it has them, there archaic and most good stuff is third party, but they are available. On 13 November 2013 02:17, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Forget my request to move on to em_tree (although I want it) but here is a plug in I think a lot of us need. Something like Marvelous Designer but inside Softimage and most importantly without such a embarrassing bad name J Might be a good place to start thinking about using FABRIC engine to drive your plug ins… and you could open up a new revenue steam, buy selling it to maya users for twice as much ;) Seriously there is nothing like Marvelous Designer for high end work... (did I say I hate that name and every time I say or read it I think of Billy Crystal) Thanks for hearing our plea! Greg *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Sebastien Sterling *Sent:* Sunday, November 10, 2013 10:46 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Cloth Character Workflow in Soft Never heard of Qualoth, there don't seem to be many examples on there site, though there client list is extensive to say the least On 10 November 2013 00:25, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In film, people love Maya nCloth. But another one that comes up a bit is Qualoth. also a maya plug-in. http://www.qualoth.com
ICE Topology transfer UVs from a group? HALP!
Hi Learning ICE. I've done a compound to add some stuff to Create Copies from Polygon Mesh as seen here http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=15t=4484 to LWSI transition. A guy asked me what about random shapes. And I proceeded to actually do a compound from scratch to support groups. Made some cool advancements added more stuff. But when it comes to UV transfer I can't advance. Tried to simple copypaste the UV transfer bit from Create Copies from Polygon Mesh and doesn't work with groups, since PolygonToNodes just turns red. I guess one way around could be that instead of a group I have to bring to ICE each group's polymesh and treat them split ways and use them in the same order as their group ID. That's really not practical though :( Also even if I pass that I don't know how Modulo modulate instead by a fixed number, say 3 for example: ABC-DEF-GHI use an array 2-4-1-3 like in AB-CDEF-G-HIJ, that array would be the order and the number of nodes of each copy, like: cube(24), tetrahedron (12), cube(24), wedge(18), etc... Pics help I guess: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/143766132/Forums/SI-MailingList/Group-UV.png If a scene it's needed I'll provide a simple clean one (yeah it's quite messy up to now) Sometimes I wish all these properties were a bit more sticky, ehehe :) Thanks in advance. Pedro Alpiarça dos Santos
ICE Topology transfer UVs from a group?
Hi Learning ICE. I've done a compound to add some stuff to Create Copies from Polygon Mesh as seen herehttp://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=15t=4484to LWSI transition. A guy asked me what about random shapes. And I proceeded to actually do a compound from scratch to support groups. Made some cool advancements added more stuff. But when it comes to UV transfer I can't advance. Tried to simple copypaste the UV transfer bit from Create Copies from Polygon Mesh and doesn't work with groups, since PolygonToNodes just turns red. I guess one way around could be that instead of a group I have to bring to ICE each group's polymesh and treat them split ways and use them in the same order as their group ID. That's really not practical though :( Also even if I pass that I don't know how Modulo modulate instead by a fixed number, say 3 for example: ABC-DEF-GHI use an array 2-4-1-3 like in AB-CDEF-G-HIJ, that array would be the order and the number of nodes of each copy, like: cube(24), tetrahedron (12), cube(24), wedge(18), etc... Pics help I guess: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/143766132/Forums/SI-MailingList/Group-UV.png If a scene it's needed I'll provide a simple clean one (yeah it's quite messy up to now) Sometimes I wish all these properties were a bit more sticky, ehehe :) Thanks in advance. Pedro Alpiarça dos Santos
Re: semi OT: flying from space to street level
Also...check out Google's 3D warehouse...LOTS of cities, an buildings, in there http://www.sketchup.com/products/3D-warehouse It is worth the purchase of Sketchup Pro. It can export many 3D file formats On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:09 AM, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Has anyone on the list done the shot where you start from space and fly towards the earth, eventually landing at street level? In this case, I'm being asked about flying in to a recognizable location rather than a generic city in the future/alternative sci-fi universe. Specifically Soho in NY. I'd appreciate any tips or warnings about what methods work well what to avoid. Thanks, Paul -- Best Regards, * Stephen P. Davidson* *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* - Arthur C. Clarke http://www.3danimationmagic.com
Re: About SI spring tails
I was a little busy dealing with these spring tails. I decided to continue with this annoying workflow until I get some time to learn how to use MT Spring or give the gear version a try. So far I haven't been able to find a way to automatize it in my workflow. I mean I can do it manually with one or two chars, but doing it with dozens of characters... I think I would still need to polish the animation manually so I don't really need collisions, but it would be nice to have it. Thanks Alan ! I'm looking forward to your next video. Martin On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 4:26 AM, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.comwrote: You can do some nice springs with strands, too. I might make a TDSurvival video about it when I get the chance. On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.comwrote: Yes MT Spring is the way to go. Recently I used it on one of my game characters. I was looking for a nice jiggle and a tail. I used MT Spring on both. It works great for the fat jiggle as well. On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com wrote: Mt Spring is very polished, but if you need collisions why not use rbds? There are also some nice icekine videos on the web, but I can't recall nothing as polished as mt being distributed freely out there, so you would have to cook your own. --
