Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Meng-Yang Lu]

Hey Matt,

Spent the afternoon digging a bit.  It's really nicely explained in the HDK
with examples.

I would start here as SOPs are the beginnings of all things Houdini.
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__op_basics__sop.html

Followed by Houdini Geometry to show the data structure.
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__geometry__intro.html

And Houdini File System for read/write:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__f_s.html

Look at writing ROPs too as it will let you do sequences of things.  Both
could work.

The way Houdini's geometry work is indeed procedural.  By default, the
result of the node tree is held in memory.  However, every node in SOPs has
a lock flag that essentially bakes the result of the nodes into the file.
 Once a node is locked, everything upstream doesn't matter and it's
essentially frozen.  This can make for big .hip files so the workflow is to
usually write out the data and read it back in as to not evaluate every
time.  When we write out a .geo or .bgeo file, we're essentially stripping
the history away.

You can make your node reference Houdini's node path to choose from which
point you want to write out.  OR, you can connect the node at any part of
the tree and just rely on the input to get your data in GU_Details.

Doesn't look so scary now that I'm looking at it.  Famous last words...  :P

-Lu











On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 4:32 PM, Matt Lind  wrote:

> Have you or anybody else tried to write importers/exporters for Houdini?
>
> We would need to write an importer to migrate Softimage data, and an
> exporter to dump data to our game engine.  In softimage, evaluating a mesh
> is mostly taken care of by the SDK as it evaluates the construction history
> and hands you the final result depending where in the stack you ask it to
> evaluate.  Since Houdini is procedural and doesn't have a concept of a
> 'frozen' mesh, how do they handle this?
>
>
> Matt
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Andy Nicholas [mailto:a...@andynicholas.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 4:07 PM
> To: Matt Lind; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: RE: Houdini Weaknesses
>
>  Yep. Just check out Houdini's digital assets (also known as OTL's).
> They'll do much of what you need and more. You can hide and lock stuff up
> to your heart's content if you need to be protective about functionality or
> content. It'll never be fool proof, but you can at least make it hard to
> break.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 at 23:45 Matt Lind  wrote:
>
> > I think Softimage is OK on that front.  Good in some areas, lacking in
> others.
> >  Almost anything we've had to do Softimage got us 80% of the way there
> > fairly quickly, but the problem has always been getting that last 20%
> > which is often the most critical part.  I've probably spent more time
> > than I've cared for to work around the lacking points or limitations.
> > The lack of open file format and ability to deal with nested models
> reliably has been a hindrance.
> >  Softimage relies too much on top-down cascading propagation and needs
> > more support for lateral relationships such as groups and sets to
> > establish dependencies.
> >
> > Basically I've had to come up with a logical design for a pipeline
> > that can accommodate the file structures/dependencies of both
> > Softimage and our game assets and it hasn't always been easy.  Having
> > a new environment with different rules would put a fresh spin on the
> problem.
> >
> >
> > Matt
> >
> >
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Andy Nicholas [mailto:a...@andynicholas.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:36 PM
> > To: Matt Lind; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> > Subject: RE: Houdini Weaknesses
> >
> >  God yes. With bells on.
> >
> > If you think that Softimage is good on that front, you'll fall
> > hopelessly in love with Houdini.
> >
> > A
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>

Re: RPF files?

[Francisco Criado]

You can get most of the typical data from rpf in different channels or
passes, do you need anything specific?

F.
El may 22, 2014 9:41 PM, "Alan Fregtman"  escribió:

> Nope.
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 4:48 PM, John Richard Sanchez <
> youngupstar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there any way to render out .rpf files from XSI?
>> Thanks
>> John
>>
>> --
>> www.johnrichardsanchez.com
>>
>
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sebastien Sterling]

Sergio is spot on in his description.

i had not heard of Scene states either.

http://synergiscadblog.com/2013/03/22/friday-3ds-max-video-tip-how-to-use-the-scene-state-manager/

Max is a nice user friendly package, but it is being severely neglected. no
alembic no open subdiv, no viewport 2.0  and no prospects, maya is slowly
taking over its game industry share. modo is probably a better arch design
package. no support from major 3rd party renderers, with the exception of
Vray.

it's sad, Sergio is right about that too.


On 23 May 2014 01:01, Steven Caron  wrote:

> they work, but when i was at blur we didn't use them. watch out there is
> no way of knowing which scene state you are in.
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Sergio Muciño wrote:
>
>> Sorry, I got mixed up. It's Scene States.
>> Render elements are the old system.
>> Saludos Manuel!
>>
>>
>> Sergio M.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>

Re: Export Pointclouds for other apps

[Ed Manning]

Hello,

There's *another* update of emTopolizer2 available, yessiree!
Even though the last update was only six weeks ago, this new version
(v.2.3) has quite some fixes, many little improvements and - most
importantly - a new set of compounds called *"**Particle Cache File**"*.
These new ICE compounds allow you to read, write and convert many different
particle cache file formats, such as '.bgeo', '.bin', '.pdb', 'mc' and
'.ptc', making it easy to import some alien particles into an ICE Tree or
export lovely ICE particles to another application such as Houdini, Maya,
and so on. For a complete list of supported file formats please check out
the chapter "Supported File Formats" in the emTopolizer2 online
documentation.

The following video tutorial demonstrates the usage of these new compounds:
http://vimeo.com/95729676

The new addon can be found here:
http://www.mootzoid.com/plugin/emtopolizer2

To order or upgrade you can either go to the order page
http://www.mootzoid.com/order or just drop me an email.

Thanks!

Take care,
Eric


PS: to unsubscribe from the Mootzoid newsletter:
http://www.mootzoid.com/newsletter

Re: RPF files?

[Alan Fregtman]

Nope.



On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 4:48 PM, John Richard Sanchez <
youngupstar...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there any way to render out .rpf files from XSI?
> Thanks
> John
>
> --
> www.johnrichardsanchez.com
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Steven Caron]

they work, but when i was at blur we didn't use them. watch out there is no
way of knowing which scene state you are in.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 4:57 PM, Sergio Muciño wrote:

> Sorry, I got mixed up. It's Scene States.
> Render elements are the old system.
> Saludos Manuel!
>
>
> Sergio M.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sergio Muciño]

Sorry, I got mixed up. It's Scene States. 
Render elements are the old system.
Saludos Manuel!

Sergio M. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 22, 2014, at 5:00 PM, Manuel Huertas Marchena  
> wrote:
> 
> thought max didn't have passes at all... as most times when I was asking 
> people they were pointing me the render elements...which for sure are not the 
> same...
>  good to know, gracias Sergio ;)
> 
> -Manu
> 
> 
> 
> IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo | Linkedin
> 
> 
> Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage,   how did you get over 
> your it on your daily basis?
> From: sergio.muc...@gmail.com
> Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 16:41:54 -0400
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> 
> In Max they're called State Sets. 
> 
> Sergio M. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On May 22, 2014, at 4:19 PM, Manuel Huertas Marchena  
> wrote:
> 
> "How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax,"...ehhh render passes, if 
> you find them in max let me know! :)
> 
> 
> 
> IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo | Linkedin
> 
> 
> Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage,   how did you get over 
> your it on your daily basis?
> From: sergio.muc...@gmail.com
> Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 16:17:02 -0400
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> 
> Max's tools are mostly built to be productive right out of the box. It's a 
> right-to-the-point application that can also be quite flexible and 
> procedural. 
> The downside is that a lot of stuff in there is so neglected and broken, that 
> it's just sad. You're going to spend some time finding workarounds to things, 
> and learning what's broken and what's not. 
> Also, Max relies a lot on third-party plugins to address lots of its 
> limitations. Be ready to spend some cash on some of those if you want truly 
> first-class quality tools.
> MAXScript is a very friendly language to learn. Very capable too. 
> Scripting-wise, Max is not of the best applications I've used to date. The 
> scripter is based on SCITE, so it is very nice, and has some great features. 
> Max now also supports Python. I have not used it yet, so I cannot comment 
> there.
> There is a humongous library of available  scripts and tools for free out 
> there. Keep these two links handy...
> www.scriptspot.com
> www.maxplugins.de
> 
> If you want to look into ICE-like development, check out Ephere's Lab tool. 
> It's headed in that direction.
> Let me know if you have more specific questions. Cheers!
> 
> Sergio Muciño.
> Sent from my iPad.
> 
> On May 22, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Ryan Maguire  wrote:
> 
> How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started learning it 
> ... But I like it more and more each day.
> 
> Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive 
> experience in max... 

RE: Houdini Weaknesses

[Matt Lind]

Have you or anybody else tried to write importers/exporters for Houdini?

We would need to write an importer to migrate Softimage data, and an exporter 
to dump data to our game engine.  In softimage, evaluating a mesh is mostly 
taken care of by the SDK as it evaluates the construction history and hands you 
the final result depending where in the stack you ask it to evaluate.  Since 
Houdini is procedural and doesn't have a concept of a 'frozen' mesh, how do 
they handle this?


Matt






-Original Message-
From: Andy Nicholas [mailto:a...@andynicholas.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 4:07 PM
To: Matt Lind; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Houdini Weaknesses

 Yep. Just check out Houdini's digital assets (also known as OTL's). They'll do 
much of what you need and more. You can hide and lock stuff up to your heart's 
content if you need to be protective about functionality or content. It'll 
never be fool proof, but you can at least make it hard to break.





On 22 May 2014 at 23:45 Matt Lind  wrote:

> I think Softimage is OK on that front.  Good in some areas, lacking in others.
>  Almost anything we've had to do Softimage got us 80% of the way there 
> fairly quickly, but the problem has always been getting that last 20% 
> which is often the most critical part.  I've probably spent more time 
> than I've cared for to work around the lacking points or limitations.  
> The lack of open file format and ability to deal with nested models reliably 
> has been a hindrance.
>  Softimage relies too much on top-down cascading propagation and needs 
> more support for lateral relationships such as groups and sets to 
> establish dependencies.
>
> Basically I've had to come up with a logical design for a pipeline 
> that can accommodate the file structures/dependencies of both 
> Softimage and our game assets and it hasn't always been easy.  Having 
> a new environment with different rules would put a fresh spin on the problem.
>
>
> Matt
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Andy Nicholas [mailto:a...@andynicholas.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:36 PM
> To: Matt Lind; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: RE: Houdini Weaknesses
>
>  God yes. With bells on.
>
> If you think that Softimage is good on that front, you'll fall 
> hopelessly in love with Houdini.
>
> A
>
>
> 
>

RE: Houdini Weaknesses

[Andy Nicholas]

 Yep. Just check out Houdini's digital assets (also known as OTL's). They'll do
much of what you need and more. You can hide and lock stuff up to your heart's
content if you need to be protective about functionality or content. It'll never
be fool proof, but you can at least make it hard to break.





On 22 May 2014 at 23:45 Matt Lind  wrote:

> I think Softimage is OK on that front.  Good in some areas, lacking in others.
>  Almost anything we've had to do Softimage got us 80% of the way there fairly
> quickly, but the problem has always been getting that last 20% which is often
> the most critical part.  I've probably spent more time than I've cared for to
> work around the lacking points or limitations.  The lack of open file format
> and ability to deal with nested models reliably has been a hindrance.
>  Softimage relies too much on top-down cascading propagation and needs more
> support for lateral relationships such as groups and sets to establish
> dependencies.
>
> Basically I've had to come up with a logical design for a pipeline that can
> accommodate the file structures/dependencies of both Softimage and our game
> assets and it hasn't always been easy.  Having a new environment with
> different rules would put a fresh spin on the problem.
>
>
> Matt
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Andy Nicholas [mailto:a...@andynicholas.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:36 PM
> To: Matt Lind; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: RE: Houdini Weaknesses
>
>  God yes. With bells on.
>
> If you think that Softimage is good on that front, you'll fall hopelessly in
> love with Houdini.
>
> A
>
>
> 
>

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Andy Nicholas]

 Heh! Yeah right. Like you need me to ;)



On 22 May 2014 at 23:11 Meng-Yang Lu  wrote:


> I'm trying to correlate the languages of both packages.
> 
>  Maybe Andy Nicholas can double-check my work but Houdini Attributes behave
> like custom data throughout all component and object levels of any asset.
>Groups act like clusters which you can use to apply whatever attribute
> (metadata) you want and impart various behaviors based on them.
> 
>  As far as things being tamper proof I'm not sure.  The Mr. Potatohead
> reference is absolutely doable and probably easier imo than Softimage.
>  There's a whole ecosystem built around managing arbitrary data in Houdini.
> 
>  -Lu
> 
> 
> 
>  On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Matt Lind   > wrote:
>> > Replicating bullets and stuff like that is not the kind of carbon
>> > copying we need as cloning would cause problems.  Every asset needs to
>> > be unique and trackable, so having a master mesh and running a bunch of
>> > ops to clone/duplicate/instance is not really the target we’re aiming
>> > for.  Although that functionality is useful, it’d probably be more
>> > directed at building parts of environments than characters or props.
> > 
> >What we need is the ability to constrain users from going outside the
> > lines we’ve drawn.  Imagine a yard with tall electrified fences.  Users are
> > allowed to roam anywhere in the yard, but are not allowed outside the fence.
> >  As we iterate on our pipeline, we push the fences further and further out
> > to get users more room to roam.  But the constant is we need to persist
> > metadata on the assets and prevent that metadata from being inadvertently
> > modified as well as ensure the metadata is applied in such a way it can be
> > reliably found and relied upon to drive tools and behaviors within the
> > pipeline.
> > 
> >For example.
> > 
> >Our characters are built like Mr. Potato head dolls.  They are not a
> > single seamless mesh.  There is a base body mesh, but holes left for other
> > parts to plug in such as ears, faces, hair, clothing, etc…   The locations
> > for the body parts are defined by clusters, custom properties, and other
> > metadata.  Once the character is defined it’s placed in a referenced model
> > to prevent users from tampering with the metadata to ensure tools are
> > reliable and can find, track, and assemble the parts with other assets to
> > create what the artist needs to pull into a scene to do his/her work.  Same
> > rules and generalities apply to other areas of the pipeline.  Render passes
> > are used to allow artists to build the environment geometry once, and
> > redress it many times with texture and shader swaps.  Since some of the
> > metadata describes components which customers can purchase, the assigned IDs
> > for the components needs to be maintained and be tamper proof.
> > 
> >Does Houdini offer mechanisms to control assets in this fashion to ensure
> > data integrity year over year in a fluid pipeline?
> > 
> > 
> >Matt
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
> > 
> > [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
> >  ] On Behalf Of Meng-Yang Lu
> >Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:18 PM
> >To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> > 
> >Subject: Re: Houdini Weaknesses
> > 
> >This is actually where Houdini shines.  Taking something that exists and
> > manipulating the DATA to create something new.
> > 
> > 
> >Say you've got characters that have like belts of ammo as an accessory.
> >  You can create a dependency saying something like... if you choose type
> > bullet, it also drives the number of bullets on the belt.  So if you choose
> > type grenade which are larger in size, that type can drive the lesser number
> > of grenades on the belt.  Between nodes like copy/stamp and switches, you
> > can build these into your system.  You could, if all the assets are there,
> > build a character creation system seen in a lot of games if you wish.  Even
> > up to clever things like stating which type of weapon the character is
> > holding.  Like if a weapon is two-handed by type, you could never have a
> > single-offhand accessory, thus never having things that could conflict if
> > both existed.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >The best way to think of Houdini is not just an FX tool.  It's an
> > operating system that manages 3D data and does it extremely well.  This is
> > why it takes a long time to build the setup, but the payoff is that over
> > time, you gain a huge advantage of creating various version of one thing as
> > long as you've built it into your setup.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >Modeling and texturing really should be done somewhere else.  But once
> > those assets are create and you want to manipulate it, Houd

RE: Houdini Weaknesses

[Matt Lind]

I think Softimage is OK on that front.  Good in some areas, lacking in others.  
Almost anything we've had to do Softimage got us 80% of the way there fairly 
quickly, but the problem has always been getting that last 20% which is often 
the most critical part.  I've probably spent more time than I've cared for to 
work around the lacking points or limitations.  The lack of open file format 
and ability to deal with nested models reliably has been a hindrance.  
Softimage relies too much on top-down cascading propagation and needs more 
support for lateral relationships such as groups and sets to establish 
dependencies.

Basically I've had to come up with a logical design for a pipeline that can 
accommodate the file structures/dependencies of both Softimage and our game 
assets and it hasn't always been easy.  Having a new environment with different 
rules would put a fresh spin on the problem.


Matt



-Original Message-
From: Andy Nicholas [mailto:a...@andynicholas.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:36 PM
To: Matt Lind; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Houdini Weaknesses

 God yes. With bells on.

If you think that Softimage is good on that front, you'll fall hopelessly in 
love with Houdini.

A


 

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Meng-Yang Lu]

I'm trying to correlate the languages of both packages.

Maybe Andy Nicholas can double-check my work but Houdini Attributes behave
like custom data throughout all component and object levels of any asset.
 Groups act like clusters which you can use to apply whatever attribute
(metadata) you want and impart various behaviors based on them.

As far as things being tamper proof I'm not sure.  The Mr. Potatohead
reference is absolutely doable and probably easier imo than Softimage.
 There's a whole ecosystem built around managing arbitrary data in Houdini.


-Lu


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Matt Lind  wrote:

> Replicating bullets and stuff like that is not the kind of carbon copying
> we need as cloning would cause problems.  Every asset needs to be unique
> and trackable, so having a master mesh and running a bunch of ops to
> clone/duplicate/instance is not really the target we’re aiming for.
> Although that functionality is useful, it’d probably be more directed at
> building parts of environments than characters or props.
>
>
>
> What we need is the ability to constrain users from going outside the
> lines we’ve drawn.  Imagine a yard with tall electrified fences.  Users are
> allowed to roam anywhere in the yard, but are not allowed outside the
> fence.  As we iterate on our pipeline, we push the fences further and
> further out to get users more room to roam.  But the constant is we need to
> persist metadata on the assets and prevent that metadata from being
> inadvertently modified as well as ensure the metadata is applied in such a
> way it can be reliably found and relied upon to drive tools and behaviors
> within the pipeline.
>
>
>
> For example.
>
>
>
> Our characters are built like Mr. Potato head dolls.  They are not a
> single seamless mesh.  There is a base body mesh, but holes left for other
> parts to plug in such as ears, faces, hair, clothing, etc…   The locations
> for the body parts are defined by clusters, custom properties, and other
> metadata.  Once the character is defined it’s placed in a referenced model
> to prevent users from tampering with the metadata to ensure tools are
> reliable and can find, track, and assemble the parts with other assets to
> create what the artist needs to pull into a scene to do his/her work.  Same
> rules and generalities apply to other areas of the pipeline.  Render passes
> are used to allow artists to build the environment geometry once, and
> redress it many times with texture and shader swaps.  Since some of the
> metadata describes components which customers can purchase, the assigned
> IDs for the components needs to be maintained and be tamper proof.
>
>
>
> Does Houdini offer mechanisms to control assets in this fashion to ensure
> data integrity year over year in a fluid pipeline?
>
>
>
>
>
> Matt
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Meng-Yang Lu
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:18 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Houdini Weaknesses
>
>
>
> This is actually where Houdini shines.  Taking something that exists and
> manipulating the DATA to create something new.
>
>
>
> Say you've got characters that have like belts of ammo as an accessory.
>  You can create a dependency saying something like... if you choose type
> bullet, it also drives the number of bullets on the belt.  So if you choose
> type grenade which are larger in size, that type can drive the lesser
> number of grenades on the belt.  Between nodes like copy/stamp and
> switches, you can build these into your system.  You could, if all the
> assets are there, build a character creation system seen in a lot of games
> if you wish.  Even up to clever things like stating which type of weapon
> the character is holding.  Like if a weapon is two-handed by type, you
> could never have a single-offhand accessory, thus never having things that
> could conflict if both existed.
>
>
>
> The best way to think of Houdini is not just an FX tool.  It's an
> operating system that manages 3D data and does it extremely well.  This is
> why it takes a long time to build the setup, but the payoff is that over
> time, you gain a huge advantage of creating various version of one thing as
> long as you've built it into your setup.
>
>
>
> Modeling and texturing really should be done somewhere else.  But once
> those assets are create and you want to manipulate it, Houdini become a
> really powerful ally in this case.
>
>
>
> -Lu
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Matt Lind 
> wrote:
>
> That makes sense for an FX workflow as every project is essentially
> unique, but in a production where you churn out a lot of carbon copies or
> variations of the same content, how well does Houdini’s framework/workflows
> cater to that?  For example, are there mechanisms or abilities to enforce
> certain ways of working?  That’s probably our biggest concern as our
> con

RE: Houdini Weaknesses

[Andy Nicholas]

 God yes. With bells on.

If you think that Softimage is good on that front, you'll fall hopelessly in
love with Houdini.

A



On 22 May 2014 at 22:29 Matt Lind  wrote:


> Replicating bullets and stuff like that is not the kind of carbon copying we
> need as cloning would cause problems.  Every asset needs to be unique and
> trackable, so having a master mesh and running a bunch of ops to
> clone/duplicate/instance is not really the target we’re aiming for.  Although
> that functionality is useful, it’d probably be more directed at building parts
> of environments than characters or props.
> 
>  What we need is the ability to constrain users from going outside the lines
> we’ve drawn.  Imagine a yard with tall electrified fences.  Users are allowed
> to roam anywhere in the yard, but are not allowed outside the fence.  As we
> iterate on our pipeline, we push the fences further and further out to get
> users more room to roam.  But the constant is we need to persist metadata on
> the assets and prevent that metadata from being inadvertently modified as well
> as ensure the metadata is applied in such a way it can be reliably found and
> relied upon to drive tools and behaviors within the pipeline.
> 
>  For example.
> 
>  Our characters are built like Mr. Potato head dolls.  They are not a single
> seamless mesh.  There is a base body mesh, but holes left for other parts to
> plug in such as ears, faces, hair, clothing, etc…   The locations for the body
> parts are defined by clusters, custom properties, and other metadata.  Once
> the character is defined it’s placed in a referenced model to prevent users
> from tampering with the metadata to ensure tools are reliable and can find,
> track, and assemble the parts with other assets to create what the artist
> needs to pull into a scene to do his/her work.  Same rules and generalities
> apply to other areas of the pipeline.  Render passes are used to allow artists
> to build the environment geometry once, and redress it many times with texture
> and shader swaps.  Since some of the metadata describes components which
> customers can purchase, the assigned IDs for the components needs to be
> maintained and be tamper proof.
> 
>  Does Houdini offer mechanisms to control assets in this fashion to ensure
> data integrity year over year in a fluid pipeline?
> 
> 
>  Matt
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Meng-Yang Lu
>  Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:18 PM
>  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>  Subject: Re: Houdini Weaknesses
> 
>  This is actually where Houdini shines.  Taking something that exists and
> manipulating the DATA to create something new.
> 
>  Say you've got characters that have like belts of ammo as an accessory.  You
> can create a dependency saying something like... if you choose type bullet, it
> also drives the number of bullets on the belt.  So if you choose type grenade
> which are larger in size, that type can drive the lesser number of grenades on
> the belt.  Between nodes like copy/stamp and switches, you can build these
> into your system.  You could, if all the assets are there, build a character
> creation system seen in a lot of games if you wish.  Even up to clever things
> like stating which type of weapon the character is holding.  Like if a weapon
> is two-handed by type, you could never have a single-offhand accessory, thus
> never having things that could conflict if both existed.
> 
> 
>  The best way to think of Houdini is not just an FX tool.  It's an operating
> system that manages 3D data and does it extremely well.  This is why it takes
> a long time to build the setup, but the payoff is that over time, you gain a
> huge advantage of creating various version of one thing as long as you've
> built it into your setup.
> 
> 
>  Modeling and texturing really should be done somewhere else.  But once those
> assets are create and you want to manipulate it, Houdini become a really
> powerful ally in this case.
> 
> 
>  -Lu
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Matt Lind   > wrote:
>  That makes sense for an FX workflow as every project is essentially unique,
> but in a production where you churn out a lot of carbon copies or variations
> of the same content, how well does Houdini’s framework/workflows cater to
> that?  For example, are there mechanisms or abilities to enforce certain ways
> of working?  That’s probably our biggest concern as our content has to be
> functional, not just look good.  To be functional requires certain elements be
> consistently defined on the assets and the asset structured in particular
> ways.
> 
>  One weakness I see so far is the lack of API for hardware shader development.
> GLSL is there, but it’s slow compared to straight OpenGL.  I haven’t looked
> very deeply, but at a quick glance I don’t see any Direct X support.
> 
>  One thing that would b

RE: Houdini Weaknesses

[Matt Lind]

Replicating bullets and stuff like that is not the kind of carbon copying we 
need as cloning would cause problems.  Every asset needs to be unique and 
trackable, so having a master mesh and running a bunch of ops to 
clone/duplicate/instance is not really the target we’re aiming for.  Although 
that functionality is useful, it’d probably be more directed at building parts 
of environments than characters or props.

What we need is the ability to constrain users from going outside the lines 
we’ve drawn.  Imagine a yard with tall electrified fences.  Users are allowed 
to roam anywhere in the yard, but are not allowed outside the fence.  As we 
iterate on our pipeline, we push the fences further and further out to get 
users more room to roam.  But the constant is we need to persist metadata on 
the assets and prevent that metadata from being inadvertently modified as well 
as ensure the metadata is applied in such a way it can be reliably found and 
relied upon to drive tools and behaviors within the pipeline.

For example.

Our characters are built like Mr. Potato head dolls.  They are not a single 
seamless mesh.  There is a base body mesh, but holes left for other parts to 
plug in such as ears, faces, hair, clothing, etc…   The locations for the body 
parts are defined by clusters, custom properties, and other metadata.  Once the 
character is defined it’s placed in a referenced model to prevent users from 
tampering with the metadata to ensure tools are reliable and can find, track, 
and assemble the parts with other assets to create what the artist needs to 
pull into a scene to do his/her work.  Same rules and generalities apply to 
other areas of the pipeline.  Render passes are used to allow artists to build 
the environment geometry once, and redress it many times with texture and 
shader swaps.  Since some of the metadata describes components which customers 
can purchase, the assigned IDs for the components needs to be maintained and be 
tamper proof.

Does Houdini offer mechanisms to control assets in this fashion to ensure data 
integrity year over year in a fluid pipeline?


Matt





From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Meng-Yang Lu
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:18 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Houdini Weaknesses

This is actually where Houdini shines.  Taking something that exists and 
manipulating the DATA to create something new.

Say you've got characters that have like belts of ammo as an accessory.  You 
can create a dependency saying something like... if you choose type bullet, it 
also drives the number of bullets on the belt.  So if you choose type grenade 
which are larger in size, that type can drive the lesser number of grenades on 
the belt.  Between nodes like copy/stamp and switches, you can build these into 
your system.  You could, if all the assets are there, build a character 
creation system seen in a lot of games if you wish.  Even up to clever things 
like stating which type of weapon the character is holding.  Like if a weapon 
is two-handed by type, you could never have a single-offhand accessory, thus 
never having things that could conflict if both existed.

The best way to think of Houdini is not just an FX tool.  It's an operating 
system that manages 3D data and does it extremely well.  This is why it takes a 
long time to build the setup, but the payoff is that over time, you gain a huge 
advantage of creating various version of one thing as long as you've built it 
into your setup.

Modeling and texturing really should be done somewhere else.  But once those 
assets are create and you want to manipulate it, Houdini become a really 
powerful ally in this case.

-Lu



On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Matt Lind 
mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com>> wrote:
That makes sense for an FX workflow as every project is essentially unique, but 
in a production where you churn out a lot of carbon copies or variations of the 
same content, how well does Houdini’s framework/workflows cater to that?  For 
example, are there mechanisms or abilities to enforce certain ways of working?  
That’s probably our biggest concern as our content has to be functional, not 
just look good.  To be functional requires certain elements be consistently 
defined on the assets and the asset structured in particular ways.

One weakness I see so far is the lack of API for hardware shader development. 
GLSL is there, but it’s slow compared to straight OpenGL.  I haven’t looked 
very deeply, but at a quick glance I don’t see any Direct X support.

One thing that would be really useful for the transition guides is more focus 
on modeling and texturing.   Houdini seems to have  the basic building blocks, 
but the rest has to be developed/configured by the user.

Matt




From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autode

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Francois Lord]

I have the very same problem with ICE anyway.

On 22-May-14 17:07, Andy Nicholas wrote:

  Lots of good comments on this thread.


One last thing that just occurred to me... It's very easy to have lots of fun
building cool tools, playing with new features, investigating new ways of doing
things in a virtual playground of awesome 3D technology. Yep... Very very easy
indeed.

Why's that a problem? Because sometimes you forget you're actually there to do a
shot with a very real deadline.

Oops.

Seriously. I've seen it happen so many times where people (myself included) fall
down the rabbit hole, playing with things, trying to figure out why their
particular workflow doesn't work. Often there's a really simple solution, but
it's very easy to get fixated on the technical issue at hand.

It's always worth asking yourself every 30 minutes; is this the best use of my
time?

:)




Dnia 21 maj 2014 o godz. 20:42 Francois Lord mailto:flordli...@gmail.com> > napisał(a):


> >> So...

> What are houdini weaknesses? What is missing in Houdini compared to
> Softimage? Would you run a company only using Houdini as 3D app? Why
> not?


  >

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Andy Nicholas]

 Lots of good comments on this thread.


One last thing that just occurred to me... It's very easy to have lots of fun
building cool tools, playing with new features, investigating new ways of doing
things in a virtual playground of awesome 3D technology. Yep... Very very easy
indeed.

Why's that a problem? Because sometimes you forget you're actually there to do a
shot with a very real deadline.

Oops.

Seriously. I've seen it happen so many times where people (myself included) fall
down the rabbit hole, playing with things, trying to figure out why their
particular workflow doesn't work. Often there's a really simple solution, but
it's very easy to get fixated on the technical issue at hand.

It's always worth asking yourself every 30 minutes; is this the best use of my
time?

:)




Dnia 21 maj 2014 o godz. 20:42 Francois Lord mailto:flordli...@gmail.com> > napisał(a):

>> >> So...
> >> What are houdini weaknesses? What is missing in Houdini compared to
> >> Softimage? Would you run a company only using Houdini as 3D app? Why
> >> not?
> > 
> > 
> >  > 
> 

RE: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Manuel Huertas Marchena]

thought max didn't have passes at all... as most times when I was asking people 
they were pointing me the render elements...which for sure are not the same... 
good to know, gracias Sergio ;)
-Manu


IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo
| Linkedin


Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over 
your it on your daily basis?
From: sergio.muc...@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 16:41:54 -0400
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

In Max they're called State Sets. 

Sergio M. 
Sent from my iPhone
On May 22, 2014, at 4:19 PM, Manuel Huertas Marchena  
wrote:




"How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax,"...ehhh render passes, if you 
find them in max let me know! :)


IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo
| Linkedin


Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over 
your it on your daily basis?
From: sergio.muc...@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 16:17:02 -0400
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

Max's tools are mostly built to be productive right out of the box. It's a 
right-to-the-point application that can also be quite flexible and procedural. 
The downside is that a lot of stuff in there is so neglected and broken, that 
it's just sad. You're going to spend some time finding workarounds to things, 
and learning what's broken and what's not. Also, Max relies a lot on 
third-party plugins to address lots of its limitations. Be ready to spend some 
cash on some of those if you want truly first-class quality tools.MAXScript is 
a very friendly language to learn. Very capable too. Scripting-wise, Max is not 
of the best applications I've used to date. The scripter is based on SCITE, so 
it is very nice, and has some great features. Max now also supports Python. I 
have not used it yet, so I cannot comment there.There is a humongous library of 
available  scripts and tools for free out there. Keep these two links 
handy...www.scriptspot.comwww.maxplugins.de
If you want to look into ICE-like development, check out Ephere's Lab tool. 
It's headed in that direction.Let me know if you have more specific questions. 
Cheers!
Sergio Muciño.Sent from my iPad.
On May 22, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Ryan Maguire  wrote:



How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started learning it 
... But I like it more and more each day.

Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive 
experience in max... 
  
  

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sergio Muciño]

In Max they're called State Sets. 

Sergio M. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 22, 2014, at 4:19 PM, Manuel Huertas Marchena  
> wrote:
> 
> "How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax,"...ehhh render passes, if 
> you find them in max let me know! :)
> 
> 
> 
> IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo | Linkedin
> 
> 
> Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage,   how did you get over 
> your it on your daily basis?
> From: sergio.muc...@gmail.com
> Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 16:17:02 -0400
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> 
> Max's tools are mostly built to be productive right out of the box. It's a 
> right-to-the-point application that can also be quite flexible and 
> procedural. 
> The downside is that a lot of stuff in there is so neglected and broken, that 
> it's just sad. You're going to spend some time finding workarounds to things, 
> and learning what's broken and what's not. 
> Also, Max relies a lot on third-party plugins to address lots of its 
> limitations. Be ready to spend some cash on some of those if you want truly 
> first-class quality tools.
> MAXScript is a very friendly language to learn. Very capable too. 
> Scripting-wise, Max is not of the best applications I've used to date. The 
> scripter is based on SCITE, so it is very nice, and has some great features. 
> Max now also supports Python. I have not used it yet, so I cannot comment 
> there.
> There is a humongous library of available  scripts and tools for free out 
> there. Keep these two links handy...
> www.scriptspot.com
> www.maxplugins.de
> 
> If you want to look into ICE-like development, check out Ephere's Lab tool. 
> It's headed in that direction.
> Let me know if you have more specific questions. Cheers!
> 
> Sergio Muciño.
> Sent from my iPad.
> 
> On May 22, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Ryan Maguire  wrote:
> 
> How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started learning it 
> ... But I like it more and more each day.
> 
> Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive 
> experience in max... 

RE: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Manuel Huertas Marchena]

"How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax,"...ehhh render passes, if you 
find them in max let me know! :)


IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo
| Linkedin


Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over 
your it on your daily basis?
From: sergio.muc...@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 16:17:02 -0400
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

Max's tools are mostly built to be productive right out of the box. It's a 
right-to-the-point application that can also be quite flexible and procedural. 
The downside is that a lot of stuff in there is so neglected and broken, that 
it's just sad. You're going to spend some time finding workarounds to things, 
and learning what's broken and what's not. Also, Max relies a lot on 
third-party plugins to address lots of its limitations. Be ready to spend some 
cash on some of those if you want truly first-class quality tools.MAXScript is 
a very friendly language to learn. Very capable too. Scripting-wise, Max is not 
of the best applications I've used to date. The scripter is based on SCITE, so 
it is very nice, and has some great features. Max now also supports Python. I 
have not used it yet, so I cannot comment there.There is a humongous library of 
available  scripts and tools for free out there. Keep these two links 
handy...www.scriptspot.comwww.maxplugins.de
If you want to look into ICE-like development, check out Ephere's Lab tool. 
It's headed in that direction.Let me know if you have more specific questions. 
Cheers!
Sergio Muciño.Sent from my iPad.
On May 22, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Ryan Maguire  wrote:



How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started learning it 
... But I like it more and more each day.

Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive 
experience in max... 
  

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sergio Mucino]

Max's tools are mostly built to be productive right out of the box. It's a 
right-to-the-point application that can also be quite flexible and procedural. 
The downside is that a lot of stuff in there is so neglected and broken, that 
it's just sad. You're going to spend some time finding workarounds to things, 
and learning what's broken and what's not. 
Also, Max relies a lot on third-party plugins to address lots of its 
limitations. Be ready to spend some cash on some of those if you want truly 
first-class quality tools.
MAXScript is a very friendly language to learn. Very capable too. 
Scripting-wise, Max is not of the best applications I've used to date. The 
scripter is based on SCITE, so it is very nice, and has some great features. 
Max now also supports Python. I have not used it yet, so I cannot comment there.
There is a humongous library of available  scripts and tools for free out 
there. Keep these two links handy...
www.scriptspot.com
www.maxplugins.de

If you want to look into ICE-like development, check out Ephere's Lab tool. 
It's headed in that direction.
Let me know if you have more specific questions. Cheers!

Sergio Muciño.
Sent from my iPad.

On May 22, 2014, at 3:07 PM, Ryan Maguire  wrote:

>> How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started learning it 
>> ... But I like it more and more each day.
> 
> Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive 
> experience in max... 

Re: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sebastien Sterling]

really annoying playblast bug, if your scene or your rigs are too heavy,
then
when you preview, the mesh will stay frozen in place while the bones move,
beware the modifier stack, it is not a construction history, every modifier
makes the stack more unstable.


On 22 May 2014 20:17, Sebastien Sterling wrote:

> the rigging constraints are very slow last i used in was in 2012 so that
> may have changed, the default hair is terrible. no idea if there is any
> fluid support., it's nice but very old, its more user friendly then maya,
> but old... AD are not treating it right, the love can not be felt :(.
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 20:07, Ryan Maguire  wrote:
>
>>  How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started
>>> learning it ... But I like it more and more each day.
>>>
>>
>> Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive
>> experience in max...
>>
>
>

Re: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sebastien Sterling]

the rigging constraints are very slow last i used in was in 2012 so that
may have changed, the default hair is terrible. no idea if there is any
fluid support., it's nice but very old, its more user friendly then maya,
but old... AD are not treating it right, the love can not be felt :(.


On 22 May 2014 20:07, Ryan Maguire  wrote:

>  How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started
>> learning it ... But I like it more and more each day.
>>
>
> Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive
> experience in max...
>

Re: Export Pointclouds for other apps

[Steven Caron]

https://vimeo.com/95729676


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:11 PM, olivier jeannel
wrote:

>  Alembic ?
>
> Le 22/05/2014 21:06, Tim Crowson a écrit :
>
> Is it possible to export ICE pointclouds to a format that other apps can
> use? I'm scattering some geometry and I'd like to export the pointcloud so
> I can rescatter in another app and have the same point positions
> --
>
>
>
>
> *Tim Crowson **Lead CG Artist*
>
>
> *Magnetic Dreams, Inc. *2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville,
> TN 37214
> *Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
> tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com
>
>
>

Re: Export Pointclouds for other apps

[olivier jeannel]

Alembic ?

Le 22/05/2014 21:06, Tim Crowson a écrit :
Is it possible to export ICE pointclouds to a format that other apps 
can use? I'm scattering some geometry and I'd like to export the 
pointcloud so I can rescatter in another app and have the same point 
positions

--
Signature

*Tim Crowson
*/Lead CG Artist/

*Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
*2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37214
*Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com

Re: Export Pointclouds for other apps

[Eric Thivierge]

There should be the maya cache formats in the cache manager / caching 
nodes...


On Thursday, May 22, 2014 3:06:06 PM, Tim Crowson wrote:

Is it possible to export ICE pointclouds to a format that other apps
can use? I'm scattering some geometry and I'd like to export the
pointcloud so I can rescatter in another app and have the same point
positions
--
Signature

*Tim Crowson
*/Lead CG Artist/

*Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
*2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37214
*Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com

Re: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Ryan Maguire]

>
> How come I don't hear anything about 3dsmax, I have just started learning
> it ... But I like it more and more each day.
>

Are there huge cons that I should be aware of?   Anyone who has extensive
experience in max...

Export Pointclouds for other apps

[Tim Crowson]

Is it possible to export ICE pointclouds to a format that other apps can 
use? I'm scattering some geometry and I'd like to export the pointcloud 
so I can rescatter in another app and have the same point positions

--
Signature

*Tim Crowson
*/Lead CG Artist/

*Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
*2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37214
*Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Andy Goehler]

Right you are, my Houdini love affair started quite while ago. But I truly fell 
in love with it when I did actual work in it. 

Andy 

On May 22, 2014, at 20:44, Cristobal Infante  wrote:

> I've got over it by diving into Houdini, to more I learn the more I want to 
> dive deeper ;). It's not a complete solution just yet, but I am sure it will 
> be ;)

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Christian Gotzinger]

>From everything I've seen so far, Houdini is built in a very logical
fashion, and I'm not under the impression that it's so much harder to learn
than other applications.

My experience with it has been very positive so far. I haven't had much
time to put aside for learning Houdini yet, I'd say I've spent about 8
hours watching tutorials and about 25 hours getting to know Houdini. When
working with the application myself, I exclusively looked at procedural
modeling because that's what I'll need it to do first and foremost.

The first steps were difficult, but once I grasped some general concepts I
got up to speed rather quickly. My main issue right now is not knowing all
the nodes and attributes there are. I discover new things every day, and I
enjoy the experience a lot. Things I've been wanting out of ICE for a long
time (support for generating curves, basic modeling operators like bevel,
support for strings and text, a symbiosis between ICE tree, render tree and
FX tree) are all built into Houdini. It feels like a paradise, the
possibilites seem endless.

Today I put together my first reasonably complex digital asset, and even
though I don't know Houdini well at all yet and ICE extremely well, I'd say
that it would have taken me longer to build the asset in ICE! On top of
that, in ICE I would have had to jump through several hoops due to lack of
curve support, the resulting tree would be a mess due to all the low level
nodes it would have required, and the resulting compound would not be as
easy to put together and turn into an artist-friendly UI.

I know that Houdini is not the greatest viewport modeler and probably has
some other shortcomings, but with regards to procedural modeling the
transition from ICE has been easy and pleasurable so far.

Christian


On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Artur Woźniak  wrote:

> Learning Curve
>
> Wysłane z iPhone'a
>
> Dnia 21 maj 2014 o godz. 20:42 Francois Lord 
> napisał(a):
>
> > So...
> > What are houdini weaknesses? What is missing in Houdini compared to
> Softimage? Would you run a company only using Houdini as 3D app? Why not?
>
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Andres Stephens]

I'm still relatively new to SI, and yes, it crashes a lot, but usually due to 
render problems mostly, the rest is fine. I am still learning lots and lots of 
it and I still see huge potential with it. I'm still just dabbling feet in the 
whole ICE realm, and still haven't used all the thirdparty awesomeness out 
there - so personally SI is still like a new cutting edge software to me, and 
the more ICE addons and other plugins I get later down the road, including 
Redshift, will always be like a major upgrade from the future - even if the 
actual core is not updated. It can last me quite some time till I've wrung 
enough juice out of it. And yes, I can still find some scalability even if I 
may not be able to buy many more seats after 2016. 

So… kinda sticking to it, it's like my elitist software that gets the job done 
quicker, cheaper and to better quality than competing studios here, and that is 
only with my limited skills and teaching for my interns! 

On the side I am learning more Blender; well it's Sculpting and UV and video 
editing and compositing, they cover my needs more than happily enough. 

Maybe later I will see how it's rendering and rigging/animation systems are, 
and eventually ride the Blender wagon into the future -  having visual arcs for 
Fcurves as an addon, just found.. it's cool, powerful, nifty really, also some 
neat full body IK systems, and a Non Linear Animation toolset, adequate for not 
being something out of Autodesk. 

I do feel a bit like… any where I go will be dangerous waters, and everything 
is relatively destructive with it's "history"…. I miss that flexibility with 
everything in SI and it's non-destructive and overridable everything pass like 
system and workflows.. And with that, for flexibility sake of the studio, it 
still will be a perfect swiss army knife, the secret weapon, and the main tool 
of where I'm working here… and I am sure in a few years or even more, I will 
still be able to compete. 







-Draise

Ph: +57 313 811 6821

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Emilio Hernandez]

Maybe we can submit tickets to AD...

---
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


2014-05-22 13:44 GMT-05:00 Sebastien Sterling 
:

> I think i mentioned before that if you have ten TD's waiting on you of
> course, i assume the experience becomes a lot more fun. but most places
> even medium businesses will not have that kind of work force.
>
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 19:25, Meng-Yang Lu  wrote:
>
>> If I were a modeler, animator, or lighter, AND I was absolved of all TD
>> responsibilities, I would absolutely love Maya.  This is the vast majority
>> of the artist experience.  It is being in an established shop with tools
>> already in place to get your work done or a team of TDs to make said tools.
>>  I'm surrounded by happy animators, modelers, and lighters. If they hit a
>> problem, they just submit a ticket and a magic email appears asking them to
>> restart Maya to receive the new goodies.
>>
>> For non-departmentalized facilities where one artist need to wear all
>> hats and FX artists, the Maya experience is a completely different one.
>>
>> Maya is the application I have the deepest knowledge in, but even with a
>> medium to shallow working knowledge in Softimage or Houdini, I find myself
>> being more productive over time in those application as a generalist/TD
>> than in Maya alone.
>>
>> If I had a nickel for questions starting with... "In Maya, can you..."
>>  The answer is always yes.  Getting to that "yes" more often than not is
>> really painful.
>>
>> -Lu
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
>> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Lol Lu
>>>
>>> It's amazing for this, this, this it sucks :)
>>>
>>> I believe qualoth has been discontinued. yes next person to offer a
>>> feature rich cloth solution will be a rich man/woman, may the Fabric enginz
>>> be with him.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22 May 2014 18:18, Halim Negadi  wrote:
>>>
 +6 Lu


 On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Meng-Yang Lu wrote:

> I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't
> meant to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we
> would've had something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still
> some cool thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy
> compared to applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by
> artists.
>
> Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff
> and animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
> animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
>  However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
> animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
> cost of shoddy user experience.
>
> Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a
> lot of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
> implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
> and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
> more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
> more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
> used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
> of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
> it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
> strength to leverage.
>
> Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles,
> and now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's 
> early
> stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
> would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
> plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.
>
> Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army
> that puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost 
> guaranteed
> you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
> though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
> packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
> to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
> with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
> that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
> you're smarter than the average bear.
>
> I still don't like it.
>
> -Lu
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever
>> made a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so litt

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

I think i mentioned before that if you have ten TD's waiting on you of
course, i assume the experience becomes a lot more fun. but most places
even medium businesses will not have that kind of work force.




On 22 May 2014 19:25, Meng-Yang Lu  wrote:

> If I were a modeler, animator, or lighter, AND I was absolved of all TD
> responsibilities, I would absolutely love Maya.  This is the vast majority
> of the artist experience.  It is being in an established shop with tools
> already in place to get your work done or a team of TDs to make said tools.
>  I'm surrounded by happy animators, modelers, and lighters. If they hit a
> problem, they just submit a ticket and a magic email appears asking them to
> restart Maya to receive the new goodies.
>
> For non-departmentalized facilities where one artist need to wear all hats
> and FX artists, the Maya experience is a completely different one.
>
> Maya is the application I have the deepest knowledge in, but even with a
> medium to shallow working knowledge in Softimage or Houdini, I find myself
> being more productive over time in those application as a generalist/TD
> than in Maya alone.
>
> If I had a nickel for questions starting with... "In Maya, can you..."
>  The answer is always yes.  Getting to that "yes" more often than not is
> really painful.
>
> -Lu
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Lol Lu
>>
>> It's amazing for this, this, this it sucks :)
>>
>> I believe qualoth has been discontinued. yes next person to offer a
>> feature rich cloth solution will be a rich man/woman, may the Fabric enginz
>> be with him.
>>
>>
>> On 22 May 2014 18:18, Halim Negadi  wrote:
>>
>>> +6 Lu
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Meng-Yang Lu wrote:
>>>
 I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't
 meant to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we
 would've had something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still
 some cool thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy
 compared to applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by
 artists.

 Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff
 and animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
 animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
  However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
 animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
 cost of shoddy user experience.

 Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a
 lot of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
 implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
 and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
 more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
 more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
 used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
 of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
 it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
 strength to leverage.

 Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles,
 and now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early
 stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
 would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
 plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.

 Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army
 that puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed
 you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
 though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
 packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
 to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
 with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
 that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
 you're smarter than the average bear.

 I still don't like it.

 -Lu


 On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
 sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever
> made a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
> potential.
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:
>
>> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
>> wrote:
>> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Cristobal Infante]

I've got over it by diving into Houdini, to more I learn the more I want to
dive deeper ;). It's not a complete solution just yet, but I am sure it
will be ;)

on other sort of unrelated news, interesting to see TheMill "promoting" the
use if Cinema4D on this ad http://bit.ly/PrefP

On Thursday, 22 May 2014, Andy Goehler  wrote:

> I’m still grieving over Softimages instability during shading and lighting
> ;-/
>
>
> http://xsisupport.com/2013/09/11/getting-crash-dirty-exit-and-clean-exit-counts/
>
> And our numbers look even worse.
>
> Andy
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Meng-Yang Lu]

If I were a modeler, animator, or lighter, AND I was absolved of all TD
responsibilities, I would absolutely love Maya.  This is the vast majority
of the artist experience.  It is being in an established shop with tools
already in place to get your work done or a team of TDs to make said tools.
 I'm surrounded by happy animators, modelers, and lighters. If they hit a
problem, they just submit a ticket and a magic email appears asking them to
restart Maya to receive the new goodies.

For non-departmentalized facilities where one artist need to wear all hats
and FX artists, the Maya experience is a completely different one.

Maya is the application I have the deepest knowledge in, but even with a
medium to shallow working knowledge in Softimage or Houdini, I find myself
being more productive over time in those application as a generalist/TD
than in Maya alone.

If I had a nickel for questions starting with... "In Maya, can you..."  The
answer is always yes.  Getting to that "yes" more often than not is really
painful.

-Lu



On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 10:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Lol Lu
>
> It's amazing for this, this, this it sucks :)
>
> I believe qualoth has been discontinued. yes next person to offer a
> feature rich cloth solution will be a rich man/woman, may the Fabric enginz
> be with him.
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 18:18, Halim Negadi  wrote:
>
>> +6 Lu
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Meng-Yang Lu  wrote:
>>
>>> I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't
>>> meant to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we
>>> would've had something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still
>>> some cool thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy
>>> compared to applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by
>>> artists.
>>>
>>> Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff
>>> and animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
>>> animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
>>>  However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
>>> animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
>>> cost of shoddy user experience.
>>>
>>> Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot
>>> of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
>>> implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
>>> and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
>>> more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
>>> more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
>>> used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
>>> of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
>>> it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
>>> strength to leverage.
>>>
>>> Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles,
>>> and now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early
>>> stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
>>> would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
>>> plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.
>>>
>>> Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army
>>> that puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed
>>> you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
>>> though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
>>> packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
>>> to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
>>> with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
>>> that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
>>> you're smarter than the average bear.
>>>
>>> I still don't like it.
>>>
>>> -Lu
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
>>> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever
 made a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
 potential.


 On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:

> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
> wrote:
> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and
> a long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned 
> by
> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the
> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full
> switch (not all but the majority).
> >
> > The genius side (and the part I don't like

RE: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Manuel Huertas Marchena]

"...the work around is to put a parent constraint, then delete it :P"   ..hahah 
really? Damn thats really out of the box...!
thanks

 

IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo
| Linkedin


Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 18:45:07 +0100
Subject: Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)
From: sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 " 
the other day I wanted to do a quick pivot operation... (to match the 
pivot of an x object...) couldn't find how to do that in maya!! someone 
at work told me I need a script for something that simple... "

Ahahaha! Yes i know right ?! its infuriating, the work around is to put a 
parent constraint, then delete it :P


Ever tried hiding a group of polygonz...


On 22 May 2014 18:35, Manuel Huertas Marchena  wrote:




"...applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists."

well said Lu. Personally I am transitioning to Maya for the moment... (most 
jobs are maya related in lookdev/lighting so not too much of a choice 
unfortunatly atm..) 
..and I am amazed at how something like the hypershade is used to do production 
shading... it looks ultra clumbsy to me, render tree in soft is easy on the eyes
and everything is well organized it just feels well crafted...  haven't got the 
time to test the node editor in maya for shading but it looks like it does not 
come close to xsi's one..
also I dont see too many tutorials about using the maya node editor for 
shading, most I find are with the hypershade... if someone has some good links 
to share, that ll be cool, thanks.

  the other day I wanted to do a quick pivot operation... (to match the pivot 
of an x object...) couldn't find how to do that in maya!! someone at work told 
me I need a script for something that simple... 

-Manu


IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo
| Linkedin


Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 10:11:09 -0700

Subject: Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)
From: ntmon...@gmail.com
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com


I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't meant to 
be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we would've had 
something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still some cool thing 
you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy compared to applications 
that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists.


Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff and 
animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what animation 
could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.  However, XSI 
never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of animation 
performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the cost of shoddy 
user experience.  


Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot of the 
early technology that went into the Maya side were far better implemented than 
in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity, and it was attractive 
to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had more functionality in Maya 
before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had more functionality in Maya than 
the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still used in both conventional and 
unconventional ways because every other out of box cloth solver just isn't 
good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and it's second only to something like 
Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a strength to leverage.  


Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, and now 
FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early stages as a 
plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools would be production 
worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a plug-in and blindly marched 
into production many times.  


Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army that puts 
ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed you'll find 
someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And though that pool 
may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other packages, you definitely 
have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick to your hearts desire.  To be 
fair, there are good Maya users out there with their own Maya knick-knacks that 
can still put up good work.  And to that point, if you're a Maya user, you're 
almost never out of a job if you're smarter than the average bear.


I still don't like it.  
-Lu  

On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling 
 wrote:


In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever made a 
fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full potential.





On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:



20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)



On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a long 
> list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by 
> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Andy Goehler]

I’m still grieving over Softimages instability during shading and lighting ;-/

http://xsisupport.com/2013/09/11/getting-crash-dirty-exit-and-clean-exit-counts/

And our numbers look even worse.

Andy

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

 " the other day I wanted to do a quick pivot operation... (to match the
pivot of an x object...) couldn't find how to do that in maya!! someone at
work told me I need a script for something that simple... "

Ahahaha! Yes i know right ?! its infuriating, the work around is to put a
parent constraint, then delete it :P

Ever tried hiding a group of polygonz...


On 22 May 2014 18:35, Manuel Huertas Marchena  wrote:

> "...applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists."
>
> well said Lu.
> Personally I am transitioning to Maya for the moment... (most jobs are
> maya related in lookdev/lighting so not too much of a choice unfortunatly
> atm..)
> ..and I am amazed at how something like the hypershade is used to do
> production shading... it looks ultra clumbsy to me, render tree in soft is
> easy on the eyes
> and everything is well organized it just feels well crafted...  haven't
> got the time to test the node editor in maya for shading but it looks like
> it does not come close to xsi's one..
> also I dont see too many tutorials about using the maya node editor for
> shading, most I find are with the hypershade... if someone has some good
> links to share, that ll be cool, thanks.
>
>   the other day I wanted to do a quick pivot operation... (to match the
> pivot of an x object...) couldn't find how to do that in maya!! someone at
> work told me I need a script for something that simple...
>
> -Manu
>
>
> IMDB  | Portfolio
>  | 
> Vimeo|
> Linkedin 
>
>
> --
> Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 10:11:09 -0700
>
> Subject: Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)
> From: ntmon...@gmail.com
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>
>
> I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't meant
> to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we would've had
> something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still some cool
> thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy compared to
> applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists.
>
> Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff and
> animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
> animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
>  However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
> animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
> cost of shoddy user experience.
>
> Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot
> of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
> implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
> and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
> more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
> more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
> used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
> of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
> it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
> strength to leverage.
>
> Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, and
> now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early
> stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
> would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
> plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.
>
> Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army that
> puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed
> you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
> though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
> packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
> to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
> with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
> that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
> you're smarter than the average bear.
>
> I still don't like it.
>
> -Lu
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever made
> a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
> potential.
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:
>
> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
> wrote:
> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a
> long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by
> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrive

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Sebastien Sterling]

ow the Max people will be pretty pissed as well at this stage, seeing the
heaps of new tech AD heaps on Maya's bloated corps, while 3ds rotts.

But i think the most insulting must be when they do all the "see we really
doo listen to our clients" bullshit, thats gota sting.


On 22 May 2014 18:15, olivier jeannel  wrote:

>  Grief will never be over. Relationship is over.
>
> These days I'm realizing naively how little love XSI received.
> Now that they killed SI, I've never seen so many posts on the list from
> autodesk employee. Now they listen, let me laugh...
> The other day I opened Match mover. A part from the fact it wasn't able to
> track the sequence, it was also unable to save and re open it's own .xsi
> and it's own .fbx (only solution functioning was VBscript). But, C4D format
> was functioning...
> The feeling that xsi was abandonned since a long time.
> Yep,12 million lines of code that was not worth  making evolve, but worth
> abandon rather than sell.
>
> I don't know if they realize how much trust they lost. And funnily, it's
> not only from ex SI users.
>
>
>
>
>
> Le 22/05/2014 18:23, Stefan Kubicek a écrit :
>
> Exactly my pov. The different packages are too much in flux atm to make a
> decision right now.
> If I was forced to switch, I'd go Houdini though.
>
>
>  Still sticking with Softimage for now. There seem to be some changes
> coming in the next year or two in almost every package so I'm gambling on
> waiting a while before choosing a direction. Looking forward to the next
> step, it may have some things I'll miss but I'm sure there will be
> advantages to balance it out. One thing is for sure, wherever I end up will
> have to have a Redshift plugin.
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 16:56, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:
>
>>Well the same applies to me.
>>
>>  I now am getting into deep scripting in Softimage.
>>
>>  The big difference is that in Maya you script for necessitiy and in
>> Softimage for the fun of it.
>>
>>  The real saviours here are Redshift, Mootz, 3D Quakers, Paul, etc.
>>
>>  For me it was never grief, it was anger.  And the anger has passed.
>>
>>
>>  ---
>> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>>
>>
>> 2014-05-22 10:37 GMT-05:00 Stephen Davidson :
>>
>>  There is no grief, here. The software is definitely NOT over. Initially
>>> I thought "Oh no" (clean version),
>>> but once I thought about it, as I was getting my new license for
>>> Redshift 3D, I realized that whatever I need this
>>> existing software to do, I can do with ICE. I am only just starting to
>>> learn how to use ICE, so it a wonderful
>>> new feature, to me.
>>>
>>>  I'm going to put any further efforts into learning more about ICE,
>>> rather than spend my time trying to learn
>>> another 3D package.
>>>
>>>  3rd Parties still seem to be developing for Softimage, although I'm
>>> sure that will fade over time.
>>> I turn 60 next month, so this is it for me. Even if I retire at 80. :)
>>>
>>>  I will not swallow the Kool-aid.
>>>
>>>  I feel bad for the kid who just graduated art school with a Softimage
>>> background.
>>> That is a tough spot to be in. Fortunately young minds learn faster.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirko Jankovic <
>>> mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
 Who said that the grief is over?
 Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I hate you.
 Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up with "I can still
 work 10 times faster in my obsolete software". Eat my dust!


 On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com <
 activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>   I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over,
> could some of you share how you're dealing with the " your software its's
> obsolote" phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?
>
> I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around
> quickly.
> Yeh, just being honest here.
>
> :)
>
> Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en 
> Android
>


>>>
>>>
>>>   --
>>>
>>>  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
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>  --
> www.matinai.com
>
>
>
>
>  --
>
> -
>Stefan Kubicek 
> ste...@keyvis.at<%22ste...@keyvis.at%22%20%3cste...@keyvis.at%3E>
> -
>   Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>  Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
>www.keyvis.at
>  This email and its attachments are
> confidential and for the recipient only
>
>
>

RE: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Manuel Huertas Marchena]

"...applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists."
well said Lu. Personally I am transitioning to Maya for the moment... (most 
jobs are maya related in lookdev/lighting so not too much of a choice 
unfortunatly atm..) ..and I am amazed at how something like the hypershade is 
used to do production shading... it looks ultra clumbsy to me, render tree in 
soft is easy on the eyesand everything is well organized it just feels well 
crafted...  haven't got the time to test the node editor in maya for shading 
but it looks like it does not come close to xsi's one..also I dont see too many 
tutorials about using the maya node editor for shading, most I find are with 
the hypershade... if someone has some good links to share, that ll be cool, 
thanks.
  the other day I wanted to do a quick pivot operation... (to match the pivot 
of an x object...) couldn't find how to do that in maya!! someone at work told 
me I need a script for something that simple... 
-Manu

IMDB | Portfolio | Vimeo
| Linkedin


Date: Thu, 22 May 2014 10:11:09 -0700
Subject: Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)
From: ntmon...@gmail.com
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't meant to 
be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we would've had 
something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still some cool thing 
you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy compared to applications 
that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists.

Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff and 
animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what animation 
could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.  However, XSI 
never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of animation 
performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the cost of shoddy 
user experience.  

Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot of the 
early technology that went into the Maya side were far better implemented than 
in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity, and it was attractive 
to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had more functionality in Maya 
before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had more functionality in Maya than 
the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still used in both conventional and 
unconventional ways because every other out of box cloth solver just isn't 
good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and it's second only to something like 
Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a strength to leverage.  

Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, and now 
FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early stages as a 
plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools would be production 
worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a plug-in and blindly marched 
into production many times.  

Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army that puts 
ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed you'll find 
someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And though that pool 
may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other packages, you definitely 
have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick to your hearts desire.  To be 
fair, there are good Maya users out there with their own Maya knick-knacks that 
can still put up good work.  And to that point, if you're a Maya user, you're 
almost never out of a job if you're smarter than the average bear.

I still don't like it.  
-Lu  

On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling 
 wrote:

In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever made a 
fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full potential.




On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:


20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)



On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a long 
> list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by 
> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the 
> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full 
> switch (not all but the majority).



>

> The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of Maya in 
> which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which meant 
> everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top of Maya 
> so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an impossible fight.



>

> Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very good at 
> that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice, also very 
> fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust. Manipulators 
> made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it was no

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

Lol Lu

It's amazing for this, this, this it sucks :)

I believe qualoth has been discontinued. yes next person to offer a feature
rich cloth solution will be a rich man/woman, may the Fabric enginz be with
him.


On 22 May 2014 18:18, Halim Negadi  wrote:

> +6 Lu
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Meng-Yang Lu  wrote:
>
>> I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't
>> meant to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we
>> would've had something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still
>> some cool thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy
>> compared to applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by
>> artists.
>>
>> Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff
>> and animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
>> animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
>>  However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
>> animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
>> cost of shoddy user experience.
>>
>> Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot
>> of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
>> implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
>> and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
>> more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
>> more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
>> used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
>> of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
>> it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
>> strength to leverage.
>>
>> Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, and
>> now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early
>> stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
>> would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
>> plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.
>>
>> Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army
>> that puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed
>> you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
>> though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
>> packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
>> to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
>> with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
>> that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
>> you're smarter than the average bear.
>>
>> I still don't like it.
>>
>> -Lu
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
>> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever
>>> made a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
>>> potential.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:
>>>
 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)

 On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
 wrote:
 > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a
 long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by
 Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the
 party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full
 switch (not all but the majority).
 >
 > The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of
 Maya in which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which
 meant everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top
 of Maya so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an
 impossible fight.
 >
 > Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very
 good at that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice,
 also very fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust.
 Manipulators made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it
 was not a myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame
 the envelop deformers were never looked after properly.
 >
 > Jordi Bares
 > jordiba...@gmail.com
 >
 > On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog" 
 wrote:
 >
 >> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that
 Maya was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting
 Softimage from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated
 info?
 >>
 >> --
 >>
 >> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
 >> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Halim Negadi]

+6 Lu


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:11 PM, Meng-Yang Lu  wrote:

> I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't meant
> to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we would've had
> something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still some cool
> thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy compared to
> applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists.
>
> Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff and
> animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
> animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
>  However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
> animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
> cost of shoddy user experience.
>
> Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot
> of the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
> implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
> and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
> more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
> more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
> used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
> of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
> it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
> strength to leverage.
>
> Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, and
> now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early
> stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
> would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
> plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.
>
> Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army that
> puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed
> you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
> though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
> packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
> to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
> with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
> that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
> you're smarter than the average bear.
>
> I still don't like it.
>
> -Lu
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever made
>> a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
>> potential.
>>
>>
>> On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:
>>
>>> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
>>> wrote:
>>> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a
>>> long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by
>>> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the
>>> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full
>>> switch (not all but the majority).
>>> >
>>> > The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of
>>> Maya in which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which
>>> meant everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top
>>> of Maya so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an
>>> impossible fight.
>>> >
>>> > Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very
>>> good at that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice,
>>> also very fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust.
>>> Manipulators made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it
>>> was not a myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame
>>> the envelop deformers were never looked after properly.
>>> >
>>> > Jordi Bares
>>> > jordiba...@gmail.com
>>> >
>>> > On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog" 
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that
>>> Maya was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting
>>> Softimage from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated
>>> info?
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >>
>>> >> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>>> >> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[olivier jeannel]

Grief will never be over. Relationship is over.

These days I'm realizing naively how little love XSI received.
Now that they killed SI, I've never seen so many posts on the list from 
autodesk employee. Now they listen, let me laugh...
The other day I opened Match mover. A part from the fact it wasn't able 
to track the sequence, it was also unable to save and re open it's own 
.xsi and it's own .fbx (only solution functioning was VBscript). But, 
C4D format was functioning...

The feeling that xsi was abandonned since a long time.
Yep,12 million lines of code that was not worth  making evolve, but 
worth abandon rather than sell.


I don't know if they realize how much trust they lost. And funnily, it's 
not only from ex SI users.






Le 22/05/2014 18:23, Stefan Kubicek a écrit :
Exactly my pov. The different packages are too much in flux atm to 
make a decision right now.

If I was forced to switch, I'd go Houdini though.


Still sticking with Softimage for now. There seem to be some
changes coming in the next year or two in almost every package so
I'm gambling on waiting a while before choosing a direction.
Looking forward to the next step, it may have some things I'll
miss but I'm sure there will be advantages to balance it out. One
thing is for sure, wherever I end up will have to have a Redshift
plugin.



On 22 May 2014 16:56, Emilio Hernandez mailto:emi...@e-roja.com>> wrote:

Well the same applies to me.

I now am getting into deep scripting in Softimage.

The big difference is that in Maya you script for necessitiy
and in Softimage for the fun of it.

The real saviours here are Redshift, Mootz, 3D Quakers, Paul, etc.

For me it was never grief, it was anger.  And the anger has
passed.


---
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


2014-05-22 10:37 GMT-05:00 Stephen Davidson
mailto:magic...@bellsouth.net>>:

There is no grief, here. The software is definitely NOT
over. Initially I thought "Oh no" (clean version),
but once I thought about it, as I was getting my new
license for Redshift 3D, I realized that whatever I need this
existing software to do, I can do with ICE. I am only just
starting to learn how to use ICE, so it a wonderful
new feature, to me.

I'm going to put any further efforts into learning more
about ICE, rather than spend my time trying to learn
another 3D package.

3rd Parties still seem to be developing for Softimage,
although I'm sure that will fade over time.
I turn 60 next month, so this is it for me. Even if I
retire at 80. :)

I will not swallow the Kool-aid.

I feel bad for the kid who just graduated art school with
a Softimage background.
That is a tough spot to be in. Fortunately young minds
learn faster.



On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirko Jankovic
mailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Who said that the grief is over?
Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I
hate you.
Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up
with "I can still work 10 times faster in my obsolete
software". Eat my dust!


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM,
activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com

mailto:activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com>> wrote:

I know it's a sensible question, but now that the
grief is over, could some of you share how you're
dealing with the " your software its's obsolote"
phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?

I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day
comes around quickly.
Yeh, just being honest here.

:)

Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en Android






-- 


Best Regards,
*  Stephen P. Davidson**
**(954) 552-7956 
* sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

/Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic/

   - Arthur C. Clarke







-- 
www.matinai.com 





--
-
   Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at 


-
  Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
A-23

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Meng-Yang Lu]

I think the only failure of the node architecture was that it wasn't meant
to be used by artists.  Had they had that in consideration, we would've had
something like ICE or close to it ages ago.  There are still some cool
thing you can do in the Hypershade today, but it's unwieldy compared to
applications that knew nodes was going to be tinkered with by artists.

Maya strengths are still it's quick interactive ability to build stuff and
animate.  Since this is an XSI list, we've all had a taste of what
animation could be due to some really nice "quality of life" features.
 However, XSI never in the time I've done 3D ever caught up in terms of
animation performance.  It is still king of interactive performance at the
cost of shoddy user experience.

Before, Maya was the do-it-all tookit and still can be today.  And a lot of
the early technology that went into the Maya side were far better
implemented than in any other package.  The strength was indeed ubiquity,
and it was attractive to plug-in developers alongside 3DS max.  Shave had
more functionality in Maya before it was integrated into XSI.  Syflex had
more functionality in Maya than the XSI integration too.  nCloth is still
used in both conventional and unconventional ways because every other out
of box cloth solver just isn't good.  We still rely on nCloth heavily and
it's second only to something like Qualoft.  nCloth is definitely a
strength to leverage.

Also, Maya + Window = new tech hotbed.  Syflex, Shave, Comet Muscles, and
now FE/Splice.  Anything that seems promising usually begins it's early
stages as a plug-in for Maya.  No guarantees that these fledgling tools
would be production worthy, but I'm the first to admit I've grabbed a
plug-in and blindly marched into production many times.

Maya's other strength is it's large user base.  If you want a CG army that
puts ancient Persia to shame, go with Maya.  You are almost guaranteed
you'll find someone to fill an empty seat if your shop is a Maya one.  And
though that pool may not be as experienced or agile as artists in other
packages, you definitely have the advantage of choice and can cherry-pick
to your hearts desire.  To be fair, there are good Maya users out there
with their own Maya knick-knacks that can still put up good work.  And to
that point, if you're a Maya user, you're almost never out of a job if
you're smarter than the average bear.

I still don't like it.

-Lu


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever made
> a fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
> potential.
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:
>
>> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
>> wrote:
>> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a
>> long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by
>> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the
>> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full
>> switch (not all but the majority).
>> >
>> > The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of
>> Maya in which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which
>> meant everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top
>> of Maya so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an
>> impossible fight.
>> >
>> > Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very
>> good at that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice,
>> also very fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust.
>> Manipulators made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it
>> was not a myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame
>> the envelop deformers were never looked after properly.
>> >
>> > Jordi Bares
>> > jordiba...@gmail.com
>> >
>> > On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog" 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that
>> Maya was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting
>> Softimage from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated
>> info?
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >>
>> >> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> >> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Jordi Bares]

Time passes so fast in hyper-London I just made you guys 4 years older!

X-D

Sent from my iPhone

> On 22 May 2014, at 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:
> 
> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
> 
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>> Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a long 
>> list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by 
>> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the 
>> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full 
>> switch (not all but the majority).
>> 
>> The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of Maya in 
>> which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which meant 
>> everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top of 
>> Maya so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an impossible 
>> fight.
>> 
>> Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very good at 
>> that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice, also very 
>> fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust. Manipulators 
>> made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it was not a 
>> myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame the envelop 
>> deformers were never looked after properly.
>> 
>> Jordi Bares
>> jordiba...@gmail.com
>> 
>>> On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog"  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that Maya 
>>> was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting Softimage 
>>> from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?
>>> 
>>> --
>>> 
>>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
> 

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Christoph Muetze]

I saved the maintenance fee and used it to add Meshfusion (& Modo) to my 
current Softimage + Redshift pipeline.


FINALLY the maintenance money got me some kick-ass new modelling tools! ;D

\o/

Chris

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

In fairness the architecture is admirable, i don't think anyone ever made a
fully nodal DCC after maya, to bad so little of it reaches its full
potential.


On 22 May 2014 17:15, Luc-Eric Rousseau  wrote:

> 20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares 
> wrote:
> > Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a
> long list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by
> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the
> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full
> switch (not all but the majority).
> >
> > The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of Maya
> in which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which meant
> everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top of
> Maya so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an impossible
> fight.
> >
> > Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very
> good at that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice,
> also very fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust.
> Manipulators made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it
> was not a myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame
> the envelop deformers were never looked after properly.
> >
> > Jordi Bares
> > jordiba...@gmail.com
> >
> > On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog" 
> wrote:
> >
> >> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that
> Maya was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting
> Softimage from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated
> info?
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> >> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
> >>
> >
> >
>
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Stefan Kubicek]

Exactly my pov. The different packages are too much in flux atm to make a 
decision right now.
If I was forced to switch, I'd go Houdini though.



Still sticking with Softimage for now. There seem to be some changes coming in the 
next year or two in almost every package so I'm gambling on >waiting a while 
before choosing a direction. Looking forward to the next step, it may have some 
things I'll miss but I'm sure there will be >advantages to balance it out. One 
thing is for sure, wherever I end up will have to have a Redshift plugin.



On 22 May 2014 16:56, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

Well the same applies to me.

I now am getting into deep scripting in Softimage.

The big difference is that in Maya you script for necessitiy and in Softimage 
for the fun of it.

The real saviours here are Redshift, Mootz, 3D Quakers, Paul, etc.

For me it was never grief, it was anger.  And the anger has passed.


---
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


2014-05-22 10:37 GMT-05:00 Stephen Davidson :


There is no grief, here. The software is definitely NOT over. Initially I thought 
"Oh no" (clean version),
but once I thought about it, as I was getting my new license for Redshift 3D, I 
realized that whatever I need this
existing software to do, I can do with ICE. I am only just starting to learn 
how to use ICE, so it a wonderful
new feature, to me.

I'm going to put any further efforts into learning more about ICE, rather than 
spend my time trying to learn
another 3D package.

3rd Parties still seem to be developing for Softimage, although I'm sure that 
will fade over time.
I turn 60 next month, so this is it for me. Even if I retire at 80. :)

I will not swallow the Kool-aid.

I feel bad for the kid who just graduated art school with a Softimage 
background.
That is a tough spot to be in. Fortunately young minds learn faster.



On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirko Jankovic  
wrote:

Who said that the grief is over?
Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I hate you.
Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up with "I can still work 10 times 
faster in my obsolete software". Eat my dust!


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com 
 wrote:

I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over, could some of you share how you're 
dealing with the " your software its's >obsolote" phrase around your 
maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?


I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around quickly.
Yeh, just being honest here.

:)

Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en Android








--

Best Regards,
 Stephen P. Davidson  (954) 552-7956
   sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

- 
Arthur C. Clarke








--www.matinai.com




--

-
   Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
-
  Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
 Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
   www.keyvis.at
 This email and its attachments are
confidential and for the recipient only

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

20 years.. 4/5 years late..adjusted for inflation I guess ;)

On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
> Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a long 
> list of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by 
> Microsoft at the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the 
> party, which was a death sentence and big facilities by then did the full 
> switch (not all but the majority).
>
> The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of Maya in 
> which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which meant 
> everybody was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top of Maya 
> so by the time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an impossible fight.
>
> Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very good at 
> that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice, also very 
> fast with multiple characters and some versions very robust. Manipulators 
> made life a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it was not a 
> myth, but today it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame the envelop 
> deformers were never looked after properly.
>
> Jordi Bares
> jordiba...@gmail.com
>
> On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog"  wrote:
>
>> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that Maya was 
>> the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting Softimage from the 
>> equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?
>>
>> --
>>
>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>
>
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Matt Morris]

Still sticking with Softimage for now. There seem to be some changes coming
in the next year or two in almost every package so I'm gambling on waiting
a while before choosing a direction. Looking forward to the next step, it
may have some things I'll miss but I'm sure there will be advantages to
balance it out. One thing is for sure, wherever I end up will have to have
a Redshift plugin.



On 22 May 2014 16:56, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

> Well the same applies to me.
>
> I now am getting into deep scripting in Softimage.
>
> The big difference is that in Maya you script for necessitiy and in
> Softimage for the fun of it.
>
> The real saviours here are Redshift, Mootz, 3D Quakers, Paul, etc.
>
> For me it was never grief, it was anger.  And the anger has passed.
>
>
> ---
> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>
>
> 2014-05-22 10:37 GMT-05:00 Stephen Davidson :
>
> There is no grief, here. The software is definitely NOT over. Initially I
>> thought "Oh no" (clean version),
>> but once I thought about it, as I was getting my new license for Redshift
>> 3D, I realized that whatever I need this
>> existing software to do, I can do with ICE. I am only just starting to
>> learn how to use ICE, so it a wonderful
>> new feature, to me.
>>
>> I'm going to put any further efforts into learning more about ICE, rather
>> than spend my time trying to learn
>> another 3D package.
>>
>> 3rd Parties still seem to be developing for Softimage, although I'm sure
>> that will fade over time.
>> I turn 60 next month, so this is it for me. Even if I retire at 80. :)
>>
>> I will not swallow the Kool-aid.
>>
>> I feel bad for the kid who just graduated art school with a Softimage
>> background.
>> That is a tough spot to be in. Fortunately young minds learn faster.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirko Jankovic <
>> mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Who said that the grief is over?
>>> Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I hate you.
>>> Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up with "I can still
>>> work 10 times faster in my obsolete software". Eat my dust!
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com <
>>> activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
 I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over, could
 some of you share how you're dealing with the " your software its's
 obsolote" phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?

 I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around quickly.
 Yeh, just being honest here.

 :)

 Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en 
 Android

>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> 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
>>
>> 
>>
>
>


-- 
www.matinai.com

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Emilio Hernandez]

Well the same applies to me.

I now am getting into deep scripting in Softimage.

The big difference is that in Maya you script for necessitiy and in
Softimage for the fun of it.

The real saviours here are Redshift, Mootz, 3D Quakers, Paul, etc.

For me it was never grief, it was anger.  And the anger has passed.


---
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


2014-05-22 10:37 GMT-05:00 Stephen Davidson :

> There is no grief, here. The software is definitely NOT over. Initially I
> thought "Oh no" (clean version),
> but once I thought about it, as I was getting my new license for Redshift
> 3D, I realized that whatever I need this
> existing software to do, I can do with ICE. I am only just starting to
> learn how to use ICE, so it a wonderful
> new feature, to me.
>
> I'm going to put any further efforts into learning more about ICE, rather
> than spend my time trying to learn
> another 3D package.
>
> 3rd Parties still seem to be developing for Softimage, although I'm sure
> that will fade over time.
> I turn 60 next month, so this is it for me. Even if I retire at 80. :)
>
> I will not swallow the Kool-aid.
>
> I feel bad for the kid who just graduated art school with a Softimage
> background.
> That is a tough spot to be in. Fortunately young minds learn faster.
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirko Jankovic  > wrote:
>
>> Who said that the grief is over?
>> Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I hate you.
>> Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up with "I can still work
>> 10 times faster in my obsolete software". Eat my dust!
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com <
>> activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over, could
>>> some of you share how you're dealing with the " your software its's
>>> obsolote" phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?
>>>
>>> I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around quickly.
>>> Yeh, just being honest here.
>>>
>>> :)
>>>
>>> Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en 
>>> Android
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Best Regards,
> *  Stephen P. Davidson*
>
> *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com
>
> *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*
>
>
>- Arthur C. Clarke
>
> 
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Stephen Davidson]

There is no grief, here. The software is definitely NOT over. Initially I
thought "Oh no" (clean version),
but once I thought about it, as I was getting my new license for Redshift
3D, I realized that whatever I need this
existing software to do, I can do with ICE. I am only just starting to
learn how to use ICE, so it a wonderful
new feature, to me.

I'm going to put any further efforts into learning more about ICE, rather
than spend my time trying to learn
another 3D package.

3rd Parties still seem to be developing for Softimage, although I'm sure
that will fade over time.
I turn 60 next month, so this is it for me. Even if I retire at 80. :)

I will not swallow the Kool-aid.

I feel bad for the kid who just graduated art school with a Softimage
background.
That is a tough spot to be in. Fortunately young minds learn faster.



On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirko Jankovic
wrote:

> Who said that the grief is over?
> Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I hate you.
> Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up with "I can still work
> 10 times faster in my obsolete software". Eat my dust!
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com <
> activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over, could
>> some of you share how you're dealing with the " your software its's
>> obsolote" phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?
>>
>> I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around quickly.
>> Yeh, just being honest here.
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en 
>> Android
>>
>
>


-- 

Best Regards,
*  Stephen P. Davidson*

*(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


 - Arthur C. Clarke

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Jordi Bares]

Indeed, and that is what I am talking with Side Effects, "guys, this is very 
important thing, look to HtoA for inspiration"

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 22 May 2014, at 16:24, Andy Goehler  wrote:

> Thank you for expanding on the subject Jordi,
> 
> having a second look, it is apparent that you can only access Arnold 
> compatible nodes inside Arnold Materials. Also the image node for example 
> comes with UV options that indeed is so much more user friendly. 
> 
> cheers
> 
> Andy

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Andy Goehler]

Thank you for expanding on the subject Jordi,

having a second look, it is apparent that you can only access Arnold compatible 
nodes inside Arnold Materials. Also the image node for example comes with UV 
options that indeed is so much more user friendly. 

cheers

Andy

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Jordi Bares]

Maya was ahead of its time 20 years ago, the novel architecture and a long list 
of historical events and mismanagement from Softimage (owned by Microsoft at 
the time) meant XSI arrived at least 4/5 years late to the party, which was a 
death sentence and big facilities by then did the full switch (not all but the 
majority).

The genius side (and the part I don't like) was the viral nature of Maya in 
which you have to write stuff for pretty much everything which meant everybody 
was building tons of software (and complex ones too) on top of Maya so by the 
time XSI was starting to pick up pace it was an impossible fight.

Was maya great for character animation? Yes, It has always been very good at 
that because the animation editor and dope sheet were very nice, also very fast 
with multiple characters and some versions very robust. Manipulators made life 
a pleasure (remember XSI introduced them late) so it was not a myth, but today 
it XSI is imho way superior for animation, shame the envelop deformers were 
never looked after properly.

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 22 May 2014, at 14:25, "Leendert A. Hartog"  wrote:

> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that Maya was 
> the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting Softimage from the 
> equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?
> 
> -- 
> 
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
> 

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Jordi Bares]

below


On 22 May 2014, at 11:35, Andy Goehler  wrote:

> 
> On May 21, 2014, at 23:15, Jordi Bares  wrote:
> 
>> - Shading is very granular and the examples and setups provided are not very 
>> good so once you get it is good but not great yet. The actual implementation 
>> of Arnold for Houdini is s much user friendly (looks a quite a lot like 
>> the render tree to be honest)
> 
> Hi Jordi,
> 
> I’m not quite sure I understand regarding Arnold in Houdini. Wether using 
> Mantra or Arnold it ends up with a similar VEX graph doesn’t it?

Yes it does but Arnold has reconstructed a ton of nodes you will use on a 
constant basis that are nicely packaged like in mental ray phenomena.

> If I drop down a Mantra shader using a ‘Surface Shader Builder’ I get an 
> empty ‘Rendertree’ – adding a ‘surfacemodel’ I’m right at home, no difference 
> to Arnold. Maybe I’ve missed something, what are you referring to user 
> friendliness in particular?

It is difficult to explain to be honest but I will encourage to try to add a 
noise function on one of mantra surface node inputs… instead of having a plug 
and job done you will have to dive in and wire it by hand which is not as fluid.

The good part is that you can dive in, the bad part is that your though process 
is disrupted.

The best solution is to modify mantra surface yourself to have a version for 
you that allows you to plug things… negate things, etc…

> 
> What I do love, and stated elsewhere on the list, is the flexibility that 
> Mantra brings with it without having to go full C++ in an IDE.

100%… it is worth the extra work and let's face it, Mantra is free for any 
number of nodes… no wonder some major players in London are moving to Houdini 
in a big way.

jb

> cheers
> 
> Andy

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[David Rivera]

@Mirko: Well said. Speed rules over branding. Sadly companies just listen to 
"word of mouth" which has always been
Maya... once the word of mouth was "ICE", AD said: Let´s end development.

I can still laugh when the Viewport 2.0 is presented with honkey tones...
We baked vertex since Snake SoliderI mean: a real while ago in 
softimage...


 
David Rivera
3D Compositor/Animator
LinkedIN
Behance
VFX Reel
On Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:27 AM, Leendert A. Hartog  
wrote:
 


It obviously is a very generalized model: it needn't apply to you! :D


-- 

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Angus Davidson]

I must admit I much prefer to modo animation tools to Mayas and even soft 
images (note just talking animation not rigging)

Using the spacing chart , being able to adjust animation arcs visually , 
creating on the fly ui’s to watch and create keys just for what I am looking at 
in such an easy way to me makes it so much more intuitive. For me working with 
the curves in the Modo graph editor just seem much more fluid.

That being said Maya is heavily production proven in this area so it does have 
that advantage.



From: Mario Reitbauer 
mailto:cont...@marioreitbauer.at>>
Reply-To: 
"softimage@listproc.autodesk.com" 
mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>>
Date: Thursday 22 May 2014 at 4:01 PM
To: "softimage@listproc.autodesk.com" 
mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>>
Subject: Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

For Character Animation you can still use max if you want to animate for games.

Which in the end isn't any better...


2014-05-22 15:48 GMT+02:00 Mirko Jankovic 
mailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com>>:
Unfortunately for character animation part there are no alternatives.
Alternative is something you can do same job easier or at least same level of 
effectiveness.
There is no one out commercially available.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 3:35 PM, Leendert A. Hartog 
mailto:hirazib...@live.nl>> wrote:
Okay, but discounting Softimage and considering the alternatives (again: 
possibly only back in the day)?


--

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






This communication is 
intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this 
communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original 
message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the 
permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to 
enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus 
advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the 
University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which 
are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the 
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and 
outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in 
writing to the contrary. 

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Mario Reitbauer]

For Character Animation you can still use max if you want to animate for
games.

Which in the end isn't any better...


2014-05-22 15:48 GMT+02:00 Mirko Jankovic :

> Unfortunately for character animation part there are no alternatives.
> Alternative is something you can do same job easier or at least same level
> of effectiveness.
> There is no one out commercially available.
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 3:35 PM, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:
>
>> Okay, but discounting Softimage and considering the alternatives (again:
>> possibly only back in the day)?
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>
>>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Eric Turman]

Maya's animation tools are better than they were, yes ( I like the fcurve
lattice but even that needs work in its selection/manipulation area) , but
not better than the current Softimage. Our lead animator who was a maya
fanboy now complains that the current Maya fcurve editor is slowing him
down.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 8:33 AM, Peter Agg  wrote:

> I'd say that it is better now though, if only because Soft hasn't really
> had much development.
>
>
>



-=T=-

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Angus Davidson]

Look at World of Warcraft for example. By todays standards technically its
supposedly not that great. What it did have however was timing. At the
time it was the best of what was there and it was marketed extremely well.
As such even in decline at 7 Million plus subscribers it still orders of
magnitude more popular then most new MMO¹s

To me Maya is very much the same. It got to be the industry standard by
being better and more marketed for a sort period of time then anything
else. Now its got to the point where people have invested so much into it
that its hard to think about using something else. However time = money
will eventually bring houdini more and more into the main pipeline
application space. Accountancy always wins.




On 2014/05/22, 12:59 PM, "Leendert A. Hartog"  wrote:

>So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
>Somehow I doubt that... ;)
>
>-- 
>
>Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>

 

This communication is 
intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this 
communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original 
message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the 
permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to 
enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus 
advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the 
University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which 
are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the 
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and 
outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in 
writing to the contrary. 

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Mirko Jankovic]

Unfortunately for character animation part there are no alternatives.
Alternative is something you can do same job easier or at least same level
of effectiveness.
There is no one out commercially available.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 3:35 PM, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:

> Okay, but discounting Softimage and considering the alternatives (again:
> possibly only back in the day)?
>
>
> --
>
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>
>

Re: Houdini Weaknesses

[Francois Lord]

That has been my intuition so far as well.

On 22-May-14 03:55, Jordi Bares wrote:

My feeling is that a transition period with FX and rendering in Houdini to 
later decide to either buy more time or commit to package X is the safest route 
right now.

Plus render nodes are free and believe me, that adds up really easily so with 
one FX license and normal ones you can go really really far.

cheers

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Okay, but discounting Softimage and considering the alternatives (again: 
possibly only back in the day)?


--

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Peter Agg]

I'd say that it is better now though, if only because Soft hasn't really
had much development.


On 22 May 2014 14:31, Eric Turman  wrote:

> Propaganda.
>
>
> It wasn't bad, just not really any better and in some areas (like trax)
> worse.
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 8:25 AM, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:
>
>> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that Maya
>> was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting Softimage
>> from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
>
>
>
> -=T=-
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Eric Turman]

Propaganda.


It wasn't bad, just not really any better and in some areas (like trax)
worse.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 8:25 AM, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:

> Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that Maya
> was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting Softimage
> from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?
>
>
> --
>
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>
>


-- 




-=T=-

RE: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Ed Harriss]

Most of the time I feel like Charlie Brown. ;)
http://bit.ly/1nhac5C

...or the guy referenced in the infamous "Talking Heads" song - "Once in a 
Lifetime."

And you may tell yourself 
This is not my beautiful software?

And you may ask yourself 
Well...How did I get here? 



Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...
Ed


-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leendert A. Hartog
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 9:27 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your 
it on your daily basis?

It obviously is a very generalized model: it needn't apply to you! :D

-- 

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Eric Turman]

Well, the node editor can be clunky--especially how it has the propensity
to throw in unit converters all over the place and you end up getting
double or triple degree to radian calculations without asking for them. And
the functions that are not missing can be hidden or the way to achieve
themnot clean...like subtracting, or single argument conditionals etc.
But it does evaluate fast (like Softimage's expressions)

Maya and soft are kind of opposites in the node/tri-count area Softimage
can handle a bazillion triangles on as long as you have few nodes (meshes,
nulls etc.) in the scene, and Maya can handle a huge number of nodes, but
not nearly the number or triangles as Softimage.



-- 




-=T=-

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Leendert A. Hartog]

It obviously is a very generalized model: it needn't apply to you! :D

--

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Okay, a more specific question. Back in the day I always heard that Maya 
was the most useful tool for Character Animation (discounting Softimage 
from the equation). Was this just myth or is it just outdated info?


--

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

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Stephan Haitz]

I stay with Softimage for a while further! And saved subscription money 
I spend to 3rd party developers now (I started with this already)! And 
some day there will be a really better 3D-Package (or solution). And I 
bet it will not be a a solution of a certain company!
Sounds desperate or fanatic? Maybe but tell me an alternative Package 
that works NOW in an allround way like Softimage for small studios. 
Apparently I have to do lots of workarounds in every other package  to 
achieve what SI already does...


Stephan






Optimistic model

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com 

On 22 May 2014, at 13:02, "Leendert A. Hartog" > wrote:


In the end "the five stages of grief" as formulated by Elisabeth 
Kübler-Ross seem to apply,

where not everybody is at the same stage at the same time…

--

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sergio Mucino]

BTW, just to clarify... I don't hate Maya per se (ok... I hate it throughout 
the day... Several times). It is actually a good package (it didn't become the 
standard in film just for no reason). However, to me, "strengths" reads as 
"qualities that surpass anything else by an noticeable margin". In that sense, 
I can't pinpoint any. But then again, that's maybe just due to how I use the 
application (I'm just the rigging part of the chain). I guess a pipeline TD 
would maybe have a different opinion. I will add that Maya does scale well, and 
plays fairly with all the other pipeline apps. Dunno what else to say... 
There's a lot of available scripts/plugins out there that will help you live 
through its defects? ( but that can be said for pretty much any application ). 

Sergio Muciño.
Sent from my iPad.

> On May 22, 2014, at 8:37 AM, "Stefan Kubicek"  wrote:
> 
> A robot a day keeps the doctor away?
> 
> 
> http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/making-of-the-amazing-spider-man-2-rhino/ 
> 
> blaa ?
> 
> 
>> On 22 May 2014 13:11, Martin  wrote:
>> Tough question.
>> 
>> Modeling. Nothing really. A few tools that SI lacks like preserve uvs, lock 
>> sub components, sculpt tool, some tools that work better, but nothing 
>> special.
>> 
>> Animation. Nothing either.
>> 
>> nCloth, nHair, and muscles may be an strength point but I almost never use 
>> them so I can't talk about it.
>> 
>> Viewport. Even the old Maya viewport is better than the newest SI one. And 
>> this is a big difference when you have to deal with alpha bitmaps, vertex 
>> colors and normal maps when you're modeling game assets.
>> 
>> Coding. You have access to a lot more places than with SI. But writing in 
>> Mel is a nightmare if you write something big, and the Python experience 
>> isn't very pleasant but I don't have experience with Pymel.
>> 
>> ASCII format.
>> 
>> Ignore version option. You can open data in older versions, sometimes. I 
>> find this feature a little unreliable since 2012 (or 2013?, can't remember)
>> 
>> I can't think about any other big strength, sorry.
>> 
>> Oh wait. It isn't dead, and you can find a lot of jobs and users around the 
>> world. It isn't a Maya feature but that's the main reason why Maya is the 
>> leader.
>> 
>> Martin
>> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
>
> -
>Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
> -
>   Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>  Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
>www.keyvis.at
>  This email and its attachments are
> confidential and for the recipient only

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sergio Mucino]

I actually thought it was the worst node editor I've used in my life. 

Sergio Muciño.
Sent from my iPad.

> On May 22, 2014, at 8:30 AM, Mario Reitbauer  
> wrote:
> 
> I would say after using it a bit. The node editor is acutally something worth 
> using it.
> 
> 
> 2014-05-22 14:03 GMT+02:00 Sebastien Sterling :
>> Are you trying to attain a specific level of generalism ?
>> 
>> 
>>> On 22 May 2014 12:44, Leendert A. Hartog  wrote:
>>> Thanks for that...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> 
>>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
> 

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sergio Mucino]

I'm gonna be with Sebastien on this one. Maya is not stronger than anything in 
a way worth mentioning. It is the winner if the race for historical reasons, 
and because the race was rigged (ha... See what I did there? ;-) ). If 
anything, it is a very open package, but that doesn't get you anything by 
itself. Maybe, as it was mentioned before, it is the most rounded package. It 
does everything, and it does it well but at the cost of making you pay in blood 
for it. Personally, after using Modo, I don't miss Maya for a single second (it 
was a package I never really liked, to start with... It just allowed me to get 
my work done much more efficiently than Max). Granted, there are still many 
things that Modo doesn't do yet, but some of these I can fake (I.e. Muscles), 
and others are changing rapidly. I'm happier there than having to deal with a 
package that after strutting for 3 minutes forces me to enter some arcane line 
of code from the lost books of the Ancients just to add a circle shape to my 
joint (are you for f real?.). 

There. Now, back to my usual happy part of the day (the rest of it, with no 
Maya included) :-) 

Sergio Muciño.
Sent from my iPad.

> On May 22, 2014, at 6:59 AM, "Leendert A. Hartog"  wrote:
> 
> So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone? Somehow 
> I doubt that... ;)
> 
> -- 
> 
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
> 

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Eric Thivierge]

Two words, Fabric Engine. :)

Eric T.

On 5/22/2014 6:22 AM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com wrote:


I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over, could 
some of you share how you're dealing with the " your software its's 
obsolote" phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?


I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around quickly.
Yeh, just being honest here.

:)

Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en Android 

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Jordi Bares]

Optimistic model

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 22 May 2014, at 13:02, "Leendert A. Hartog"  wrote:

> In the end "the five stages of grief" as formulated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross 
> seem to apply, 
> where not everybody is at the same stage at the same time…
> 
>  -- 
> 
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue 
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
> 

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Stefan Kubicek]

A robot a day keeps the doctor away?



http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/making-of-the-amazing-spider-man-2-rhino/
blaa ?


On 22 May 2014 13:11, Martin  wrote:

Tough question.

Modeling. Nothing really. A few tools that SI lacks like preserve uvs, lock sub 
components, sculpt tool, some tools that work better, but nothing >>special.

Animation. Nothing either.

nCloth, nHair, and muscles may be an strength point but I almost never use them 
so I can't talk about it.

Viewport. Even the old Maya viewport is better than the newest SI one. And this is a 
big difference when you have to deal with alpha bitmaps, >>vertex colors and 
normal maps when you're modeling game assets.

Coding. You have access to a lot more places than with SI. But writing in Mel is a 
nightmare if you write something big, and the Python experience >>isn't very 
pleasant but I don't have experience with Pymel.

ASCII format.

Ignore version option. You can open data in older versions, sometimes. I find 
this feature a little unreliable since 2012 (or 2013?, can't remember)

I can't think about any other big strength, sorry.

Oh wait. It isn't dead, and you can find a lot of jobs and users around the world. It 
isn't a Maya feature but that's the main reason why Maya is the >>leader.


Martin

Sent from my iPhone






--

-
   Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
-
  Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
 Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
   www.keyvis.at
 This email and its attachments are
confidential and for the recipient only

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Mario Reitbauer]

I would say after using it a bit. The node editor is acutally something
worth using it.


2014-05-22 14:03 GMT+02:00 Sebastien Sterling 
:

> Are you trying to attain a specific level of generalism ?
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 12:44, Leendert A. Hartog  wrote:
>
>> Thanks for that...
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>
>>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/making-of-the-amazing-spider-man-2-rhino/

blaa ?


On 22 May 2014 13:11, Martin  wrote:

> Tough question.
>
> Modeling. Nothing really. A few tools that SI lacks like preserve uvs,
> lock sub components, sculpt tool, some tools that work better, but nothing
> special.
>
> Animation. Nothing either.
>
> nCloth, nHair, and muscles may be an strength point but I almost never use
> them so I can't talk about it.
>
> Viewport. Even the old Maya viewport is better than the newest SI one. And
> this is a big difference when you have to deal with alpha bitmaps, vertex
> colors and normal maps when you're modeling game assets.
>
> Coding. You have access to a lot more places than with SI. But writing in
> Mel is a nightmare if you write something big, and the Python experience
> isn't very pleasant but I don't have experience with Pymel.
>
> ASCII format.
>
> Ignore version option. You can open data in older versions, sometimes. I
> find this feature a little unreliable since 2012 (or 2013?, can't remember)
>
> I can't think about any other big strength, sorry.
>
> Oh wait. It isn't dead, and you can find a lot of jobs and users around
> the world. It isn't a Maya feature but that's the main reason why Maya is
> the leader.
>
> Martin
> Sent from my iPhone
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Martin]

Tough question.

Modeling. Nothing really. A few tools that SI lacks like preserve uvs, lock sub 
components, sculpt tool, some tools that work better, but nothing special.

Animation. Nothing either.

nCloth, nHair, and muscles may be an strength point but I almost never use them 
so I can't talk about it.

Viewport. Even the old Maya viewport is better than the newest SI one. And this 
is a big difference when you have to deal with alpha bitmaps, vertex colors and 
normal maps when you're modeling game assets.

Coding. You have access to a lot more places than with SI. But writing in Mel 
is a nightmare if you write something big, and the Python experience isn't very 
pleasant but I don't have experience with Pymel.

ASCII format.

Ignore version option. You can open data in older versions, sometimes. I find 
this feature a little unreliable since 2012 (or 2013?, can't remember)

I can't think about any other big strength, sorry.

Oh wait. It isn't dead, and you can find a lot of jobs and users around the 
world. It isn't a Maya feature but that's the main reason why Maya is the 
leader.

Martin
Sent from my iPhone

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Well, I am a "mere" hobbyist, so the generalist approach has always seem 
prudent.


--

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

Are you trying to attain a specific level of generalism ?


On 22 May 2014 12:44, Leendert A. Hartog  wrote:

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

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Leendert A. Hartog]

In the end "the five stages of grief" as formulated by Elisabeth 
Kübler-Ross seem to apply,

where not everybody is at the same stage at the same time…



--

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Rob Chapman]

Yeah am trying to optimize the layout for current shot by deleting out of
camera hierarchies but Maya keeps freezing 10 minutes at a time when
selecting. Lass tool is single threading right?
 On 22 May 2014 12:42, "Stefan Kubicek"  wrote:

>  Total nightmare. Reminds me on stories of the making of Myst (the game),
> with sometimes hours of loading time.
> I couldn't imagine working like that. To be fair, I always found
> loading/saving in Maya pretty fast, even compared to XSI.
> I tried with scenes of equal complexity (lots of geo, but little to no
> construction history) and found it to actually load faster than XSI in most
> cases.
> Memory consumption was often two to three times higher though - I was able
> to load and work on scenes in XSI that wouldn't even fit in memory with
> Maya. That was yeras ago, don't know if anything was improved in this
> regard.
>
> Yes about 30 mins to load
> On 22 May 2014 12:21, "Stefan Kubicek"  wrote:
>
>> Is it done loading ?
>>
>> Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
>> On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling" 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
>>> from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
>>> user though.
>>>
>>> strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
>>> Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
>>> have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
>>> quaternion.
>>>
>>> Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>>>
 Also you ahve to ask more precicely.

 Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys
 loves it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.


 On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog <
 hirazib...@live.nl> wrote:

> So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
> Somehow I doubt that... ;)
>
>
> --
>
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>
>

>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> -
>>Stefan Kubicek 
>> ste...@keyvis.at<%22ste...@keyvis.at%22+%3cste...@keyvis.at%3E>
>> -
>>   Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
>> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>>  Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
>>www.keyvis.at
>>  This email and its attachments are
>> confidential and for the recipient only
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> -
>Stefan Kubicek 
> ste...@keyvis.at<%22ste...@keyvis.at%22+%3cste...@keyvis.at%3E>
> -
>   Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>  Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
>www.keyvis.at
>  This email and its attachments are
> confidential and for the recipient only
>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Jordi Bares]

It is a very bad joke to be honest… the grief starts now if anything!

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 22 May 2014, at 12:19, Eric Mootz  wrote:

> "grief is over"?
> 
> is this a bad joke??
> 
> 

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Thanks for that...

--

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

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Stefan Kubicek]

Total nightmare. Reminds me on stories of the making of Myst (the game), with 
sometimes hours of loading time.
I couldn't imagine working like that. To be fair, I always found loading/saving 
in Maya pretty fast, even compared to XSI.
I tried with scenes of equal complexity (lots of geo, but little to no 
construction history) and found it to actually load faster than XSI in most 
cases.
Memory consumption was often two to three times higher though - I was able to 
load and work on scenes in XSI that wouldn't even fit in memory with Maya. That 
was yeras ago, don't know if anything was improved in this regard.



Yes about 30 mins to load
On 22 May 2014 12:21, "Stefan Kubicek"  wrote:

Is it done loading ?


Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling"  wrote:

Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that from a TD 
perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end user though.

strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package: Voxel, quaternion, 
heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i have never seen a TD 
ever use anything more then linear, or maybe quaternion.

Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.



On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:

Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys loves it, 
or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog  wrote:

So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone? Somehow I 
doubt that... ;)


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









-- -
  Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
-
 Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
   A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
  www.keyvis.at
This email and its attachments are
confidential and for the recipient only




--

-
   Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
-
  Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
 Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
   www.keyvis.at
 This email and its attachments are
confidential and for the recipient only

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Rob Chapman]

And sorry yes this is just Bg  environment geometry
On 22 May 2014 12:37, "Rob Chapman"  wrote:

> Yes about 30 mins to load
> On 22 May 2014 12:21, "Stefan Kubicek"  wrote:
>
>>  Is it done loading ?
>>
>> Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
>> On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling" 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
>>> from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
>>> user though.
>>>
>>> strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
>>> Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
>>> have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
>>> quaternion.
>>>
>>> Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>>>
 Also you ahve to ask more precicely.

 Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys
 loves it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.


 On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog <
 hirazib...@live.nl> wrote:

> So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
> Somehow I doubt that... ;)
>
>
> --
>
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>
>

>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> -
>>Stefan Kubicek 
>> ste...@keyvis.at<%22ste...@keyvis.at%22+%3cste...@keyvis.at%3E>
>> -
>>   Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
>> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>>  Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
>>www.keyvis.at
>>  This email and its attachments are
>> confidential and for the recipient only
>>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Rob Chapman]

Yes about 30 mins to load
On 22 May 2014 12:21, "Stefan Kubicek"  wrote:

>  Is it done loading ?
>
> Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
> On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling" 
> wrote:
>
>> Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
>> from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
>> user though.
>>
>> strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
>> Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
>> have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
>> quaternion.
>>
>> Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>>
>>> Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
>>>
>>> Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys
>>> loves it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog >> > wrote:
>>>
 So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
 Somehow I doubt that... ;)


 --

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


>>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> -
>Stefan Kubicek 
> ste...@keyvis.at<%22ste...@keyvis.at%22+%3cste...@keyvis.at%3E>
> -
>   Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>  Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
>www.keyvis.at
>  This email and its attachments are
> confidential and for the recipient only
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

What does the scene consist off ? that would be an advantage, if it could
hold more individual none instanced assets, when it comes to mesh density
xsi outstrips it easily.

you can in fact smooth a character in softimage and playback at a decent
speed, something i have never witnessed in maya outside a playblast.


On 22 May 2014 12:18, Rob Chapman  wrote:

> Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
> On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling" 
> wrote:
>
>> Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
>> from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
>> user though.
>>
>> strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
>> Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
>> have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
>> quaternion.
>>
>> Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>>
>>> Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
>>>
>>> Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys
>>> loves it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog >> > wrote:
>>>
 So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
 Somehow I doubt that... ;)


 --

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


>>>
>>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Stefan Kubicek]

Is it done loading ?


Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling"  wrote:

Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that from a TD 
perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end user >>though.

strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package: Voxel, 
quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i have >>never 
seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe quaternion.

Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.



On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:

Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys loves it, 
or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog  wrote:

So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone? Somehow I 
doubt that... ;)


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









--

-
   Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
-
  Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
 Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
   www.keyvis.at
 This email and its attachments are
confidential and for the recipient only

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Marco Peixoto]

I find Maya to be more snapier to Character Animation than XSi, its Hard to
explain, but i prefer to Character Animate there than in Xsi, but only that
:)


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Rob Chapman  wrote:

> Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
> On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling" 
> wrote:
>
>> Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
>> from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
>> user though.
>>
>> strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
>> Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
>> have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
>> quaternion.
>>
>> Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>>
>>> Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
>>>
>>> Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys
>>> loves it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog >> > wrote:
>>>
 So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
 Somehow I doubt that... ;)


 --

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


>>>
>>

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Eric Mootz]

"grief is over"?

is this a bad joke??

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Rob Chapman]

Currently loading a 12.3gb scene...
On 22 May 2014 12:12, "Sebastien Sterling" 
wrote:

> Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
> from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
> user though.
>
> strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
> Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
> have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
> quaternion.
>
> Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>
>> Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
>>
>> Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys loves
>> it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
>>> Somehow I doubt that... ;)
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

Could you say it is scalable? able to do games and films ? i agree that
from a TD perspective it seems ok, doesn't sweeten the pill for the end
user though.

strengths, like it has more skinning algorithms then any other package:
Voxel, quaternion, heat... but then it also has weight painting so bad i
have never seen a TD ever use anything more then linear, or maybe
quaternion.

Viewport 2.0 yea, that a legitimate better.



On 22 May 2014 12:02, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:

> Also you ahve to ask more precicely.
>
> Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys loves
> it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog 
> wrote:
>
>> So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
>> Somehow I doubt that... ;)
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>
>>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Stefan Kubicek]

My 5 cents:

The viewport is more "modern", faster than XSI's, and supports DX11 shaders.
The SDK is really open, there is hardly anything you don't have access to.
Texture swimming works.
The general notion of complex rig performance is that it's better than in XSI's.
Fluids and Muscles out of the box, abeit not user friendly and of limited 
usability/stability.
More robust NURBS import and surface modeling (e.g. curves on surface, etc).
Better support from game-related 3rd parties (exporters to various game 
engines).
MentalRay is a plugin (that has both pros and cons)


--

-
   Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
-

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Both would interest me ATM.

Greetz
Leendert

--

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

Re: OT: Now that the grief over softimage, how did you get over your it on your daily basis?

[Mirko Jankovic]

Who said that the grief is over?
Every single day I think at least once... oh AD how I hate you.
Also "your software is obsolete" from them ends up with "I can still work
10 times faster in my obsolete software". Eat my dust!


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:22 PM, activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com <
activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I know it's a sensible question, but now that the grief is over, could
> some of you share how you're dealing with the " your software its's
> obsolote" phrase around your maya/C4D/3dsMax colleague?
>
> I got my head under Modo blankets and hope the day comes around quickly.
> Yeh, just being honest here.
>
> :)
>
> Enviado desde Yahoo Mail en 
> Android
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Mirko Jankovic]

Also you ahve to ask more precicely.

Do you mean strengths from technical point as it seems that TD guys loves
it, or from artist point as it seems there is big difference there.


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:

> So, absolutely no strengths? Market leader on marketing voodoo alone?
> Somehow I doubt that... ;)
>
>
> --
>
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Mirko Jankovic]

So far I can think of one... viewport.
And maybe better connection with 3rd party clients like game engines as it
is more support then SI.
The rest.. cant think of any right now really


On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:

> As a “perfect companion” to the very interesting “Houdini Weaknesses”
> thread that has developed here recently, I would be interested not so much
> in the weaknesses but in the specific strengths of Maya. The weaknesses
> from a Softimage POV would seem to be pretty well documented, what
> interests me here would be its strengths (if any, hopefully), its redeeming
> features as it were, again from a Softimage POV.
> I’m hoping all the experience bundled in this List could help paint a
> realistic picture.
>
> Greetz
> Leendert
>
> --
>
> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>
>
>

Re: Maya strengts (anyone?)

[Sebastien Sterling]

You mean they didn't have a big team before :P


On 22 May 2014 11:56, Mário Domingos  wrote:

> The biggest advantage I can see now is that they have a really big team
> working to make it better. Let's if they can make it
>
>
> On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Leendert A. Hartog 
> wrote:
>
>> Ah, shucks, give me something. I am just learning Maya and I could really
>> use a little boost... ;)
>>
>> --
>>
>> Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
>> Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com
>>
>>
>