Re: Porting to Maya

[Martin Yara]

I've been using that workflow for a few years. Softimage to Maya, Maya to
Softimage. Mainly for character modeling and animation, shape animation.

I scripted most of it. Softimage Script -> FBX -> Maya batch with a Maya
Script. Works pretty fine, but it has to be a little customized depending
on the project. It can be done in one click, and the part that takes the
most time is the FBX conversion.

1. Modeling (including bones, weights, all except rig), Animation (baked
and using 2 compatibles rigs in Softimage and Maya).

2 and 3.
Lots of things, and I'm sure a lot of them you already know, but just in
case:

- Vertex Color. Usually if you match the FBX version to the Maya version it
will export fine. The problem is Softimage only has FBX 2015, so exporting
to 2016 didn't work very well sometimes.
We were doing a Maya 2016 project and exporting to FBX caused the Vertex
Color to be "rotated" like the old FBX UV problem. Weird enough, if I clean
the mesh by export / importing to OBJ, copy weights from my old mesh and
other things before exporting to FBX, it usually works fine. But even more
weird, importing this bugged FBX into Maya, and setting the Alpha Channel
to 1.0 fixed it. Yeah, I don't know why.

- UVs. You have to rename at least your main Tex.Projection to map1 before
exporting or it will get messy inside Maya. And merge all UVs in Maya once
imported, because all your UVs will be separated. Selecting All UVs and
merge them with a very low threshold value works fine.

- Materials. Depending on the Maya version and how complicated your
Materials are you will have to rebuild them. And obviously fix the texture
paths. Delete Scene Material.

- Delete Neutral Pose in Softimage before exporting or you will have an
extra locator or bone.

- Unlock Normals. When you import into Maya, the normals will be locked,
and if you don't unlock them before doing anything in your mesh, your
normals will get messed up pretty quickly.

- Remove Namespaces in Maya.

- Just in case, check that the weights are normalized. I don't know if that
is normal, but I had a few problems with this so I normalize everytime I
import into Maya.

- Vertices numbers are the same. So if you are using shape animation with
different objects, then it will be easily exportable with a custom script,
just write the points positions and load them in Maya without having to use
FBX everytime. I did it with JSON and OpenMaya.
The same with weights if necessary. I used Comet, and Alan Fregtman's
Softimage version. Comet script is an old mel, so it could be faster with
JSON and OpenMaya, but it works. I haven't look out how to do it with
vertex colors or UVs.

- Animation is pretty straight forward as long the objects have the same
name and don't have neutral pose. Obviously Constraints, expressions or any
deformer other than envelope won't work so you'll have to rebuild them in
Maya. I guess that could be scripted too.

- Internal triangle edges orientation change, so be sure to triangulate
before exporting if needed.

- Maya has different default frame rate values, so match frame rate, start
and end frame before importing if needed.


>From Maya to Softimage:
- Once imported into Softimage, rebuild the Envelope or any weight
operation won't work as expected. I'm not sure but something get a
different order when imported, deformers, points, I'm not sure, haven't
looked up either.

- Symmetry Template will fail if you don't rebuild your envelope. And any
script that depends on the Symmetry Template may crash Softimage if you
don't do it.

- Again just in case, I normalize the weights.

- Be sure to export with Smoothing Groups to be able to import hard edges
in Softimage.

I think that's pretty much all I do.
Hope it helps.

Martin

On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 3:22 AM, Matt Lind  wrote:

> I'm curious to know how many other people are still using Softimage and
> porting their work to Maya via .fbx or another route?
>
> 1) What kind of work are you doing in this workflow?  (character rigging?
> environment modeling?  motion graphics?, ...)
>
> 2) Which features can you not get across (or not get across easily)?
>
> 3) What do you still have to do after conversion of data (repair, polish,
> cleanup, ...), and how much time does it take to do it?
>
>
> Matt
>
> PS - Please trim your responses to only carry the immediate post you are
> responding to.  For those of us on the digest form of the list, it's
> difficult to find the message in the sea of reply-included text on threads
> with long histories.
>
>
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Porting to Maya

[Matt Lind]

I'm curious to know how many other people are still using Softimage and 
porting their work to Maya via .fbx or another route?

1) What kind of work are you doing in this workflow?  (character rigging? 
environment modeling?  motion graphics?, ...)

2) Which features can you not get across (or not get across easily)?

3) What do you still have to do after conversion of data (repair, polish, 
cleanup, ...), and how much time does it take to do it?


Matt

PS - Please trim your responses to only carry the immediate post you are 
responding to.  For those of us on the digest form of the list, it's 
difficult to find the message in the sea of reply-included text on threads 
with long histories.


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To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
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Re: I'm lost / Which Software fills the void / help!?

[Thomas Volkmann]

To ease your painhttps://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?437624-Addon-Match-TransformsBut I agree, PPGs are sorely missed :(/Thomasskuby  hat am 7. Oktober 2017 um 22:06 geschrieben:Original Poster Here: So I finally took the trip down memory lane (as suggested) and while it was fun, I think I was being a little too nostalgic (as well as a bit frustrated that I simply don't know Blender in all aspects of 3D (rigging/animation/ETC.) as well as I used to know Softimage).  It's been almost 3 years since I've had Softimage open and I focused mostly on modeling/sculpting while learning Blender in this time.Playing with Soft again is helping me figure out what I am really missing in Blender (and I what I just need to learn better).Funny enough there are actually a lot of things I took for granted that Blender does much much better and I would miss if I actually tried to work in Softimage.  Right now I'm just mesmerizing about the Softimage UI.  The PPG's and the history / modifier stack are so awesome!Thanks everyone, it's weird how this worked out, but I think I'm good.  My stubbornness in not keeping Softimage around at all made some obvious things not so obvious, but it forced me to learn.On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 1:39 AM, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:Hi Nicole,I work on my own. Sometimes I wish I was in a studio though, but these are often vfx oriented which is not what's show my reel.If you want to see what I do : http://www.wandaprint.com/artist/olivier-jeannel/ I'm not sure Softimage was that fast to setup, but yes I use Houdini as I used Softimage (as I used Lightwave, as I used 3ds, as I used Imagine3D... doh!)You want to be artistly free creative ?  Frankly, go Houdini but prepare to suffer at the beginning.Imho, Houdini means 3D, as much as painting means not only "Art of Painting" but also knows "what's a pigment", "what's a canvas", etc.In my opinion 3D engeneering got me much closer to the joy of "doing Art" than my Art school studies, but that's a very personnal statement.Imho, mastering engennering leads to creative freedom ...Houdini is big, offers more, but costs a bit to get into.But by far, it's my best move.After, and I agree with you on the sadness of the current movie production,  it all depends on what you decide to do and that might not be software related2017-10-07 18:15 GMT+02:00 Nicole Beeckmans-Jacqmain :hi.do you say Olivier,that it is possible in Houdini to work autonomously as an individual,make a movie on your own the way it is with softi?with softimage there was a few hours of learning, and you couldstart the whole aspects of a production , this ; on your own.what is your 'radar'? do you work in a studio environment?ps i have seen a recent pluralsight tutorial about houdini procedural building cities,and i do understand better now the meaning of the conversation we had here aboutdeveloping an 'artist' friendly insight into houdini.it is really 'engeneering', in asmuch as we cannot say that Gustav Klimt or Salvador Dali(to take mild, provide tempered examples, not Tristan Tzara or James Joyce say), these XXcentury artists they were not engeneers.if you start building movies the way you build the Empire State Building or the Millau Bridge by Foster,then it is not cinema. It used to be cinema. Not to mention the quality of the 'movies' like BatMan-Marvel or recently Bladerunner 2049,who i believe at top level of production are built to make audience adapt to the same sadness which causes the hardcoding effort. Houdini gestion of particles integrates perfectly swell in that management of audiences. Netflix also.Art is about Joy, inspiration, visionnary, invention.. Engeneering is about enslavement and vacuum. Apocalyptic.so in regards to this i d be entertained to know if there are independent users of houdini.best regards,N.B.J.2017-10-07 16:21 GMT+02:00 Olivier Jeannel :Mmmh, I have to admit that rigging is not on my radar atm.There should have a few good tutorial (not that many) though, for the basic of IK.And I think I've see some big prods working with rigs in Houdini as described here https://vimeo.com/222707484 by Michael Goldfarb (I haven't watched the hole lecture).But overal you're right Mirko.2017-10-07 16:08 GMT+02:00 Mirko Jankovic :One note on Houdini that character animation is far away from Softimage. One big stopping point there is lack of riggers. I was trying to look around and Houdini riggers pool is close to non.Now unless you have time and wan't to learn rigging completely as well This one is a bit  stopping point for me at the moment. ᐧOn Sat, Oct 7, 2017 at 4:03 PM, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:I've moved to Houdini. If by far Softimage was easier or more friendly, I found that Houdini provides a never ending learning curve with unlimited possibilities.If you're not affraid to learn and want to give 3D some little 

Re: I'm lost / Which Software fills the void / help!?

[Jason S]

  
  

  I agree that what comes closest to XSI is
  MayaHoudiniBlenderModoC4d 
  (all of them, and none of them)
  
  Pick any one, and you'll be lacking one or more important aspects,
  
  and I do mean -important-,  relative to what XSI allowed, there is
  no way around it.
  
  Pick Maya Houdini combo? then you (and your potential
  team-members) 
  will find yourself(-selves) needing to get specialized in one area
  or another if not already versed, therefore eventually needing
  more (specialized) team-members to cover different areas,
  
  And if already versed, it's something which you would already know
  even before starting 
  (then possibly not starting, or starting later)
  
  
  Because you can't specialize in everything, 
  becoming fluent in vex can take years and I think also Houdini
  devs also don't like the term "user-friendly"
  For Maya, managing rigging alone can be an entire very-complicated
  and involving field in itself ( even for the simplest of rigs, I
  kid you not )
   as opposed to animating which is fine...  ... when the rig is
  well made.
  
  And despite Maya being industry standard, finding capable
  specialized technical talent to handle such complication , or
  rather such considerable amounts of confusion and messiness
  (relative to XSI), can be somewhat difficult as they remain rare,
  and that also goes for dedicated TD's (with an emphasis on the 'T
' in "TD")

  
  That's apart from all the problems from the fact that it's made
  assuming workarounds (also often very technical) can be made
  around how things are by default.
  
  And although v2018 has addressed a number of issues from 2017,
  many have qualified maya's bugginess as "rampant".
 
   If you go to the area's maya page, it's like a flow of issues
  often around regular everyday things often as benign as selecting
  things, or grabing handles, moving points, framing things,
  and a few "do this, and crash" are in there(2018), as if issues
  often only shifted someplace else when solved.
  
  
  Otherwise Pick C4d or Modo or Blender, and you'll hit one
  limitation or another, as soon things become more involving,
  elaborate, or specific, which would require either downsizing your
  expectations, or migrating your project - or some aspects of it to
  Houdini (for the special things)  or Maya for other things (along
  with everything that entails), starting the circle all over again.
  
  So short answer,  ( I think objectively speaking, after looking
  into different things for a while  when asking myself the same
  question )
  basically  ->  NO.  There IS no XSI replacement,  ... there is
  MayaHoudiniBlenderModoC4d.
  (that while XSI continues to exists)
  
  
  As if rights to paintbrushes were bought and retired,
  leaving only either crayola crayons, -OR- DIY paintbrush building
  kits with heavy technical manuals getting into endless procedures
  about how to go about melting the little bits of metal to fashion
  the little brush holding peice, etc..
  
  So that means ... crayons,  becoming technical-brush-building
  specialists,
  or having a number of brush-building specialists at your side, ...
  or no more painting.
  
  Or ... you can pick-up the brush you know just works, and just go
  ahead painting,
  to do what you do as a painter, while (comparatively very
  efficiently) getting to what you had in mind (then becoming
  actually reachable without literally -tons- of technical
  considerations).
  
  In XSI we also build brushes (tools), 
  but by means of painting a picture of a brush  ( very visual
  process ) , 
  before literally actually using the brush we just painted  lol.
   ( all very interactive and ... artistic ) 
  
   
  
  anyhoo,
  
  Good luck!
  -J
  
   
  On 10/07/17 14:30, Jonathan Moore wrote:


  I love Houdini but it's still missing the mark in
terms of having the rounded 'artist friendly' toolset of XSI.


The SideFX guys came to London this week and held an event
  called 'Procedural in Motion' which was targeted at those of
  us the use Houdini for non VFX stuff (motion design in
  particular). There's a bunch of interesting presentations but
  the one that caught my attention the most was the final panel
  discussion which featured a few folk from this list. - Participants:

Lawrence Parkhurst (SKY), Will MacNeil (The Mill), Simon
French (ETC), Tim Bolland (Glassworks), Pétur Breki
Bjarnason (Jellyfish Pictures) - 
 

Re: I'm lost / Which Software fills the void / help!?

[skuby]

Really nice work Oliver!

On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 3:06 AM, skuby  wrote:

> *Original Poster Here*: So I finally took the trip down memory lane (as
> suggested) and while it was fun, I think I was being a little too nostalgic
> (as well as a bit frustrated that I simply don't know Blender in all
> aspects of 3D (rigging/animation/ETC.) as well as I used to know
> Softimage).  It's been almost 3 years since I've had Softimage open and I
> focused mostly on modeling/sculpting while learning Blender in this time.
>
> Playing with Soft again is helping me figure out what I am really missing
> in Blender (and I what I just need to learn better).
>
> Funny enough there are actually a lot of things I took for granted that
> Blender does much much better and I would miss if I actually tried to work
> in Softimage.  Right now I'm just mesmerizing about the Softimage UI.  The
> PPG's and the history / modifier stack are so awesome!
>
> Thanks everyone, it's weird how this worked out, but I think I'm good.  My
> stubbornness in not keeping Softimage around at all made some obvious
> things not so obvious, but it forced me to learn.
>
> On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 1:39 AM, Olivier Jeannel 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Nicole,
>> I work on my own. Sometimes I wish I was in a studio though, but these
>> are often vfx oriented which is not what's show my reel.
>> If you want to see what I do : 
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.wandaprint.com_ar=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=AmOdRK2wn6tAk3fc5usR6C5ruuYup0PQrODJljwcqvU=q234YnSo2o7P79tNH6Ft8fYtiq43KCcxbOwKUDU053U=
>> tist/olivier-jeannel/
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure Softimage was that fast to setup, but yes I use Houdini as I
>> used Softimage (as I used Lightwave, as I used 3ds, as I used Imagine3D...
>> doh!)
>>
>> You want to be artistly free creative ?  Frankly, go Houdini but prepare
>> to suffer at the beginning.
>>
>> Imho, Houdini means 3D, as much as painting means not only "Art of
>> Painting" but also knows "what's a pigment", "what's a canvas", etc.
>> In my opinion 3D engeneering got me much closer to the joy of "doing Art"
>> than my Art school studies, but that's a very personnal statement.
>> Imho, mastering engennering leads to creative freedom ...
>> Houdini is big, offers more, but costs a bit to get into.
>> But by far, it's my best move.
>>
>>
>> After, and I agree with you on the sadness of the current movie
>> production,  it all depends on what *you* decide to do and that might
>> not be software related
>>
>> 2017-10-07 18:15 GMT+02:00 Nicole Beeckmans-Jacqmain <
>> arc.ann...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>> hi.
>>> do you say Olivier,
>>> that it is possible in Houdini to work autonomously as an individual,
>>> make a movie on your own the way it is with softi?
>>> with softimage there was a few hours of learning, and you could
>>> start the whole aspects of a production , this ; on your own.
>>> what is your 'radar'? do you work in a studio environment?
>>>
>>> ps i have seen a recent pluralsight tutorial about houdini procedural
>>> building cities,
>>> and i do understand better now the meaning of the conversation we had
>>> here about
>>> developing an 'artist' friendly insight into houdini.
>>>
>>> it is really 'engeneering', in asmuch as we cannot say that Gustav Klimt
>>> or Salvador Dali
>>> (to take mild, provide tempered examples, not Tristan Tzara or James
>>> Joyce say), these XXcentury artists they were *not* engeneers.
>>> if you start building movies the way you build the Empire State Building
>>> or the Millau Bridge by Foster,
>>> then it is not cinema. It used to be cinema. Not to mention the quality
>>> of the 'movies' like BatMan-Marvel or recently Bladerunner 2049,
>>> who i believe at top level of production are built to make audience
>>> adapt to the same sadness which causes the hard
>>> coding effort. Houdini gestion of particles integrates perfectly swell
>>> in that management of audiences. Netflix also.
>>> Art is about Joy, inspiration, visionnary, invention.. Engeneering is
>>> about enslavement and vacuum. Apocalyptic.
>>>
>>> so in regards to this i d be entertained to know if there are
>>> independent users of houdini.
>>>
>>> best regards,
>>> N.B.J.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2017-10-07 16:21 GMT+02:00 Olivier Jeannel :
>>>
 Mmmh, I have to admit that rigging is not on my radar atm.
 There should have a few good tutorial (not that many) though, for the
 basic of IK.
 And I think I've see some big prods working with rigs in Houdini as
 described here