Re: Yeti: converting grrom to geo
Yes,* convert groom to maya object* will bake you yetui setup to mesh objects J On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 8:59 AM, Sebastien Sterling < sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Het guys, it's another question about yeti > > > is it possible to convert a groom made up of instanced ellements to geo ? > > so if my instanced subject was a leef and i wanted to use yeti to populate > a bush, but then wanted to convert the intances back to regular geo ? > > there is a command in the teti menu called convert groom to maya object, > is that what it does ? > > all help much appreciated. >
Re: query shader parameters
Not sure if this is what you are trying to do, hope it helps: for param in oNode.NestedObjects: if param.Name == surface: surfaceParam = param myOutputShader = surfaceParam.NestedObjects(0) print myOutputShader sphere.Material.Lambert On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 7:53 AM, Jan Dubied j.dub...@onlinevideo.ch wrote: hi guys any idea how i can sort out output ports and just query shader input parameters? i tried this: for i in oNode.Parameters : if ( i.PortType == siPortInput ) : print i where oNode is the selected shader node in the render tree. but it seems that PortInput is not defined... thanks in advance -- -- Jan Dubied 2D/3D Artist *ON LINE VIDEO 46 AG* Leutschenbachstr. 46 / 8050 Zurich / Switzerland Phone +41 44 305 73 73 / Fax +41 44 305 73 00 www.onlinevideo.ch
Re: Sad days...
sad indeed!! it was certainly great stuff what you guys put together with SIC!! J On Sunday, 1 February 2015, a...@andynicholas.com a...@andynicholas.com wrote: One last tribute as our web hosting is about to run out... http://www.softimagecreatives.com A huge thanks to all of you who supported us. Andy
Re: orangutan - the mill
Nice work!! Well done! On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 6:04 PM, gareth bell garethb...@outlook.com wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eysSKLxcpXAlist=UUvIYX7HvZJqODMRynAPf6aw -- Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 17:17:49 +0100 Subject: Re: orangutan - the mill From: sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Nice, Orangutan's are pretty hip these days. On 5 October 2014 16:50, Matt Morris matt...@gmail.com wrote: Just saw this last night, absolutely mind-blowing! Stunning work guys. So much character and real life in that face. http://www.themill.com/work/sse-orangutan.aspx -- www.matinai.com
Re: Nike The Last Game
wrong place, sorry On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Jacob Gonzalez jacobgo...@gmail.com wrote: from the softimge mailing list: Primarily Modo, Zbrush, Mudbox for modelling Mari and Photoshop for texturing Softimage for animation, crowds, fx Rendered with Arnold for Softimage Nuke for comping Marvelous Designer for cloth Houdini was used for stuff too Maya had a bit part (in modelling) J On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 9:48 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote: Wow, a whole short movie as a commercial? I loved it! David
Re: What use is ICE really?
Besides the all the amazing stuff you can do with (like some stuff Alistair has mentioned), ICE is also great to convert simple but tedious everyday tasks into flexible/easy to tweak workflows: An small example: right now I am lighting a Stadium. So instead of placing rows of lights manually (both the geo and the actual arnold_spot_light) I populate the lights with ICE (simply emitting from a curve). I make changes to the setup very fast. The traditional way would be: the modeller places all the lights by hand, and I place all the light sources by hand. And every change we make, we change every thing by handEven with a Python script will never as fast/ flexible and re-usable as with ICE! A small, simple example but it makes my day :) J On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote: Shall we just keep this thread for it's original purpose and not turn it into a discussion? i.e. posting work with descriptions of how ICE was used. DAN On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:39 PM, Artur Woźniak artur.w...@gmail.comwrote: We tried that for the last couple of years. Ice was self promoting and self evolving entity that seemed to be a splinter in the Autodesk's eye. I think Ice was the most amazing feature that was developed within the Main Three and yet they still marketed the viewcube and viewport 2 to simplify the comparison. I don't thing there is any chance of communication parallel (can I say that?) between Autodesk and the community. They killed it and now they only keep kicking the corpse while everybody watches. I will stay with SI for as long as I can. I will use Maya, learn C4D and Houdini (modo I know a bit already), but I say, let move on. I don't want fake promises just to be disappointed again. You wanna talk to someone who listens (The Foundry, SideFX). Artur 2014-03-21 12:23 GMT+01:00 Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com: It might help with the transition time period with support and bug fixing, it's a tool that is not available in another Autodesk software, it's a point for consideration on the transition period. On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote: The point is to get Autodesk to understand the power and all pervading nature of ICE and for that to inform their development of Bifrost Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. On 21/03/2014 11:17, olivier jeannel wrote: What's the point ? Understanding of Ice for Maya ? Le 21/03/2014 12:12, Alastair Hearsum a écrit : Folks We had a chat with a senior chap at Autodesk. There was hint of surprise at one use of ICE that I mentioned in passing. I think we over estimate the understanding of what ICE gets used for and its all pervading usefulness. I'd like to invite people to share their ice work especially if its more obscure (without giving away your trade secrets obviously). Here are some starters for us. Please keep the explanations as short as possible to attract Autodesk to read them. http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/love 1) Fine feathers created totally with ice strands 2) Feather system created in ice 3) Cats fur : ice strands http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/tadpoles-master 1) Totally ice strand vegetation 2) Ice driven water surface 3) Render tadpoles have ice compound which auomatically detects the shot number and selects the correct cache http://www.glassworks.co.uk/node/3266search-type=brandterm=g-star 1) Ice creating the cotton balls unravelling http://www.glassworks.co.uk/node/549 1) Ice crowd http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/transformationsearch-type=brandterm=lg 1) Object IDs picked up in ice and use to assign materials of supermarket aisle items https://vimeo.com/87096859 Some holes aesthetically 1) ice rigid body pens transferring their attributes to lagoa ice fluid melted pens 2)Ice fracturing bottle http://www.glassworks.co.uk/video/strewthsearch-type=brandterm=o 1) Intervened in
Re: A confession
@ Cristobal Yes, 5 other shots - No you don't have to split your shots into different scenes (per pass) this days - is not that bad! @ Neil All I hear is how shit Maya is... surely it does some things well? Agreed, I think Maya does have some good stuff. Ncloth is pretty good, and although I don't like Maya's interface I love the fact that it's Qt based. Very coo for integrating your custom layouts/toolbars. But overall, I am of the opinion that moving to Maya from Soft means taking a step back. J On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Siew Yi Liang soni...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Cristobal: Not necessarily: you can actually reference render layers into scenes AFAIK, which is what I'm doing with my student film. Render layers themselves are buggier than a beehive, but by rendering via batch instead of through the GUI solves most of these issues. Well, mine, anyway. :P However, if referencing workflow wasn't followed at the start, then yea...might be difficult/tedious to swap/propogate across scene files after that. The good thing is that it IS still possible to script/automate the process across scenes, most renderLayer/layerOverride functions are still exposed via MEL (although some are not, which I'm finding out to my dismay, but most of the commands I want exposed to Python are quite esoteric so I doubt most people will need them), so it's not impossible to do so...just very annoying. :P Yours sincerely, Siew Yi Liang On 3/19/2014 3:41 AM, Cristobal Infante wrote: he probably meant 5 other shots right? On 19 March 2014 10:40, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote: my other 5 render scenes this was the bit that shocked my the most, do you still need to break scene per passes? On 19 March 2014 10:29, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Ohh you really don't have to worry. Maya has a single state of the art button solution! Send to Softimage - --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-19 4:23 GMT-06:00 Martin Contel martin3d...@gmail.com: Sad but true, Jacob... The worst thing is that Maya users who have never tried something else don't know that the grass was greener on the other side. Saludetes! -- Martin Contel Square Enix (Visual Works) On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Jacob Gonzalez jacobgo...@gmail.comwrote: I had a very short expierence with Maya a while ago (mainly driven by curiosity). It was to do with rendering. It went something like this: *Maya user*: I need to replace all the characters in my scene because they are not referenced and there has been topology, shader changes (objects are called the same) *Me*: That's cool. Bring the new characters, match Partitions and done :) *Maya use*r: . what? *Me*: Match Render Layer Overrides ? *Maya Use*r: not possible. *Me *: Wow! what are you going to do. *Maya User*: I will bring the characters one by one . And character by character, render layer by render layer, object by object I will re-assign all the relevant overrides or changes made in this and my other 5 render scenes! *Me*: Ok. Let me know when you are done with this. You are staying late? J On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 9:57 AM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: Apt analogy, but you omitted that each nest is covered in bird shit :P On 19 March 2014 09:54, Nick Angus n...@altvfx.com wrote: First rule of Maya: forget ergonomics, the engine is powerful but the cockpit is a giant birds nest constructed from thousands of tiny birds nests. Sent from my Windows Phone -- From: Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk Sent: 19/03/2014 7:33 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: A confession Folks Here is a confession. I've never used Maya! Not really. I've had a little poke every now and again but no more than make a sphere and spin round it. Now, the lack of Maya knowledge may diminish the value of my comments in some eyes but I think that , on the contrary, it puts me in quite a good position to appraise the software at a certain level. Here is an example of the trouble I'm having that may bring a smile to people's faces. But first just a couple of more sentences before I reveal my difficulty. I like to bill myself as the sensitive artist/animator who is technically all fingers and thumbs, like the woman by the side of her broken down car waiting on a big strong man to help her out. The truth is that its not true. I do have a degree in Fine Art but I also studied maths and physics at university and programmed extensively in Lisp in my first job. So I'm not stupid BUT: *I'm on my third night trying to adjust the resolution of a sphere after I have applied n-cloth to it!* Isn't that incredible? Its one example plucked from many experienced by people I work with who can and have used Maya
Re: A confession
The point I was trying to make is that not having partitions makes rendering in Maya much more difficult and less efficient than rendering in XSI. This is one the features I am put off by when switching to Maya. Agreed, different 3D applications behave in different manners, and so you just need to change your way of working to adapt to it. Then it's not as horrible as you thought it was at first.But in the case of partitions I haven't come across any Maya user who had a workaround or method which was even close to XSI's built in features. And I have worked 4 years on a Maya / XSI based post house. J On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Graham Bell graham.b...@autodesk.comwrote: I've use both Maya and Softimage (XSI) for years, and the problem (imo) that many will make is that they're two different applications. You simply can't go into one and expect it to work in the same way to something else. This is no different to when jumping to Modo, Houdini, or Max. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Martin Yara Sent: 19 March 2014 11:19 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: A confession You shouldn't rely too much on the outliners, they are nowhere near what SI Explorer is. But if you must, and want to open multiple outliners ala Softimage, you can do it with something like this: // MEL //- window -t Outliner -wh 200 500; frameLayout -labelVisible false; string $panel = `outlinerPanel`; showWindow; //- Yeah, you have to script a lot in Maya. Even for stupid things like this. Knowing basic scripting in SI is very useful, but in Maya, not knowing basic scripting may be critical. Martin On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 6:51 PM, Ivan Vasiljevic klebed...@gmail.com mailto:klebed...@gmail.com wrote: You should go with something more simpler for start: Try opening few outliners as you would often have few explorer opened in SI.
Re: A confession
Hi Graham Apart from a shot experience using Maya I also did the same with Houdini. And again i was rendering. With Houdini I was frustrated the first few days as I felt I could do things quicker in Soft. But it was much more interesting than Maya since I could see the potential. After 3 weeks rendering with houdini I was actually quite happy about it. It's flexible, powerful and let's the artist enjoy a rendering workflow. My experience with Maya was totally the opposite. I don't have a massive experience with either Houdini or Maya, just a short one. But I am very experienced with Soft and I now what it works for me and what it doesnt. If AD makes rendering in Maya as nice as in XSI, takes ICE into Maya, etc. I would be very happy, sincemost likely I will be switching to Maya - but I doubt they will. J On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.comwrote: Maya = WorkDrip Softimage = WorkFlow On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Gaël Honorez g...@nozon.com wrote: We are using maya here for a dozen of years, but we are still trying to run away from it on every occasion possible. Today, we read the what's new page for maya 2015. Maya 2015 addresses at least 30 workflow obstacles identified as high priority by customers. That sentence make us laugh during all launch break. I don't know what customers you asked, but I can tell you 30 workflow problems in the color picker alone. I just hope you forgot a 0 somewhere. On 19/03/2014 14:25, Graham Bell wrote: I'm not being disingenuous at all, only that this is a common problem when people jump from one software to another. I've seen this many times from users where they start in another package and try to do the exact same workflow, only to then become frustrated. You can't jump to something else and expect it to work in the same way, you simply can't. It's a recipe for disaster. And it's all too easy to label something as being bad. I'm not saying that Maya's workflow is superior either. There are things I like and hate about Maya, but you could also say the same about Softimage and any software package to be fair. I think it was Luc-Eric who said in a previous post that apps have their set of compromises, which we essentially accept. Chris has mention on work starting to improve Maya's UI and I welcome that. And if there some Softimage goodness in there, then I welcome that too. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Alastair Hearsum Sent: 19 March 2014 12:45 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: A confession Graham I think its disingenuous to ascribe the difficulties people have in doing things in Maya only to the workflow being different. It was simple example I gave and I would have hoped that it would have highlighted the Maya workflow as being, dare I say, bad. I hope you don't mind the analogy here but the first step to an alcoholics recovery is admitting the problem. Marc Stevens went as far as he could in the webinar in conceding that there may be qualitative differences in the Maya/Softimage interface workflow scenario and that it is something that you are looking at So yes, different, but lets not shy away from calling a spade a spade. Alastair Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.ukhttp://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. On 19/03/2014 11:31, Graham Bell wrote: I've use both Maya and Softimage (XSI) for years, and the problem (imo) that many will make is that they're two different applications. You simply can't go into one and expect it to work in the same way to something else. This is no different to when jumping to Modo, Houdini, or Max. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Martin Yara Sent: 19 March 2014 11:19 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc. autodesk.com Subject: Re: A
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
great stuff. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comwrote: really good one. just wondering does it ever gets to anyone that has really any decision power in AD what so ever? On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote: Good stuff Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. On 14/03/2014 11:52, adrian wyer wrote: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a seaof Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites,
Re: YOUR TOP 5
1 - Render Passes Partitions 2 - *ICE* 3 - UI in general: specially the Render Tree 4 - Animation Toolset 5 - Not intuitive. Most people learn XSI faster than they learn Maya. J On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Christopher Crouzet christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote: It would be more fair to regroup the list of top5 into distinct categories: modelling, rigging, animation, rendering, FX ... and a general one for the workflow, UI, and such. Here's a quickie from my experience of using Maya in rigging/dev: *Rigging* - friendly weights painting and spreadsheet that works just the way they are supposed to - GATOR. And please don't compare this wonder to the Transfer Attributes of Maya. - being able to do *live* corrective shapes on a deformed mesh *General* - ICE - the API... seriously, having a logical and consistent API that is easy to use and don't need additional efforts to do simple dev tasks won't go in the way of flexibility. I don't know of any dev who didn't complain about Maya's API. - proper and complete port of the API to Python On 13 March 2014 04:54, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote: Hello It seems as if I may have some contact with Autodesk shortly! I want to be armed with some points. What I'd like is your top 5 features that make Softimage great that we'd miss if we migrated to something else. Please don't give me more than 5 and please don't go on too long describing them (It takes a while to read all the posts). Thanks Alastair -- Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. -- Christopher Crouzet *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com
Re: Open letter to Autodesk
great words. This is the type of letter AD should be getting. Would be great to see more of this coming. From the right people - like you guys. J On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 10:43 AM, michael johansson mich...@lowend.sewrote: Just a small remark to get it right and avoid that discussion. Under So the last two sentences: Autodesk have adjusted this so we can both switch to 3ds or maya and still continue to use softimage as long as we want. So that point is not valid anymore. Let me know when you publish it. I will be happy to re-publish it in all my channels. /michael johansson 2014-03-10 11:30 GMT+01:00 patrick nethercoat patr...@brandtanim.co.uk: Great letter, Alastair, sounds very nicely pitched to me. On 10 March 2014 10:26, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote: At last ! the voice of the big guys ! Thank you ! thank you ! Le 10/03/2014 11:20, Alastair Hearsum a écrit : Folks Dan Y and other folks, I hope this comes across as firm but reasonable. I will post it on other appropriate sites. Any ideas on that front? * An open letter to Autodesk. Dear Autodesk My name is Alastair Hearsum. I'm a founding partner, director and head of 3d at Glassworks. If you haven't heard of us, we are a small to midsized company which has been creating VFX and animation for TV commercials for markets around the world, for the past 20 years. We have branches in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona. We create innovative and multi award winning work and we use Softimage. Your announcement that you are retiring Softimage has left us saddened, disappointed and not a little angry. The anger for two reasons; that you have shot the racehorse of the 3d software world in the head in its prime but also that you didn't consult with us about this assassination or discuss any of your plans for the future with us. We have no idea what the future from you holds. We are big and longstanding users of other Autodesk products as well as Softimage. The puzzling thing is, technologically speaking, there was no writing on the wall as there was with Henry and Flame, for example, or these days with Flame and Nuke. We have been punching above our weight, in London, for the past 20 years competing well with the much larger organisations of MPC, Framestore and The Mill. One of the reasons we have been able to do that, apart from the deep talent of our crew is, I believe, because of the software that we chose. I'm nearly 150 years old now but I still sit at the computer making pictures for TV commercials to the same arduous schedule that I always have. So I know what I'm talking about. For a period a few years back we had a 50/50 split of Maya and Softimage. We chose to go 100% Softimage. Its better for the work that we do and the sector we are in. Its no coincidence that all the finalists in the recent British Animation Awards (tv commercials) did their work in Softimage. Similarly, both silver and gold award winners in the 3d animation category at this year's British Television Advertising Craft awards were Softimage companies. You may well go on to list major work that's been done in Maya. Sure there has, and great work too. But Maya is used as a shell in the major film effect companies. It is heavily customised and unrecognisable as the product you ship. We have our proprietary software and tailored workflow as well, but Softimage remains pretty much untouched. It is lean, efficient, and the ICE environment is innovative and empowering. So you've done it. What's next? Like I said we have had vague information about what the future holds. We hear rumours about bi-frost and that's about it. From what I understand from various sources there are no plans to replicate the efficient workflow and full ice functionality that made us so productive. You have offered free transitionary licenses of Maya with the threat of having to discontinue using Softimage in 2 years time. The final thought is not just about what software is best for our future but also about what sort of software supply company we want to get into bed with. The attributes that come top of my list: listening to customers, acting on their recommendations, speedy development, innovation. Now does that sound like you? Alastair Hearsum Glassworks.* -- Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author
Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users
best feature to copy from softimage to Maya : make 2015 the last release :) On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 11:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i guess it is just a safe bet that all plugin devs just compile for new versions anyways. On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Joe Laffey j...@laffey.tv wrote: This depends on the version. PLugins for MAX 2013 work perfectly in Max 2014...
Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users
Many things, but the most important for me: 1 - Partitions for the Render Layers 2- ICE! 3- The Render Tree - (I see they are making improvements on that) - The hypershade is 4- Consistency overall - Maya is a very wild and disorganize software :) J On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 10:23 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Well, in xsi you can't even reconnect, or rename, or reorder a constraint. WTF? :) But yeah, utter lack of atomic primitives for properties of many kind is a severe issue in Maya. You can have them and paint them, mind, but always only one per (some) nodes and it's opaque to the graph. Wait till you find a Maya rig chokes on just a few dozen constraints if you think lack of wmaps is bad :p On 8 Mar 2014 09:14, Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com wrote: Maya doesn't even have a real attribute map primitive seriously?! WTF! Gustavo E Boehs Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/ 2014-03-07 16:23 GMT-03:00 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: Clusters aren't really the key part to it, you do have equivalents in Maya after all and they do work and allow for isolation. The problem is XSI was the perfect storm for Shapes, some of its qualities that are shortcomings in some regards (stack instead of open nodes and so on) simply shone when it came to shapes. Its propertyToObject approach, diametrically opposite to Maya's, can be a pain in the arse some times, but it's so damn perfect for Shapes. Its more atomic components and the whole user experience around it, attribute maps, has always been top notch and catered for, building a slew of versatile tools and UIs around it, Maya doesn't even have a real attribute map primitive and only recently added blind data. Don't expect anything to even barely scratch the surface of what Soft could do with shapes for years to come. On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 6:17 AM, Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com wrote: Perhaps this is one of the features we should have AD take a look at. Though I think clusters is the foundation that allows shapes in Soft to be so powerful. Are we still decapitating heads in 2014? -Lu On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Bear in mind when dealing with shape work in Maya, and this is in general, that anything outside of Soft is primitive, half arsed, and generally painful. In those regards (shapes) Soft was and will probably always remain unbeaten. Prepare yourself for vast amounts of pain on every front. The difference between -anything- and Soft is a gaping chasm. I know of some very large, very prominent shops that are known to NOT use Soft that picked it up solely for that at times. On Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 6:11 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Another one. That I don't need to specify the blendshape node if there is only one blend shape node in that object, while I have other objects with blendshape nodes, each time I add a new blend shape to an object, if I have other objects with blendshapes nodes. I need to specify to which blendshape node I want to add, even if the object that I want to add the shape only has one blendshape node. --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-07 13:07 GMT-06:00 Chris Covelli ch...@polygonpusherinc.com : I would be very happy to see Maya make their hypershade more like the XSI rendertree. The hypershade feels like its trying to be node based, but not quite getting it. In XSI ou can see the ports and know instantly how everything is connected, whereas the hypershade just has boxes with lines between them. Not very helpful if you ask me. Chris Covelli http://www.polygonpusherinc.com/ http://exocortex.com/products/species TurboSquid Modelshttp://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/Polygon-Pusher?referral=Polygon-Pusher On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: no UI way to open two outliners, however there is a splitter bar at the bottom of the outliner that you can drag to get two outliner panes. On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Siew Yi Liang soni...@gmail.com wrote: Indeed there is: As MEL: tearOffPanel Outliner2 outlinerPanel false; This is because UI windows in Maya afaik are given specific names and you cannot have two open 'viewports' which share the same name, so just create a new one! And tear that off instead. And I agree, this should be part of the default GUI, though right now I just save this to my shelf as a script and increment the counter when I need a new one. :) Yours sincerely, -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and
Re: Softimage 2015 Last Release Announcement
I have been reading all the posts and thinking about what everyone said. In the next few month freelancers and companies will have to decide which way to go: 1 - Stick with softimage for the next 2 years or so - Mainly hoping something new come across, or maybe Houdini, Modo, Fabric become a safe option (some of you think Houdini already is - but depends the type of projects you do) 2- Switch to Houdini 3 - Switch to Maya - this may be the safer bet. Maya has some good stuff but overall Softimage it's a much better 3D Applcation so it hurts! - If I was a small Soft house with not a huge pipeline I would stick with Softimage for at least 2 years. Who knows? you may be able to avoid switching to Maya after all and instead go for a more XXI century DCC. There would be a lot of freelancers out of there who would want to work for you :) - As a freelancer I think I will eventually go for Maya if the market dictates so. Try to enjoy what's good in Maya and buy lots of Paracetamol for the headaches :). Bu if there is enough nice softimage work I would stick with it for the next couple of years hoping for the new Softimage to make it! Houdini is tempting as well, but I am unsure at the moment. It's interested to read what everyone is saying as we all have to make a decission! J On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Arvid Björn arvidbj...@gmail.com wrote: Hehe :) :( On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 8:33 AM, Sam Cuttriss tea...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcDn8gVPY_8 On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 6:39 PM, Leoung O'Young digim...@digimata.comwrote: Hi Maurice, I know you are in a very difficult situation with a lot of angry XSI users. It is a sad day for us here since been using since the early 1990 but didn't upgrade when Autodesk bought XSI so we are still using Version 7.1 due to number of circumstances. Is there a chance for us to upgrade to Softimage/XSI 2014 at this time? We are in a very difficult position since we have a lot of assets in XSI. Thanks for you time. Leoung On 04/03/2014 7:21 PM, Maurice Patel wrote: Hi Eric, Yes you will. Service packs and hot fixes are provided to all customers whether they are on Subscription or not. It is only extension releases that were exclusive to Subscription customers Maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Turman Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 7:17 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Softimage 2015 Last Release Announcement Maurice, I am on maintenance through April of this year. If I choose not to upgrade my license because I do not want to lose my perpetual license, will I be entitled to the mentioned service pack(s) hotfixes, and beta participation for said packs? How is that supposed to work? -=Eric Turman On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.commailto:maurice.pa...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Sven Yes you can upgrade. The price list will contain upgrade paths to either bundle. These will be at standard upgrade price rates though (not for free). As was mentioned on a previous thread next year those will go away too - but for all Autodesk products maurice Maurice Patel Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134tel:514%20954-7134 -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sven Constable Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 6:27 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc. autodesk.com Subject: RE: Softimage 2015 Last Release Announcement Maurice, It is still unclear to me. Is it possible to upgrade an existing perpetual network/floating license from previous versions to version 2015 (perpetual +network/floating license). Without any subscription or bundles? -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:s oftimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Maurice Patel Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2014 9:55 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc. autodesk.com Subject: RE: Softimage 2015 Last Release Announcement Autodesk will stop selling Softimage licenses to customers on March 28th (which is when the new 2014 price list goes into effect for all Autodesk products worldwide). Basically there will no longer be any Softimage SKUs in that price list. - Softimage 2015 will be delivered to all customers who have purchased Softimage prior to that date and who are on Subscription. - After March 28th, existing customers who are not on Subscription, will be able to upgrade their Softimage licenses to the Maya+Softimage or 3ds Max+Softimage bundle -
