Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

This is a really interesting discussion and covers thoughts from all
angles. There is an element to the discussion of technical types telling
the rest of us we just need to "git gud" which is a bit disheartening
though. (It's disheartening not because it's patronising but because the
only way to use Houdini is to master it at fairly high technical level
which will exclude a number of people, myself included). I understand that
there is a technical learning curve to any piece of software but Houdini is
a different beast to the other big three (Max, Maya, eXSI). You can drop a
Maya artist in XSI and tell them to achieve a task and they'll do it -
maybe not the most efficient way, but a way that works. I don't feel that's
the same in Houdini. There's too much "well, nobody really models in
Houdini" or "you can, but nobody really animates in Houdini". That's not
necessarily bad, Zbrush is probably the "best" software on the market in
terms of expectations to results but it's clear about it's narrow focus.

To put it in a personal way, I've worked to some level in 3DS Max, Maya,
Lightwave and XSI. I wouldn't consider myself particularly artistically
gifted or technically proficient but I am good at understanding the needs
of a non-technical person (eg art-director), drawing up a list of
requirements and achieving them, getting support from concept artists are
pipeline TD's if needed. XSI was* the software that allowed me to go the
furthest independently (*was because I've had to move to Maya). I would
love to replace that and Houdini appears to be a good fit but I'm not sure.
Maybe the "uber-nodes" you're discussing are anathematic to Houdini's
overall workflow but would be streamline the on-boarding process. XSI was
excellent at getting people into the software and then allowing you to get
into the more complex bits on your own; although ICE was the main weapon in
my arsenal, it's possible to work for years without ever touching it.

On 12 May 2018 at 09:34, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> @Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)
>
> I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node
> functionality or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape manager,
> exporting bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical overrides in takes, or
> adding certain tools we use every single day, or bringing more “uber nodes”
> to VOPs so we don’t have to be so granular) but always without sacrificing
> proceduralism or breaking their core design.
>
> Jb
>
>
>
> On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind  wrote:
>
> Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play
> that in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools
> need to share information and work together. A node based system, by
> design, requires each node to act independently. To get the Softimage
> workflow in Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough
> intelligence to cover all the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs
> to take control and hide the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists
> if they attempt to fiddle with the nodes involved. In either case, it works
> against a node based system's mantra.
>
> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another
> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but
> some degree of cumbersome workflow.
>
> Matt
>
> Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair Hearsum <
> alast...@glassworks.co.uk> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To:
> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>
> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of
> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design
> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As
> everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its strung
> together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in
> an octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not in the
> ideal host to get the best out if it.
>
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Re: MMEEERRRYYY CHRISTMASSS EVERYONE!!!!

[Tom Kleinenberg]

And a happy new year!

On 28 Dec 2017 15:51, "Olivier Jeannel"  wrote:

> Sorry late, Merry Christmas to all survivors !
>
> 2017-12-25 17:07 GMT+01:00 Pierre Schiller  >:
>
>> Thank you!!!
>> Cheers to all of the members!
>> Happy hollidays.
>>
>>
>> On Dec 24, 2017 4:41 PM, "Jason S"  wrote:
>>
>>> Like the title says :D
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Re: Fabric engine is gone

[Tom Kleinenberg]

That sucks. They're really talented dudes though, I'm sure they'll land on
their feet.

On 28 October 2017 at 13:26, Jason S  wrote:

> I agree with everything you said..
>
> And I'm also saddened to see fabric close-up it's doors, especially in
> this already diversity deprived environment.
> & all the best to the FE team!
>
> On 10/27/17 17:59, Jonathan Moore wrote:
>
> MPC and PSYOP output some great work with Fabric Engine but in the end I
> always felt it was too narrowly aimed at senior TD's with plenty of
> programming experience. The success of ICE was fuelled by the compounds
> that acted as a gateway drug to the inner workings. I thought maybe that
> Kraken would develop into that gateway drug, but after seeing experienced
> riggers feeling out of their comfort zone, soon realised it wasn't to be.
>
> When Eric Mootz joined the team I thought maybe that would bring about
> tools for technically minded artists who weren't necessarily TD's.
>
> Whatever the reasons I feel for the FE team after all their hard efforts.
> But I feel as one door closes others will open for them, folk with that
> much talent don't remain jobless for long.
>
>
> On 10/28/17 5:19, Michael Amasio wrote:
>
> That's too bad.
> This is rough market.  There's not much money in developing better
> solutions.  I guess we'll ride out our DCC's with ancient architecture, and
> wait till one of us becomes a billionaire and funds something cutting edge.
> I'd love to here more of the story of what happened from some of the
> developers.
>
> Guess I'll finally follow you to Houdini, Oliver.
>
> On Oct 28, 2017 12:31 AM, "Olivier Jeannel" 
> wrote:
>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__fabricengine.com=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=D6pM7ayEhBJ5KIOAYiicpK23yB3CXtyJVu8ABDw6u_Y=zujmMAmI4cWPLq50uOlkQUXZkgStWHdcCeIUUfUfL_Y=
>> 
>>
>>
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Re: Maya - what were they thinking 2 - transforms

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I think that you may be out of luck - Maya has no conception of World vs
Object space. If you parented the object under a group, you may be able to
set the orientation of that according to the gun and then you'd only have
to animated it in 1 axis (maybe 2 if there's drop... but at least on a ZY
plane rather than through XYZ). You can also use a Motion Trail (Animate >
Create Motion Trail) for a visual representation. Little video here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nst3db21N-E

I don't know if those suggestions are any help.

On 11 September 2017 at 11:16, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:

> So I understand (to some degree) that there are fundamental differences
> between the  way transformations are handled in Maya vs Soft, but I just
> ran into something which on the surface looks simple, but is quite
> mindboggling. Hopefully it is just a case of Mayas way of hiding useful
> stuff in some obscure submenu or relationship editor, but here goes:
>
> I am doing some very simple keyframe animation in Maya (one of the few
> things that does not drive me entirely crazy) and am animating a thingy
> which is parented to a gun which is pointed in a particular direction. I
> just want it to fly of on its local z-axis so I select it, set Transform
> Tool Settings, Axis Orientation to Object, key frame translate out along
> z-axis and keyframe. Now I want to edit the function curves to make sure it
> accelerates as desired, open the graph editor and see graph representation
> of its motion is in world space, ie. it is not only animated on the z-axis,
> but also on x and Y. Obviously editing these curves  manually will easily
> lead to having the object not flying in a straight line...
>
> In this case I could draw a curve to use as motion path, but is is more
> cumbersome (like so many things in Maya) and for many reasons I would
> really prefer to be able to switch between World space and Object space in
> the Graph Editor. Our resident Maya artist has looked for similar
> functionality many times through different Maya versions, so far without
> luck, so she can not offer relief from this specific lack of brainpower on
> the part of the Maya devs.
>
> Can Maya knowledgeable people here confirm this fundamental lack of
> functionality or perhaps tell where I find it, or barring that, offer
> advice regarding how to achieve something similar?
>
> Thanks (sigh)
>
> Morten
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Re: What were they thinking....

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I was showing one of the animators at work that in Maya you can select 2
objects and then "Tab" through the Transforms to match transforms. He was
quite impressed, could be useful. I then tried to explain to him why it
probably was not because Maya has no easily accessible global object world
space, so as soon as something is transformed under any kind of parent, you
lose the useful information. I could see he wasn't getting it and I think
that's the problem. Unless you've used XSI you're unlikely to understand
how useful that "dual-coordinate" method was.

I agree with Matt's point that it should be doable, as an additional data
set alongside the existing stuff. I doubt it will happen, because the will
isn't there, because nobody understands how useful it is. I also agree the
documentation needs a dramatic overhaul, because... I mean... wtf is that.
I suppose it keeps Digital Tutors in business for low-level reference
material.

On 1 September 2017 at 00:52, Matt Lind  wrote:

> What you described, Joey, is nothing more than point of reference.  What is
> local in one perspective and global in another, can be modeled as
> parent/child relationships in many cases.  It can be done, it's just a
> matter of studying the ripple effect of changing a core fundamental
> feature.
> It may not be a practical investment of time, but it can be done.
>
> I am sure any one of us could make a very long laundry list of what we'd
> like to see carried over from Softimage.  I think it would be better to
> describe them from a function point of view rather than specific named
> feature.
>
> For example, ability to use global transforms to manipulate an object
> instead of just local as Maya currently supports.
>
> The ability to define your keyboard commands so the stuff you use 80% of
> the
> time doesn't get stepped on by esoteric stuff.  For example, if "A" frames
> all objects in a viewport, then that key should not be used for something
> less important (or completely unimportant) such as changing your layout to
> be in animation mode.  Softimage put all the important stuff in the center
> of the keyboard where your hand naturally rests, and put the lesser
> important stuff at the perimeter.  the less important it was, the more
> hoops
> you had to jump through to access it.  That's how it should be.  Maya has
> no
> system.  Example: must use ALT-MMB to pan the camera.  WTF?  Not only is
> that out of the way, but requires uncommon use of key and mouse to perform.
> It's certainly hard on my arthritic wrists.
>
>
> Probably the most important change I would like to see is rewriting of the
> documentation.  Whoever wrote the current docs has poor organizational
> skills and doesn't have a mastery of the English language.  Topics
> frequently point to other pages only for those pages to point back to where
> you started without answering your question.  Many pages have so little
> information it's not worth having pages for them.  The SDK documents aren't
> much better as they fail to mention some very important pieces too as
> everything is written from the point of view of hindsight (i.e. written as
> if you already know the SDK.  Not designed for newcomers).  Heck, the C++
> SDK docs don't even alphabetize the methods available in a class.
> Seriously?  Ever look at a larger class like MFnMesh and try to find the
> one
> method you need to get UV space info?  It's a chore.  As a direct
> comparison, take a look at the Maya Python API docs which describe many of
> the same methods.  notice they are alphabetized, and while that doesn't
> solve the problem, it certainly makes it less of a chore.
>
> comparison - C++ vs. Python documentation of MFnMesh class:
>
> C++:
> http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2017/ENU/?guid=__cpp_
> ref_class_m_fn_mesh_html
> Python:
> http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2017/ENU/?guid=__py_
> ref_class_open_maya_1_1_m_fn_mesh_html
>
>
> Ideally, I'd like to see the SDK docs written like the Softimage scripting
> object model documentation where the methods were listed above, and the
> properties listed below in grid fashion.  That was a powerful arrangement
> of
> information to make learning easy.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 16:11:08 +
> From: "Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II]"
> 
> Subject: RE: What were they thinking
>
> I know this is not going to be popular, but I'm going to suggest that no
> one
> should get their hopes up about ever seeing that changed.
>
> Folks need to understand that transforms, matrices, centers (pivots) and
> their breakout and order are deeply embedded in Maya's internal structure.
> Further, when they were established PA and TAV were used as precedence for
> their design. For example some of it is considered from the vantage point
> of
> a model centric zero world position, because prior to Maya, everything in
> TAV's modeler (Model) was modeled from a world zero 

Re: Softimage license transfer

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I think Autodesk tried to circumvent this by getting studios over onto
newer licenses of Maya which then replaced the Softimage licenses. I may be
wrong, but I think that people who decided to stay the course with XSI are
still using theirs and everybody else changed over, barring one or two
licenses for opening legacy files.

On 4 August 2017 at 12:34, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:

> There was a thread about buying Softimage licenses from other users a
> while ago. Autodesk does not permit selling licenses but in the EU this
> practise has been established as unlawful:
>
> http://www.worldcadaccess.com/blog/2012/07/autodesks-loses-
> battle-against-resold-software-in-eu.html
>
> https://www.cadnauseam.com/2017/04/18/you-can-still-buy-
> autodesk-perpetual-licenses-in-europe/
>
> Did any of you find out if it is currently possible to get Autodesk to
> make a license transfer if you have managed to find someone to buy a
> license from? I found this on the topic:
>
> http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=6=1445035
>
> https://knowledge.autodesk.com/customer-service/account-
> management/manage-licensing/transfer-licenses/transfer-ownership-licenses
>
> After all there should be plenty unused Softimage licenses around these
> days, so it should be possible.
> Is anyone here interested in selling their copy of Softimage?
>
>
> Cheers
> Morten
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Re: OT: 13inch laptop for occasional noodling in Houdini...

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I'm kind of looking at a laptop for myself although it's 3 or 4 on the list
of potential "big" purchases. For my side I've been looking at having
something with a Thunderbolt port as a must to hook up an external GPU if
needed. It might be something you want to consider, particularly if you are
considering Redshift/other GPU based processing.

Apart from that, it does look good. My wife has a previous gen Lenovo
Thinkpad Yoga, which has a stylus and that's quite useful sometimes but the
specs are worse.


Virus-free.
www.avast.com

<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

On 14 July 2017 at 20:26, Dan Yargici  wrote:

> Hello Softimage peoples.
>
> I've been waiting for the new HP Envy range of 13inch laptops to arrive
> since the announcement in May so I can finally replace my current, ancient,
> (2006 - eeek!) machine.
>
> The new Envy range seemed to have all the boxes ticked for my needs, with
> modern ports (no Thunderbolt 3 though), dedicated graphics (the new Nvidia
> MX150 with 2gb of vram), fingerprint reader, webcam in the correct place
> (looking at you, Dell) etc.  However, since it's release I've been told to
> my amazement that HP have no plans for a 16gb model, only 8gb.
>
> Now, the machine will mostly be for casual use, but I may want to
> occasionally do some noodling in Houdini at home so I just thought I'd do a
> quick poll here to gauge people's opinions.  Obviously the kind of Houdini
> work I'd be doing would be pretty lightweight geometry experiments and
> simple sims due to the obvious constraints also thrown up by using a mobile
> CPU.
>
> So what do you think?  I'm not going to be able to wait for the inevitable
> follow up version and like I say it's got pretty much every other box
> ticked.  Aside from the RAM issue, for this price no other machine comes
> close in the 13inch segment imo.
>
> Here are the specs:
>
> http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=2GE75EA=ABU=NTB
>
> Thanks.
>
> Dan.
>
> (Also posted to the Houdini list.)
>
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Re: Maya Noise Jitter Question?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

We covered Max at college and I really liked it for asset creation. I
didn't get to play with that specific Shader though.

I forgot to mention that the Noise node itself has an offset value you can
animate, so you don't need to offset UV's.

On 14 March 2017 at 19:58, Chris Johnson <ch...@someonescousin.com> wrote:

> hmm I'll have to try that.
>
> If you haven't used max before it's pretty impressive the scope of work
> you can do in that package with just a noise shader.
>
> On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 1:02 PM, Tom Kleinenberg <zagan...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Not sure if this is what you want but TextureDeformer (Maya 2016 its in
>> Rigging, not sure in 2017). Assigning a Noise/Checkerboard as the texture
>> and then animating the Offset in the place2DTexture (setting pre- and
>> post-infinity of course) works in simple form.
>>
>> On 14 March 2017 at 14:25, Chris Johnson <ch...@someonescousin.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry for the Maya question on here.
>>>
>>> I'm trying to do a simple jitter on a piece of geometry to add some
>>> animated noise. Can Maya not do this out of the box? This is the simplest
>>> of functions in Max and XSI. I'm finding a bunch of scripts but none
>>> supported for 2017!?
>>>
>>> Any direction would helpI can always fake it but this is a simple
>>> ask for any 3D ap.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Chris Johnson | www.someonescousin.com | 416.473.1624
>>>
>>>  <https://www.facebook.com/someonescousin/>
>>> <https://instagram.com/someonescousinofficial/>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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Re: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular direction?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I watched the vid even though I'm in Maya nowadays. It's always fun to see
how you break things down Paul. If I remember right, your original ICE vids
were sort of you teaching yourself stuff (the ray-tracer etc.), it'd be fun
to see you going through that process in Houdini. Its a very relatable form
of tutorial. I also have a tough time getting to grips with Houdini - it's
a bit daunting in its presentation. Good fun seeing you have your Eureka
moments though :)

On 14 March 2017 at 16:36,  wrote:

> I am doing Houdini a bit, but spend a lot more time with Softimage to be
> honest. I don't have anyone to help me with Houdini and find it hard going
> when I get stuck.
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Morten Bartholdy
> Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 4:00 PM
> To: p...@bustykelp.com ; Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list
> Subject: Re: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular direction?
>
> Great explanation Paul. I was missing the emit location part, which I guess
> will explain why I did not see the desired effect :)
>
> I miss your tutorials, but I guess you are diving into Houdini. Maybe you
> can make that more accessible to people like me - you have a great talent
> for teaching.
>
> Thanks
> Morten
>
>
>
> > Den 14. marts 2017 klokken 16:06 skrev p...@bustykelp.com:
> >
> >
> > https://vimeo.com/208318679  watch this
> >
> >
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Morten Bartholdy
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 2:47 PM
> > To: Official Softimage Users Mailing
> > List.https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list
> > Subject: Re: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular direction?
> >
> > Oh goodie. I thought I had almost got it right, and I saw a reaction, but
> > clearly not the desired one :)
> >
> >
> > MB
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > Den 14. marts 2017 klokken 15:27 skrev p...@bustykelp.com:
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm making you a video if you can hold out a moment and I'll send the
> > > link
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -Original Message-
> > > From: Morten Bartholdy
> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 2:13 PM
> > > To: Official Softimage Users Mailing
> > > List.https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list
> > > Subject: Re: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular direction?
> > >
> > > Also seems replies with attachments don't get through...
> > >
> > > MB
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > Den 14. marts 2017 klokken 13:34 skrev Morten Bartholdy
> > > > :
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > It seems I am doing something wrong - I am not getting the right
> > > > values.
> > > >
> > > > MB
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Den 14. marts 2017 klokken 12:40 skrev p...@bustykelp.com:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > The easiest thing is to emit over the whole object then do what you
> > > > > did
> > > > > and
> > > > > plug the output of your 'Less than' into a Delete Particle node.
> > > > >
> > > > > -Original Message-
> > > > > From: Morten Bartholdy
> > > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 11:19 AM
> > > > > To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
> > > > > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list ;
> > > > > p...@bustykelp.com
> > > > > Subject: Re: Emit particles frm surfaces facing a particular
> > > > > direction?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks Paul. I know stuf like this is trivial to you, but it is not
> > > > > so
> > > > > much
> > > > > the method that escapes me as the lack of a tool that does this.
> > > > >
> > > > > I can figure out how to get a vector from a nulls position and Get
> > > > > Point
> > > > > Normals from my geometry, I can then get the angle between them and
> > > > > put
> > > > > than
> > > > > into a Less than or equal to node, but how to transform a threshold
> > > > > value
> > > > > into either weightmap values, creating a sample set to emit from or
> > > > > filtering an emission, I don't know.
> > > > >
> > > > > I was sort of hoping there would be a node or compound I had
> > > > > overlooked
> > > > > which provided something I could use :)
> > > > >
> > > > > cheers
> > > > > Morten
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > Den 14. marts 2017 klokken 11:11 skrev p...@bustykelp.com:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > You can either
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Emit from the whole and delete the ones that aren't pointing in
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > right
> > > > > > direction, (based on comparing the normal angle to your preferred
> > > > > > vector)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Or create a weightmap on the object and use ICE to set the values
> > > > > > based
> > > > > > upon
> > > > > > the normal angle and use the weightmap in the Emit node. (This
> > > > > > wont
> > > > > > work
> > > > > > on
> > > > > > low poly meshes for obvious reasons)
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Or make a duplicate of the surface, and use ICE to delete Polys
> > > > > > that
> > > > > > aren't
> > > > > > pointing in the right direction, then emit from the resulting
> > 

Re: Maya Noise Jitter Question?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Not sure if this is what you want but TextureDeformer (Maya 2016 its in
Rigging, not sure in 2017). Assigning a Noise/Checkerboard as the texture
and then animating the Offset in the place2DTexture (setting pre- and
post-infinity of course) works in simple form.

On 14 March 2017 at 14:25, Chris Johnson  wrote:

> Sorry for the Maya question on here.
>
> I'm trying to do a simple jitter on a piece of geometry to add some
> animated noise. Can Maya not do this out of the box? This is the simplest
> of functions in Max and XSI. I'm finding a bunch of scripts but none
> supported for 2017!?
>
> Any direction would helpI can always fake it but this is a simple ask
> for any 3D ap.
>
> --
>
> Chris Johnson | www.someonescousin.com | 416.473.1624
>
>  
> 
> 
>
>
>
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Re: Getting close to a 3 year old EOL annyversary

[Tom Kleinenberg]

*When will the next generation of digital content creation tools/Platforms
happen I wonder ? Fabric is beating the fanfare don't get me wrong, but it
feels like we are late for a new member in the full solution family,
 something that makes use of the advances made in tech... since after 1998.*


I was confused when AD shut down XSI. I presumed there'd be an accelerated
cannibalism of the good bits of XSI and to some extent their has been. The
UI's had an overhaul and they got shrinkwrap and contour stretch UV mapping
so I don't know what everybody's complaining about... :)

I think the only way we get back to an all in one DCC Maya alternative is
by the competitors moving out from their core feature set. At the time of
XSI's demise, Houdini was great for FX and Rendering, Modo was great for
Modelling and Rendering but they weren't viable for a full pipeline
alternative. They're both expanding their feature set and getting closer
and that seems the best hope.

Hypothetically, Blender's always intrigued me. If a big enough place took
it on spent the money they would otherwise use on licensing and support on
internal development, I wonder whether Blender could be a solid enough
alternative. As I understand it, the open-source thing is the main barrier
to this, having to give up proprietary work that may be under NDA.

On 1 March 2017 at 00:22, Ognjen Vukovic  wrote:

> >See you later Space Software...
> Bang !
>
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:50 AM, Sebastien Sterling <
> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> See you later Space Software... (do you even reference mate ? )
>>
>> When will the next generation of digital content creation tools/Platforms
>> happen I wonder ? Fabric is beating the fanfare don't get me wrong, but it
>> feels like we are late for a new member in the full solution family,
>>  something that makes use of the advances made in tech... since after 1998.
>>
>> Also out of interest what would people like to see in It? Other then a
>> row of AD ceo's heads on sticks at boot up?
>>
>>
>> On 24 Feb 2017 02:50, "Tenshi Sama"  wrote:
>>
>> Amen.
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Pierre Schiller <
>> activemotionpictu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> But...who's counting
>>> Anyways.. Thought about all those college students who started to train
>>> in 2014 wih SI and had to switch sides to Ma or Max.
>>>
>>> thanks to Foundry and SideFx who really have comprehended what it's
>>> like to have a tech career and reediming knowledge to their softaware (at
>>> least on the lerning curve). No, really, thanks for your suport.
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>> web: https://tenshi.carbonmade.com
>> # Cel/Whatsapp: (+593) 0984104698 <+593%2098%20410%204698>
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Re: Maya

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Wasn't it to do with a bad investors' earnings briefing? Autodesk as a
company had missed it's earnings per share and even though media made up
15% of its budget (or maybe because of that) the least successful of the
three similar products got the chop. I think if there hadn't been a
panicked push for cost-cutting, XSI may have been around a while longer. As
I understood it, the purchases from Japan had dried up for a while. There
were multiple games that had been in development for a few years that were
coming to the end of their devs cycles, had been version locked and would
have been renewed at that point.

Anyway, conjecture on my part, but I think it's not fair to get angry at
one person for a corporate entity's missteps and falsehoods. I'm just
pissed that Autodesk bought them in the first place, the writing was on the
wall from then.

On 20 February 2017 at 14:00, Graham Bell  wrote:

> I don't think people put a gun to the guys head, it was all part of the
> campaign that was running at the time. The general consensus was that the
> axe had already been wielded and fallen on Softimage and this was just lip
> service. But that wasn't the case, from my knowledge anyway. At that moment
> in time, there was some good intention to push the product forward in order
> to properly find it's place. I'm sure some people may have read between the
> lines, but internally myself and others still believed there was a future.
>
> The problem was the timeline of events has they unfolded.
> The video and event was done for launching the 2014 product line in March
> 2013, but also around this time there was a management change, from that
> changes happened and the EOL announcement was made, more or less a year
> after Daniel had said it was ok. Personally and imo, I don't believe there
> was ever an intention to deliberately mislead people, but certainly the
> timeline can make it look that way. People can choose to believe that or
> not.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 10:45 AM Andi Farhall  wrote:
>
>> Yes, it probably was unprofessional for which I apologise. It was an
>> offhand remark made after a few beers on a Saturday.  So probably not the
>> best time to be posting.
>>
>>
>> I might point out that the individuals who made him go on camera and tell
>> everyone it was going to be fine when they had no intention of it being so
>> were also being unprofessional.
>>
>>
>> But I still apologise for the remark.
>> --
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com <
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com> on behalf of Sven Constable <
>> sixsi_l...@imagefront.de>
>> *Sent:* 18 February 2017 18:30:42
>>
>> *To:* 'Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/
>> forum/#!forum/xsi_list'
>> *Subject:* RE: Maya
>>
>>
>> I would like to see the list staying professional as it was through the
>> years. This was inappropiate.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sven
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Andi Farhall
>> *Sent:* Saturday, February 18, 2017 7:09 PM
>> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/
>> forum/#!forum/xsi_list
>> *Subject:* Re: Maya
>>
>>
>>
>> a face only a mother could love
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 
>> ...
>>
>> http://www.hackneyeffects.com/
>>
>> https://vimeo.com/user4174293
>>
>> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/
>> http://spylon.tumblr.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended
>> solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or
>> opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
>> represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd.
>>
>> If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither
>> take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone.
>>
>> Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in
>> error.
>>
>> 
>> --
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com <
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com> on behalf of Tenshi Sama <
>> tenshi...@gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* 18 February 2017 12:05:14
>> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/
>> forum/#!forum/xsi_list
>> *Subject:* Re: Maya
>>
>>
>>
>> :(
>>
>> https://youtu.be/WcDn8gVPY_8
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 1:22 AM, Andrew Prostrelov 
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Just another day in the wonderful world of Maya...
>>
>> totally agree.
>> The same stuff all over internet.
>> Every one in a pain of Maya "great" UI design, legacy crap and bugs all
>> over the place.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, 

Re: Opinion gathering

[Tom Kleinenberg]

For the front end of the pipeline Zbrush is the de-facto digital maquette
package and a lot of senior modellers seem to be pushing it further along
the pipeline (blendshape creation, variation building, that sort of thing.
The retopo is still a problem but Pixologic's getting better at it and
there are alternatives like 3DCoat. Environment modelling is different
kettle of fish but Houdini's procedural approach has some definite
advantages there. I could certainly envisage a pipeline where Maya/Max is
cut out altogether if Houdini's animation is deemed up to snuff.

My day to day is Maya though. I must have been awful in a past-life.

On 19 February 2017 at 14:35, Jonathan Moore 
wrote:

>
> I think the problem Houdini has is penetrating the more ‘traditional’
>> modelling, UV, and animation workflows. Maya/Max still dominate here. C4D
>> and Modo are trying hard but the former still seem to rule the roost.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there a swing towards Houdini in this area? Or is it still an
>> augmented option in a Maya/Max/Modo pipeline. That would be the interesting
>> thing for me.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I think that SideFX have fine tuned Houdini so that artists coming from
> non procedural DCC's feel very comfortable with the native individual poly
> manipulation tools that it eases their path into the procedural way of
> doing things in Houdini. By it's very procedural nature, Houdini will never
> be the same as working with the destructive direct manipulation tools of
> Maya/Max/C4D/Modo/Lightwave or pre ICE XSI. But SideFX have learnt how to
> integrate the best of direct manipulation tool workflows, and has
> integrated them into a fully procedural application. It's an ongoing
> exercise - the animation and UV tools in particular lack the finesse of the
> best in XSI and Maya.
>
> But what SideFX team have shown most of all since the EOL announcement of
> XSI, is that they have an ability to listen and make positive changes based
> on that feedback. Houdini was always the obvious choice for XSI artists
> that embraced ICE, but I think it's also now in a position to appeal to
> those artists that never utilised ICE in XSI. That's why they've cut the
> cost of core in half to $1499. You can still get Indie for $199 a year if
> you're a freelancer but Core is a more obvious choice for creative
> businesses with $100k plus turnovers.
>
> On 19 February 2017 at 13:40, Graham Bell  wrote:
>
>> I think the problem Houdini has is penetrating the more ‘traditional’
>> modelling, UV, and animation workflows. Maya/Max still dominate here. C4D
>> and Modo are trying hard but the former still seem to rule the roost.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there a swing towards Houdini in this area? Or is it still an
>> augmented option in a Maya/Max/Modo pipeline. That would be the interesting
>> thing for me.
>>
>>
>>
>> I had hoped to make the recent Houdini event but client deadlines
>> intervened. I echo Andy’s comments though about the number of Soft users.
>> For me Houdini is a no-brainer when looking for an ICE replacement, perhaps
>> with some Fabric thrown in there for good measure.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regarding AD though, kinda hard to measure right now. I don’t hear many
>> positive vibes. More recent cuts and layoffs including Eddie Perberg, the
>> Max product manager. Even with my understanding it seems bizarre.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Jonathan Moore
>> *Sent:* 17 February 2017 22:27
>> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
>> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list <
>> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: Opinion gathering
>>
>>
>>
>> It's not what you asked for but I've got pretty much all Windows builds
>> of Crate 2010 to 2017 in this archive.
>>
>>
>>
>> https://d.pr/TTWU.rar
>>
>>
>>
>> Not what you need now but it might come in handy another week. ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> I'll ask around for a Linux build over the weekend if it can wait that
>> long.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 17 February 2017 at 22:11, Michael Amasio 
>> wrote:
>>
>> After an intense amount of arguing I've settled on getting my laptop to
>> sit on the network with my soft license intact.  AD wouldn't budge.
>> That'll go to crap once we finalize our 2 step authentication for marvel.
>>
>> Clarisse's is like kakana but better for most things.  It's the most
>> backwards architecture I've seen.  But the team is great and they plop
>> things in releases we need within a week or two.  We've got our aov's going
>> now and that was about we needed.
>> I know people looked at it as a layout tool, but I think that's really
>> not worth the investment.  If you go with it it should be your renderer.
>> They've talked about supporting the substance painter shaders which would
>> be really nice.
>>
>> Their docs are a little weak and their naming is ass-backwards for all
>> the api.  

Re: Get Closest Point in another geometry

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Hi Martin

Paul's answered how to copy weight values from one object to another. He's
got an old video where he showed how to write to a weight map, which may be
useful : https://vimeo.com/19031487 . It's uses a distance test rather than
copying values but the set up for how to write a weight map may be of
interest.

There are a number of really good videos in that channel on geometry
manipulation, if you have the time it's probably worth going through them.





On 15 July 2016 at 09:22,  wrote:

> Its very easy in ICE. but you will have to have a map existing to write to
> as ICE cant generate Maps.
>
> There is a get closest points node. Which returns an array of locations.
> If you just want one point, then the nearest will be the first in the array
>
> so in ICE its a bit like this
>
> OTHER OBJECT--GETCLOSESTPOINTSSELECT IN ARRAY (select the
> first, which is 0)GETDATA(weightmap.weights)SETDATA(this
> object’s weightmap that you have made to write it to)
>
> If you freeze the ICE tree, its now permanent.
>
> *From:* Martin Yara 
> *Sent:* Friday, July 15, 2016 8:06 AM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Get Closest Point in another geometry
>
> Hi list,
>
> I'm trying to write a tool to snap to the closest points and copy their
> weights, so these points would have the same position and the same weights.
> But I can't find a method or property besides Geometry.GetClosestLocation,
> which gives me the location in the geometry, not the closest point.
>
> My only idea would be to use the GetClosestLocation and then get the
> points from the polygon in that location and iterate between those points.
>
> Is there any easier or direct way to do this?
>
> I would try ICE but I'm don't know how to copy the weights with ICE, or if
> this is possible, or how to get the ICE information to use it to copy
> weights through scripting.
>
> Thanks
>
> Martin
>
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Re: Soft to Maya Bridge

[Tom Kleinenberg]

To be fair to 2016, some of the usability stuff they brought over was good.
Middle click on a menu invokes the last used tool, pretty handy and works
well in conjunction with "y" and "g".

Those pivots though, wtf.

On 14 July 2016 at 13:45, Rob Wuijster  wrote:

> hehe... nope ;-)
>
> but there were some UI reworks done by SI users, to make some things less
> annoying.
> I 'think' you can still find some posts on this at si-community.
>
>
> Rob
> \/-\/\/
>
> On 14-7-2016 12:26, Chris Marshall wrote:
>
> Excellent, I'll take a look. Any chance of turning on 'Complete Softimage
> Interface and Toolset' too!?
>
> On 14 July 2016 at 11:24, Oscar Juarez  wrote:
>
>> You can turn off the tumbling of the camera in Modo, in the preferences
>> Display/OpenGL/Viewport Rotation turn off Trackball rotation.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 12:09 PM, Chris Marshall <
>> chrismarshal...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Been playing with Modo but as soon as you move the camera around, it
>>> goes skew! I hate that!
>>> Sorry gone off at a tangent there.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 14 July 2016 at 10:37, Thomas Volkmann 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Haha  I probably would have cried tears of despair as well, but
 since we are working with Max here my bar for expectations was already at
 the lowest point.



 Alok Gandhi  hat am 14. Juli 2016 um 10:50
 geschrieben:

 It is more like 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'. ;) if you know what I
 mean (Figure out the comparisons yourselves)
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Chris Marshall
>>> Mint Motion Limited
>>> 029 20 37 27 57
>>> 07730 533 115
>>> www.mintmotion.co.uk
>>> www.dot3d.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
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> Mint Motion Limited
> 029 20 37 27 57
> 07730 533 115
> www.mintmotion.co.uk
> www.dot3d.com
>
>
>
>
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Re: Soft to Maya Bridge

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I did, while I was trying to figure out some pivot issues and set
organizing questions.

It also just made me a bit sad.

On 14 July 2016 at 08:51, Alok Gandhi  wrote:

> Does anyone found this  useful ?
>
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Re: New render layers in maya

[Tom Kleinenberg]

That's something I'm interested in too - XSI Groups are analogous to Maya
Selection Sets. Hopefully there are "exclusive" collections or something
similar.

On 21 April 2016 at 11:42, Jean-Louis Billard 
wrote:

> Just a thought - in Soft partitions are exclusive: an object can only
> exist in one partition and if it’s assigned to another it gets removed from
> its previous partition.
> In the Maya implementation it looks as if we can have objects in multiple
> collections (=partitions, if I understand correctly), thus with potentially
> numerous overrides.
>
> So how does the Maya system deal with potentially conflicting overrides?
>
> Thanks,
> Jean-Louis
>
> ---
> Digital Golem
> +32 2256 9734
> http://www.digitalgolem.com/
> 53 Rue Gustave Huberti
> 1030 Brussels
> ---
>
>
>
> > On 20 Apr 2016, at 02:59, Francois Lord  wrote:
> >
> > Ok I just watched the video and I must admit this is pretty cool!
> > Expressions for collection members, relative overrides with multiplier
> > and offset, overrides that can be deactivated...
> >
> > It looks like Autodesk got some hints from studios that were using
> > Softimage.
> >
> > We'll see how it behaves in production, but I say it's promising.
> >
> > F
> >
> > On 2016-04-19 02:58 PM, Francois Lord wrote:
> >> This is the key to success. It made it very simple to work with
> >> overrides in XSI but it didn't deal well (at all) with references that
> >> change all the time. Using expressions is the way forward. Houdini is
> >> using expressions in its stylesheets, Katana is using the equivalent
> >> with nodes, we are using expressions in our in-house tool at Framestore.
> >>
> >> I remember we had to use very precise workflow rules in XSI to keep
> >> scenes clean (back objects partitions always being hidden, foreground
> >> partitions always being visible, object matte partitions being called
> >> MATTE, etc.)
> >>
> >> When you deal with expressions, you need even more rigid rules.
> >> Otherwise it quickly become an unusable mess. Also, all objects must
> >> respect the naming conventions. And artists who don't follow them must
> >> be executed.
> >>
> >> F
> >>
> >> On 2016-04-18 17:47, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
> >>
> >>> Overrides are procedural in XSI (i.e. string-based) but in this
> >>> everything else is expression-based and late-bound, which means it can
> >>> deal with references and changing scenes.
> >>
> >
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Re: New render layers in maya

[Tom Kleinenberg]

It seems like a lot of stuff to cram into an "extension" release which
makes me a bit nervous...

On 21 April 2016 at 10:56, Rob Wuijster <r...@casema.nl> wrote:

> In true Maya tradition, version 1 probably will be... well... temperament
> full ;-)
> Despite being Maya, this is a step forward render wise.
>
> Rob
>
> \/-\/--------\/
>
> On 21-4-2016 11:39, Tom Kleinenberg wrote:
>
> Select Shaders in the Outliner, eh? I've missed that feature. Interested
> to see how they deal with multiple materials on one objects. Clusters
> were... not great, but it's a tricky thing.
>
> Pretty solid improvements all around, from the looks of it. I hope it's
> not really crashy.
>
> On 20 April 2016 at 21:32, Ed Schiffer <edschif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> a better video
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZu-zjtd6PQ
>>
>>
>>
>> On 20 April 2016 at 01:59, Francois Lord < <flordli...@gmail.com>
>> flordli...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ok I just watched the video and I must admit this is pretty cool!
>>> Expressions for collection members, relative overrides with multiplier
>>> and offset, overrides that can be deactivated...
>>>
>>> It looks like Autodesk got some hints from studios that were using
>>> Softimage.
>>>
>>> We'll see how it behaves in production, but I say it's promising.
>>>
>>> F
>>>
>>> On 2016-04-19 02:58 PM, Francois Lord wrote:
>>> > This is the key to success. It made it very simple to work with
>>> > overrides in XSI but it didn't deal well (at all) with references that
>>> > change all the time. Using expressions is the way forward. Houdini is
>>> > using expressions in its stylesheets, Katana is using the equivalent
>>> > with nodes, we are using expressions in our in-house tool at
>>> Framestore.
>>> >
>>> > I remember we had to use very precise workflow rules in XSI to keep
>>> > scenes clean (back objects partitions always being hidden, foreground
>>> > partitions always being visible, object matte partitions being called
>>> > MATTE, etc.)
>>> >
>>> > When you deal with expressions, you need even more rigid rules.
>>> > Otherwise it quickly become an unusable mess. Also, all objects must
>>> > respect the naming conventions. And artists who don't follow them must
>>> > be executed.
>>> >
>>> > F
>>> >
>>> > On 2016-04-18 17:47, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
>>> >
>>> > >  Overrides are procedural in XSI (i.e. string-based) but in this
>>> > > everything else is expression-based and late-bound, which means it
>>> can
>>> > > deal with references and changing scenes.
>>> >
>>>
>>> --
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>>> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with "unsubscribe" in the
>>> subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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Re: New render layers in maya

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Select Shaders in the Outliner, eh? I've missed that feature. Interested to
see how they deal with multiple materials on one objects. Clusters were...
not great, but it's a tricky thing.

Pretty solid improvements all around, from the looks of it. I hope it's not
really crashy.

On 20 April 2016 at 21:32, Ed Schiffer  wrote:

> a better video
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZu-zjtd6PQ
>
>
>
> On 20 April 2016 at 01:59, Francois Lord  wrote:
>
>> Ok I just watched the video and I must admit this is pretty cool!
>> Expressions for collection members, relative overrides with multiplier
>> and offset, overrides that can be deactivated...
>>
>> It looks like Autodesk got some hints from studios that were using
>> Softimage.
>>
>> We'll see how it behaves in production, but I say it's promising.
>>
>> F
>>
>> On 2016-04-19 02:58 PM, Francois Lord wrote:
>> > This is the key to success. It made it very simple to work with
>> > overrides in XSI but it didn't deal well (at all) with references that
>> > change all the time. Using expressions is the way forward. Houdini is
>> > using expressions in its stylesheets, Katana is using the equivalent
>> > with nodes, we are using expressions in our in-house tool at Framestore.
>> >
>> > I remember we had to use very precise workflow rules in XSI to keep
>> > scenes clean (back objects partitions always being hidden, foreground
>> > partitions always being visible, object matte partitions being called
>> > MATTE, etc.)
>> >
>> > When you deal with expressions, you need even more rigid rules.
>> > Otherwise it quickly become an unusable mess. Also, all objects must
>> > respect the naming conventions. And artists who don't follow them must
>> > be executed.
>> >
>> > F
>> >
>> > On 2016-04-18 17:47, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
>> >
>> > >  Overrides are procedural in XSI (i.e. string-based) but in this
>> > > everything else is expression-based and late-bound, which means it can
>> > > deal with references and changing scenes.
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
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Re: Autodesk acquires Solid Angle

[Tom Kleinenberg]

That drop in market share was largely down to AD's inability to market it.
They seemed to be positioning it as an "Almost Houdini but not quite"
because it had ICE. They couldn't sell it as an animation package, as that
would canibalize Maya market share, an asset creation package as that would
canibalize Max's market share, or an all in one as that would eat both.

Arnold doesn't have that problem. Potentially, in 5-10 years, Beast is at a
point where Autodesk is pitching it as a viable rendering alternative
(CryEngine and Unreal seem to be going down that path). But who can predict
what happens when. I'd really like Arnold bundled with Maya in 2017.

The feeling I get is that Solid Angle has always preferred dealing with a
smaller number of studios - they had a working renderer long before it was
on general sale. As they now have released it to everybody I'm sure they're
flooded with 'idiot problems'. Maybe this will free them from tech support
and allow faster development times. Who knows? The future is bright... and
full of bounce light.

On 20 April 2016 at 07:32, Stefan Kubicek  wrote:

> From what I remember, XSI never had a higher market share then 10-11%,
> with Max having 45%+ and Maya 30%+ at that point in time (before acquired
> by AD$K). Not sure how the percentages are these days, I reckon XSI to be
> down at 1% or less, along the lines of Lightwave maybe.
>
>
>
>
>
> yeah, before AD purchased Softimage, SI users out numbered Maya and Max,
> but after their purchase, SI users become so few that they are forced to
> abandon it.
>
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 5:18 PM, Perry Harovas 
> wrote:
>
>> Steven Caron m wrote:
>>
>> "I am not trying to convince anyone to 'trust' Autodesk to do what is
>> right for you, I was just trying to convince people of the possibility that
>> Autodesk's best interest (in regard to the future of Arnold) is actually to
>> play nicely with others."
>>
>> I totally agree with this. Really.
>>
>> Unfortunately (and not maniacally) Autodesk has in its best interest to
>> give Maya the best version of Arnold first. It's sort of like saving the
>> best slice of pizza for your girlfriend. It works better for her, and
>> therefore makes you happy as well. It isn't to do anything to hurt others
>> interested in the pizza, it's just that you care more about what your
>> girlfriend thinks and therefore it is in your own interests to take care of
>> her first.
>>
>> Am I seriously comparing Autodesk's interest in Arnold to pizza? Not
>> really , but I am trying to simplify the relationship down to wants/needs
>> and point out it is only natural to want to take care of your own. Nothing
>> evil about it. Then you add money and business to the mix and it still
>> isn't evil, but it does become harder to resist for some corporate types.
>>
>> You can't blame them, you can only make decisions you feel comfortable
>> with.
>>
>> For me, Arnold is a truly great product, and if it ever ships with Maya,
>> it might make my time spent using Maya better than it currently is. But
>> it's definitely ruins my desire to seek it out from now on in C4D or
>> Houdini. That is really a personal decision, because I don't like buying
>> into large corporations that I don't have a baseline trust for. With Arnold
>> now being owned by a corporation I don't really trust anymore, I feel like
>> the best decision for ME is to seek out other smaller independent renderers
>> like Octane or Vray.
>>
>> In the end, oddly, picking a renderer can be a really personal choice
>> (once your basic production needs are met of course). This is not the case
>> in midrange studios and larger ones because the decision of which renderer
>> to use is riding on a lot more than "feelings", of course.
>>
>> But will it play a role in freelancer decisions?
>> It already has for me, and time will tell if that is the case for others.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> > On Apr 19, 2016, at 3:54 PM, Steven Caron  wrote:
>> >
>> > I am not trying to convince anyone to 'trust' Autodesk to do what is
>> right for you, I was just trying to convince people of the possibility that
>> Autodesk's best interest (in regard to the future of Arnold) is actually to
>> play nicely with others.
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
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>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
>
>
> --
> ---
> Stefan Kubicek
> ---
> keyvis digital imagery
> Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
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> Phone: +43/699/12614231
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Re: Considering buying that big box

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Ah, I thought the two were related. Either way, standard hardware advice,
the correct time to upgrade is just after you buy that big new thing.

On 12 April 2016 at 09:57, Angus Davidson <angus.david...@wits.ac.za> wrote:

> The leaked specs for the 1080 cards if true make for very compelling
> reason to wait. (Although they don’t use pascal from what I recall) I think
> Pascal is purely for their grid stuff for now.
>
>
>
> *From:* Tom Kleinenberg [mailto:zagan...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 12 April 2016 10:55 AM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Considering buying that big box
>
>
>
> I'll be "that guy" and say that nVidia's Pascal is around the corner.
> (Around the corner seems to point to possible June this year but these
> things slide and it may be a paper launch). Depending on project deadlines
> maybe you could stagger your purchases or something.
>
>
>
> On 12 April 2016 at 09:49, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And the link..
>
> http://www.xlrbycarri.com/solutions/deeplearning/
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 10:47 AM, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Starting with one 980 Ti, I should populate it with other cards later(when
> money will follow)
>
> I’d like to have a “check” on the configuration (Specially on the Graphic
> cards side) . Do you see some possible bad functionning with Redshift ?
>
> I plan to buy this asap, I’m on the middle of a project that requires some
> fire power.
>
>
> Thank you !
>
>
>
>
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Re: Considering buying that big box

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I'll be "that guy" and say that nVidia's Pascal is around the corner.
(Around the corner seems to point to possible June this year but these
things slide and it may be a paper launch). Depending on project deadlines
maybe you could stagger your purchases or something.

On 12 April 2016 at 09:49, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:

> And the link..
> http://www.xlrbycarri.com/solutions/deeplearning/
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 10:47 AM, Olivier Jeannel 
> wrote:
>
>> Starting with one 980 Ti, I should populate it with other cards
>> later(when money will follow)
>>
>> I’d like to have a “check” on the configuration (Specially on the Graphic
>> cards side) . Do you see some possible bad functionning with Redshift ?
>>
>> I plan to buy this asap, I’m on the middle of a project that requires
>> some fire power.
>>
>>
>> Thank you !
>>
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
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Re: -Camera. Frames issues

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Somebody smarter than me tried to explain to me that it was tied into 50hz
electric system vs 60hz in the US (hence the 25/30 split) but I'll admit it
went a bit over my head and I never bothered finding out more as I was
never directly involved with final output.

http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/164249/is-the-design-decision-for-different-frequencies-in-pal-and-ntsc-related-to-the

This seems to back it up a bit.

On 11 March 2016 at 13:29, Stephen Davidson <magic...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> So true. I sometimes forget about the rest of the world. Not very global
> of me. Good question,  about how HD has effected frame rates. And also 4K.
> I will have to research that.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 11, 2016, 4:48 AM Tom Kleinenberg <zagan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That's NTSC. This side of the Atlantic, PAL is 25. Film is 24FPS.
>>
>> My experience since college is film, so I've been working 24FPS and I'm
>> not actually sure what HD has done to frame rates.
>>
>> On 11 March 2016 at 06:19, Stephen Davidson <magic...@bellsouth.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Actually,  TV is 30 fps.,  or more accurately 29.97 fps,  but for short
>>> clips 30 fps is fine.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Mar 11, 2016, 12:23 AM Tenshi . <tenshu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> @Stephen, i read your words, thank you! Your info save my ass for
>>>> future projects. For now they told me they'll use this on TV and some
>>>> documentary, so 24fps. but my issue will continue then. I can't render with
>>>> Arnold that thing, i already have all animated. Maybe it's some feature for
>>>> the SolidAngle team...
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 8:01 PM, Stephen Davidson <
>>>> magic...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> No, it does not, but you can't use field rendering on YouTube, anyway.
>>>>> See my last post about
>>>>> rendering 60 fps since YouTube will take that frame rate.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>> *  Stephen P. Davidson*
>>>>>
>>>>> *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com
>>>>>
>>>>> *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>- Arthur C. Clarke
>>>>>
>>>>> <http://www.3danimationmagic.com/>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 4:45 PM Tenshi . <tenshu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> *You know if Sitoa support Field Rendering? *
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 5:43 PM, Stephen Davidson <
>>>>>> magic...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If this is going to be on YouTube, you can't use field rendering,
>>>>>>> anyway.
>>>>>>> BUT... YouTube will play back up to 60 fps. Here is the info about
>>>>>>> that.:
>>>>>>> https://creatoracademy.withgoogle.com/page/lesson/frame-rate?hl=en
>>>>>>> That, along with slight motion blur, should play as smooth as silk.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>>>> *  Stephen P. Davidson*
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
>>>>>>> magic*
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  - Arthur C. Clarke
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <http://www.3danimationmagic.com/>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 4:40 PM Tenshi . <tenshu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> @Stephen, thank you for the insight. A lot of info i didn't know
>>>>>>>> about. This video it's for broadcast at 24fps. I think they will use 
>>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>>> video for youtube intros, and tv. So i guess i need to export this 2 
>>>>>>>> times.
>>>>>>>> 24fps and a 30 or 60fps.
>>>>>>>> My next question will be... Does Sitoa support "Field Rendering"?
>>>>>>>> I'm looking at the sitoa options and i cannot see that option.
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Softimage 

Re: -Camera. Frames issues

[Tom Kleinenberg]

That's NTSC. This side of the Atlantic, PAL is 25. Film is 24FPS.

My experience since college is film, so I've been working 24FPS and I'm not
actually sure what HD has done to frame rates.

On 11 March 2016 at 06:19, Stephen Davidson  wrote:

> Actually,  TV is 30 fps.,  or more accurately 29.97 fps,  but for short
> clips 30 fps is fine.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 11, 2016, 12:23 AM Tenshi .  wrote:
>
>> @Stephen, i read your words, thank you! Your info save my ass for future
>> projects. For now they told me they'll use this on TV and some documentary,
>> so 24fps. but my issue will continue then. I can't render with Arnold that
>> thing, i already have all animated. Maybe it's some feature for the
>> SolidAngle team...
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 8:01 PM, Stephen Davidson > > wrote:
>>
>>> No, it does not, but you can't use field rendering on YouTube, anyway.
>>> See my last post about
>>> rendering 60 fps since YouTube will take that frame rate.
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>> *  Stephen P. Davidson*
>>>
>>> *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com
>>>
>>> *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*
>>>
>>>
>>>  - Arthur C. Clarke
>>>
>>> 
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 4:45 PM Tenshi .  wrote:
>>>
 *You know if Sitoa support Field Rendering? *

 On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 5:43 PM, Stephen Davidson <
 magic...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> If this is going to be on YouTube, you can't use field rendering,
> anyway.
> BUT... YouTube will play back up to 60 fps. Here is the info about
> that.:
> https://creatoracademy.withgoogle.com/page/lesson/frame-rate?hl=en
> That, along with slight motion blur, should play as smooth as silk.
>
> Best Regards,
> *  Stephen P. Davidson*
>
> *(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com
>
> *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*
>
>
>- Arthur C. Clarke
>
> 
>
> On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 4:40 PM Tenshi .  wrote:
>
>> @Stephen, thank you for the insight. A lot of info i didn't know
>> about. This video it's for broadcast at 24fps. I think they will use this
>> video for youtube intros, and tv. So i guess i need to export this 2 
>> times.
>> 24fps and a 30 or 60fps.
>> My next question will be... Does Sitoa support "Field Rendering"?
>> I'm looking at the sitoa options and i cannot see that option.
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
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>> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with "unsubscribe" in the
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>
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 with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>>
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Re: Fabric Engine 2.1

[Tom Kleinenberg]

In that attributes preset video, I think you spelled Gator wrong :)

Very interesting looking stuff, it looks like it's adding features at a
level I can wrap my head around now...

On 29 February 2016 at 17:35, Eric Thivierge  wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> There is a new Fabric Engine release 2.1 that is now out. You can check
> out these 2 videos, one which is the overview of the full release and the
> other covering the new Attribute presets.
>
> *Overview*
> https://vimeo.com/156810384
>
> *Attributes Presets*
> https://vimeo.com/156543124
>
>
> Some highlights:
>
>- Environment variables automatically set within Fabric for Softimage
>plugin to make it easier to get up and running without having to set
>variables by hand.
>
>- Xfo and Mat44 arrays are now supported in Softimage so you can
>easily drive kinematics for arrays of objects.
>
>- The Value Editor in 2.0.x had its quirks. The good news is that it
>has been completely rewritten and we now have a really good foundation to
>add more tricks in the future. We’ve added some pretty useful elements like
>spin boxes and now you can skin it with QSS.
>
>- The 'time to usefulness' in Canvas has been longer than we intended.
>To help with this, we have added dozens of new presets and samples. Some of
>you have already seen these in the daily builds, but there are a few new
>goodies that we held back for the release itself - check out the new
>Attributes Presets in 2.1!
>
>- ** Attribute Presets **
>   - Getting and setting attribute values
>   - Conversion between attribute types
>   - Debug drawing facilities
>   - Presets for basic math and vector math
>   - Geometry math presets
>   - Closest point and raycast presets
>   - Transfer attributes between geometries
>
>   - It's been difficult to figure out what’s gone wrong when a graph
>fails or has a broken connection. The new Diagnostics Window should save
>you lots of time and aggravation if / when this happens.
>
>- There are loads of other things in this release, like the new
>CanvasDeformer node in Fabric for Maya that is 4-5x faster than using
>CanvasNode, and conveniences like being able to drag and drop a .canvas
>file into Canvas.
>
>
> *Release Notes:*
>
> http://docs.fabric-engine.com/FabricEngine/2.1.0/HTML/ReleaseNotes/2.1.0.html#relnotes-2-1-0
>
> *Forum Announcement:*
> http://forums.fabricengine.com/discussion/305/fabric-2-1-is-here
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> 
> Eric Thivierge
> http://www.ethivierge.com
>
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Re: XSI 2015 hangs when opening

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Sandy always told me to renamed the user prefs folder in Documents so that
XSI generated new ones when weird things started happening. Does that help
anything?
On 10 Feb 2016 19:22, "George Schermer"  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My XSI 2015 had been working fine a couple weeks ago, but today when I
> tried to launch it I got the splash screen and the menu bar, (with "MCP,
> KPL,PPG" tabs in the right corner,) but nothing else.  And then it says
> that XSI is unresponsive.
>
> Has anyone else come across this error before?  Any fixes?
>
> Any help would be much appreciated!
>
> Thanks!
> George
>

Re: So.. Maya rigging is still a thing...

[Tom Kleinenberg]

The version cross compatibility was always a pro in Maya. Don't know how it
can be a con. We had a number of occassions in the studio we had were
version locked because we were halfway through production and needed
something out of a later version of XSI because riggers/tech guys were
already playing around with it.

And .ma files give you a great option. You don't have to take it, but using
that and Lightwave's scene files was always a winner to me, simply for
being able to bring a corrupt file back from the dead.

I hope your day improves, Seb :)

On 26 January 2016 at 21:38, Sebastien Sterling <
sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry Cesar, am having an off day, will be better soon.
>
> As for what happened to the list, i think it's name sake died (or was
> smothered with a pillow).
>
> on the bright side, we learned, that maya has a method for picking joint
> influences...
>
> some tips on rigging from Adam ...
>
> that mGear is a very good solution for rigging...
>
> that you can hack .ma files to fix your scenes remotely...
>
> that Seb should stick to his Valium prescription ...
>
> So yea lot of rants, but also some good info :)
>
> On 26 January 2016 at 21:16, Cesar Saez  wrote:
>
>> That's the attitude...
>>
>> What happened to this list? It used to be so good :(
>> On 27 Jan 2016 7:09 am, "Sebastien Sterling" <
>> sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "Ctrl/Alt/S   will automatically increment and save. It’s a really
>>> useful feature."
>>>
>>>
>>> Same as Mudbox, yes i know.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "I also recommend:
>>> Preferences->Settings->Files/Projects->Autosave"
>>>
>>> As great a source of system crashes and file corruptions, as of actual
>>> legitimate saved situations. i've had to disable it in the past as it would
>>> crash on every routine backup, as there was some plug-in it didn't like, or
>>> the sky outside wasn't to it's liking, or 42 ...
>>>
>>> "Learned a long time ago that saving files in Maya ASCII had really
>>> awesome benefits. "
>>>
>>> I always save in .ma, these are not benefits they are flaws
>>>
>>> 1 "It can be hacked" it should not have to be hacked, EVER. plus my CV
>>> reads BA HONS in Film and Animation, not ancient Sumerian texts from 1963
>>> .
>>>
>>> 2 "make a saved version run in an earlier release of the software." Gona
>>> have to go with, The software industry are Bastards ? inbuilt Obsolescence
>>> anyone ? Still i guess the fact this is even possible in maya does give us
>>> the lie from Autodesk.
>>>
>>>
>>> "I used this once to map the conversions necessary to create a Wavefront
>>> TAV to Maya material converter."
>>>
>>> Hi :) i'm an artits, i make pretty pictures , in spite of tools and an
>>> industry hounding me to an early grave through contempt and indifference
>>> .
>>>
>>>
>>> Do you guys do much rigging at Nasa ? (this is actually a legit
>>> question, just as all this is not intended to antagonise you mr Ponthieux,
>>> just the musings of a frightened paperboy wondering how he is going to
>>> complete his runs now that his bicycle has been turned into snakes. )
>>>
>>>
>>> On 26 January 2016 at 17:25, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] <
>>> j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
>>>
 Ctrl/Alt/S   will automatically increment and save. It’s a really
 useful feature.



 I also recommend:

 Preferences->Settings->Files/Projects->Autosave



 On a similar note, I’m fairly old school regarding the file type I save
 files in if they are critical to production. Learned a long time ago that
 saving files in Maya ASCII had really awesome benefits. 1. It can be hacked
 (somewhat a meticulous process) to fix a scene that might have failed or to
 make a saved version run in an earlier release of the software. I don’t
 know if that trick works reliably anymore though. 2. It reveals a
 significant understanding of Maya’s MEL underbelly and the seriously
 complex graph node connections that can exist. I used this once to map the
 conversions necessary to create a Wavefront TAV to Maya material converter.



 The downside to .ma though is that files can get really large. I’d
 recommend sticking with .mb if space is an issue unless you start to
 experience issues. Haven’t had a need to hack a .ma file in a really long
 time. But I’m sure there are still folks out there relying on it.



 --

 Joey Ponthieux

 LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES II)

 Science Systems and Applications Inc. (SSAI)

 NASA Langley Research Center

 __

 Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not

 represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.



 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of 

Re: Middle Click in Maya

[Tom Kleinenberg]

"Yes, honey, I'm still at work. The render crashed. Yes, I checked the
filepaths. I'm about to check if the texture's gone corrupt."

It makes those conversations far simpler to have, without the layer of
interpreting :) Unfortunately, we're both silly and keep getting work at
the same places, so if a project ends, we're both job-hunting.

At least we can both remenisce about the good old Softimage days and not
have to blankly nod.

On 25 January 2016 at 19:04, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Both you and your wife are into 3D ? Amazing :)
> Le 25 janv. 2016 19:59, "Tom Kleinenberg" <zagan...@gmail.com> a écrit :
>
>> Over the weekend my wife was asking me for the equivalent of Walk Along
>> Mesh UV mapping. I couldn't give her much of an answer, save for messing
>> about with Unfold. Low and behold, today we moved over to Maya 2016 and
>> Contour Stretch mapping was highlighted as a new feature.
>>
>> I was trying to find one of those Autodesk features demoing it and all I
>> could find was XSI vids and a thread on CGTalk from 2004 saying it was
>> needed (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=167383). Ah well,
>> only 12 years to catch up, don't lose hope, riggers in the other thread.
>>
>> On 25 January 2016 at 18:27, Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ya, there is a video they posted going over the new UI stuffs in 2016.
>>> They even extended it to work with combo boxes/drop downs. A nice logical
>>> extension of an already great feature.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:09 AM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES
>>> II] <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I’m wondering if anyone has noticed that you can now middle-click
>>>> repeat in Maya 2016?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU//?guid=GUID-D90A2BDB-FD05-4528-8A95-C33A02D15129
>>>> <http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU/?guid=GUID-D90A2BDB-FD05-4528-8A95-C33A02D15129>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Found this today also. It might be useful to anyone making the
>>>> transition…
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Softimage to Maya Bridge Guide
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU/?guid=GUID-1D63FB72-2E08-4E95-8AA4-E4DE9448FBED
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Joey Ponthieux
>>>>
>>>> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES II)
>>>>
>>>> Science Systems and Applications Inc. (SSAI)
>>>>
>>>> NASA Langley Research Center
>>>>
>>>> __
>>>>
>>>> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>>>>
>>>> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>

Re: Middle Click in Maya

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Over the weekend my wife was asking me for the equivalent of Walk Along
Mesh UV mapping. I couldn't give her much of an answer, save for messing
about with Unfold. Low and behold, today we moved over to Maya 2016 and
Contour Stretch mapping was highlighted as a new feature.

I was trying to find one of those Autodesk features demoing it and all I
could find was XSI vids and a thread on CGTalk from 2004 saying it was
needed (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=167383). Ah well, only
12 years to catch up, don't lose hope, riggers in the other thread.

On 25 January 2016 at 18:27, Steven Caron  wrote:

> Ya, there is a video they posted going over the new UI stuffs in 2016.
> They even extended it to work with combo boxes/drop downs. A nice logical
> extension of an already great feature.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:09 AM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES
> II]  wrote:
>
>> I’m wondering if anyone has noticed that you can now middle-click repeat
>> in Maya 2016?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU//?guid=GUID-D90A2BDB-FD05-4528-8A95-C33A02D15129
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Found this today also. It might be useful to anyone making the transition…
>>
>>
>>
>> Softimage to Maya Bridge Guide
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU/?guid=GUID-1D63FB72-2E08-4E95-8AA4-E4DE9448FBED
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Joey Ponthieux
>>
>> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES II)
>>
>> Science Systems and Applications Inc. (SSAI)
>>
>> NASA Langley Research Center
>>
>> __
>>
>> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>>
>> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Re: So.. Maya rigging is still a thing...

[Tom Kleinenberg]

At college we were taught Max and Maya. Maya was by far the most popular
with students. I never much cared for it, so I always asked "What do you
like about it over Max?" I couldn't ever get a straight answer and was
generally fobbed off with something like "Well, they used it in the
Matrix/Lord of the Rings/etc". Made me sad.

On 22 January 2016 at 09:42, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:

> That is very true Stefan.
> And people look at you weird just because you're not in the Maya
> majority...
> It's like speaking of the taste of chiken inside a kfc, nobody get's a
> clue.
>
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Stefan Kubicek 
> wrote:
>
>> There are only two kinds of 3D Artists:
>> Those who use Softimage, and those who never tried.
>>
>> The story of Softimage's demise is one of ignorance.
>>
>>
>>
>> But they don;t know for better so burning bed for them is as good as it
>> gets.
>> They have no idea what is a fluffy feeling of Softimage around you :(
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 8:26 AM, Gerbrand Nel  wrote:
>>
>>> I know many of us are forced by employers or situations to convert to
>>> maya.
>>> My heart goes out to you!
>>> But the rest of you fuckers who choose to go to maya over all the other
>>> options out there.
>>> You have made your beds, now burn in them.
>>>
>>
>

Re: So.. Maya rigging is still a thing...

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Heh, sorry, what I meant was sad was the blind crowd-think. I learnt pretty
quickly that that any tool can do anything (when at a Lightwave studio and
they were trumpeting how Lightwave was used for bits of Ironman). Some
tools are just easier than others for certain tasks and Softimage does 90%
of what I do in the easiest way I've come across.

And no Sandy, you never got my rigging, not even in XSI :) One day, one
day...

On 22 January 2016 at 10:10, Sandy Sutherland <sandy.mailli...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> We never got you rigging in Softimage then Tom - ;)
>
> S.
>
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 10:05 AM, Tom Kleinenberg <zagan...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> At college we were taught Max and Maya. Maya was by far the most popular
>> with students. I never much cared for it, so I always asked "What do you
>> like about it over Max?" I couldn't ever get a straight answer and was
>> generally fobbed off with something like "Well, they used it in the
>> Matrix/Lord of the Rings/etc". Made me sad.
>>
>> On 22 January 2016 at 09:42, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That is very true Stefan.
>>> And people look at you weird just because you're not in the Maya
>>> majority...
>>> It's like speaking of the taste of chiken inside a kfc, nobody get's a
>>> clue.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Stefan Kubicek <s...@tidbit-images.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> There are only two kinds of 3D Artists:
>>>> Those who use Softimage, and those who never tried.
>>>>
>>>> The story of Softimage's demise is one of ignorance.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But they don;t know for better so burning bed for them is as good as it
>>>> gets.
>>>> They have no idea what is a fluffy feeling of Softimage around you :(
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 8:26 AM, Gerbrand Nel <nagv...@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I know many of us are forced by employers or situations to convert to
>>>>> maya.
>>>>> My heart goes out to you!
>>>>> But the rest of you fuckers who choose to go to maya over all the
>>>>> other options out there.
>>>>> You have made your beds, now burn in them.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>

Re: Friday Flashback #246

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Valve appear to be more Maya friendly. DotA 2's free-to-play economy runs
on user generated content and the released rigs are Maya (
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125736). I think Derek's
probably right in saying there's still Softimage somewhere though.

On 24 October 2015 at 00:37, Derek Jenson  wrote:

> I was an onsite freelancer for the HL2 project. I'm still freelancing
> today, but not at Valve. It was pretty much XSI across the board when I was
> there. I think they have a very mixed pipeline now, using all kinds of
> tools. I'm sure they still have some departments using Softimage in some
> capacity. I don't think they ever "switched", they just grew. And in that
> growth new people with specializations came onboard with the software they
> were familiar with. It's pretty loose there, if you can talk other people
> in your department into a tool and wedge it into the pipeline, no one stops
> you.
>
> --
> Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2015 15:24:08 -0700
> Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #246
> From: eug...@flormata.com
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>
>
> Cool! Are you still at valve? When did they start switching to Maya or
> whatever they use now?
>
> On Friday, 23 October 2015, Derek Jenson  wrote:
>
> I rigged that Strider for HL2!
>
> --
> Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2015 14:29:48 -0400
> Subject: Friday Flashback #246
> From: stephenrbl...@gmail.com
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.c
>
>

Re: Unable to select anything in scene explorer.

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Have you tried refreshing the explorer pressing F5 over the explorer? We
had a few really heavy scenes where the explorer would stop responding,
undoes would stop. Is it a heavy scene or a new scene?

On 16 September 2015 at 12:52, Ognjen Vukovic  wrote:

> I haven't updated in quite a while could do the trick but i dont see
> why that would crash the selection.
> I ran runonce.bat and nothing, and when i click on anything in the
> explorer i get a ppg but theres no selection being made.
> I guess ill give the drivers a go and report back.
>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Orlando Esponda <
> orlando.espo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Have you tried uptading the graphics card drivers?
>> El 16/09/2015 05:43, "Ognjen Vukovic"  escribió:
>>
>>> Hi guys,
>>> Has anyone seen similar behavior as in the title.
>>> Im unable to select anything in the explorer. Just reinstalled soft,
>>> deleted preference folder, its still the same.
>>>
>>
>

Re: Soft licenses still available for purchase?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I believe in the EU second-hand trading of software licenses are legal.
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240214493/Second-hand-software-legal-or-illegal

Of course, finding somebody prepared to sell is possibly problematic.

On 15 September 2015 at 22:49, Tenshi .  wrote:

> I was saving for a Softimage license only, i thought i could get one from
> a reseller but now it's clear that we need to spend 4k for a)software i
> don't want. b)software that is already dead. This is real?
> I want my machine to have at least one softimage license, not student or
> something like that.
>
> Really i don't see what is the trouble selling a dead software, what is
> the cost to that if they're saying those licenses are perpetual, so they
> don't need any servers to keep checking online? .. I find this whole
> situation absurd, really.
> If we have money, we can't buy;, and if they gave us an option the only
> one is spending too much for something i will not use.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Patrick Neese 
> wrote:
>
>> As a hobbyist with a single license...I fear the day I create something
>> worth while that I have to figure out how to render with more than one
>> machine...since I only have one Mental Ray license for softimage.  I'm
>>  trying to learn Maya...  It is unfortunate I can't have a softimage/mental
>> ray license (or 20)  transferred to me from someone who just isn't using
>> the software anymore...or...is that possible? It appears the LSA could
>> allow for a transfer via written approval by Autodesk (2.1.1 of the 2014
>> LSA) :) It's worth a shot :)
>>
>
>

Re: Knowing if you are front-face or back-face of a polygon.

[Tom Kleinenberg]

The Filter by Volume node has this set up already, if you wanted to steal
it from somewhere. I may have done this :)

On 10 September 2015 at 12:24, Olivier Jeannel 
wrote:

> Brillant !
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 9:22 AM, Oscar Juarez 
> wrote:
>
>> Get closest location to the grid, subtract this location position from
>> the particle position, dot product to the location normal, depending on the
>> value you can know if it's back face or front face.
>> On Sep 10, 2015 8:58 AM, "Olivier Jeannel" 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> That's something I've wondered for while and since I'm waiting in a
>>> starbuck...
>>> Let's say you have a fied of particles. In the middle of the field you
>>> put a grid.
>>> How do I recognize the particles that are on the front side and the
>>> particles that are on the back side of the grid ?
>>>
>>> :)
>>>
>>
>

Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Is there a reason that it's not included in Maya? I mean, beyond what
Raff's saying about Softimage's handling of properties on meshes. Is there
a weird 3rd party licensing thing?

Would it be possible to replicate GATOR style behaviour using Fabric or
Houdini engine to prevent having to move out of Maya with all the weirdness
that could occur?

On 28 May 2015 at 12:01, Graham Bell bell...@gmail.com wrote:

 Many moons ago, I was demoing XSI to a certain very large Maya based games
 company (who shall remain nameless), there were a couple of guys in the
 room who were convinced that despite looking 'ok', GATOR wasn't anything
 that special. And that Maya could already do pretty much the same thing
 with an existing feature or a custom/modified tool.

 They promptly spent the rest of the day (and evening) trying and failing
 to match the demo workflow.

 GATOR was always one of those features that would always grab an audiences
 attention. At an event last year, after the main agenga for sh*ts 
 giggles, I booted up Soft and did some demos. GATOR had people in shock. lol

 The only thing I found that had a similar 'wow' factor, was the transfer
 maps feature in Mudbox, that's actually very good.




 On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 7:48 AM Raffaele Fragapane 
 raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:

 GATOR might use that for the sampling, but I don't think those rely on
 GATOR itself, or even if they did it'd be more of a logistical thing than
 anything to do with what makes GATOR as good as it is (maybe there's an
 acceleration structure or some sampling methods that under the hood were
 implemented as part of GATOR and then used to service other parts of the
 SDK).

 Soft has a vastly superior, to ANYTHING out there, notion and handling of
 properties on meshes in general, even if, algorithmically speaking, Maya
 was to get all the maths across tomorrow, it still wouldn't be a fraction
 as powerful as the app in general, right now, is utterly lacking in
 abstractions and representations of mesh data and using them for
 deformation.

 On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 4:09 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote:

 All the GetClosest* functions on the geometry class? I would consider
 that part of the GATOR sdk

 *written with my thumbs
 On May 27, 2015 6:11 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 GATOR was developed for/with one of our main game customers, Square I
 think.
 I'm not aware of a Gator sdk, what is that?
 There are attribute transfers in other apps, but it's generally
 separate tools for textures
 vs rigging things, reflecting on their architecture vs XSI

 On 27 May 2015 at 19:27, Matt Lind speye...@hotmail.com wrote:
  For the record, GATOR was introduced in late 2005 with XSI v5.0, not
 in
  2008.
 
  GATOR was largely tailored for those switching applications and doing
  rigging in a film/video pipeline.  For games development, GATOR has
 less use
  out-of-the-box as the very things that made it nice for exchanging
 data
  between XSI and Maya, for example, were the very same features that
 tripped
  up game artists trying to do simpler things quickly in heavy
 repetition.
 
  I wrote a command based version of the tool using the GATOR SDK as
 artists
  needed more micro-management of meshes and transfers.  Artists used
 it to
  transfer UV's, normals, vertex colors, envelope weights, and many
 other
  features.  I also extended, as well as exposed, many features from
 the SDK
  GATOR did not expose directly such as transferring attributes in local
  space, by raycasting, distance limits, transferring only selected
  subcomponents, correcting numerical flaws found in UV transfer, and
 so on.
  However, my use of the GATOR SDK was not limited to replicating the
 tool as
  a command.  I also used it heavily for other tasks which weren't
 strictly
  related to attribute transfer tasks such as animation remapping, pose
  transfer, mesh fitting, and interactive editing of normals and
 symmetrical
  envelope weighting of asymmetrical characters.
 
  To hear other applications don't have a GATOR equivalent in this day
 and age
  is surprising considering it's so universally useful and isn't rocket
  science to develop.  If you know anything about tree data structures
 and
  linear algebra, you can write your own (even if it's not as efficient
 as
  GATOR).  What makes the GATOR SDK nice is the algorithm is very fast,
  accurate, and relatively easy to use.  Reverse lookups of
 subcomponents is a
  pain as GATOR worked on triangles, not polygons, but that's minor
 compared
  to all the benefits it provides.




 --
 Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it
 and let them flee like the dogs they are!

Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

[Tom Kleinenberg]

A simple GATOR replacement would probably refresh the material ...

On 28 May 2015 at 15:36, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 You need to work on some new material :)

 On 28 May 2015 at 09:17, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 I've just noticed that the exact same thread happened on the Fabric
 mailing-list—someone asked for GATOR and I quoted that foot roll thingy in
 my reply. I'm so predictable :)


 On 28 May 2015 at 20:11, Christopher Crouzet 
 christopher.crou...@gmail.com wrote:

 Beware also to not implement any foot roll in your rigs.

 http://www.google.com/patents/US7545378


 On 28 May 2015 at 19:50, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Most likely covered by this one:
 Transfer of attributes between geometric surfaces of arbitrary
 topologies with distortion reduction and discontinuity preservation
 United States 7760201Issued July 20, 2010

 This describes how to transfer surface attributes (such as color, UVs,
 skinning) between two 3D geometries of different topologies and potentially
 different type (polygon mesh, NURBS, curve...). In particular, it describes
 methods to preserve surface discontinuitues (such as UV island seams) and
 reduce attribute distortion on the target surface.

 On 28 May 2015 at 08:42, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Jerome (now at Fabric - go team!) wrote GATOR. I'd ask him about doing
 it in Fabric but I think he'd stab me if I gave him any more work to do. I
 don't know if there are patents around the work and that's why other 
 people
 haven't replicated it.

 On 28 May 2015 at 08:21, Marc-Andre Carbonneau 
 marc-andre.carbonn...@ubisoft.com wrote:

 Good morning Lucer,

 Do you remember who designed and coded GATOR?
 I'm just curious.
 Thanks!
 MAC


 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric
 Rousseau
 Sent: May-27-15 9:11 PM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

 GATOR was developed for/with one of our main game customers, Square I
 think.
 I'm not aware of a Gator sdk, what is that?
 There are attribute transfers in other apps, but it's generally
 separate tools for textures vs rigging things, reflecting on their
 architecture vs XSI

 On 27 May 2015 at 19:27, Matt Lind speye...@hotmail.com wrote:
  For the record, GATOR was introduced in late 2005 with XSI v5.0, not
  in 2008.
 
  GATOR was largely tailored for those switching applications and
 doing
  rigging in a film/video pipeline.  For games development, GATOR has
  less use out-of-the-box as the very things that made it nice for
  exchanging data between XSI and Maya, for example, were the very
 same
  features that tripped up game artists trying to do simpler things
 quickly in heavy repetition.
 
  I wrote a command based version of the tool using the GATOR SDK as
  artists needed more micro-management of meshes and transfers.
 Artists
  used it to transfer UV's, normals, vertex colors, envelope weights,
  and many other features.  I also extended, as well as exposed, many
  features from the SDK GATOR did not expose directly such as
  transferring attributes in local space, by raycasting, distance
  limits, transferring only selected subcomponents, correcting
 numerical flaws found in UV transfer, and so on.
  However, my use of the GATOR SDK was not limited to replicating the
  tool as a command.  I also used it heavily for other tasks which
  weren't strictly related to attribute transfer tasks such as
 animation
  remapping, pose transfer, mesh fitting, and interactive editing of
  normals and symmetrical envelope weighting of asymmetrical
 characters.
 
  To hear other applications don't have a GATOR equivalent in this day
  and age is surprising considering it's so universally useful and
 isn't
  rocket science to develop.  If you know anything about tree data
  structures and linear algebra, you can write your own (even if it's
  not as efficient as GATOR).  What makes the GATOR SDK nice is the
  algorithm is very fast, accurate, and relatively easy to use.
 Reverse
  lookups of subcomponents is a pain as GATOR worked on triangles, not
  polygons, but that's minor compared to all the benefits it provides.






 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com




 --
 Christopher Crouzet
 *http://christophercrouzet.com* http://christophercrouzet.com

Re: Softimage going to sleep on Windows 8

[Tom Kleinenberg]

We're not using Windows 8 but if there are files in External Files that
can't be found I think XSI tries to refresh when alt-tabbing. I'm not sure
what the fix would be, barring fixing the path(s) - I think referenced
objects with Animation Mixer nodes may be particularly susceptible to the
problem (they seem to return a lot of \\none paths).

On 28 May 2015 at 16:43, Leonard Koch leonardkoch...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey list,

 since updating to Windows 8 I've had the issue that if I leave softimage
 alone for a few minutes, it takes about 10 seconds for it to become
 responsive again after tabbing/clicking back into it.

 I have a fast SSD, plenty of RAM and not much else going on.
 Has anyone else encountered this issue?

 Cheers.
 -Leo

Re: The shadow over The Foundry

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Didn't go to Autodesk or Adobe though, some investment firm called
HGCapital. They were owned by the Carlyle group previously, who's focus is
also not effects, so it's too early to speculate on what changes will be
made.

On 21 May 2015 at 22:33, Sven Constable sixsi_l...@imagefront.de wrote:

 Sad times. Oh wait, I forgot...the future for Modo is bright!



 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Jim Yeh
 *Sent:* Thursday, May 21, 2015 9:53 PM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* Re: The shadow over The Foundry



 sold!



 On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 9:10 AM, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
 wrote:

 We have cut our Adobe licences from over 100 to just 45.  The unfortunate
 thing which doesn't seem to be mentioned is that Adobe locks you into a 3
 year contract in education . ie I cant drop my licences to say 30 next
 year. So much for flexibility and affordability.



 Luckily our game design academics are pro open source , and as much as not
 having Softimage annoys me Autodesk EDU policies are first rate. Sketch
 Book Pro is now taking care of all of our concept stuff, and we are looking
 to folks like Algorithmic for texturing.  So once our indentured servitude
 to Adobe runs out thats it for us.

 If Modo and Nuke are Adobe products by then, there are alternatives.






 --

 *From:* Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] [j.ponthi...@nasa.gov]
 *Sent:* 30 April 2015 05:53 PM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* RE: The shadow over The Foundry

 One has to wonder how many others are starting to evaluate or recognize
 the consequences of Cloud’s long term costs and scalability costs.



 The thing that surprised me the most was their encouragement of the use of
 alternative applications:



 http://art.buffalo.edu/2014/01/10/alternatives-to-adobe-creative-cloud/







 --

 Joey



 __

 Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not

 represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.



 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Angus Davidson
 *Sent:* Thursday, April 30, 2015 11:08 AM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* RE: The shadow over The Foundry



 I so agree with that. Unfortunately our Academics are still stuck in the
 have to use the market standard age. drives me insane.



 Luckily I have been at long last been allowed to bring one of the macs
 home , Can install everything. Create a drive image and use that to clone
 the rest. So at least our redo of the machines mid year wont drive me to
 distraction.



 It also amazes me that people don't do the subscription math over 3 or
 more years. Once the suck you in deals are gone its far more expensive.





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 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: File size limit for Softimage?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Ran into this recently. We were referencing multiple files generated in
Speedtree, once localized we went over the 2047mb limit. So if it's
multiple files, you can reference them in :)

On 9 April 2015 at 17:55, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dk wrote:

   Thanks guys - I think upgrade is out of the question after the EOL but
 the space saving tips might help. This is still a great list!


Morten



 Den 9. april 2015 kl. 17:47 skrev Nuno Conceicao 
 nunoalexconcei...@gmail.com:

  It might be the user normals, that takes a lot of extra space, unless
 you really need it, clearing them might drop the file size considerably

  On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Mario Reitbauer 
 cont...@marioreitbauer.at  wrote:

  Yes there is a file size limit in Si2013.

 With Si2014 upwards you can safe files up to 4GB, in 2013 it probably was
 only 2 GB.

 Have you tried loading everything as Alembic instead of fbx ?
 Freezing the geo after importing. Making Quads out of the polys.
 Deleting unused clusters (normals and whatever).

 55mio doesnt sound too much to me, should easily fit into a 2gb scene.

Re: Introducing Canvas - visual programming for Fabric Engine 2.0

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I'm keen, I've applied, I'll be spreading the gospel at work. Very exciting
and I like that the colours match ICE :)

On 7 March 2015 at 17:44, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for the kind words - this was what we originally intended to build
 before we went off on a bit of a tangent :) I think code first has proved
 to be the right path, but man it's taken a long time to get to the visual
 programming!

 On 7 March 2015 at 10:17, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Finally I have a good excuse to start developing stuff with Fabric :)

 Can't wait to try it!
 From a non-coder point pf view, seriously, thanks guys!

 2015-03-07 14:43 GMT+01:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com:

 btw the sign up is here: http://fabricengine.com/canvas-testing-program/


 On 6 March 2015 at 20:14, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote:

 I don't write this word often, but being from Texas there is only thing
 that comes to mindYeehaw!

 On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Vince Baertsoen vi...@themill.com
 wrote:

  Awesome news!

  I have been waiting for this for ever. Exciting time!

  Thanks a lot Paul and I am looking forward to trying it, hopefully
 soon.

  Cheers.



 Vince Baertsoen
 Head of 3D

 T  +1 212 337 3210




 The Mill 451 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York,  NY 10013


 *themill.com | http://www.themill.com/ themillblog.com |
 http://www.themillblog.com/ @millchannel |
 https://twitter.com/millchannel facebook.com/millchannel
 http://www.facebook.com/millchannel *
  --
 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Paul Doyle [
 technove...@gmail.com]
 *Sent:* Friday, March 06, 2015 3:32 PM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* Introducing Canvas - visual programming for Fabric Engine
 2.0

   Hi guys - I know you've been waiting for quite a while for us to
 start showing you what we've been up to since Siggraph. Finally we're 
 there
 and can give you a look :)

  I'm really happy and proud to give you the first proper look at
 Canvas, our visual programming system for Fabric 2.0.

  Quick highlight video: https://vimeo.com/121492305

  Tons more information here: http://fabricengine.com/canvas-videos/

  This is the first part of the FE2.0 plan, and we'll be showing this
 in more detail at GTC on March 18th - please contact me if you want to 
 meet
 up.

  Looking forward to hearing what you have to say, and hopefully
 getting you on the alpha/beta when we open things up (there is a sign up
 form on the Canvas page).

  Cheers,

  Paul and the rest of the Fabric team

Re: OT: Epic going completely crazy

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Has any idea negotiated a custom deal? That seems to be the most obvious
way to get a cap. Obviously, that would be subject to strict NDA's but it
would be interesting to know at what level in terms of gross revenue people
have been able to negotiate.

On 7 March 2015 at 07:27, Eric Cosky e...@cosky.com wrote:

 As a game dev, I have some concerns about the royalties of Unreal. It's a
 fantastic engine that I enjoy very much, and it may very well be the right
 choice in many cases but I do wish they had a cap on the royalties. If
 nothing else, the royalties should be carefully considered against the
 alternatives. I wrote a post explaining my thoughts in more detail here
 http://bit.ly/1zAgU6P. It came out a few days before they cut the
 monthly fee, but as you will see in the post that cost really was just a
 drop in the bucket that doesn't change the big numbers.

 Of course, none of this applies if you aren't subject to royalties which
 is bound to be a good percentage of people in this list.


 On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 2:19 AM, Adam Seeley adammsee...@gmail.com wrote:

 Some more comparisons..

 http://blog.digitaltutors.com/whats-better-deal-unreal-engine-4-unity-5/



 On 3 March 2015 at 21:49, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks everyone.

 So (just to be clear, because i don't think I was) I was trying to get
 vertex level animation (not morph targets) into UE4.
 So I want to rig and envelope a character (or object) in another app
 (like Soft or C4D) and animate it with bones.
 Then I want to cache the animation of the deforming mesh, and export
 that out to UE4 without the bones, just the animated mesh.

 I wanted to avoid FBX because, well, it is FBX and has been horribly
 varied and spotty with regards to stability and reliability over the years.
 Alembic is lighter weight, faster to load large caches, far more stable
 and reliable (although this is, of course, also partly dependent on the
 target application
 that hosts the importer).

 The only reason I mentioned morph targets is that many people that were
 users of UE4 had suggested that the way to get vertex level animation
 into UE4 was by using morph targets and doing one morph per frame
 manually. Seemed a bit stupid to do it by hand, to me.

 Am I being ridiculous to not just use FBX? Does FBX work well with
 vertex animation?

 If I was near my machine I would just try it myself, but I won't be for
 a while.

 Thanks again

 Perry



 On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 4:47 PM, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Hi Perry,
 you can import animated models and characters wih fbx, and you have two
 ways, with the animation embeded or importing animations separated and then
 aplying them in different ways.
 I had an issue with an animated rope through nulls like skeletons and
 didnt go to well, but i'm new to unreal too so there must be some way i
 don't know yet.
 Morph targets are quite simple, on unreal engine youtube channel there
 is a lot of info.
 Nicolas, what do you think?
 Hope it helps.
 F.

 On Monday, March 2, 2015, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 I have been using UE4 for a month or so as well, and really enjoy it.

 One note, as far as I can tell it does not yet support Alembic import,
 so getting character
 animation (or deforming geometry animation) into UE4 is either done
 via a skeleton (not as painful if the animated geo is a character I
 suppose), or
 a series of one-frame morph targets to get animated deforming geometry
 to work.
 I have been told this is the way to do it, but I have yet to attempt
 it as it sounds very painful.

 Anybody using it that can verify that, or did I miss something?

 Thanks,

 Perry


 On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 3:13 PM, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 HTML5 has been added recently, but consider that the engine is quite
 new and the iOS/Android stuff is not well flashed out right now...but
 still, looks awesome, just take a look at Infinity Blade and the Zen 
 Garden
 demo ;)

 2015-03-02 20:56 GMT+01:00 Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com:

 Eugene,

 Unreal exports to Android, IOS, Linux and Windows.

 F.


 2015-03-02 16:35 GMT-03:00 Eugene Flormata eug...@flormata.com:

 does ue4 output to ios/android/ windows/ osx/html5 same as unity
 does?

 On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 11:31 AM, Saeed Kalhor ndman...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 LoL..
 Just after 5 days i paid for first month subscription it become
 free. Amazing!





 --






 --





 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects

 http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)



 --
 Sent from Gmail Mobile




 --





 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects

 http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: OT - Blueprints/dimensions 1K

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I use Suurland (http://www.suurland.com/blueprints.php?catagory=2order=name)
but they're not 1k.

On 19 February 2015 at 16:57, Gerbrand Nel nagv...@gmail.com wrote:

 For weapons you could look into airsoft replicas.
 The insides are airsoft, but the outsides of thesetoys are sometimes
 very accurate.
 Just a thought :)
 G

 On 19/02/2015 16:15, Tim Leydecker wrote:

 Hi guys,


 does anyone know of a good ressource for firearms and vehicles:

 weapons blueprints - Swedish K´s/Port Said´s, Stoner 63´s, SW K-Frames,
 M16/M16A1´s, M60s.
 vehicle blueprints, especially 60´s cars, from sedans to station wagons.

 I´d be willing to pay handling fees for machining level data and or
 reliable dimensions
 depending on origin (laws applicable) bolthead/receiver int. detail data
 can be excluded.

 I´m finding it especially hard to find really good vehicle data.

 There´s some GMC heritage stuff and a variety of books on amazon available
 but multi view plans of 60s/70cars are rare, as is photo data.

 There are many 3D models available (like from humster3D.com) to start
 with but I would appreciate
 to be able to add more accuracy and detail based on plans and references.

 For weapons, here in Germany, I can resort to getting deact´s for hands
 on data aquisition or check
 weaponeer.net to see enthusiasts at work but for cars, there´s loads of
 stuff less than accurate enough.

 Cheers,

 tim

Re: ICE: Randomized circular clump

[Tom Kleinenberg]

For the 'coagulate' part, if you want the lights to move to the centre, you
can do a linear interpolate between the current point positions and the
central point ('pointer' in your ICE set up?). The blend value will give a
nice controllable attraction that should move into a round blurry shape.
Blend can obviously also accept inputs so you could do a distance to null
test or something.

If you want a pure circle you could create a hidden cylinder, get closest
location and use that to define the point position (you could then apply
randomize to the positions to make it look 'fuzzy'). I'm a bit unclear on
exactly what you're trying for but maybe that helps?

On 6 November 2014 16:43, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote:

 I seem to have it working. See the screenshot for what I did.

 Here's what happens in the shot: I generated a bunch of points on a
 polygon and used a texture map to filter them. It's basically a satellite
 view of our state with the nighttime lights. The points of light then need
 to coagulate in the center of the state. It would end up looking like you
 just scattered them around a central point.

 The tree is really slow right now. I think it might be the generate sample
 set that I'm using to get the points to start with.

 On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 6:34 AM, patrick nethercoat 
 patr...@brandtanim.co.uk wrote:

 Can you give us a bit more of an idea what you're aiming for? Animate
 into a round blurry shape from what/where?

 On 5 November 2014 18:05, gareth bell garethb...@outlook.com wrote:

 emit from a spherical/cylinderical volume?

 --
 From: byronn...@gmail.com
 Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2014 12:56:51 -0500
 Subject: ICE: Randomized circular clump
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 I need to animate my points into a round blurry shape. Both randomize
 and turbulence generate a squarish volume of points. I have tried a few
 approaches to make them clump but haven't gotten anything yet. I'm sure
 it's something simple I'm overlooking. This is an unsimulated cloud.

 Tips appreciated

 Byron




 --
 Brandt Animation
 www.brandtanim.co.uk
 020 7734 0196

Re: Edge Creasing and practice vs the modern day renderer. (Arnold, 3Dlight, Redshift...)

[Tom Kleinenberg]

Wasn't this another patent thing? Mental Images (and now nVidia) hold this
strange array of patents on somewhat odd things. I know that MentalRay's
edge-rounding shader is patented.

I've worked with assets from one studio coming to us converting from Max to
Softime for Arnold. Edge creasing was horrible because it didn't carry over
in the models. Obviously if you have end-to-end control of the pipeline
it's not too bad but any transfer between packages (Zbrush, 3DCoat, Mari)
gives me the heebie jeebies.


On 13 April 2014 21:04, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.comwrote:

 Cheers Steven, i'll definitely consider checking it out, might there be a
 particular reason that Soft edge creasing is not supported ?


 On 13 April 2014 19:35, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote:

 arnold supports 'hard creases' but not 'soft creases' (weighted
 crease)... download it and test it yourself.


 On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Sebastien Sterling 
 sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Like many other i'm sure, i recently watched the Nvidia Pixar GPU
 conference.

 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/45386636


 It gave unprecedented incite into the Pixar workflow, now there was a
 lot of cool stuff on display, but what interested me in this instance, was
 there methodology for creasing: indicating the hardness of an edge to the
 rendrerer without having to add extra geometry to hold said information,
 thus optimizing the polycount, and making life easier for modelers riggers
 CPU and GPU's alike.

 Creasing has always been a bit of a fuzzy area in my experience, rarely
 have i seen it implemented or used in production, which is ironic given the
 advantages it seems to offer.

 Now most DCC's support it in the viewport, it is available in Maya Max
 Softimage Modo, and will render in mental ray as a default. however during
 last years trasition to arnold, when inquiering about creasing, i was told
 by a shader artist that Arnold does not support Edge creasing which i found
 perplexing.

 (not sure if it was just Mtoa) Can anyone confirm this ?


 Personally i think Edge creasing and even vertex creasing are great, i
 can't imagine how frustrating it must be for a rigger to have to deal with
 2 to 3 edge loops to control the creasing of a lip or eyelid during
 blendshapes when the same result can be achieved by simply selecting 1 edge
 and indicating the crease angle.

 Have any of the beta testers for Redshift come across this ?

 I'm working on a character at the moment, and i'd like to know if i
 should put in the extra detail or add creasing, given i might not be the
 one to rig it.

Re: Edge Creasing and practice vs the modern day renderer. (Arnold, 3Dlight, Redshift...)

[Tom Kleinenberg]

The trouble with characters is the crease values will be adjusted over
various parts of the mesh - certainly when we dealt with them. Nuts and
bolts would at least have predictable values. I think when we were looking
at stuff we generated arrays of edge crease values or something - I
certainly remember playing with it, not sure if that got used.

Obviously, a feature is a better than no feature - you can always choose to
ignore it if it doesn't fit your pipeline. Something like OpenSubDiv might
be the answer as long as it's present in everywhere so deformation and UV's
are handled the same in each application.


On 13 April 2014 21:53, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.comwrote:

 Working between packages is an issue, but when it comes to characters, the
 fix isn't that demanding, on the other hand if you where trying to crease
 200 bolts or screws, then you would be screwed pardon the pun.

 Yes i thought it might come bundled with OpenSubdiv, that is how it seems
 to work with Modo.

 OpenSubdiv isn't the fastest, but it is really good at eradicating
 imperfections you get from T poles and E poles. also tries and Ngons




 On 13 April 2014 20:34, Tom Kleinenberg zagan...@gmail.com wrote:

 Wasn't this another patent thing? Mental Images (and now nVidia) hold
 this strange array of patents on somewhat odd things. I know that
 MentalRay's edge-rounding shader is patented.

 I've worked with assets from one studio coming to us converting from Max
 to Softime for Arnold. Edge creasing was horrible because it didn't carry
 over in the models. Obviously if you have end-to-end control of the
 pipeline it's not too bad but any transfer between packages (Zbrush,
 3DCoat, Mari) gives me the heebie jeebies.


 On 13 April 2014 21:04, Sebastien Sterling 
 sebastien.sterl...@gmail.comwrote:

 Cheers Steven, i'll definitely consider checking it out, might there be
 a particular reason that Soft edge creasing is not supported ?


 On 13 April 2014 19:35, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote:

 arnold supports 'hard creases' but not 'soft creases' (weighted
 crease)... download it and test it yourself.


 On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Sebastien Sterling 
 sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Like many other i'm sure, i recently watched the Nvidia Pixar GPU
 conference.

 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/45386636


 It gave unprecedented incite into the Pixar workflow, now there was a
 lot of cool stuff on display, but what interested me in this instance, was
 there methodology for creasing: indicating the hardness of an edge to the
 rendrerer without having to add extra geometry to hold said information,
 thus optimizing the polycount, and making life easier for modelers riggers
 CPU and GPU's alike.

 Creasing has always been a bit of a fuzzy area in my experience,
 rarely have i seen it implemented or used in production, which is ironic
 given the advantages it seems to offer.

 Now most DCC's support it in the viewport, it is available in Maya Max
 Softimage Modo, and will render in mental ray as a default. however during
 last years trasition to arnold, when inquiering about creasing, i was told
 by a shader artist that Arnold does not support Edge creasing which i 
 found
 perplexing.

 (not sure if it was just Mtoa) Can anyone confirm this ?


 Personally i think Edge creasing and even vertex creasing are great, i
 can't imagine how frustrating it must be for a rigger to have to deal with
 2 to 3 edge loops to control the creasing of a lip or eyelid during
 blendshapes when the same result can be achieved by simply selecting 1 
 edge
 and indicating the crease angle.

 Have any of the beta testers for Redshift come across this ?

 I'm working on a character at the moment, and i'd like to know if i
 should put in the extra detail or add creasing, given i might not be the
 one to rig it.

Re: really hgih poly zbrush to SI

[Tom Kleinenberg]

I seem to recall Zremesher giving odd results at a first pass, but if you
run it again it gives cleaner results. I think it was in one of Paul
Smith's videos - I may be crazy though.What do you mean when you say weird
polygons? I'd try exporting the remesher mesh to Xnormal and see what sort
of bakes you get.


On 28 March 2014 00:37, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:

 I hate to state to obvious but have you tried zremesher in zbrush, results
 are astonishing on my side...

 On Thursday, 27 March 2014, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 The trick is that those are couple parts of huge Wall, with all details
 in modeled in by displacement map and then modified.
 So it is already cut out in couple pieces but a lot of details in there
 and I would like to transfer them as much as possible to low poly model
 version in Unity.


 On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 5:26 PM, Williams, Wayne 
 wayne.willi...@xaviant.com wrote:

  Did the same thingdidn't understand your question. Some things you
 can try (as stated previously):

 Break the mesh up into subtool chunks that aren't 10 million polys  and
 export those and bring them into xnormal to bake bake. This can potentially
 give seams so make sure you try to break the chunks in areas that can hide
 those.



 You can also use zremesher to get it down to something a bit more
 manageable poly count wise then subdiv your way back up to about 4 million
 or so and project all. You can recover most of the detail but depends on
 how much detail you are trying to maintain. I work daily with super dense
 meshes being a game artist and I don't really ever get up over 4-5 million
 polys for any single subtool. That's nutterbeans level there. ZB starts to
 really bog down so best method I've found is to make sure I keep the
 subtools separate.



 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Mirko Jankovic
 *Sent:* Thursday, March 27, 2014 11:05 AM
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* really hgih poly zbrush to SI



 Anyone have good idea how to get really high poly obj from zbrush, like
 10.000.000 polys to Softimage? Exporting to obj get zbrush crashed on 32gb
 ram comp.

 Decimating or any other stuff in zbrush gives all kind of weird polygons
 once imported to SI.

 Or at least good point how to get proper normal maps.. we are close
 getting them but always something gets messed up. Any point to guide or
 something or tips would be great. Thanks