Re: houdini 16

[peter_b]

> ...
and I must say the future looks bright.

don’t jinx it!--
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Re: Water drop cling

[peter_b]

for a hero shot, you could do something like this:
from the resulting simulation, emit a static trail of particles - mainly 
from the edge I think.
polygonise and flatten towards the surface (shrinkwrap) to make an almost 
flat pancake mesh.
You could do it as a texture as well, by prerendering the simulation as a 
mask (rendermap or camera projection) and then playing with it in comp to 
have a remaining trail (accumulative timewarp, edge filtering) - use that 
trail mask in the shader of the surface to make it look wet (lower diffuse + 
add reflection/spec + replace surface bump with bump of the water trail )
The trail can also be done with a simulated weightmap.
The specifics are fiddly - and no guarantees. But adding such an interaction 
between simulation and surface can certainly help step it up a notch.


-Original Message- 
From: Morten Bartholdy
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2017 11:43 AM
To: Userlist, Softimage
Subject: Water drop cling

I am simulating a drop of water falling onto and running off a surface. The 
client wants it to partially cling to the surface and dragging a trail of 
water on its way down, the way small scale water surface tension can do.

I can sort of get the basic simulation working with Lagoa, but would like to 
try adding some additional wateredge clinging to the surface, kind of look. 
I was thinking this could possibly done as a post sim ICE thing adding 
friction or attratction, but otherwise have no clue how to do it. Have any 
of you dealt with something like this and perhaps have some ideas or 
pointers to tools or techniques I could look into?

Thanks

Cheers
Morten
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Re: Wacom Cintiq 13

[peter_b]

My suggestion for the surface book as alternative to a Cintiq was *as a 
standalone with digitizer and a keyboard*.
If you want an input device for an existing workstation - replacing an intuos 
with a cintiq - then a Surface will do you no good.

The Cintiq Companion is interesting as it can do double service as ‘mobile 
studio’ and input device. (at least certain models can)
You pay for it of course, and they are very bulky tablets. One that almost made 
sense to me was the Companion Hybrid: reasonably priced (for a Wacom) - about 
the same as a Cintiq 13 – so its like you get the Android tablet part for free. 
Also rather outdated now - and drawing in an app is too gimmicky for real work.

If you swear by Wacom as a brand, the pen in the surface hasn’t been Wacom 
since the surface 2 – it’s N-trig now (bought by microsoft).
Wacom remains superior for drawing, but when considering the complete picture, 
with display quality, form factor, performance, storage, price, battery life – 
it certainly doesn’t come without its flaws.

Bottom line: input device and/or mobile studio – it’s an ongoing quest.



From: Martin Yara 
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2016 3:39 PM
To: Official Softimage Users Mailing 
List.https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
Subject: Re: Wacom Cintiq 13

If you can live with a stencil with useless buttons that can't be changed, no 
nibs options, lower sensitivity, no tilt feature and generally less precision, 
then a Surface Book isn't bad. 

The buttons were a deal breaker for me. I'm not really sure if you can use it 
as a tablet in another PC. I know that you can do that with a Wacom Companion 
but not sure about Surface.

I'd choose a new Cintiq 16" that will be available next year.





On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 7:34 PM, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:

  Can the Surface Book screen replace a Cintiq on a regular" workstation ?

  2016-12-27 11:20 GMT+01:00 Rob Wuijster :

Surface Studio?? ;)


Rob
\/-\/\/On 25-12-2016 22:10, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

  A bit late to get one under the tree.

  If I had that kind of money, I’d much rather get a Surface Book. 
  Cintiq keyboard options are underwhelming - that’s a dealbreaker for 3D I 
think.



  From: Olivier Jeannel 
  Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 3:17 PM
  To: sidefx-houdini-l...@sidefx.com ; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Wacom Cintiq 13

  Is anyone using a Cintiq for 3D work (Houdini/XSI) ? 

  Just wondering, my intuos is slowly dying...

  Cheers and Mery Christmas

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Re: Wacom Cintiq 13

[peter_b]

A bit late to get one under the tree.

If I had that kind of money, I’d much rather get a Surface Book. 
Cintiq keyboard options are underwhelming - that’s a dealbreaker for 3D I think.



From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 3:17 PM
To: sidefx-houdini-l...@sidefx.com ; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Wacom Cintiq 13

Is anyone using a Cintiq for 3D work (Houdini/XSI) ? 

Just wondering, my intuos is slowly dying...

Cheers and Mery Christmas



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Re: Particle volume rendering problem

[peter_b]

I've seen this sort of behavior as well.
In my case it had to do with having camera and cube perfectly aligned -both 
with orientations zeroed out, or 90 degrees for instance- or the camera 
being close to one side of the cube, looking straight at it. Same when going 
from outside to inside a volume, at the moment you are intersecting the 
side. It's a situation you easily run into in a test setup, or when rigging 
the camera in certain ways.
I think MR is trying to be smart and cull a few triangles intermittently 
(despite render settings), which messes with the volume - but that's just my 
interpretation.
In any case, adding a very small rotation to either cube or camera, say .001 
on some axis, eliminated the problem for me. It's worth a shot.
(With a particle cloud the bounding box is always aligned with the world 
axis - so you'd have to rotate the camera)


-Original Message- 
From: Morten Bartholdy
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2016 10:28 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Particle volume rendering problem

I don't know what is going on, but it could look like bounding box issues. 
In Arnold and Redshift if the bounds are not set correctly for volumetrics, 
I get something similar, only very consistently and not random.

MB


> Den 18. november 2016 klokken 20:36 skrev Sven Constable 
> :
>
>
> sorry, broken links
>
>
>
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/correct_frame.JPG
>
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/problem_frame.JPG
>
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/problem_frame_w_phong.JPG
>
>
>
>
>
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sven 
> Constable
> Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 8:33 PM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: RE: Particle volume rendering problem
>
>
>
> Did some more tests and it looks like it's not even the shader. Problem
> accours also with a standard phong. Interestingly the shape of the cloud
> changes(!) when rendered with a phong shader.
>
>
>
> some pics:
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/correct_frame.JPG
> 
>
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/problem_frame.JPG
> 
>
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/problem_frame_w_phong.JPG
> 
>
>
>
> Maybe I'll check with another renderer when I have time.
>
> sven
>
>
>
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Schoenberger
> Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 11:32 AM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: RE: Particle volume rendering problem
>
>
>
> Please reduce the lookup table size of the shader.
>
> See "Lookup Table" and "Setting up Lookup table":
>
> http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/particles_shaders_ParticleVolume
> ICE.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Holger Schönberger
> technical director
> The day has 24 hours, if that does not suffice, I will take the night
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   _
>
>
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sven 
> Constable
> Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 1:57 AM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Particle volume rendering problem
>
> Hey list,
>
>
>
> I did some tests for an upcoming project and rendering doesn't work as
> expected. Just basic ICE particles with built-in nodes and some deformers 
> on
> the pointcloud. Rendered with mental ray.
> As you can see in the vid, there are render problems. Sometimes it looks
> like missing tiles in the rendering but mostly it seems to be missing
> particles in the cloud itself. In this video there are all missing at the
> bottom but in other tests it happened also at the top and sometime at the
> sides of the point cloud. Never inside the cloud. And it only happens at
> render time. No particles are missing in the viewport.
>
>
>
> http://www.imagefront.de/tmp/steam_BTY.mp4
>
>
>
> What I tried so far:
>
>
>
> Eliminated render farm problems: Rendered it locally on the workstation.
>
>
>
> Possible caching problem? Rendered it on a workstation on the fly without
> any caching.
>
>
>
> Tried playback caching as well as the manual 'write cache' via the cache
> manager. (unlikely since it also happens with no caching at all)
>
>
>
> Put the point cloud to global zero with no offsets in SRT.
>
>
>
> Changed most of the MR render settings. Including switching to BSP1.
> Disabled On Disk Framebuffer.
>
>
>
> Changed settings of the volume shader ( specially the bounding box size 
> for
> the voxel computation. Set it to manual instead of Auto because the 
> missing
> parts always appeared at the perimeter of the cloud). I also changed most 
> of
> the other settings that possibly could have an effect.
>
>
>
> Tried both built-in particle volume shaders, 'Particle Volume Cloud' and 
> the
> basic 'Particle Renderer'. (btw. the volume cloud shader by Holger
> 

Re: Babies

[peter_b]

just swap the animation and you’re good to go.

From: Toonafish 
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 10:57 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Babies

pfff, I might have to take it offline, or do a revised version if I still want 
to be able to travel to the US now

;-) 


- Ronald


On 11/9/2016 9:24, Thomas Volkmann wrote:

  I hope you didn't name that version final_FINAL already.



Olivier Jeannel mailto:facialdel...@gmail.com hat am 8. November 2016 um 
06:19 geschrieben:


Excellent ! 


On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 9:28 PM, toonafish  wrote:

  Just a funny litte Mixamo experiment that went overboard ;-) 

  https://youtu.be/CSjReQFFPRw


  -Ronald






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---
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Cyberfish Laboratories | www.cyberfish.nl
Toonafish | www.toonafish.nl
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Re: ICE Rigid Bodies endless spin..

[peter_b]

> * resetting orientation when stationary (this snaps them to zero unnaturally)
rather than resetting (are you doing this with ‘set data’?) you could try 
get... > multiply by scalar > set...
with the scalar as 0.5 for example. that way it would gradually slow down, 
rather than snap to zero?
it might still look quite wrong though.
or perhaps clamp, to get rid of the very high values. 


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Re: new member ( also has a question)

[peter_b]

welcome to the xsilist, even if you’re a bit late to the party.

If I read your question correctly, you want to have an animated character break 
into parts, each with their own animation, and each breaking apart again, and 
so on.
eg. a humanoid character: the arm separates and moves on, in turn the hand 
breaks of, and then the fingers and then the individual bones - all this in one 
fluid motion.
generally speaking, there is no real paradigm for this in the software (turning 
a rigged object into two rigged objects).

I think the best approach would be to think the other way around: decompose the 
character in all the separate parts (each one as an object), rig each one, and 
have them move together at first, creating the illusion they are one, and then 
gradually have parts move away from the whole.

So then the question becomes how to make all the individual parts move 
together? 
There are more straightforward solutions and tools for this.

- the skeleton:
use constraints to attach the rigs (bones) of the parts to the corresponding 
bones of the full character – and disable the constraints to liberate the parts.
ideally, you’d have a 1 to 1 correspondence between both: the full character 
has a complete, hierarchical skeleton, and the decomposed character has small 
skeletons of one or two bones each (or simply nulls..), that  precisely match 
(the transforms of) the corresponding bones on the full character.
That would allow for an elegant transition when detaching parts.

You also have a null constrained to each bone in the (full) skeleton, and plot 
their animation – and copy/paste the plotted animation from the nulls to the 
proper bones (of the individual parts). A less interactive solution, but you 
can do some fine massaging of the fcurves.

Or why not: full hierarchical skeleton with animation on one side, animated 
individual parts on the other side.
Then have a null for each bone which is constrained to both corresponding bones 
(on the full skeleton and the decomposed one) – now you can animate the blend 
of the constraints (or the linear interpolation on a two point constraint) to 
transition from one animation to the other.

- the skin:
Now, how to ‘stitch’ all the parts together?
It could be as simple as doing a merge operation with all the separate parts 
selected, and having an appropriate (small) distance in the merge operator.
If you started from the full character, and split the parts along edge flow 
lines, that could work quite well.
As long as the parts are following the animation of the full character, the 
merge is going to stich the parts together. Move a part away and the merge will 
not stitch it anymore.
This could give some trouble though, because the merge is simply distance 
based, and points could erratically be stitched to other nearby but unrelated 
points.

So you’d probably get more reliable results by doing a merge with zero distance 
first: now all the parts are a single geometry, but it’s not stitched (you’ll 
have blue boundary edges). So then, for each ‘seam’ you can select the proper 
edges and connect them. (is it bridge?) That way there would be no confusion 
when points move close to other (non related) points. More work to set up, but 
better control and results I think.

It’s going to be a bit of an undertaking, so best to do some proof of concept 
tests first to get your methodology right, before delving into the final 
character.

There’s other approaches or workarounds, but that’s what comes to mind at first.
If the look allows for it, I’m sure something cool could be done using 
polygonizer, which would work a bit like metaballs.

Hope it helps?













From: Nicole Beeckmans-Jacqmain 
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2016 1:08 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: new member ( also has a question)








hello,
you understand, i am new here, i've been sent here from support (ending) 
and no one to turn to there, to solve my little problems.
i will try to seize here the opportunity to meet new people and realities.


i will briefly present my relation to softimage.


i am probably  far far less advanced than most of you. 
i don't know any plug-ins in xsi, nor arnold etc
yet i have done a first fifteen minutes movie (in 2012) which will go along a 
book of  
poetry and 2d and the whole shall be published early 2017


softimage is my only contact with 3d since 1997- i've studied and did
experimental animation in school, yet have done ink animation
since i was 17 after watching winsor macquay early movies.


why have i taken so long before producing a first 3d anim?
i think its mainly because of 1) interest in metaphysics and
writing. being autodidact. 2) i never had access to knowledge about
thinking the process as a whole, like a) you draw a mesh that will be deformed
b) you build a rig this or that way, etc until i got to see it in manny 
papamanos
with the larry dvd. until then my knowledge of the software was way too much 
scattered,

Re: Compositing app choice

[peter_b]

Fusion used to be industry standard, from when apple bought Shake to when Nuke 
became user friendly, say ~2005 to 2010?
It sort of got overlooked due to Nuke’s omnipresence and better performance and 
handling, but they silently kept going, overcoming their shortcomings and 
regaining some of their former popularity.
Do check the free version, it might be all you need – if so, it’s a great 
choice to have.

From: Angus Davidson 
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2016 6:45 PM
To: r...@casema.nl ; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: OT: Compositing app choice

Just to echo.

Nuke if you can afford the licenses, otherwise fusion is very good.

Kind regards

Angus




From: Rob Wuijster [r...@casema.nl]
Sent: 26 May 2016 11:27 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Compositing app choice


Nuke is the most used, and it's not hard to find freelancers for it.
It became the industry 'standard' at some point.
But depending on your budget, I would have a look at Fusion as well.

Both apps have their strengths and weaknesses I guess.

Rob 

\/-\/\/On 26-5-2016 11:07, David Saber wrote:

Hi people!
We need to choose a compositing app for Windows.
Some years ago, everybody was saying Nuke is the best compositing app. 
Is it still the case today?
Thanks,
David
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Re: Aw: RE: flattening blob particles

[peter_b]

its probably pretty much what Leo suggests:
on the polygonized mesh, get closest location on the bottle, and then linear 
interpolate between that and the point position – so you can blend from the 
original surface all the way to the bottle and anywhere in between. It’s almost 
like a shrinkwrap. Try smooth and fluid shaper as well to see if it helps with 
improving the shape.

From: Leo Quensel 
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2016 4:40 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Aw: RE: flattening blob particles

I had to do this quite often before - I always ended up flattening the 
resulting mesh with a custom ICE deformer instead of the particles. Also worked 
quite well. 
  
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 14. April 2016 um 12:32 Uhr
Von: "adrian wyer" 
An: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Betreff: RE: flattening blob particles
seeing as the condensation pass is separate, i just scaled the mesh in x so 
they only have the top 3rd poking through the bottle matte object



works well enough



a






From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Chris Marshall
Sent: 14 April 2016 11:03
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: flattening blob particles



These are not the Bibbles you're looking for.

Sorry Adrian, can't help you.



On 14 April 2016 at 10:48, adrian wyer 
 wrote:

doing some condensation on a bottle, have some nice particle distribution, and 
i am aligning to surface, then fscaling in local Y to 'flatten' the bibbles to 
the bottle surface



but as i'm rendering in Redshift, i thought i'd use empolygonizer to make the 
mesh...  only have V3... but can't seem to figure out how to make the mesh 
respect the local scale of the individual particles



is this possible, or can anyone suggest a workaround?



a



Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
75-77 Margaret St.
London
W1W 8SY
++44(0) 207 580 0829 


adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com

www.fluid-pictures.com



Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales.
Company number:5657815
VAT number: 872 6893 71




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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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Re: Sticking particles over a cached cloth

[peter_b]

afaik 
‘on enter state’ executes once (on one frame only) when the particle changes to 
this state.
so rather plug it in the port ‘on every frame’ (or whatever it’s called) for 
continuing to evaluate the stick node. 


From: Pierre Schiller 
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2016 10:08 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Sticking particles over a cached cloth

Hello team. Good day. I am caching a syflex simulation (collitions and wind) 
for a simple grid.

On the second phase, that grid should emit simple spheres and those particles 
should stick to the grid while it´s deforming.


I used the stick to surface compound, making it evaluate  from 
the ICE execute node. Simulation starts well, but just as soon as the cloth 
(grid) changes shape, all spheres, remain were they were originated. They only 
move  (and stay frozen) if the cloth touches them.


Maybe this is a simple question, but I´m going in circles, I don´t know where 
else to tweak to get the cached sim work with those spheres.


Please help.

thanks.


David R.


-- 

Portfolio 2013

Cinema & TV production
Video Reel



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Re: Semi OT Softimage pic pluggin for mac ?

[peter_b]

not so aware of the mac universe nor after effects myself – but shouldn’t it 
work with the photoshop softimage .pic plugin – AE supports those no?
(here for instance: http://www.edharriss.com/xsi/tools/tools.htm – I see there 
is a mac version! )
I’ve used .pic a lot over the years, and usually compositors were fine with it. 
(shake, nuke, fusion)
But I’ve come to force myself not to use them anymore – and adding a precomp 
step for delivery – even if only for converting file format, naming and keeping 
renders separate from deliverables.

Lately - just when I thought that the bar couldn’t get any lower - I had a 
‘client’ unable to read a jpg, requesting to send a more universally compatible 
file format. I wanted to send an .exr but restrained myself.


From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2016 9:22 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Semi OT Softimage pic pluggin for mac ?

Hi guys, 

Is this possible to open on a Mac, in After Effects, a .pic picture ?

Not very aware of the mac universe here, and i need to communicate with "them" 
:/

Thanks ! :)




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Re: Crate Alembic, get material names in xsi from 3dsmax abc file

[peter_b]

> ...make me want to commit sudoku ...
hilarious typo.
or is it?


On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 3:36 PM, Fabian Schnuer Gohde  wrote:

  Yes, writing out the mapping info from max and then matching it back is 
possible but it introduces more things that can go wrong, especially with 
complex multi-sub material setups and clashing node names that get renamed on 
export.  

  According to the crate exporter the material name should be written out 
somehow. I'll try loading the abc file via python and see if i can access/map 
it via that.  

  Thank you, 
  Fabian

  On 4 April 2016 at 12:02, Ognjen Vukovic  wrote:

You could use write a script in max to write a external file on disk with a 
dictionary of what mat goes to what geo. Read it into soft with python and have 
it distribute the shaders based on the external file. 

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 11:38 AM, Morten Bartholdy  
wrote:

  Do you have the latets Speedtree version? We ran in to something similar 
some
  years ago and they actually came up with a fix inside of a day or so. It 
is too
  long ago so I don't remember the details, but it is worth checking I 
guess.

  Morten



  > Den 4. april 2016 klokken 00:24 skrev Fabian Schnuer Gohde
  > :

  >
  >
  > Hi,
  > is there a straightforward way of getting the material assignment info 
from
  > an abc exported via crate for 3dsmax inside of xsi to re-create/assign
  > materials with matching names? I'm exporting materials info from 3dsmax
  > seperately and need to re-integrate that with the geometry. I have a
  > "working" version with FBX but the FBX export/import screws up a lot. 
Thus
  > I wanted to try using crate for the geo instead.
  >
  > Thank you,
  > Fabian

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Re: SimulatedFrameFraction on polymesh ?

[peter_b]

I may be totally wrong but isn’t ‘SimulatedFrameFaction’ the amount of time for 
each simulation step – so time divided by steps.
I believe I have come across this SimulatedFrameFaction inside one of the 
factory compounds, but which one?
the first ones that come to mind are ‘state’ and ‘simulate particles or rigid 
bodies’ or perhaps ‘bounce’. or wasn’t there a simulation root with integrated 
states?

as a hack you can just create it
I’d go for a scalar value of 1 and save it as self.SimulatedFrameFaction (per 
cloud not per particle I’d say) and see if this helps?


that said – you might not really need a state machine!
you can get a lot done by just adding an integer value as per particle data and 
using conditions based on this data.
get data > self.mystate  > if = 1 > execute ... (I hope that’s not too cryptic?)

the ‘case’ node is particularly useful for this – plug self.mystate (integer 
number) into condition and add as many case inputs as states you want – and 
plug execute nodes in there.
think of each execute node as a hub for all you want to do with a particular 
state – set data (set color to see what’s happening!), add forces, filter,... 
anything really. changing states is as simple as setting self.mystate to some 
other number and next step it’s done.
The cool thing is that this plays nice with your regular simulation, while the 
state machine can interfere and change behavior (perhaps precisely because of 
this simulated frame faction)

I imagine you have islands in your mesh that have to switch between paper and 
cloth based on some condition? that approach should work fine for that. (if the 
‘simulate mesh’ can work on a designated part of the mesh – I don’t know if it 
does)

From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 4:35 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: SimulatedFrameFraction on polymesh ?

Hi list, 

I'm doing some paper/cloth simulation using "Simulate Mesh Using Verlet 
Integration".

I'd like to work with States / State Machine, but this needs a 
"SimulatedFrameFraction".
I don't know how to compute this, or even if I could have it available for 
polymesh.

Does someone know how / where I can grab that data "SimulatedFrameFraction" ?

Any help apreciated !



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Re: 0 undo levels

[peter_b]

wow, thanks for that link.
I’ll never think of undo in quite the same way.

From: Thomas Volkmann 
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 9:34 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: 0 undo levels

Which reminded me instantly of this classic: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOOynE1F4P4



On 03/18/2016 05:04 PM, adrian wyer wrote:

  hmmm interesting, will have a trawl through the workgroup then

   

  a

   


--

  From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Saeed Kalhor
  Sent: 18 March 2016 15:08
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: 0 undo levels

   

  Number of Undo Levels reset to zero

  http://xsisupport.com/2012/07/14/number-of-undo-levels-reset-to-zero/

   

  On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 6:24 PM, Tim Bolland  
wrote:

  This has happened to me before once or twice. By any chance do you have 
Fabric Engine installed? I don't know if there is any link, but I only 
remembered this happening when I was playing around with Fabric. I'm running 
2015 SP2.

   

  Regards,

   

  Tim

   

   


--

  From: adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: 0 undo levels
  Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 14:49:59 +

   

  we have a random issue where occasionally a session will start with undo 
levels set to zero

   

  anyone seen this, and more importantly, stopped it from happening!?

   

  2015 x64

   

  a

   

  Adrian Wyer
  Fluid Pictures
  75-77 Margaret St.
  London
  W1W 8SY 
  ++44(0) 207 580 0829 


  adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com

  www.fluid-pictures.com 

   

  Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales.
  Company number:5657815
  VAT number: 872 6893 71

   

   

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Re: si runs out of contiguous memory

[peter_b]

hm, haven’t those words since the legacy particle system and 32bit.
I understand this as ‘running out of ram’ (does task manager agree?)

are you freezing the shapes?
lots of dense geo, with lots of operations in the stack – sounds like you’ll 
eat up resources eventually.

From: Matt Morris 
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2016 2:03 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: si runs out of contiguous memory

Hi list, 

I've been modelling a lot of shapes in 2015 r2, and have been getting numerous 
crashes after a certain amount of work, where si seems to run out of memory 
with the above error. Particularly if I'm using proportional modelling and 
symmetry in the shape manager window. Definitely running slowly as well.

I thought it might be to do with ice trees on other meshes referencing this 
one, but having deleted all refs and any ice trees on the geo, it still happens.

Is anyone else seeing anything similar? Not sure whether its 2015 related but I 
can't remember having anything like this much trouble in 2014 sp2.



-- 

www.matinai.com



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Re: Softimage and CMYK

[peter_b]

 
> Sounds interesting thx Fab
> Thanks Pete, they are in .PDF but there are no layers included as far as i 
> can tell, 
> the files where intended for printing originaly.

oh I see, and I assumed they were intended for making your life miserable?

One can send layered files to print (it’s not necessarily bad practice), it was 
worth a shot.

It’s not clear to me in your description if the files you received look right 
to you – eg. in Acrobat - are the blacks ‘off’ there as well?
Or in other words, are you sure that things go wrong during your conversion?
There is some voodoo involved in exporting pdf’s – so something might have gone 
wrong client’s side – or the print-ready files might simply not resemble the 
actual result: special blacks, laquers indeed, color separations, flattened 
transparencies, LUTs – who knows – could be nothing to do with CMYK>RGB.

 

On 10 February 2016 at 11:59, Fabian Schnuer Gohde  wrote:

  Have a check if there are spot colors or laquer or similar layers in the 
file. They can cause funny results. In the latest Acrobat Pro DC (part of CC) 
under Tools>PrintProduction there is a color converter that might help get this 
into the sRGB world. 

  Best of luck,
  Fabian

  On 10 February 2016 at 10:04,  wrote:

were they PDF’s? 
if the pdf is still layered, possibly there is a specific layer for 
creating those ultrablacks (if that is what’s going on) that you can turn off - 
in illustrator or indesign or such (not PS).
Also, when there, and the files looks ‘normal’, you can simply try ‘export 
for web’ as a png or jpg.



From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 11:16 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

Could i approximate it ? in sRGB ? god but this is a mess :(


I don't think the client has any original sRGB artwork


On 9 February 2016 at 22:05,  wrote:

  I don’t think it’s a colorspace problem perse – as within normal ranges, 
going back and forth between RGB and CMYK isn’t so bad.

  The ultramarine blue in the blacks, might be something very different:
  a good print black is not 100% black and 0% C,M,Y each: this would result 
in a dark grey.
  So ‘designers’ add some of the other colors, up to almost 300% total, to 
deepen and tint the black.
  A cold deep black with lots of cyan, a warmer black with yellow or... 
everyone has his preference for mixing black it seems, and they even give their 
blacks fancy names.

  Of course that’s bound to give you trouble going back to RGB – as those 
are colors that are far outside the normal gamut of colors.
  The other way around, we would call them illegal colors, our pure 100% 
primary and secondary colors are among them.
  As the others have pointed out, welcome to a world of pain – doing some 
print work atm, having to mix and match 3D renders (linear), CMYK artwork, 
photographs (srgb), physical parts painted with pantone colors and more, and 
going back and forth between 3D and ps/illustrator and pdf - and it is a 
minefield.
  You have to inform your client that their artwork is purpose made for a 
certain printing effect which makes them unfit for other use.
  You might be better off scanning/photographing printed artwork or 
physical products or ...


  From: Sven Constable 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 10:38 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: RE: Softimage and CMYK

  Even I don't get why black is ultramrine blue, I think it's not because 
of CMYK vs RGB but the embedded color profile. I get pdfs for print all the 
time, sometimes I even send CMYK renderings back to them (of course not 
rendered in cmyk but converted in PS afterwards and with their color profile 
attached). If converted from CMYK to RGB and vice versa I saw only minimal 
color shifting. It depends largely on color space and -profile. Remember CMYK 
and RGB are color models, not color space nor color profiles.



  If you import pdfs into PS, convert them to RGB and CMYK. If you see 
significant color changes between both, it'because of the color profiles that 
are assigned to CMYK and RGB inside Photoshop. I would just convert them to RGB 
and then test different color profiles (Edit->Convert to Profile). Tick 
'Preview' and switch between the different profiles available. Maybe one of it 
will crush the blacks.

  That is a bit awful and I agree with Rob, the client should send you 
proper files. But it's difficult to say what is proper since 3D is not print is 
not film is not reality. In an ideal world they would send you RGB files with 
sRGB color profile but I doubt this will ever happen. They usually work with 
CMYK from start to finish. 



  Are these product shots are meant for web or print? If print, they're 
possibly correct with black beeing blueish and the client expects the 
renderings 

Re: Softimage and CMYK

[peter_b]

which is arguably more doable, as you might find blueprints – I did for my own 
car.

This is more like giving you artwork on which a bucket of paint has been 
dropped.
It’s restoration.
if that’s your predicament and the client knowingly asks you to do this – then 
sure, grade away!


From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 7:23 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

A very specific car, inside and out. :P


On 10 February 2016 at 18:22, Sebastien Sterling  
wrote:

  this feels like being asked to model a car with only the web as source of 
references :P


  On 10 February 2016 at 18:15,  wrote:

well there’s your answer then - 
nothing much you can do on your end except document and liaise with client.

if the files are right’ and look wrong, chances are you are missing part of 
the puzzle. LUT’s for instance. Perhaps there’s printer specific color profiles 
used/baked in – perhaps they have source files that look right – which would be 
a better starting point.

messing about with sensitive stuff, such as changing colors on marketing 
materials is something that should be undertaken only with consent from the 
client.
as in: you’re saving their ass and they acknowledge this. otherwise this 
will come back and bite you in the end.

good luck!

From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 2:46 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

The blacks are off on pretty much everything I've had to interact with thus 
far. they are wrong from the start, they where sent to us wrong, they look 
wrong in acrobat




On 10 February 2016 at 13:40,  wrote:

   
  > Sounds interesting thx Fab
  > Thanks Pete, they are in .PDF but there are no layers included as far 
as i can tell, 
  > the files where intended for printing originaly.

  oh I see, and I assumed they were intended for making your life miserable?

  One can send layered files to print (it’s not necessarily bad practice), 
it was worth a shot.

  It’s not clear to me in your description if the files you received look 
right to you – eg. in Acrobat - are the blacks ‘off’ there as well?
  Or in other words, are you sure that things go wrong during your 
conversion?
  There is some voodoo involved in exporting pdf’s – so something might 
have gone wrong client’s side – or the print-ready files might simply not 
resemble the actual result: special blacks, laquers indeed, color separations, 
flattened transparencies, LUTs – who knows – could be nothing to do with 
CMYK>RGB.

   

  On 10 February 2016 at 11:59, Fabian Schnuer Gohde  
wrote:

Have a check if there are spot colors or laquer or similar layers in 
the file. They can cause funny results. In the latest Acrobat Pro DC (part of 
CC) under Tools>PrintProduction there is a color converter that might help get 
this into the sRGB world. 

Best of luck,
Fabian

On 10 February 2016 at 10:04,  wrote:

  were they PDF’s? 
  if the pdf is still layered, possibly there is a specific layer for 
creating those ultrablacks (if that is what’s going on) that you can turn off - 
in illustrator or indesign or such (not PS).
  Also, when there, and the files looks ‘normal’, you can simply try 
‘export for web’ as a png or jpg.



  From: Sebastien Sterling 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 11:16 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

  Could i approximate it ? in sRGB ? god but this is a mess :(


  I don't think the client has any original sRGB artwork


  On 9 February 2016 at 22:05,  wrote:

I don’t think it’s a colorspace problem perse – as within normal 
ranges, going back and forth between RGB and CMYK isn’t so bad.

The ultramarine blue in the blacks, might be something very 
different:
a good print black is not 100% black and 0% C,M,Y each: this would 
result in a dark grey.
So ‘designers’ add some of the other colors, up to almost 300% 
total, to deepen and tint the black.
A cold deep black with lots of cyan, a warmer black with yellow 
or... everyone has his preference for mixing black it seems, and they even give 
their blacks fancy names.

Of course that’s bound to give you trouble going back to RGB – as 
those are colors that are far outside the normal gamut of colors.
The other way around, we would call them illegal colors, our pure 
100% primary and secondary colors are among them.
As the others have pointed out, welcome to a world of pain – doing 
some print work atm, having to mix and match 3D renders (linear), CMYK artwork, 
photographs (srgb), 

Re: Softimage and CMYK

[peter_b]

well there’s your answer then - 
nothing much you can do on your end except document and liaise with client.

if the files are right’ and look wrong, chances are you are missing part of the 
puzzle. LUT’s for instance. Perhaps there’s printer specific color profiles 
used/baked in – perhaps they have source files that look right – which would be 
a better starting point.

messing about with sensitive stuff, such as changing colors on marketing 
materials is something that should be undertaken only with consent from the 
client.
as in: you’re saving their ass and they acknowledge this. otherwise this will 
come back and bite you in the end.

good luck!

From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 2:46 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

The blacks are off on pretty much everything I've had to interact with thus 
far. they are wrong from the start, they where sent to us wrong, they look 
wrong in acrobat




On 10 February 2016 at 13:40,  wrote:

   
  > Sounds interesting thx Fab
  > Thanks Pete, they are in .PDF but there are no layers included as far as i 
can tell, 
  > the files where intended for printing originaly.

  oh I see, and I assumed they were intended for making your life miserable?

  One can send layered files to print (it’s not necessarily bad practice), it 
was worth a shot.

  It’s not clear to me in your description if the files you received look right 
to you – eg. in Acrobat - are the blacks ‘off’ there as well?
  Or in other words, are you sure that things go wrong during your conversion?
  There is some voodoo involved in exporting pdf’s – so something might have 
gone wrong client’s side – or the print-ready files might simply not resemble 
the actual result: special blacks, laquers indeed, color separations, flattened 
transparencies, LUTs – who knows – could be nothing to do with CMYK>RGB.

   

  On 10 February 2016 at 11:59, Fabian Schnuer Gohde  wrote:

Have a check if there are spot colors or laquer or similar layers in the 
file. They can cause funny results. In the latest Acrobat Pro DC (part of CC) 
under Tools>PrintProduction there is a color converter that might help get this 
into the sRGB world. 

Best of luck,
Fabian

On 10 February 2016 at 10:04,  wrote:

  were they PDF’s? 
  if the pdf is still layered, possibly there is a specific layer for 
creating those ultrablacks (if that is what’s going on) that you can turn off - 
in illustrator or indesign or such (not PS).
  Also, when there, and the files looks ‘normal’, you can simply try 
‘export for web’ as a png or jpg.



  From: Sebastien Sterling 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 11:16 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

  Could i approximate it ? in sRGB ? god but this is a mess :(


  I don't think the client has any original sRGB artwork


  On 9 February 2016 at 22:05,  wrote:

I don’t think it’s a colorspace problem perse – as within normal 
ranges, going back and forth between RGB and CMYK isn’t so bad.

The ultramarine blue in the blacks, might be something very different:
a good print black is not 100% black and 0% C,M,Y each: this would 
result in a dark grey.
So ‘designers’ add some of the other colors, up to almost 300% total, 
to deepen and tint the black.
A cold deep black with lots of cyan, a warmer black with yellow or... 
everyone has his preference for mixing black it seems, and they even give their 
blacks fancy names.

Of course that’s bound to give you trouble going back to RGB – as those 
are colors that are far outside the normal gamut of colors.
The other way around, we would call them illegal colors, our pure 100% 
primary and secondary colors are among them.
As the others have pointed out, welcome to a world of pain – doing some 
print work atm, having to mix and match 3D renders (linear), CMYK artwork, 
photographs (srgb), physical parts painted with pantone colors and more, and 
going back and forth between 3D and ps/illustrator and pdf - and it is a 
minefield.
You have to inform your client that their artwork is purpose made for a 
certain printing effect which makes them unfit for other use.
You might be better off scanning/photographing printed artwork or 
physical products or ...


From: Sven Constable 
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 10:38 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: Softimage and CMYK

Even I don't get why black is ultramrine blue, I think it's not because 
of CMYK vs RGB but the embedded color profile. I get pdfs for print all the 
time, sometimes I even send CMYK renderings back to them (of course not 
rendered in cmyk but converted in PS afterwards and with their color profile 
attached). If converted from 

Re: Softimage and CMYK

[peter_b]

were they PDF’s? 
if the pdf is still layered, possibly there is a specific layer for creating 
those ultrablacks (if that is what’s going on) that you can turn off - in 
illustrator or indesign or such (not PS).
Also, when there, and the files looks ‘normal’, you can simply try ‘export for 
web’ as a png or jpg.



From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 11:16 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

Could i approximate it ? in sRGB ? god but this is a mess :(


I don't think the client has any original sRGB artwork


On 9 February 2016 at 22:05,  wrote:

  I don’t think it’s a colorspace problem perse – as within normal ranges, 
going back and forth between RGB and CMYK isn’t so bad.

  The ultramarine blue in the blacks, might be something very different:
  a good print black is not 100% black and 0% C,M,Y each: this would result in 
a dark grey.
  So ‘designers’ add some of the other colors, up to almost 300% total, to 
deepen and tint the black.
  A cold deep black with lots of cyan, a warmer black with yellow or... 
everyone has his preference for mixing black it seems, and they even give their 
blacks fancy names.

  Of course that’s bound to give you trouble going back to RGB – as those are 
colors that are far outside the normal gamut of colors.
  The other way around, we would call them illegal colors, our pure 100% 
primary and secondary colors are among them.
  As the others have pointed out, welcome to a world of pain – doing some print 
work atm, having to mix and match 3D renders (linear), CMYK artwork, 
photographs (srgb), physical parts painted with pantone colors and more, and 
going back and forth between 3D and ps/illustrator and pdf - and it is a 
minefield.
  You have to inform your client that their artwork is purpose made for a 
certain printing effect which makes them unfit for other use.
  You might be better off scanning/photographing printed artwork or physical 
products or ...


  From: Sven Constable 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 10:38 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: RE: Softimage and CMYK

  Even I don't get why black is ultramrine blue, I think it's not because of 
CMYK vs RGB but the embedded color profile. I get pdfs for print all the time, 
sometimes I even send CMYK renderings back to them (of course not rendered in 
cmyk but converted in PS afterwards and with their color profile attached). If 
converted from CMYK to RGB and vice versa I saw only minimal color shifting. It 
depends largely on color space and -profile. Remember CMYK and RGB are color 
models, not color space nor color profiles.



  If you import pdfs into PS, convert them to RGB and CMYK. If you see 
significant color changes between both, it'because of the color profiles that 
are assigned to CMYK and RGB inside Photoshop. I would just convert them to RGB 
and then test different color profiles (Edit->Convert to Profile). Tick 
'Preview' and switch between the different profiles available. Maybe one of it 
will crush the blacks.

  That is a bit awful and I agree with Rob, the client should send you proper 
files. But it's difficult to say what is proper since 3D is not print is not 
film is not reality. In an ideal world they would send you RGB files with sRGB 
color profile but I doubt this will ever happen. They usually work with CMYK 
from start to finish. 



  Are these product shots are meant for web or print? If print, they're 
possibly correct with black beeing blueish and the client expects the 
renderings accordingly …? 

  sven



  From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling
  Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 8:30 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK



  Basically the client wants a pack shot of thirty or so products, so we need 
to model them up and texture them.

  In order to texture them the client sent the original packaging files in .pdf 
format, but these where originally destined for print and so they are CMYK. 

  the colors are off, it is most noticeable in the blacks, as they have all 
shifted to ultramarine blue.

  I don't know how to fix this, it is pretty baffling, :(



  On 9 February 2016 at 19:19, Rob Chapman  wrote:

  aah was part of the DTP revolution first time around with Aldus products...  
So I remember a bit about conversion having to get renders to the printers 
sometimes and being very disappointed with the blue greys :)



  firstly this may help







  and may explain why the colors changed. some colors simply do not fit between 
gamuts and will change regardless.



  so you have the CMYK plates and have to match in RGB to render and then 
convert back to CMYK again? oof. have you tried regenerating in photoshop from 
the separate CMYK and they match the printers provided RGB 0utput? 



  Photoshop LAB color mode was 

Re: Softimage and CMYK

[peter_b]

I don’t think it’s a colorspace problem perse – as within normal ranges, going 
back and forth between RGB and CMYK isn’t so bad.

The ultramarine blue in the blacks, might be something very different:
a good print black is not 100% black and 0% C,M,Y each: this would result in a 
dark grey.
So ‘designers’ add some of the other colors, up to almost 300% total, to deepen 
and tint the black.
A cold deep black with lots of cyan, a warmer black with yellow or... everyone 
has his preference for mixing black it seems, and they even give their blacks 
fancy names.

Of course that’s bound to give you trouble going back to RGB – as those are 
colors that are far outside the normal gamut of colors.
The other way around, we would call them illegal colors, our pure 100% primary 
and secondary colors are among them.
As the others have pointed out, welcome to a world of pain – doing some print 
work atm, having to mix and match 3D renders (linear), CMYK artwork, 
photographs (srgb), physical parts painted with pantone colors and more, and 
going back and forth between 3D and ps/illustrator and pdf - and it is a 
minefield.
You have to inform your client that their artwork is purpose made for a certain 
printing effect which makes them unfit for other use.
You might be better off scanning/photographing printed artwork or physical 
products or ...


From: Sven Constable 
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 10:38 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: Softimage and CMYK

Even I don't get why black is ultramrine blue, I think it's not because of CMYK 
vs RGB but the embedded color profile. I get pdfs for print all the time, 
sometimes I even send CMYK renderings back to them (of course not rendered in 
cmyk but converted in PS afterwards and with their color profile attached). If 
converted from CMYK to RGB and vice versa I saw only minimal color shifting. It 
depends largely on color space and -profile. Remember CMYK and RGB are color 
models, not color space nor color profiles.

 

If you import pdfs into PS, convert them to RGB and CMYK. If you see 
significant color changes between both, it'because of the color profiles that 
are assigned to CMYK and RGB inside Photoshop. I would just convert them to RGB 
and then test different color profiles (Edit->Convert to Profile). Tick 
'Preview' and switch between the different profiles available. Maybe one of it 
will crush the blacks.

That is a bit awful and I agree with Rob, the client should send you proper 
files. But it's difficult to say what is proper since 3D is not print is not 
film is not reality. In an ideal world they would send you RGB files with sRGB 
color profile but I doubt this will ever happen. They usually work with CMYK 
from start to finish. 

 

Are these product shots are meant for web or print? If print, they're possibly 
correct with black beeing blueish and the client expects the renderings 
accordingly …? 

sven

 

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling
Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2016 8:30 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Softimage and CMYK

 

Basically the client wants a pack shot of thirty or so products, so we need to 
model them up and texture them.

In order to texture them the client sent the original packaging files in .pdf 
format, but these where originally destined for print and so they are CMYK. 

the colors are off, it is most noticeable in the blacks, as they have all 
shifted to ultramarine blue.

I don't know how to fix this, it is pretty baffling, :(

 

On 9 February 2016 at 19:19, Rob Chapman  wrote:

aah was part of the DTP revolution first time around with Aldus products...  So 
I remember a bit about conversion having to get renders to the printers 
sometimes and being very disappointed with the blue greys :)

 

firstly this may help

 



 

and may explain why the colors changed. some colors simply do not fit between 
gamuts and will change regardless.

 

so you have the CMYK plates and have to match in RGB to render and then convert 
back to CMYK again? oof. have you tried regenerating in photoshop from the 
separate CMYK and they match the printers provided RGB 0utput? 

 

Photoshop LAB color mode was invented for this no? better off starting with 
something super wide gamut really depends on what the printer is using to 
convert to RGB with or originally sourced from and what printer profiles etc eg 
is it coated or glossy paper , all that palava.

 

if its one specific pantone color or a few then you are in luck as you can just 
render mattes like Mr Wuijster suggested and the printer can easily spot color 
these.

 

good luck matching anything RGB with a printer tho...! 

 

 

 

On 9 February 2016 at 18:49, Rob Wuijster  wrote:

It's not possible, unless you have the exact profile for the printer it was 
finalized for.
And it's weird that black is 

Re: Goodbyes (was this is the end...)

[peter_b]

sane – just kidding right?

From: Bradley Gabe 
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2016 9:38 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Goodbyes (was this is the end...)

In the event the list suddenly disappears with all this EOL talk, I thought I'd 
offer a well deserved and long overdue thanks to everyone in the community for 
everything they've done over the years. It was the original si3d list that 
provided me the opportunity I needed for my very first break into high end all 
those years ago. And it's been the XSI community and this list that helped put 
a roof over my head, feed my family, and keep me functionally sane since then.

Best wishes to everyone in their future ventures. 

-Bradley

Re: this is the end......

[peter_b]

Wasn’t that the gist of that AD licensing letter?
Watch out for those fingers.


From: adrian wyer 
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2016 4:18 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: this is the end..

oh trust me, they'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers!

 

a

 




From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul
Sent: 27 January 2016 15:02
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: this is the end..

 

End? I just bought 2 new licences today ! 

Sent from my iPhone


On 27 Jan 2016, at 14:21, Ognjen Vukovic  wrote:

  Sorry here comes a shameless plug.

  Im in London on a job till the end of feb. More lighting/shading based then 
generalist, but feel free to contact me off list if you need any help on up 
coming stuff after February.

   

  On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 2:13 PM, adrian wyer  
wrote:

  generalists actually... everyone seems to be well ensconced in places still 
using soft, and aren't available for short term jobs

   

  a

   


--

  From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling
  Sent: 27 January 2016 14:10
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: this is the end..

   

  when you guys say freelancer, you mean ICEres, yes ? 

   

  On 27 January 2016 at 14:08, "Javier Vega (Elástico)" 
 wrote:

  Yes, this is the end, but I’m still using it in some projects when I need to 
work more fast and quickly. Anyway, the users of this list which software are 
using right now? Just curiosity. I know that you, Jordi Bares, are still using 
it. In my case, as a freelance, I switch it to Maya for some projects and I’m 
touching with a lot of satisfaction, Blender.

   

  See you!

   

El 27 ene 2016, a las 15:01, Mirko Jankovic  
escribió:

 

well I really don;t see that everybody that used SI will just forget 
everything so far.

it could be just harder to get in contact with them :)

there is still mailing list and si-community so... :)

 

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 2:59 PM, Sebastien Sterling 
 wrote:

Goodnight sweet prince.

 

On 27 January 2016 at 13:53, Greg Punchatz  wrote:

Sigh... and yes freelancers are way harder to find : (   




 

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 7:46 AM, adrian wyer 
 wrote:

well seeing as today is the final day you can purchase stand alone licenses 
of Softimage, i guess i'll be the first to say

 

farewell old friend, long will you be remembered as the better app

 

a

 

ps. still use it everyday, but freelancers are hard to find..

 

Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
75-77 Margaret St.
London
W1W 8SY 
++44(0) 207 580 0829 


adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com

www.fluid-pictures.com 

 

Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales.
Company number:5657815
VAT number: 872 6893 71

 

 

 

 

   

   

   

Re: Stepped curves a´la Maya in Softimage?

[peter_b]

and keep in mind this is per segment
so you can combine linear, stepped and curved, play around with the handles and 
extrapolation behavior (what happens before and after the curve) at will – in a 
single curve.
XSI’s animation editor is a treasure trove.


From: Andres Stephens 
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 5:40 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: Stepped curves a´la Maya in Softimage?

 

Heh, I asked this in the forums the other day. I guess I overcomplicated 
myself. Super easy. =P 

-Draise

 


From: Pierre Schiller
Sent: 17 January 2016 15:14
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Stepped curves a´la Maya in Softimage?

 

YesI never thought It would be this easy! Thanks. I did a tutorial after I 
found another post on si-community. :D

 

On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 7:25 AM, gareth bell  wrote:


  Like this?

  http://oi66.tinypic.com/z8poj.jpg







  From: activemotionpictu...@gmail.com
  Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2016 00:50:08 -0500
  Subject: Stepped curves a´la Maya in Softimage?
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

   

  Hello, one feature I haven´t really find out how to simulate in Softimage 
from Maya´s animation graph is the "stepped curves" feature which works like 
this:

  I "key" a pose for the etire character on frame 10 and I go to frame 20 and 
create another (new) pose for the character. So, Maya automatically creates a 
"previous" key pose copy (from frame 10) onto frame 19, that way it "holds" the 
pose and you don´t have to worry to create a clone or a huge copy/paste from 
the previous "posed" position of the character.

  Something like this:
  https://vimeo.com/146448078

  Watch first minute or from minute 2 onwards.

  So, big question here: Is there an "automated" way to do this on softimage? 
anyone knows about a plugin?
  Zinkia´s Pocoyo is animated in softimage such way, I believe they did created 
an addon that does this automatic pre-pose keying when a new key lands on the 
animation editor, making a stepped curve-approach animation workable in every 
aspect. :)

  Please help if you have a workflow recommendation / script for this.

  Thanks.



  -- 

  Portfolio 2013

  Cinema & TV production

  Video Reel




-- 

Portfolio 2013

Cinema & TV production

Video Reel

 

Re: Object motion converted to path animation but normalized atorigin?

[peter_b]

if I read this correctly – you’re just doing position – not orientation right?

it works in ICE like this:

for a null path constrained on curve.
make an identical copy (null1 on curve1)

[( null global pos – curve global pos ) multiply by –1 ]   >> translation port 
of an SRT to Matrix >> set curve1 global transform 

null1 stays put at the origin...

I’m probably oversimplifying things?
From: Steven Caron 
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 8:56 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Object motion converted to path animation but normalized atorigin?

For those interested in following... 

here is two scripts, one to set up the scene so you can see the scenario to 
start, and then another to normalize the motion per David's simpler method. 

#python
#setup example scene
Application.SICreateCurve("crvlist", 3, 0)
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 486.895161434139, 
325.493002786473, 34.5570511051906, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 409.033597647559, 
271.688103800014, 29.5535480810531, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 85.4440658602002, 
300.987801267806, -66.6103573229066, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -246.20762156975, 
272.753547344553, -147.807009721528, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -497.571600133753, 
131.0495559517, -173.495355859157, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -456.369852362362, 
-4.26177417487577, -122.038908353107, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -81.571345301959, 
14.3834878497712, -26.3265899671214, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 233.227806621437, 
145.965765570476, 19.5179940313196, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 553.247813449155, 
111.871572155872, 116.146231591289, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 537.167802185775, 
-116.666068097906, 179.907658216995, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 228.873883716215, 
-268.49177316504, 141.853471471277, False, 0, "")
Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 124.433876714773, 
-305.782297213815, 124.747175301071, False, 0, "")
Application.CreatePrim("Cone", "MeshSurface", "", "")
Application.SetValue("cone.cone.radius", 3, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.cone.height", 12, "")
Application.ApplyCns("Path", "cone", "crvlist", "")
Application.SaveKey("cone.kine.pathcns.perc", 1, "", "", "", "", "")
Application.SetValue("PlayControl.Current", 100, "")
Application.SetValue("PlayControl.Key", 100, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.perc", 100, "")
Application.SaveKey("cone.kine.pathcns.perc", 100, "", "", "", "", "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.tangent", True, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.dirx", 0, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.diry", 0, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.dirz", 1, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.dirx", 0, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.diry", 1, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.dirz", 0, "")
Application.SetValue("cone.kine.pathcns.upvct_active", True, "")


#python
#normalize and invert motion of path cns
Application.GetPrim("Null", "", "", "")
Application.SetValue("null.Name", "parent", "")
Application.Duplicate("parent", "", 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, "", "", "", "", "", 
"", "", "", "", "", 0)
Application.SetValue("parent1.Name", "child", "")
Application.CopyPaste("child", "", "parent", 1)
Application.SelectObj("parent", "", "")
Application.ApplyCns("Position", "parent", "cone", "")
Application.SelectObj("child", "", "")
Application.ApplyCns("Position", "child", "crvlist", "")
Application.PlotConstrainedTransformsToActions("child", "plot", 1, 100, 1, 20, 
3, False, 0.01, True, True, True, True, True)
Application.SelectObj("parent,child", "", "")
Application.RemoveAllCns("", "")
Application.SelectObj("crvlist", "", True)
Application.ApplyCns("Position", "crvlist", "child", "")
Application.SelectObj("parent", "", "")
Application.ResetTransform("", "siObj", "siTrn", "siXYZ")


On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 11:48 AM, Steven Caron  wrote:

  Not really, I have it working how I want now, I had come up with my own way 
but also David Barosin on the SItoA list (I accidentally posted there) gave me 
a simpler answer. Here is David's response... 



If the plane is on a curve, a hierarchy of 2 nulls could do it.  
The parent null is constrained to the plane. The child null is constrained 
to the curve.  Plot the child null's position. 
Remove the constraints from both nulls. 
Now constrain the curve to the child null and zero out the parent null's 
SRT.   
Hope that makes sense. 

Re: Object motion converted to path animation but normalized atorigin?

[peter_b]

> Sounds like it might work.
> Did you run the scripts? You will see what the curve does... If your 
> suggestion does exactly the same thing then you're correct. :)

ran it now – looks the same to me.
since there’s no plotting involved it could be interesting in keeping the 
relation live... 
(but you would need to keep the copy of the curve and second null’s animation 
identical then )

here it is:
Application.CreatePrim("Spiral", "NurbsCurve", "", "")
Application.SetValue("spiral.spiral.height", 10, "")
Application.GetPrim("Null", "", "", "")
Application.ApplyPath("null", "spiral", 1, 100, "", True, True)
Application.DeselectAll()
Application.SelectObj("spiral", "", True)
Application.Duplicate("spiral", "", 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, "", "", "", "", "", 
"", "", "", "", "", 0)
Application.GetPrim("Null", "", "", "")
Application.ApplyPath("null1", "spiral1", 1, 100, "", True, True)
Application.SelectObj("spiral", "", "")
Application.Translate("", 10, 0, 0, "siAbsolute", "siPivot", "siObj", "siX", 
"", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", 0, "")
Application.Translate("", 0, 0, 10, "siAbsolute", "siPivot", "siObj", "siZ", 
"", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", 0, "")
Application.Translate("", 0, 10, 0, "siAbsolute", "siPivot", "siObj", "siY", 
"", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", 0, "")
Application.ActivateObjectSelTool("")
Application.SelectObj("spiral1", "", True)
Application.ActivateObjectSelTool("")
Application.ApplyOp("ICETree", "spiral1", "siNode", "", "", 0)
Application.AddICENode("$XSI_DSPRESETS\\ICENodes\\GetDataNode.Preset", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree")
Application.SetValue("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SceneReferenceNode.reference", 
"null.kine.global.pos", "")
Application.AddICENode("$XSI_DSPRESETS\\ICENodes\\GetDataNode.Preset", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree")
Application.SetValue("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SceneReferenceNode[1].reference", 
"spiral.kine.global.pos", "")
Application.AddICENode("$XSI_DSPRESETS\\ICENodes\\SubtractNode.Preset", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree")
Application.ConnectICENodes("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SubtractNode.first", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SceneReferenceNode.value")
Application.ConnectICENodes("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SubtractNode.second", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SceneReferenceNode[1].value")
Application.AddICENode("$XSI_DSPRESETS\\ICENodes\\MultiplyByScalarNode.Preset", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree")
Application.ConnectICENodes("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.MultiplyByScalarNode.value",
 "spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SubtractNode.result")
Application.SetValue("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.MultiplyByScalarNode.factor", -1, 
"")
Application.AddICENode("$XSI_DSPRESETS\\ICENodes\\SRTToMatrixNode.Preset", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree")
Application.ConnectICENodes("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SRTToMatrixNode.translation",
 "spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.MultiplyByScalarNode.result")
Application.AddICECompoundNode("Set Data", "spiral1.crvlist.ICETree")
Application.ConnectICENodes("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.Set_Data.Value", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.SRTToMatrixNode.matrix")
Application.ConnectICENodes("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.port1", 
"spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.Set_Data.Execute")
Application.SetValue("spiral1.crvlist.ICETree.Set_Data.Reference", 
"spiral1.kine.global", "")
Application.SetValue("PlayControl.Key", 7, "")
Application.SetValue("PlayControl.Current", 7, "")
*written with my thumbs

On Jan 15, 2016 3:05 AM,  wrote:

  if I read this correctly – you’re just doing position – not orientation right?

  it works in ICE like this:

  for a null path constrained on curve.
  make an identical copy (null1 on curve1)

  [( null global pos – curve global pos ) multiply by –1 ]   >> translation 
port of an SRT to Matrix >> set curve1 global transform 

  null1 stays put at the origin...

  I’m probably oversimplifying things?
  From: Steven Caron 
  Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 8:56 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Re: Object motion converted to path animation but normalized 
atorigin?

  For those interested in following... 

  here is two scripts, one to set up the scene so you can see the scenario to 
start, and then another to normalize the motion per David's simpler method. 

  #python
  #setup example scene
  Application.SICreateCurve("crvlist", 3, 0)
  Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 486.895161434139, 
325.493002786473, 34.5570511051906, False, 0, "")
  Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 409.033597647559, 
271.688103800014, 29.5535480810531, False, 0, "")
  Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", 85.4440658602002, 
300.987801267806, -66.6103573229066, False, 0, "")
  Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -246.20762156975, 
272.753547344553, -147.807009721528, False, 0, "")
  Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -497.571600133753, 
131.0495559517, -173.495355859157, False, 0, "")
  Application.SIAddPointOnCurveAtEnd("crvlist", -456.369852362362, 
-4.26177417487577, -122.038908353107, False, 0, "")
  

Re: Friday Flashback #256

[peter_b]

Oh yeah – loved those manuals.
I started by just reading through them in front of the computer (Indigo).
Such a great way for getting started, not having to click everywhere 
frantically and getting stuck because nothing makes sense. Takes a bit of time, 
but it a much smoother ride afterwards I find.
I’d gladly plant a tree in exchange for decent manuals.


From: Rob Wuijster 
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2016 2:10 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #256

There it is! :-)

I had one of those boxes sitting on the desk, next to the O2.
After the first steps, I immediately fell in love with the software.

It felt, and was, light years ahead of anything on the Intel platform at that 
time. Remember 3DStudio DOS? ;-)

Rob
\/-\/\/On 2-1-2016 16:56, Stephen Blair wrote:

  http://wp.me/powV4-3ad


  It should be there now. Apparently I didn't click Publish. That is somewhat 
embarrassing. 

  On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 10:31 AM, Mats Bertil Tegner 
 wrote:

Yes, it's flashback #256 that's missing. I see the 2015 in review post and 
Friday flashback #255.


2016-01-02 15:33 GMT+01:00 Stephen Blair :

  Hi Mats 

  Both links work for me. Can you get to xsisupport.com ? 

  Stephen

  On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Mats Bertil Tegner 
 wrote:

still page not found...

2016-01-02 14:09 GMT+01:00 Stephen Blair :


  How about this permalink?
  http://xsisupport.com/?p=12165




  On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 6:16 PM, Mats Bertil Tegner 
 wrote:

I'd love to see the old Softmage|3D boxed set, but all I get is: 
Page not found 
This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?

2016-01-01 21:30 GMT+01:00 Stephen Blair :

  Softimage 3D 3.8 Extreme boxed set

  http://xsisupport.com/2016/01/01/friday-flashback-256







  Geen virus gevonden in dit bericht.
  Gecontroleerd door AVG - www.avg.com
  Versie: 2016.0.7294 / Virusdatabase: 4489/11307 - datum van uitgifte: 01/02/16

Re: 2015 year in review

[peter_b]

yep – the times they are a-changing


From: Matt Morris 
Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2016 4:10 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: 2015 year in review

Thanks Stephen, interesting to compare to 2014's figures. At least halved 
activity and if comparing posts its down to a third...



On Sunday, 3 January 2016, Pierre Schiller  
wrote:


  Thank you Stephen, these yearly reviews are so in-sight! :D

  Cheers.


  On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 11:04 AM, Olivier Jeannel 
 wrote:

reading that subject atm : 
"Very OT: for the love of your career.. try houdini"

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/xsi_list/DvmPs2AZHv8/6KkSIfkx2ncJ 

Don't know how I missed it... Guess it was when I was disgusted from 3D, 
and was going into sports cars :D
I'm back to Houdini, studying, studying

On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Olivier Jeannel 
 wrote:

  Still in the top eleven !

  On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Stephen Blair 
 wrote:

2015 on the mailing list: 
http://wp.me/powV4-3ge






  -- 

  Portfolio 2013

  Cinema & TV production
  Video Reel


-- 
www.matinai.com

Re: maya and blendshapes?

[peter_b]

perhaps that’s why they hid the shape tools so well in Maya?
From: Chris Johnson 
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2015 4:21 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: maya and blendshapes?

dittonot even gonna watch the video. ; )


On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 9:02 PM, Sebastien Sterling 
 wrote:

  Joe Alter used to sell a plug-in like this.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuiB1Rv75O8


  Not that i want to give Joe Alter the business not after what he did to Yeti.


  On 15 December 2015 at 20:06, Eugene Flormata  wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLqYZcAfYfE

I used this on a animation match move
maya 2016  shape editor, works great with the new sculpt brushes.
the trick is you have to move the slider till it's above 0, otherwise when 
you move the animation slider the edit button will stay greyed out. making me 
think it was disabled. I lost 2 days of work due to that UI "maya feature". 
wanted to hang myself.

the sculpt brushes are good though. and the editor is kinda like xsi's 
shape manager. it;s even on the frame you create it, so it's not like a weird 
tangent based off the bind pose.




On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 7:24 AM, Nicolas Esposito <3dv...@gmail.com> wrote:

  No problem, I was also struggling with correctives and rely on scripts 
most of the time.

  Too bad that that tool is basically hidden inside an addon to the 
software itself...perfectly logical

  2015-12-15 16:20 GMT+01:00 Chris Johnson :

Sweet...figured there had to be a way!


Thanks Nicolas.


On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 10:03 AM, Nicolas Esposito <3dv...@gmail.com> 
wrote:

  I usually use the builtin function from the bonus tools for 
correctives. 
  There is also a free plugin ( called Shapes if I remember correclty ) 
to create them.

  Pose BlendShape Editor


  2015-12-15 15:47 GMT+01:00 Chris Johnson :

Just getting on the Maya band wagon now. Bah.


So I'm animating something as I typically would in Softimage. 
Sometimes I might need a shape to fix something...a pose or a joint. Grab the 
Geo save a few shape keys in secondary modeling and done.


Even in Max on a rigged character. Add an Edit poly and away you go.


This Maya rigger I'm working with gave me this convoluted process 
to make shapes on the fly...hardly on the flyI had to take notes! Is there 
not another way...even if there's a script or plugin? Excuse me but I'm new to 
the Maya madness.


-- 

Chris Johnson | www.someonescousin.com | 416.473.1624

 









-- 

Chris Johnson | www.someonescousin.com | 416.473.1624

 











-- 

Chris Johnson | www.someonescousin.com | 416.473.1624

 

Re: How to emit particles from intersection between volumes?

[peter_b]

Just thinking out loud here - so possibly none of it works.

You can drive a weightmap on a surface by proximity to an object and use it as 
filter on an emission.
this looks kind of like an intersection (ok distance and intersection isn’t the 
same thing...)

you could make something more accurate by doing a raycast from one object to 
the other along the normal – which would tell you where one object is inside 
the other – and again drive a weightmap with that.
I’m guessing inside filter by volume you’d find all the logic you need to do 
this the right way?

Now I don’t think weightmap filters work with volumes out of the box – without 
having a look, I think the filter is based on emitlocation and you don’t get 
one with a volume - but you could set the closest location as emitlocation and 
circumvent this.

If you’re adventurous, you could try a boolean intersection between both 
objects and use that as emitter?

From: Morten Bartholdy 
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2015 12:24 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: How to emit particles from intersection between volumes?

I am trying to initiate particle emission from the volume of an object by 
intersecting it with a different object, so I can gr a dually expand the volume 
from which particles are emitted. Much like when an object collides with 
another and subsequently breaks into particles in slowmotion, starting from the 
point of impact. 



I have checked example scenes and currently I am trying spawning when particles 
are inside a volume, but I can't figure out how to only emit particles when the 
emitter intersects with another object. I am guessing I need to use a state 
machine, but have yet to figure out how to make it start an emission rather 
than change parameters on existing particles or control spawning.



Any pointers or examples are most welcome :)





Thanks

Morten

Re: POLY | Manipulating polygons

[peter_b]

Just adding to the noise – this is looking great Olivier. (and Christian and 
Cesar)

Exactly the kind of stuff I’ve hoped to see and do when first I heard of 
Moondust aka ICE.
It didn’t turn out so easy though.
Boy, it seems you guys really nailed this stuff – kudos!

P.



From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 11:25 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: POLY | Manipulating polygons

Hi there, 
Lately I "developped" for a recent job a set of ICE nodes to easily and fastly 
manipulate polygons.
A lot of this techology is taken from Christian Godzinger and Cesar Saez. I 
just rewired together and compounded to ergonomic- easy to use purpose.
It is really faster than the usual Particle to Island.
If someone is interested, I'll happily share the compounds and some demo 
scenes, just drop a line in the comments.

I put together a demo here :

https://vimeo.com/147899293


If you have the courage to scroll to the end of the video, there are same 
cheesy mixture of points manipulated around edges and around polygon center 
which are not so common (I believe).

Thank you.

Re: ICE - text file & string manipulation

[peter_b]

Thanks Matt,

you do confirm what I concluded from my testing so far, that ICE string 
manipulation is indeed rather limited.
I assumed it was going to be better than that - and double kudos to those 
people who have pushed this to some degree (thinking of mr Mootz' Topolizer 
for instance - that does rely on strings quite a bit)




Your suggestion of putting all data for one particle on a line is 
interesting - but that doesn’t fit my case very well.
The data is not really per frame animation data, that could be done as 
fcurves. That was just my idea for how to treat a lot of different setups in 
one go. I'll have data sets per 'setup', each needing to be built up from 
the data. If I can do them on a timeline (a bit like an obj sequence for 
geometry) I can treat them all at once in a single scene.


I can specify the format of the data delivered to me (as long as it remains 
practical), which is a great luxury.
And I'm probably not going to bother with the file format part - and just 
import the strings I need manually.


I read you loud and clear that automation for the sake of it can be a trap 
(especially if you need to learn new skills for just one case)  - and that 
some simple manual work can go a long way in getting to the end result 
faster.
So far it looks like the tedious part -filtering the bulk of the data, and 
getting it onto particles or instances- is going to work, and the more 
tricky bits can be done manually - for a semi-automated solution. Which 
sounds more in line with my skills.





-Original Message- 
From: Matt Lind

Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 9:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: ICE - text file & string manipulation

ICE string manipulation is crude and only intended to do simple
concatenation and tokenizing for simple cases such as appending an object
name and model name to form a full path.  It doesn't have the functionality
of a scripting language.  ICE string manipulation cannot convert text to
floating point values with integrity either, or if it can, it involves a lot
more workarounds than it's worth to employ.

Based on your short description, you only need to import data as FCurves
onto the parameters of an ICE compound you apply to your particle systems.
The FCurves can be easily generated and applied via script, or re-applied in
the event you change the file.  The script can also employ a UI to load/save
the data, present options to the user for processing the data, and so on.
ICE cannot do any of that.

You should consider is how data is formatted in the file to make life
easier.  For example, your file describes values for all scene elements in
the scene per frame.  An FCurve is a series of values for an individual
parameter.  By grouping the values per parameter instead of per frame of the
scene, the data will be easier to parse (eg; put all 'values' on one line,
put all particle 1 array on a separate line, put all particle 2 array on a
separate line, etc...).  Another thing to consider is how the data is
arranged per line.  If the data is as you illustrate, you'll have to do much
more parsing and tokenizing to extract data and assign to the appropriate
scene element.  If you put all the related values together in a string, half
the work is already done.  You just then need to identify where it needs to
be applied.  At the most crude level you can use a file format as you've
shown, but with tweaks.

Constructing file formats and tools to read/write them is a field of it's
own that can go very deep in study.  Unless you see yourself using this
custom file format long term, the time invested building the framework
probably won't be realized after the fact as benefit.  While it may suck to
do all the work by hand now, in the long term it may be less work overall.
food for thought as it's very easy to fall into the trap of developing
automation because you can and not because you need to.


Matt







Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 22:17:21 +0100
From: 
Subject: Re: ICE - text file & string manipulation
To: 

Thanks Gustavo and Cesar,

seems you agree that scripting is the way to go ? at least as far as getting
data from file into ICE.
that?s way above my head for the time I?ll have to sort this out ? so I
might end up copy pasting data from the text file.


I?ve been playing a bit with string manipulation in ICE ? for now just
typing a string myself in ICE and then trying to filter the data I need out
of that. It?s not easy ( trying to wrap my head around strings in ICE) but
I?m getting there ? and so far it?s quite fast.
I?m first dumping everything in one long string (hm, I?ll have to scale my
data 1000 fold ? so I?m worried this will become a problem) ? and using a
special character to split into an array, and each frame I?ll access one
element of the array ? from which I extract the data.
encapsulating the data I want with a dedicated character before and after
seems to be the 

ICE - text file & string manipulation

[peter_b]

Hi all,
I would need to read in a text file, and extract it's information into ICE,

for example:
ABCD DDBB BCCA ABCD   'value': 4.0
CCDBA AABBD CCCAB 'value' : 456
ABC CDA ABB CBB 'value' : 0.345

I would want to assign letters to an array of particles that adapts to the 
what's in the text,
line 1 would be the situation for frame 1, line 2 situation for frame 2 and 
so on.

and recover 'value' as a scalar

I haven’t started digging yet, it’s probably a case of rtfm, so no offense 
if you point that out to me :-).


I have some clues about how to do this in scripting, but not at all in ICE.
how to access a text file in ICE (ideally - if needed I could paste the 
contents of the text file into a custom property or a comment) , how to find 
and filter stuff, strip the part I need, converting the string into 
scalars -


if anyone has any pointers on where to start and read up, or any gotcha's - 
it would be much appreciated.

Re: Softimage Panoramic OpenGL viewer (does it exist?)

[peter_b]

sounds right to me, and as far as rendering goes, that’s how I would approach 
it.
camera rig with 4 to 6 cameras, (1:1 square, 90 degree fov, aligned to xyz 
axis), the renders mapped to the corresponding sides of a cube for preview, as 
well as for a second stage render with the panoramic lens shader.
You can probably do the second stage with a lat/long distortion effect in comp.

in theory you could do a rendermap through a properly mapped sphere, a UV 
mapped then subdivided cube or indeed just use the panoramic shader to get the 
result in one go - but all of these will give you much slower renders, 
renderartefacts and problems with view dependent effects – so the multi camera 
rig is the way to go IMO.
havent tested it, but if you boolean the subdivided cube into a cylinder you 
could map the square renders on it for direct cylindrical preview of the cubic 
renders.

Doing all of this in realtime in the viewport is way above my head – I’ve found 
camera rig + mapped geo to be sufficient for my previz needs. (some of which 
were quite extensive, needed to be very precise and were for client use as well)

just my 2 cents.

From: Nuno Conceicao 
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2015 7:20 PM
To: No name 
Subject: Re: Softimage Panoramic OpenGL viewer (does it exist?)

Cool , thanks 
I'm not much of a coder but the way i see this sorted and not sure if I'm over 
simplifying it, but, is to do a cubic map capture then calculate the panoramic 
transformations in order to get the buffer in lat long format before sending it 
back to the screen, right?
The bigger issue I see is to make this also work for stereo capture, but that's 
another extra step...

N.


On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 1:56 PM, Ben Rogall  
wrote:

  That's what I used to make my realtime stereo addon (before SI got it 
natively). You get the opengl state and can do what you want with it.

  Ben

  On 10/12/2015 6:16 AM, Nuno Conceicao wrote:

Thanks for the tip Ben 
We will also look into the XGS Api.

Cheers

N.

On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 4:14 AM, Ben Rogall 
 wrote:

  I think this should all be doable with the Softimage graphic sequencer 
(XGS) API.

  Ben

  On 10/11/2015 5:27 PM, Nuno Conceicao wrote:

Thanks guys, about the dome master its really nice and we actually 
based our arnold panoramic shader on the domemaster code. 
The issue is really the animators/previz , they need some fast 
turnaround way of creating the panoramic previews, so we really looking for 
something quick done with opengl that spits out a .mov.

Cheer

On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 8:12 PM, Jason S  wrote:

  Oh! responded (about Domemaster) before reading the last post :)


  On 10/10/15 15:10, Jason S wrote:

You might also explore the possibility of creating like a scene 
wide (ice) bulge deformer constrained to the camera.

For the shader side, did you use this?

https://github.com/zicher3d-org/domemaster-stereo-shader/wiki/Softimage-Domemaster3D-Install

If not, it also seems to include some form of realtime preview, 




On 10/09/15 17:07, Matt Lind wrote:

  You can write a shader for use in the realtime viewport, or 
custom display host.  Between the two graphics library choices, I would go with 
OpenGL because DirectX inside of Softimage is quite flakey/buggy and only 
supports DirectX 9, possibly 10. 

  OpenGL shader performance inside of the Softimage realtime 
viewport is not efficient.  There is as much as 20% overhead just for querying 
the scene to determine what needs to be shaded even before shading computations 
begin. That's another way of saying don't expect grandiose interactive 
performance on moderately complex scenes.  If the scene gets complicated 
enough, you'll get better performance with mental ray, which can most 
definitely do the panoramic thingy. 

  The custom display host is a different ballgame as it's more of 
standalone app plugged into the Softimage UI with minimal communication 
pipeline between your app and Softimage.  You can get excellent performance 
writing OpenGL shaders here, but you'll have little interaction with the scene 
due to the lack of information Softimage feeds to the custom display host. 
You'll get basic keyboard and mouse feedback, camera movements, plus high level 
commands executed by the user, but if you need to know what happens in the 
construction history of a given object or need to drill down to get more 
details, you'll be largely blocked and have to figure out your own hack to do 
those things. 


  Matt 







  Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2015 18:29:37 +0100 
  From: Nuno Conceicao mailto:nunoalexconcei...@gmail.com 
  Subject: Re: Softimage Panoramic OpenGL viewer (does it exist?) 
  To: No name 

Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

[peter_b]

woops – not much time behind the computer today - 

> Still some rotation problem I might ask you ;)

you mean in the test scene I sent you?
at first sight the rotations looked correct but I’m not sure



From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 9:34 PM
To: mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

Ok I'll check that tomorrow ;)
Well, the ribbon plan is ended, i defenetly prefer the tests I made rather than 
the end result, but at least the director is happy.
Too bad the  strand orientation is such a nightmare, could have be so cool with 
sole little maintenance...

The destruction (it's another shot) part is because I decided to run some tests 
on ice. In fact the sequence has been made in c4d and the fractures were so bad 
that I felt the need to prepare a backup solution just in case. Finally the 
shot was validated as is. Nice rdb in c4d, with easy control, but the fracture 
tool is just a bad joke.
I'm half happy with momentum, some nice ice control, but feels maybe 
unfinished. Or maybe not enough docs.
So well, the  ice destruction is a side project. I'm very happy with that 
cluster solved problem :)
Still some rotation problem I might ask you ;)

And the whole project is a documentary about le Louvre, how it was built along 
history. 

Le 6 oct. 2015 20:25,  a écrit :

  just sent you a second test which might work better for you – see your inbox.

  first you’re building a castle with unfolding ribbons and then you are 
collapsing it?
  sounds like a cool job you’re on!



  From: Olivier Jeannel 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 6:59 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

  Hey Peter ! 
  You just created this ? It's very impressive !
  I'm looking at it atm, very interesting.
  For what I wanted to use, it doesn't work (yet).

  Here's the exact scenario
  I've made a Mom Simulation of a tower colapsing down. I've used the 
Mom_Create_Cluster By Cloud  tool so that I have big chunks made of smaller 
chunks that collapse again themselves later.
  This is done in ice so each chunk has a particle center.

  Then I wanted to add some inside bricks to give details : Imagine bricks 
stucked into chunks of mortar. 
  When the chunk falls, it brings with him the cluster of bricks attached to 
him (the closest bricks) (no RBD). 
  So I thought  I  could generate a brick wall, and use the center of each 
chunk to drive the SRT of the clustered bricks.

  But for this, I'll need 2 pointclouds. 
  One PC is the RBD chunks (master/driver)
  The other PC is the bricks (Slaves)

  Not sure if I'm clear

  But your example is superb, and very inspirative. Thank's a lot for taking 
the time to put this together !


  Olivier

  On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 5:10 PM,  wrote:

sent a quick test scene offline – 
unfortunately I don’t have the ones I’ve done in the past, which tackled a 
few interesting issues (at least for me)

From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 2:33 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

Hi Peter, 
Do you have a scene that I could dissect ?




On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 1:28 PM,  wrote:

  I’ve done it like this: 

  upon generation of particles, 1 out of x becomes a master – the others 
become slaves 
  not behind the computer, but I used the modulo of the particle ID by x, 
which gives the remainder upon division by x. if it’s 0 you make it a master, 
if not a slave. Add a boolean attribute, for example ‘slave’, so all of this is 
done on ‘execute on emission’

  later on, you can use this ‘slave’ attribute as a condition to do all 
kinds of things differently for masters and slaves in the same cloud.
  for instance, ‘add forces’ for the masters only. (slave attribute driving 
an ‘if’ port )

  in my case the slaves had to stay with their ‘birth’ master – so upon 
generation, besides the slave attribute, I saved a second attribute which was 
the ID of the master (the particle ID minus the remainder from the modulo I 
think)

  there’s many ways you can drive the slaves.
  in my case I needed an elastic link, where they would also orbit around 
the master as well as collide with obstacles, and look kind of natural, so they 
were still simulated - (and there was also an overall ‘character’ to keep in 
mind)

  at the basis, using the id of the master I got it’s position, and used 
that as a target.
  point position minus the master’s point position used as a vector force 
will give a force pulling towards (or away from) the master.
  this was modulated by a change range based on the length of that vector – 
so if the distance got bigger the force was stronger and vice versa. this gave 
it the elastic effect, leaving the slaves a bit more 

Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

[peter_b]

sent a quick test scene offline – 
unfortunately I don’t have the ones I’ve done in the past, which tackled a few 
interesting issues (at least for me)

From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 2:33 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

Hi Peter, 
Do you have a scene that I could dissect ?




On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 1:28 PM,  wrote:

  I’ve done it like this: 

  upon generation of particles, 1 out of x becomes a master – the others become 
slaves 
  not behind the computer, but I used the modulo of the particle ID by x, which 
gives the remainder upon division by x. if it’s 0 you make it a master, if not 
a slave. Add a boolean attribute, for example ‘slave’, so all of this is done 
on ‘execute on emission’

  later on, you can use this ‘slave’ attribute as a condition to do all kinds 
of things differently for masters and slaves in the same cloud.
  for instance, ‘add forces’ for the masters only. (slave attribute driving an 
‘if’ port )

  in my case the slaves had to stay with their ‘birth’ master – so upon 
generation, besides the slave attribute, I saved a second attribute which was 
the ID of the master (the particle ID minus the remainder from the modulo I 
think)

  there’s many ways you can drive the slaves.
  in my case I needed an elastic link, where they would also orbit around the 
master as well as collide with obstacles, and look kind of natural, so they 
were still simulated - (and there was also an overall ‘character’ to keep in 
mind)

  at the basis, using the id of the master I got it’s position, and used that 
as a target.
  point position minus the master’s point position used as a vector force will 
give a force pulling towards (or away from) the master.
  this was modulated by a change range based on the length of that vector – so 
if the distance got bigger the force was stronger and vice versa. this gave it 
the elastic effect, leaving the slaves a bit more loose when near the master 
but pulling them more rigidly when going too far away.
  the spinning/orbiting was done with a dot product (I think), and again 
modulated based on distance from the master, so the closer they were, the 
faster they spinned around the master.
  I also added a bit of the direction of the master to it’s position to use as 
target, rather than just it’s actual position – this is much more precise at 
high speeds: the master’s point position is where the master is at the 
beginning of the current simulation step – so using that as the target, the 
slaves are trailing too much behind the master and have difficulty keeping up 
when the master makes complex movements.

  so all of this is using forces on the slaves, so they still behave in a 
‘natural’, simulated fashion.
  you can of course approach it differently, by driving the position itself 
(set position on the slaves) for a more ‘geometric’ result. 

  you could save the offset between the slave and the master at emission as an 
attribute, and use this to set position, as master position + ( offset, rotated 
with master’s orientation)
  same for rotation and scale, save them at birth and then modulate with the 
one from the master (add,multiply,.. depends a bit on what you’re after)

  all of this is assuming you’re ok with assigning the master to the slave at 
birth.
  assigning a new master can be as simple as saving a new value for the 
masterID upon a trigger or a condition – but using a closest point each frame 
on the cloud itself to dynamically find a master all the time is going to slow 
things down a lot. I’m not sure if you can find a closest point out of a subset 
of particles (the masters only) which is a bit like what goes on with 
slipstream’s vorticles I think. You could do this with two clouds though – one 
cloud with the masters and a second with the slaves – but that’s going to make 
other things more convoluted.


  I hope this gives some ideas?




  From: Olivier Jeannel 
  Sent: Monday, October 05, 2015 10:08 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

  I don't know how to do that : 

  Let's say I have a grid of 10 particles moving in a simultion (Master).

  Let's say I create another grid of 100 particles (slaves).

  I want those 100 particles to follow in position, rotation and scale the 10 
master particles.
  I don't want the slaves to get the position of the master, I want the master 
to behave like the center of the slaves chunk/cluster.

  Not sure I'm clear.

Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

[peter_b]

just sent you a second test which might work better for you – see your inbox.

first you’re building a castle with unfolding ribbons and then you are 
collapsing it?
sounds like a cool job you’re on!



From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 6:59 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

Hey Peter ! 
You just created this ? It's very impressive !
I'm looking at it atm, very interesting.
For what I wanted to use, it doesn't work (yet).

Here's the exact scenario
I've made a Mom Simulation of a tower colapsing down. I've used the 
Mom_Create_Cluster By Cloud  tool so that I have big chunks made of smaller 
chunks that collapse again themselves later.
This is done in ice so each chunk has a particle center.

Then I wanted to add some inside bricks to give details : Imagine bricks 
stucked into chunks of mortar. 
When the chunk falls, it brings with him the cluster of bricks attached to him 
(the closest bricks) (no RBD). 
So I thought  I  could generate a brick wall, and use the center of each chunk 
to drive the SRT of the clustered bricks.

But for this, I'll need 2 pointclouds. 
One PC is the RBD chunks (master/driver)
The other PC is the bricks (Slaves)

Not sure if I'm clear

But your example is superb, and very inspirative. Thank's a lot for taking the 
time to put this together !


Olivier

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 5:10 PM,  wrote:

  sent a quick test scene offline – 
  unfortunately I don’t have the ones I’ve done in the past, which tackled a 
few interesting issues (at least for me)

  From: Olivier Jeannel 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 2:33 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

  Hi Peter, 
  Do you have a scene that I could dissect ?




  On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 1:28 PM,  wrote:

I’ve done it like this: 

upon generation of particles, 1 out of x becomes a master – the others 
become slaves 
not behind the computer, but I used the modulo of the particle ID by x, 
which gives the remainder upon division by x. if it’s 0 you make it a master, 
if not a slave. Add a boolean attribute, for example ‘slave’, so all of this is 
done on ‘execute on emission’

later on, you can use this ‘slave’ attribute as a condition to do all kinds 
of things differently for masters and slaves in the same cloud.
for instance, ‘add forces’ for the masters only. (slave attribute driving 
an ‘if’ port )

in my case the slaves had to stay with their ‘birth’ master – so upon 
generation, besides the slave attribute, I saved a second attribute which was 
the ID of the master (the particle ID minus the remainder from the modulo I 
think)

there’s many ways you can drive the slaves.
in my case I needed an elastic link, where they would also orbit around the 
master as well as collide with obstacles, and look kind of natural, so they 
were still simulated - (and there was also an overall ‘character’ to keep in 
mind)

at the basis, using the id of the master I got it’s position, and used that 
as a target.
point position minus the master’s point position used as a vector force 
will give a force pulling towards (or away from) the master.
this was modulated by a change range based on the length of that vector – 
so if the distance got bigger the force was stronger and vice versa. this gave 
it the elastic effect, leaving the slaves a bit more loose when near the master 
but pulling them more rigidly when going too far away.
the spinning/orbiting was done with a dot product (I think), and again 
modulated based on distance from the master, so the closer they were, the 
faster they spinned around the master.
I also added a bit of the direction of the master to it’s position to use 
as target, rather than just it’s actual position – this is much more precise at 
high speeds: the master’s point position is where the master is at the 
beginning of the current simulation step – so using that as the target, the 
slaves are trailing too much behind the master and have difficulty keeping up 
when the master makes complex movements.

so all of this is using forces on the slaves, so they still behave in a 
‘natural’, simulated fashion.
you can of course approach it differently, by driving the position itself 
(set position on the slaves) for a more ‘geometric’ result. 

you could save the offset between the slave and the master at emission as 
an attribute, and use this to set position, as master position + ( offset, 
rotated with master’s orientation)
same for rotation and scale, save them at birth and then modulate with the 
one from the master (add,multiply,.. depends a bit on what you’re after)

all of this is assuming you’re ok with assigning the master to the slave at 
birth.
assigning a new master can be as simple as saving a new value for the 
masterID upon a trigger or 

Re: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

[peter_b]

I’ve done it like this: 

upon generation of particles, 1 out of x becomes a master – the others become 
slaves 
not behind the computer, but I used the modulo of the particle ID by x, which 
gives the remainder upon division by x. if it’s 0 you make it a master, if not 
a slave. Add a boolean attribute, for example ‘slave’, so all of this is done 
on ‘execute on emission’

later on, you can use this ‘slave’ attribute as a condition to do all kinds of 
things differently for masters and slaves in the same cloud.
for instance, ‘add forces’ for the masters only. (slave attribute driving an 
‘if’ port )

in my case the slaves had to stay with their ‘birth’ master – so upon 
generation, besides the slave attribute, I saved a second attribute which was 
the ID of the master (the particle ID minus the remainder from the modulo I 
think)

there’s many ways you can drive the slaves.
in my case I needed an elastic link, where they would also orbit around the 
master as well as collide with obstacles, and look kind of natural, so they 
were still simulated - (and there was also an overall ‘character’ to keep in 
mind)

at the basis, using the id of the master I got it’s position, and used that as 
a target.
point position minus the master’s point position used as a vector force will 
give a force pulling towards (or away from) the master.
this was modulated by a change range based on the length of that vector – so if 
the distance got bigger the force was stronger and vice versa. this gave it the 
elastic effect, leaving the slaves a bit more loose when near the master but 
pulling them more rigidly when going too far away.
the spinning/orbiting was done with a dot product (I think), and again 
modulated based on distance from the master, so the closer they were, the 
faster they spinned around the master.
I also added a bit of the direction of the master to it’s position to use as 
target, rather than just it’s actual position – this is much more precise at 
high speeds: the master’s point position is where the master is at the 
beginning of the current simulation step – so using that as the target, the 
slaves are trailing too much behind the master and have difficulty keeping up 
when the master makes complex movements.

so all of this is using forces on the slaves, so they still behave in a 
‘natural’, simulated fashion.
you can of course approach it differently, by driving the position itself (set 
position on the slaves) for a more ‘geometric’ result. 

you could save the offset between the slave and the master at emission as an 
attribute, and use this to set position, as master position + ( offset, rotated 
with master’s orientation)
same for rotation and scale, save them at birth and then modulate with the one 
from the master (add,multiply,.. depends a bit on what you’re after)

all of this is assuming you’re ok with assigning the master to the slave at 
birth.
assigning a new master can be as simple as saving a new value for the masterID 
upon a trigger or a condition – but using a closest point each frame on the 
cloud itself to dynamically find a master all the time is going to slow things 
down a lot. I’m not sure if you can find a closest point out of a subset of 
particles (the masters only) which is a bit like what goes on with slipstream’s 
vorticles I think. You could do this with two clouds though – one cloud with 
the masters and a second with the slaves – but that’s going to make other 
things more convoluted.


I hope this gives some ideas?




From: Olivier Jeannel 
Sent: Monday, October 05, 2015 10:08 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Cluster of points driving another cluster of points

I don't know how to do that : 

Let's say I have a grid of 10 particles moving in a simultion (Master).

Let's say I create another grid of 100 particles (slaves).

I want those 100 particles to follow in position, rotation and scale the 10 
master particles.
I don't want the slaves to get the position of the master, I want the master to 
behave like the center of the slaves chunk/cluster.

Not sure I'm clear.

Re: Rendering Vertex color - Uvs are present

[peter_b]

‘Sampling -> Vertices only (RenderVertex)’
It’s all in the name: RenderVertex renders TO the vertex colors – if for 
instance you want to bake lighting or AO and have them available as 
VertexColors. Not the other way around – Francois’ suggestion of using the 
Vertex_Color node in the rendertree is on the money.

 

From: Pierre Schiller 
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 4:04 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Rendering Vertex color - Uvs are present


Hi, good day. 

I´ve done a little test quickly modeling a face and I did:

1. Applied property->Color at vertices map

2. Ctrl+W (palette, and select color)

3. Shift+W start painting the mesh.


I like the result, now I want to set that as my starting point for texture

painting. So, I go to:


1. Property->Texture projection->unique Uvs (I really just want to test the

face colors)

2. Property->Rendermap and select: Sampling -> Vertives only (RenderVertex)

3. I enable "Color"

4. Map: Surface color and illumination.


I hit regenerate maps but there´s no output. No render.


What else do I need to setup to get a vertex map baked as texture?

Thanks.


David.

-- 

Portfolio 2013

Cinema & TV production
Video Reel

Re: SP2???

[peter_b]

of course I do - it wasn't serious.
and it's not just a matter of shear amount of resources needed - there's the 
interdependence of bugs and code - fix one thing, you might break another - 
perhaps some issues/solutions are mutually exclusive.


still - for a final release (this one will be the last ever, will it not?) 
it would be nice to go out with a tiny bang


-Original Message- 
From: Matt Lind

Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 1:26 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: SP2???

You realize any major 3D application has literally thousands of active bugs
at any one time, right?  Even with a team of 100 developers doing nothing
but bug fixing it's unlikely the application would ever reach bug-free
status.

The goal at this point is to remove all blocking issues and ensure features
that currently work do not regress.  Basically, just the stuff I reported.
The rest is unimportant ;-)



Matt





Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:21:01 +0200
From: 
Subject: Re: SP2???
To: 

likely last softimage SP ever, so if it leaves one bug alive, it?s not
enough...
From: Cesar Saez
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 11:04 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: SP2???

Prepare yourself to read people  complaining about the lack of new
features/bugfixes on SP2... Tough crowd :)
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 11:50:53 -0500
From: Pierre Schiller 
Subject: Re: Lucas Martell VFXPHD - xsi lighting // Video reference?
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Message-ID:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hi Peter, I saw the vfxphd back in 2011. the subscription is yearly. so I
only remember he did some compo with the matte shadow and GI
That?s the only thing I?m asking: if anyone saw it (I believe it was lesson
2 or 3). Summarizing has nothing wrong.
*I didn?t say/wrote *"DESCRIBE SOME OF THEIR LESSON MATERIALS". So please
focus back on reading what I specifically wrote. Not what you think you?ve
read.

Good day.

On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 9:18 AM,  wrote:


come on man,
?I don?t have access to phdvfx so please tell me what was in some of their
lesson materials??
not the way to ask.




*From:* Pierre Schiller 
*Sent:* Thursday, September 24, 2015 3:17 PM
*To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
*Subject:* Re: Lucas Martell VFXPHD - xsi lighting // Video reference?


Bump
On Sep 22, 2015 11:03 AM, "Pierre Schiller" <
activemotionpictu...@gmail.com> wrote:


Hi, long ago (years ago) I saw the vfx phd with Lucas Martell about
lighting in xsi.
I seem to recall on lesson 2 or 3 he talks about making a shadow matte
pass to "mask"
another GI pass he made with physical sun. I would like to know if anyone
could please
share the steps in that video correctly? since I don?t have access to
phdvfx.
I?ve been doing my own setup but it?s nothing like he did it.

Please help.
Thanks.

Best regards.

--
Portfolio 2013 
Cinema & TV production
Video Reel 






--
Portfolio 2013 
Cinema & TV production
Video Reel 
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:47:28 +0200
From: "Leendert A. Hartog" 
Subject: Re: SP2???
To: 
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

But if they are able to iron out ALL of the bugs, that would be a unique
selling-point to resurrect the software...
And that?s not even the main reason for that not being likely to happen.

Greetz
Leendert
AKA Hirazi Blue
Softimage hobbyist, admin at si-community.com & xsiforum.de


From: pete...@skynet.be
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 4:21 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: SP2???

likely last softimage SP ever, so if it leaves one bug alive, it?s not
enough...
From: Cesar Saez
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 11:04 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: SP2???

Prepare yourself to read people  complaining about the lack of new
features/bugfixes on SP2... Tough crowd :)

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Re: SP2???

[peter_b]

likely last softimage SP ever, so if it leaves one bug alive, it’s not enough...
From: Cesar Saez 
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 11:04 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: SP2???

Prepare yourself to read people  complaining about the lack of new 
features/bugfixes on SP2... Tough crowd :)

Re: Lucas Martell VFXPHD - xsi lighting // Video reference?

[peter_b]

come on man, 
‘I don’t have access to phdvfx so please tell me what was in some of their 
lesson materials’?
not the way to ask.




From: Pierre Schiller 
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 3:17 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Lucas Martell VFXPHD - xsi lighting // Video reference?

Bump

On Sep 22, 2015 11:03 AM, "Pierre Schiller"  
wrote:

  Hi, long ago (years ago) I saw the vfx phd with Lucas Martell about lighting 
in xsi.

  I seem to recall on lesson 2 or 3 he talks about making a shadow matte pass 
to "mask"

  another GI pass he made with physical sun. I would like to know if anyone 
could please

  share the steps in that video correctly? since I don´t have access to phdvfx.

  I´ve been doing my own setup but it´s nothing like he did it.


  Please help.

  Thanks.


  Best regards.


  -- 

  Portfolio 2013

  Cinema & TV production
  Video Reel

Re: 3Delight (free) - 8 core restriction and toon renders

[peter_b]

but did you check in task manager to see if there are actually 8 cores active?

in my tests with the 8-core restricted version, there were only 4 cores active 
as before – and I’ve seen it mentioned here as well. (not saying that what you 
got out of those 4 cores wasn’t cool)



From: Pierre Schiller 
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 12:34 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: 3Delight (free) - 8 core restriction and toon renders

yes, 3delight is really fast. 

8 cores = free. Want more cores? one should pay for commerce version.

But I still prefer Redshift. I haven´t done tests on that.


On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 5:07 PM, Eric Turman  wrote:

  just looking at the timeline on youtube 3Delight looks almost twice as fast 
to render the inklines. 

  On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 5:01 PM, Jason S  wrote:

Hi,

Actually for inkline speed, isn't it roughly as fast as MR?
 
By the way, even in the viewport your toon shading looks neat, what is it?


BTW#2 : So you got 8 cores running? what was preventing it before?


cheers, & thanks for this glimpse!
J 



On 09/22/15 13:06, Pierre Schiller wrote:


  Hi guys, I wanted to test out how speedy is 3delight compared to native 
MentalRay (we know there will be a difference). So I took a minute and did a 
short video comparing render toon lines on 3delight and mental ray.

  https://youtu.be/mlJt2iYGsq8


  But if anyone could help me out with this question, I´d finish the 
tutorial as it was meant to be:

  How could I "store in channel" to create matte ids on 3Delight? It didn´t 
read color 4 pass through nor Store in channel.


  So what I did was to create a new pass and partition all elements with 
constant materials. Works, but takes too much time in a heavy scene. 

  In the end I store in channel using MR but then the scene crashed, when I 
selected MR for that pass only renderer


  Anyone with more 3delight experience could help me out on this, please?

  Thanks. :D


  Cheers.


  -- 

  Portfolio 2013

  Cinema & TV production
  Video Reel






  -- 





  -=T=-



-- 

Portfolio 2013

Cinema & TV production
Video Reel

Re: deja view

[peter_b]

yep – you’re thinking of SI3D.

(it was much more needed then with the multitude of separate data)

From: Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] 
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 8:45 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: deja view

I knew I could do that. But that requires every scene be pre-loaded and then 
deleted. Seems like their used to be a move command in project manager that did 
not require you to load the scenes.

 

Maybe I’m thinking of SI 3D….

 

--

Joey Ponthieux

LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)

MYMIC Technical Services

NASA Langley Research Center

__

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

represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

 

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Davidson
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2015 2:41 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: deja view

 

Just save the scene in a new database, using save as, making sure you select the

copy external files under project, option.

 

see here:

http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/scenes_SavingScenes.htm

 

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 2:17 PM Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] 
 wrote:

  Ok, so I’m having this thought that I’ve done this before and that Soft used 
to have this ability, but can’t remember how.

   

  Seems I recall that I used to be able to move scenes from one project to 
another. In Project manager maybe? But there doesn’t seem to be any function 
for that. 

   

  Is it possible, and if so how? I know files can be moved via windows, but 
moving a scene that way won’t move all necessary references.

   

   

   

  --

  Joey Ponthieux

  LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)

  MYMIC Technical Services

  NASA Langley Research Center

  __

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

  represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

   

Re: Soft licenses still available for purchase?

[peter_b]

doesn’t a Softimage license come with 5 or so batch licenses - or was this 
changed at some point?


From: Patrick Neese 
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2015 10:23 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Soft licenses still available for purchase?

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: Friday Flashback #240

[peter_b]

Nice follow up on last weeks Flashback.

“ The final suite of Digital Studio tools will include: digital ink and Paint, 
2D image editing, compositing, 3D animation, audio, and online editing in a 
truly resolution-independent system. Nearly all of the above capabilities exist 
in current Softimage products, but Langlois is creating entirely new tools so 
that the individual parts of Digital Studio will work together intimately and 
seamlessly at the system level without compromise. ”

You see – I really digged stuff like that and chose to wait for Sumatra/XSI 
because of this (marketed, projected) long term vision, when I had immediate 
access to Maya. 
Maya just tasted as a rehash of Poweranimator, Explore and Softimage – a  very 
complete toolset for sure, but not very innovative - except sculpting, 
paintFX,... - and not necessarily with the best bits of its respective 
ancestors retained.
But I’ve learned my lesson, innovation and leading a market are two very 
different things. And long term visions end up getting overlooked or abandoned 
as well.


From: Stephen Blair 
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2015 5:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Friday Flashback #240

1996 article about Daniel Langois and Digital Studio

http://wp.me/powV4-3e0

Re: Friday Flashback #239

[peter_b]

don’t call those vintage, you’ll wake up the dinosaurs! 

‘...back when I was starting 3D, computers had to be fed punched cards - 
rroooaarrr’
From: Stephen Blair 
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2015 8:21 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Friday Flashback #239

Vintage Softimage software CDs and docs, and some vintage SGI boxes

http://wp.me/powV4-3dX

Re: Last Friday's Flashback #238

[peter_b]

call me old-fashioned, but ‘more 3D in the comp’ was not really what I was 
after.

what good is a 3D environment without proper modelling, animation, simulation 
tools? Adding a decent renderer to the comp raises more problems than it solves 
IMO. quick placement of some imageplanes or 3D objects in 3D sure, but 
‘integrating’ those properly into backplate or 3D elements can become so 
involved (sometimes unexpectedly) that the broad toolset of a full 3D software 
becomes a necessity.
Also, the time needed to do the job becomes incompatible with the fast workflow 
in an editing environment (and compositing to some degree).

however, timing footage is usually a weak point, both in 3D and comp software – 
and there DS really shined - it’s ‘timeline with effects’ – and in good 
Softimage tradition, nonlinear & non destructive. I found DS and XSI so 
complimentary – without too much overlap. If you will, the overlap was 
compositing, which to both was a natural companion. But in it’s respective core 
disciplines editing and 3D, there was little confusion – and that was perfect 
IMO. It just needed more links/bridges/interop between the two.

Anyways – what good ruminating on how the synergy between these two unique and 
sadly discontinued softwares could have been? 
And how precisely that synergy does not exist elsewhere atm – whatever nice 
things Foundry and others may be doing.

Perhaps it’s just my pipe dreams, with XSI and DS independently becoming my 
preferred softwares (not for lack of exposure to others, some of which I also 
had a soft spot for), and naturally whishing for them to play together ever 
more.



From: Jason S 
Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2015 2:25 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Last Friday's Flashback #238

Erratum : didn't differentiate things that were later developped & introduced, 
to things that were wished-for.

Actually, good 3D in DS was among the few things that users were wishing for DS 
to make it current again
(had it been more seriously  developped passed V4 (2002) apart for things 
*introduced in later versions* like new hardware support, still quite decent 
GPU Acelleration, MotionFlow Time Stretching & lots of compatibity and interop 
endeavors with MC) 

cheers,

On 09/04/15 19:53, Jason S wrote:

  About last Friday's Flashback, 

On 08/28/15 16:40, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

[...]

  I guess the industry as a whole didn’t need that integrated Digital 
Studio, and few really used DS and XSI in tandem 

- but I feel we are all the poorer without it.

Sure, there’s some interesting convergence happening between 3D and 
comp these days – but how I miss that particular Softimage spin on it. 


  Actually, good 3D in DS was among the few things that users were wishing for 
DS to make it current again
  (had it been more seriously  developped passed V4 (2002) apart for things 
like new hardware support, still quite decent GPU Acelleration, MotionFlow Time 
Stretching & lots of compatibity and interop endeavors with MC) 

  few wished-for things which included:

  * introduction of new file based camera formats,  
  or bringing-in arbitrary common media types without transcoding or conforming 
to DS's native format
  ( That single and relatively simple point would have addressed the bulk of 
what users might have been pressing most upon, despite introduction of -some- 
new formats.)

  * keying tools coming closer Smoke/Flame counterparts 

  *** and ironically, given where it's coming from and what were the original 
plans-- a more complete 3D environment compared to these same packages.

  But it's 3D was at least more than good enough for mapping (rez independant) 
cutout/blended clips on cards in a 3D environment with artifact free results, 
and creating or animating hierarchies of elements with relative and manipulable 
axies.

  

@schnittman @editblog @patInhofer Favorite edit system I ever worked on. 
The death nail was it's inability to work w/ file based cameras

— Nathan Downing (@nathandowning) August 6, 2013

  In the very niche market of high-end finishing workstations (much more niche 
than it's original sister 3D flagship), DS was considered as the very top of 
the line of Avid's offerings 
  (despite relatively little significant changes over time, it's near abscence 
in marketing campaings, and noticably living in the shadow of MediaComposer 
itself very much coming-up with support for things like file based formats)

  While as Avid's only truly resolution independent high-end solution (only one 
that could do 4k (+) or even slightly over HD 2k film), that also had node 
based processing trees on timeline clips or entire timelines, and other things, 
  it was typically compared to Smoke/Flame stations rather than other Avid 
products, but despite increasing comparative drawbacks compared to something 
like Flame as DS was in a 'left behind' state, it was also considered 

Re: Friday Flashback #238

[peter_b]

Hm - me getting it wrong is certainly a possibility.
But when I'm picking my memory about this, little bits and pieces seem to 
bubble up.


There was this studio owner who had a DS, and he came by all excited, asking 
me for a softimage 3D scene and corresponding render for testing. I was 
surprised since they didn’t do 3D at their studio - he explained it was for 
testing on the DS and I didn’t quite get what they were trying to do.
The 'clip on the timeline, done with softimage 3D' (under the hood) sure 
sounds like what I have in mind.
It surely wasn’t a 3D import, I don’t recall seeing any wireframe - just 
entering the path to the 3D scene and probably just horizontal and vertical 
transform parameters. Probably the texture scaled at SD video resolution was 
the source layer for the clip.
I'm not sure on version - but it was '98 or '99, certainly before v4 , and 
quite possibly not a public release. I recall having a discussion about what 
sense it made to do a correction on a system that was billed 4 times more 
than a 3D station. If you had a correction, just send it to the people who 
made the 3D. In any case, what were the odds of having a client requesting a 
correction on shifting a texture a bit left or right on the 3D model, that 
was already rendered and delivered? It would be a miracle for that one to 
come up I thought.
I remember looking for buckets vs scanlines being rendered to confirm that 
it was mental ray which didn’t do scanline to my knowledge - and remember 
that it seemed very slow. I did 3D on sgi/irix and DS being on 
win/intergraph, I expected rendering to be very fast on a PC. I was 
constantly asking my studio to get me one.


Sounds like it might have happened - you tell me?



-Original Message- 
From: Luc-Eric Rousseau

Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 3:21 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #238

I remember opening a softimage 3D asset in the DS timeline, and changing 
the
texture placement on it, and having it re-render, right there in the 
editing
timeline, with mental ray - 15 years ago. It wasn’t all that useful, but 
it

hinted of some very exciting future links between 3D and editing/comp.


Did you dream it?  DS never really had that, they always dreamed of
having mental ray or importing 3D scenes.

In 1997 there was a pre-Sumatra demo shown around where you could
create a 3D clip on the timeline and paint on it, that was built
using Softimage|3D.  It never passed the prototype stage.  At one
point a colleague  put the dotXSI viewer as a plugin in DS and that
was a demo which AFAIK never shipped.  You could do basic 3D with the
built-in Marquee tool in DS - a product Avid acquired - that's it.
All of these were OpenGL only.

That said, you were able to import Softimage|3D scenes in Eddie and
render them in there.


But then Avid drove a wedge between DS and XSI,


Avid wasn't smart enough to scheme like that and AFAIK didn't do any
such thing.  Early on, we couldn't get anything done with the source
code constantly changing by another team with their own priorities
while we were trying to wind down and ship, so we branched out.

After XSI V1.0, it was very difficult to consider merging back because
it's emergencies after emergencies, and XSI wasn't made to run inside
other application so it took over a lot of things that DS has other
ideas for, and there were conflicting changes in both branches.  Also
their code version was increasingly not portable back to unix,
something they don't care about.  And it something would lead them to
their demise as they couldn't port anything to Mac where Avid wanted
to be.

And we disagreed on many things.  For example, the DS team wanting to
control all the UI like the FCurve editor, but wanting to be focus on
non-animators, or controlling the architecture of operators to conform
it to their vision.   So you're trying to make a 3D animation product,
but you have to negotiate with another team that wants you do to
things for them and their clients.  You have to explain, justify and
negotiate everything.  Same thing for the mixer UI or the rendertree,
they wanted to own that, but on their own terms.

The principles of DS is that DS provides everything as shared service
(ex: the FCurve editor, toolbars, menu, hotkey mapping, etc) and then
you can plug your mini-app in it as a plug-in, a clip on its timeline.
Only one such third party plugin was ever made, Toonz.

In retrospect it's DS that should have been built on XSI, not the
reverse - but DS shipped 2 years before XSI v1.0.   Because 3D apps
have become frameworks, XSI is the one that's the superset, with
scripting, expressions, construction history, lots of viewport tools,
etc.  But in DS team's mind, the NLE market was 100 times bigger and
the 3D market is shrinking, so it should be up to the 3D team to
follow, not the reverse.  Different points of views!

In any case, nowadays it's kind of illogical to think of a Softimage
as a 

Re: Friday Flashback #238

[peter_b]

' Each application also needed to go in directions that didn't make sense 
for the other. '


yes of course.
I've always been hoping for more convergence/integration between 3D and comp 
in one streamlined package.
but then there's the hard reality of studios, and their needs and projects - 
which lie elsewhere, 3D and postprod/editing being quite different crowds.





-Original Message- 
From: Matt Lind

Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 12:20 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #238

If memory serves, the main reason for splitting DS and XSI was
architectural, not sales driven.  XSI needed more than DS could provide, and
vice versa.  Each application also needed to go in directions that didn't
make sense for the other.  'Twister' was split for the incompatibility
reasons as well.

Yes, very exciting but unfulfilled dream.  What should've been.


Matt




Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2015 22:40:20 +0200
From: pete...@skynet.be
Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #238
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

ah
DS discontinued by Avid and XSI discontinued by AD.
and what?s there to fill that particular void?

they shared architecture and interface to a degree, and both had some very
interesting forward thinking (visionary?) concepts at their origin.
I remember opening a softimage 3D asset in the DS timeline, and changing the
texture placement on it, and having it re-render, right there in the editing
timeline, with mental ray - 15 years ago. It wasn?t all that useful, but it
hinted of some very exciting future links between 3D and editing/comp.
But then Avid drove a wedge between DS and XSI, pushing DS into a very
awkward position in the Avid portfolio, and XSI into a kind of no mans land
? like an unwanted child they ended up with, not knowing what to do with.
Somehow, that child managed to survive Avid and even start to show promise,
then got sold off to AD, and even survived that and prospered. A while.

I guess the industry as a whole didn?t need that integrated Digital Studio,
and few really used DS and XSI in tandem - but I feel we are all the poorer
without it.
Sure, there?s some interesting convergence happening between 3D and comp
these days ? but how I miss that particular Softimage spin on it. 

Re: Friday Flashback #238

[peter_b]

ah
DS discontinued by Avid and XSI discontinued by AD.
and what’s there to fill that particular void?

they shared architecture and interface to a degree, and both had some very 
interesting forward thinking (visionary?) concepts at their origin.
I remember opening a softimage 3D asset in the DS timeline, and changing the 
texture placement on it, and having it re-render, right there in the editing 
timeline, with mental ray - 15 years ago. It wasn’t all that useful, but it 
hinted of some very exciting future links between 3D and editing/comp. 
But then Avid drove a wedge between DS and XSI, pushing DS into a very awkward 
position in the Avid portfolio, and XSI into a kind of no mans land – like an 
unwanted child they ended up with, not knowing what to do with. Somehow, that 
child managed to survive Avid and even start to show promise, then got sold off 
to AD, and even survived that and prospered. A while.

I guess the industry as a whole didn’t need that integrated Digital Studio, and 
few really used DS and XSI in tandem - but I feel we are all the poorer without 
it.
Sure, there’s some interesting convergence happening between 3D and comp these 
days – but how I miss that particular Softimage spin on it.



From: Stephen Blair 
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2015 9:58 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Friday Flashback #238

SOFTIMAGE|DS: Originality distinguishes art from craft 
http://wp.me/powV4-3dT

Re: animate polygon faces individually

[peter_b]

 it's cold in here.

because it isn’t as simple as you think?

best is to go the ICE way, disconnect/poly islands driven by particles’ SRTs 
works fine and fast. 
There was also the older ICE method, (was it guillaume’s?) exploding the object 
into it’s poly islands, and using them as instances on particles – but that got 
slow on hundreds of parts.

then there is the old school non ice way: create a cluster center for each poly 
island and animate these directly or by pose constraining to nulls.




On 25 August 2015 at 11:42, Chris Marshall chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

  Any thoughts or pointers? I know this is really simple and can't believe I'm 
struggling, but I've never had to do this before.

  Cheers



  On 25 August 2015 at 11:09, Chris Marshall chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi All,

I'm having some brain fade here. I need to take a logo, break it into 
individual faces and animate them around separately. Should be easy enough, but 
I can't think how. I've broken the object up using DisconnectComponent. So 
what's the easiest way to simply explode the faces, or animate them in some 
interesting way? This will be a logo forming together, so just some basic 
Mograph type animation.


Thanks


Chris






  -- 

  Chris Marshall

  Mint Motion Limited
  029 20 37 27 57
  07730 533 115
  www.mintmotion.co.uk

  www.dot3d.com






-- 

Chris Marshall

Mint Motion Limited
029 20 37 27 57
07730 533 115
www.mintmotion.co.uk

www.dot3d.com

Re: Referenced models crashing Softimage

[peter_b]

does it happen in one particular direction only - ex. res1 to res2 works fine 
but not the other way around?
can you change the resolution back and forth ten times in a row on the same 
model without any issues?

what if you change resolution on four of them, save scene, restart xsi, open 
scene and change the res on the 5th one?
If it crashes I’d say something is wrong in the setup - but as you say, they 
work fine separately, so that’s hard to pin down.
But if it works fine, IMO it points to a performance problem. Is the geo very 
heavy, lots of objects, materials? are there fancy overrides?
You could lower the amount of undo’s or disable them altogether – see if that 
makes a difference?



From: Morten Bartholdy 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 3:53 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Referenced models crashing Softimage

Through time I have used Referenced models quite a bit so I know more than the 
basics of how to use them, but with my current project I have run in to a 
problem. I have 5 different referenced models where res1 is a full resolution 
model and res2 is a proxy model which loads an Arnold standin. My problem is 
that when I change resolution on all 5 models Softimage crashes. If I take them 
one at a time and change resolution, it works for the first four, but the fifth 
crashes Softimage. I have changed order and it seems it is not one particular 
model which causes the crash - it is just the fifth I chose to change. I have 
tried changing it in the scntoc file too  which also causes a crash. 




I am suspecting some sort of problem with the delta, but I can't see how it 
could have become corrupted - I have pose constrained a null in the ref model 
to an animated null in the scene, and the constrained null is the same in each 
resolution of the ref model. 




Do any of you with ref model experience have an inkling of an idea about what 
might cause this? 




Best 

Morten 

Re: Get rid of your flip phone and get current on maya!

[peter_b]

Hey Eric, quite on the contrary, AD’s marketing is spot on:
It’s Maya. 
For rent. 
At a premium price.
Of course it’s for douchebags! 

Don’t forget, at AD, they are living so far in the future that these are normal 
prices for a cup of coffee or daily rates – I think they call that inflation. 
Or was it inflated?


From: Eric Turman 
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2015 4:39 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Get rid of your flip phone and get current on maya!

It's not you, Chris. It is very expensive for software that is only 
rent-able--and yes, subscribing for a year is still effectively renting. I brew 
my own coffee and pay less than 25 cents per cup--not $5.77 (the adjusted price 
of a 5 day work week rather than 4.17 for working 7 days a week.) The whole 
thing comes off as sleazy car salesman, but it is unfortunately what I would 
expect from AD. 

I would, however, not be surprised if we see someone from AD jumping onto this 
thread ​explaining this latest 'benevolent' ploy and how this is better for all 
of us kind of horsepucky.

rant
One of the biggest parts of Autodesk and Adobe CC is that for production, 
generally, we don't care about the having the cutting edge until it has been 
proven stable. So while having access to beta to know what is coming down the 
pike and to test how the new version is going to break tools, the truth of the 
day to day is that we need a stable version of the software to get our work 
done quickly and with the fewest problems. AD marketing is so clueless to paint 
us in the light that we are all a bunch of hipster douche-bags pushing a button 
to advance to the next script and letting the computer work for a few hours 
while we go off in between mountain-biking and surfing like a glorified George 
Jetson.
/rant

Re: Get rid of your flip phone and get current on maya!

[peter_b]

industry standard 3d software – that’s so mental ray. 
right about when they started promoting it as industry standard, development 
froze in it’s tracks. 
perhaps if every marketeer at Adsk was replaced with a developer, they might 
have a future. 

and what’s with all the guitars?

oh my, this is wrong on so many levels – whoever commissioned and approved this 
should get flayed.

From: Nicolas Esposito 
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 9:19 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Get rid of your flip phone and get current on maya!

Agree with Mirko, 
This is an experiment to see if they can get away with it...
If the hipster guy had a shirt with XSI logo that video would be absolutely 
perfect.

Not sure what is the situation in your countries, but I rarely see freelancers 
this calm, cool, with the headphones and smelly t-shirt...did they watch How I 
met your Mother and saw that the high five is what the cool kids do nowdays?
Or they hired Richard Linklater to really see what the youth is all about?

Jesus ADSK Jesus!

2015-07-09 7:22 GMT+02:00 Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net:

  I find it amazing that marketing is so out of touch with their target 
audience ... 
  $125 / month ... that's maybe an hour of your time?

  Are there any freelance 3D animators out there that get
  $125 / hour? Maybe I'm out of touch...maybe 10 years ago.

  I will be using Softimage, with Redshift 3D, till I change careers.

  Not buying , or renting, anything else. Sorry.

  On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 12:32 AM Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com 
wrote:

This all is just big social experiment... let's see how much ppl can take.. 
how stupid they are, how much we can shovel down the throat without rebelling. 


Stop buying AD crap, lets see how long will they keep Maya and Max then,, 
what is the limit of income they are willing to push 3d industry forward, be 
innovative and help artists give us their mo.. *cough* do their job...

Fing marketing ppl that has no idea about target audience at all. 


On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 6:00 AM, Scott Parrish scotte...@gmail.com wrote:

  Sell one seat to a company for lets say 1500$ per year with a chance to 
update of 50%. Or sell twelve seats for 125$ each to freelancers and the 
probability of selling updates is much higher. 


  Starting next year companies will no longer be able to obtain new 
permanent licenses either.
  It will all be subscription based. Count on the incentives showing up to 
swap your permanent licenses to monthly or annual subscriptions, and more than 
likely for support of permanent licenses to go away.


  I find the ad insulting on many levels. There is the fact that it may as 
well be a marketing campaign for mens casual clothing. It is a generic ad 
campaign for Product as Lifestyle. All of the imagery is of people doing cool 
stuff that cool people do.. no 3d.. no work. The video following the guy with 
vacant bloodshot eyes (arguably the only authentic part of the video) around 
his day being a cool guy involves about 5% of him tumbling and pondering a mesh 
before getting back to his cool guy duties like being dressed good for the MUNI 
bus and the club.


  This feels very idiocracy-like and I think strongly reflects on the 
people making decisions at Autodesk. I do not want to give these people money 
and this is one of the bigger motivations I've had to pursue Fabric, Houdini 
and Modo and transition away from Maya.

  On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 5:51 PM, Sven Constable sixsi_l...@imagefront.de 
wrote:

This video insists that freelancers should take the cost of software 
licensing instead of the companies they are working for. To me it looks like 
ADSK starts to shift business to starving freelancers because they didn’t 
succeed on forcing companies to go subscription. Makes sense busines wise, 
because freelancers want to stay current with the software even it has no real 
production value. Freelancers want to stay current because they think no one 
will here them otherwise.

Sell one seat to a company for lets say 1500$ per year with a chance to 
update of 50%. Or sell twelve seats for 125$ each to freelancers and the 
probability of selling updates is much higher.

 

sven



From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Scott Parrish
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 12:35 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Get rid of your flip phone and get current on maya!



Anybody see this today?

Barf!



http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/your-life-maya

Re: Paul Smiths Fuzz for animation

[peter_b]

have seen this on some production shots.
because of massive scene size (as in: things happening a long way from the 
origin) we ran into limits of floating point precision.
The solution was to offset the whole shot (parent whole scene under a null) so 
it was centered around the origin, and rebake all pointcaches.
incidentally it was hair for feathers on birds – with the erratic random jitter 
they were kind of like flapping around in the breeze – and with the fixed and 
stable caches the hair/feathers ended up too stable to my taste.

this was all long before ice and strands – but floating point precision limits 
still exist.
if your scene is very big or very small (size not complexity), or action is 
happening very far from the origin – that could be the cause.

From: Mirko Jankovic 
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 10:00 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Paul Smiths Fuzz for animation

Maybe it is not only with fuz.. I'm actually having same issue but with 
softmiage hair. 

with animated character hairs jitter like changing places in every frame...


so it maybe is not something from the fuzz...


On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote:

  I have no idea of the tool and I can be absolutely wrong but just out of the 
blue do zero out any epsilon values in the greater than / smaller than nodes 
(if any).

  On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dk 
wrote:

I have had the pleasure of testing Paul Smiths excellent Fuzz for applying 
fur - great tool with comprehensible controls for grooming short fur. 
Unfortunately it looks like the strands orientation jitter when the generator 
surface is animated - deformation as well as SRT. It is set up for animation, 
so the strands stay on the deformed surface, but I have this jitter. Did anyone 
here succesfully find a fix for that? 


I did write to Paul BTW, but I guess he is busy, so no reply yet. After all 
this is a free (donationware)tool so I am certainly not expecting him to 
provide support :) 


It would be awesome if I could get it working, as it will be hard to redo 
the grooming with other tools , plus I have no time for looking into Kristinka 
or Melena. 




Cheers 

Morten 









  -- 

Re: Virtual Apps

[peter_b]

well, the infuriating thing must be that there is enough money to solve a 
problem, but because of policy, rather than being flexible and doing just 
that, more money can be found but not to solve the problem. And so now one 
tries to go through hoops to see if by throwing the money elsewhere the 
problem can be solved indirectly.


the lack of common sense, or goodwill to get things done can be so 
frustrating.

schools are probably worse but it happens in the 'real' world too.


-Original Message- 
From: Tim Leydecker

Sent: Friday, June 12, 2015 8:45 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Virtual Apps

If it is any help, when I started studying graphics design/communication
design in 1998,
the starting point for the transition had already been set way before my
starting there...

It´s amazing how one or two people with a few forms and the budget to
decide on can ruin your day.

At least it´s not just like that in universities.

We have an airport here in Berlin that will or will not be finish by
2013/2014 on a week or two´s notice.

It really boils down on what did you expect?

Cheers,

tim







Am 11.06.2015 um 19:43 schrieb Sofronis Efstathiou:
Universities here in the UK are mostly going through a transition of 
stupidity. I feel your pain...


Sent from my Android phone using Symantec TouchDown (www.symantec.com)

-Original Message-
From: Angus Davidson [angus.david...@wits.ac.za]
Received: Thursday, 11 Jun 2015, 18:24
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com [softimage@listproc.autodesk.com]
Subject: RE: Virtual Apps

Most of our university  accountancy runs so totally against reality its 
scary. I was almost fired on my first day by calling someone (who later 
turned our CFO) an idiot to their face,


We can only use a cloud if its local. We had a trial of shotgun (which is 
a great piece of kit) but it was totally unusable on our internet.  So 
streaming HD to multiple computers from Europe to Africa will just not 
work. Which is a shame as it would suit us down to the ground.




From: Matt Lind [speye...@hotmail.com]
Sent: 11 June 2015 10:05 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Virtual Apps

Has a cloud service like Amazon web services, or similar, been considered?
Basically everything Peter just said applies, but you'd have the benefit 
of

scaling up and down as needed and not have to pay for time when school is
not in session, nor fork out for or maintain hardware sitting in a back
room.

At my last employer many applications were installed on a SAN and run in
virtual machine environments so hardware and maintenance could be
consolidated.  There was a small amount of teething getting it set up, but
once it was up and running the end user didn't know the difference.
Softimage wasn't installed on the SAN and we didn't have thin clients, so 
I

can't provide much feedback in that area.


Matt



Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 09:24:39 +0200
From: pete...@skynet.be
Subject: Re: Virtual Apps
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

that?s surreal, being forced into buying highly expensive state of the art
tech, in stead of some off the shelf computers, out of budgetary
constraints.
I?m sure that?s exactly how European administration is run.

that VCA looks like it would allow you to set up a nice 3D rendering
workflow, but it wouldn?t really help with compositing, simulations, 
working

with complex scenes,... or would it?
sounds a bit like getting a shiny new pickup truck, but having to load it
using chopsticks since you don?t have the budget for a shovel.
at least you?ll have the coolest toy in town .

From: Angus Davidson
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 5:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Virtual Apps

Dear Peter

Thank you for the incredibly comprehensive response.

The crazy kindergarten accountancy at the university means that the lab
computers need to be paid for by the schools from their operating budgets
(which are not keeping up with inflation).

However things like VCA are expensive enough to be considered Major Capex
and that amazingly enough they have funds for. So its mostly about reading
the situation at the University and trying to plan around it.

Kind regards

Angus




From: pete...@skynet.be [pete...@skynet.be]
Sent: 10 June 2015 02:41 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Virtual Apps


if you mean using a thin client on the desk, to connect to a remote
workstation (in the server room) ? then yes ? have used this at a former
studio.

overall it worked quite well.

on the thin client you would launch an app, on which you chose the
workstation to login to and then a full screen window opens on which you 
see

the workstations? desktop ? and you work you session.
It?s very intuitive ? apart from a few keyboard combos (ctrl-alt-del is on
the thin client, so there?s a different combination to send 

Re: Virtual Apps

[peter_b]

that’s surreal, being forced into buying highly expensive state of the art 
tech, in stead of some off the shelf computers, out of budgetary constraints.
I’m sure that’s exactly how European administration is run.

that VCA looks like it would allow you to set up a nice 3D rendering workflow, 
but it wouldn’t really help with compositing, simulations, working with complex 
scenes,... or would it?
sounds a bit like getting a shiny new pickup truck, but having to load it using 
chopsticks since you don’t have the budget for a shovel.
at least you’ll have the coolest toy in town .

From: Angus Davidson 
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 5:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: Virtual Apps

Dear Peter 

Thank you for the incredibly comprehensive response.

The crazy kindergarten accountancy at the university means that the lab 
computers need to be paid for by the schools from their operating budgets 
(which are not keeping up with inflation).

However things like VCA are expensive enough to be considered Major Capex and 
that amazingly enough they have funds for. So its mostly about reading the 
situation at the University and trying to plan around it.

Kind regards

Angus




From: pete...@skynet.be [pete...@skynet.be]
Sent: 10 June 2015 02:41 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Virtual Apps


if you mean using a thin client on the desk, to connect to a remote workstation 
(in the server room) – then yes – have used this at a former studio.

overall it worked quite well.

on the thin client you would launch an app, on which you chose the workstation 
to login to and then a full screen window opens on which you see the 
workstations’ desktop – and you work you session.
It’s very intuitive – apart from a few keyboard combos (ctrl-alt-del is on the 
thin client, so there’s a different combination to send that to the workstation)
You could use the thin client at any desk to log in to any equipped workstation 
– handy at times – chaotic when your team members end up all over the place.
The overhead on the workstation is pretty much zero. The added card handles the 
compression/communication – so you can push the workstation exactly as before.

there was hardware compression/decompression of all signals – so it meant 
adding a dedicated card in the workstation - all data (kb, mouse, usb as well 
as monitors) goes through network. afaik the screen refresh is done on the thin 
client – which reduces the amount of data to be sent (no screens full of 
pixels) but also makes sure that despite long cable length, image quality is 
high . (compared to all KVM extenders I ever saw)

To the very demanding artist there is a barely noticeable lag and some 
degradation – you can kind of make out the compression – but you do have to 
look for it. We decided on using the thin clients only for 3D artists, not for 
compositors. It would work for compositing most of the time, but when checking 
final images/shots, occasional little flicks or spots from the compression are 
disturbing. If you are the person who has 3 oversized monitors on his desk, and 
expects to have film quality visuals while modeling – this might not be for you.

image quality can suffer from network load – as compression adapts some – and 
at a few peak moments network was so taxed (not because of the thin clients) 
that connections between clients and stations were lost massively. That’s 
unfortunate and real disruptive – but once the load was balanced again you 
would just login and the workstation was right where you left off – preferable 
to crashes and shutdowns. But it’s something to be aware of - if you have a 
problematic network, thin clients will add to the frustration.

An added benefit was that there was much less heat generated and electricity 
used in the office rooms – in small cramped, badly ventilated and badly 
equipped offices that can be a tangible benefit. I have memories of humming 
workstations under desks, burning desklights and running ventilators everywhere 
(including on an opened workstation case which is a very bad idea) creating an 
unpleasant and unhealthy microclimate. The switch to thin clients was heavenly. 
As were LED desklights.

Hope it helps some.
It’s a big step – that you need to consider carefully with your supplier (ours 
was HP) – and ideally in a riskfree way, where you get the setup on test, with 
the option to return if unsatisfactory – because some consequences/constraints 
are unexpected and to a degree it’s a personal experience. I can very well see 
this working marvelously in one studio and being a total no-go in another.
Now, I’m not getting the financial angle – to me a thin client is an added cost 
– it would not replace any workstations or make them any less redundant. The 
idea of a thin client is that the heavy lifting is done elsewhere – 
workstation, server, on the cloud,...
If you mean using 

Re: Virtual Apps

[peter_b]

if you mean using a thin client on the desk, to connect to a remote workstation 
(in the server room) – then yes – have used this at a former studio.

overall it worked quite well.

on the thin client you would launch an app, on which you chose the workstation 
to login to and then a full screen window opens on which you see the 
workstations’ desktop – and you work you session.
It’s very intuitive – apart from a few keyboard combos (ctrl-alt-del is on the 
thin client, so there’s a different combination to send that to the workstation)
You could use the thin client at any desk to log in to any equipped workstation 
– handy at times – chaotic when your team members end up all over the place.
The overhead on the workstation is pretty much zero. The added card handles the 
compression/communication – so you can push the workstation exactly as before.

there was hardware compression/decompression of all signals – so it meant 
adding a dedicated card in the workstation - all data (kb, mouse, usb as well 
as monitors) goes through network. afaik the screen refresh is done on the thin 
client – which reduces the amount of data to be sent (no screens full of 
pixels) but also makes sure that despite long cable length, image quality is 
high . (compared to all KVM extenders I ever saw)

To the very demanding artist there is a barely noticeable lag and some 
degradation – you can kind of make out the compression – but you do have to 
look for it. We decided on using the thin clients only for 3D artists, not for 
compositors. It would work for compositing most of the time, but when checking 
final images/shots, occasional little flicks or spots from the compression are 
disturbing. If you are the person who has 3 oversized monitors on his desk, and 
expects to have film quality visuals while modeling – this might not be for you.

image quality can suffer from network load – as compression adapts some – and 
at a few peak moments network was so taxed (not because of the thin clients) 
that connections between clients and stations were lost massively. That’s 
unfortunate and real disruptive – but once the load was balanced again you 
would just login and the workstation was right where you left off – preferable 
to crashes and shutdowns. But it’s something to be aware of - if you have a 
problematic network, thin clients will add to the frustration.

An added benefit was that there was much less heat generated and electricity 
used in the office rooms – in small cramped, badly ventilated and badly 
equipped offices that can be a tangible benefit. I have memories of humming 
workstations under desks, burning desklights and running ventilators everywhere 
(including on an opened workstation case which is a very bad idea) creating an 
unpleasant and unhealthy microclimate. The switch to thin clients was heavenly. 
As were LED desklights.

Hope it helps some.
It’s a big step – that you need to consider carefully with your supplier (ours 
was HP) – and ideally in a riskfree way, where you get the setup on test, with 
the option to return if unsatisfactory – because some consequences/constraints 
are unexpected and to a degree it’s a personal experience. I can very well see 
this working marvelously in one studio and being a total no-go in another.
Now, I’m not getting the financial angle – to me a thin client is an added cost 
– it would not replace any workstations or make them any less redundant. The 
idea of a thin client is that the heavy lifting is done elsewhere – 
workstation, server, on the cloud,...
If you mean using a thin client (as in: a very low specced computer) instead of 
a workstation – that’s something else altogether.
Now, a thin client today might more powerful than a supercomputer of the past – 
so there might be cases where it would work.
But if you want to get bang for buck, I’d look elsewhere – as a thin client is 
not made to customize and beef up and ultimately to put decent specs in. I’d 
look at barebones rather.
From: Angus Davidson 
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 8:29 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Virtual Apps

Hi Folks

Has anyone had any experience using 3d apps like Softimage, Maya, Unity (for 
our games side) via a thin client. Most of the marketing stuff pretty much 
makes it look like Christmas in July, but is very thin on actual metrics. ie 
Latency, numbers of concurrent apps etc.

We are in a position where our currency is dropping against the dollar/euro a 
lot faster then we are allowed to raise fees. So in 2 years when our currently 
negotiated lease for our 100+ machines runs out, we are looking at the very 
real possibility of not been able to afford machines that are 3D capable 
themselves.

Oddly one of the few relatively untapped budgets is Major Capex (minimum $50 
000 - $250 000), which wont cover a computer but would cover something like a 
few  NVIDIA VCA's

Kind regards

Angus
This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. 

Re: GDC presentation: Guilty Gear Xrd and Softimage

[peter_b]

For the anime content he's showing on screen, there's really no reason to 
have as many tiles as shown if they all consist of the same dimensions and 
color.  A single tan tile, for example, consisting of only a few pixels in 
U and V will serve just as well and consume much less memory allowing 
saved
resources to be used for other purposes.  UVs can overlap the same physical 
space and reuse the edge for the ink line.  UV placement is independent of 
image resolution.


I guess that's exactly why they do it like this - to avoid overlaps.
They mentioned using texture based occlusion I think - so they would need 
non-overlapping UV's for that.






Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 21:44:13 -0700
From: Eugene Flormata eug...@flormata.com
Subject: Re: GDC presentation: Guilty Gear Xrd and Softimage
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

does anyone know a quick way to get poly island UVs to get that square
shape? without manually aligning the edges?
https://youtu.be/yhGjCzxJV3E?t=27m25s
this link has a timestamp to the UV example

On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 8:09 PM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote:


 Also related to the gator thread, he talked about using live Gator
operators to tweak normals on simpler arbitrary meshes that are transfered
to higher rez,

but one of the last questions was,

... my other question is weather  there are some key features in XSI that
you could only do in XSI with this game ?

I wouldn't want to do it in any other software, that is simply because you
can just go back to any sate, and continue fiddling with the model without
any redoing the skins, or redoing the UVs... it just keeps there and you
can keep working on it to the last minute...



On 05/29/15 20:12, Pierre Schiller wrote:

  Totally agree with Emilio Hernandez  Tenshi S.
 AD knew since the very beggining that SI was built with years ahead of
concepts and worflows. And every release was a pain to them
 that the least commercialized/advertised software was the one that got
the jobs out the door quicker and paid.
 Not so much with the other AD 3d package brothers do they do it now,
taking advantage of SI technology? well.. 2018 will tell..

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 1:16 PM, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:


I saw this a few days ago, and i was wondering why i still don't
understand EOL.
To hell with A.

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Sebastien Sterling 
sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote:


they used 2013 for this, and according to the guy this stuff could have
been implemented years ago. do people still use lightwave as an 
alternative

for this kind of shading ?

On 29 May 2015 at 15:56, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:


o_o

 Thats pretty impressive!

2015-05-29 16:54 GMT+02:00 Emilio Hern?ndez emi...@e-roja.com:


 Beside the amazing job, presentation and tech data.   I would like
to see the faces of the attendants showing all of this in an EOL 
software?




Thanks for sharing and again amazing job!



Long live Softimage. 

Re: Selecting Edge Loops in python script

[peter_b]

First time posting a question here in ... euh ... 10 years.


if silence is gold, you must have gathered a small fortune by now.



different needs will lead to different approaches altogether I think - so 
some more context would help:


does it have to be the actual edge loops or a curve on surface will do?
does it need to respect the 'hierarchy' of the tree, from base to branch to 
subbranch... all the way down to the tip?
does it have to be for just this one specific (static?) geometry or is it 
more generally speaking?
do you want to go between the two random points 'straight' - so basically 
creating an intersection between the surface and a plane defined by the two 
points (a third point or a direction or axis is needed to define a plane...) 
or more like bugs randomly crawling over the surface?

what do you want to use the curves for (modelling?)



-Original Message- 
From: David Raymond

Sent: Friday, June 05, 2015 7:54 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Selecting Edge Loops in python script

Hi !

First time posting a question here in ... euh ... 10 years. I have a
question for you guys. It is possibly not doable easily but I still have
to ask if by any chance someone out here knows.

I need to generate a large amount of curves branching from a random
location on a geometry to another random location of that same geometry.
The best way to visualize this is a curve starting from the base of a
tree extending all the way up to the tip of a random branch.
The manual and painful way to do this would be to select an edge of the
base, and alt-shift clic the destination edge of the tip of the branch
creating a edge selection from the base to the tip. And then extract the
curve.
Let say I have a hundred to make, this could become painful fast. Surely
there must be a way to do this in a python script.

Anyone have a idea ?

Thanks guys !

Dr. 

Re: dripping

[peter_b]

sounds like a task for polygonizer, if you can reconstruct the object with 
particles. 
(as in: it’s organic looking – ice cream would certainly work)

emit static particles from the object, get properties, such as color from the 
emitter
polygonize the particles into an approximation of the original object.

use triggers/states to make some outlying particles start to move, such as 
reacting to gravity, and sliding along surface.
to get outlying particles, test if they are in a volume - with a pushed version 
of the emitter

lots more can be done for sure – but that could be a basis 

where it gets tricky is proper collision with the melting object, and at some 
point it might be better to do the object as a liquid with lagoa, for internal 
pressure, viscosity and so – but I’d avoid going there if you can. (well – if 
it has to look creamy and blobby, you can get away with relatively few 
particles and it might no be so bad)


From: Chris Marshall 
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 2:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: dripping

ok thanks



On 18 May 2015 at 13:33, gareth bell garethb...@outlook.com wrote:


  Not sure if this is of any use or not. Might give you some ideas though

  http://caffeineabuse.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/water-condensation-using-ice.html



--
  Date: Mon, 18 May 2015 13:26:22 +0100
  Subject: dripping
  From: chrismarshal...@gmail.com
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 



  Hi

  I'm trying to create an effect of an object dripping, as if melting. So 
imagine an icecream cone with dripping around the edge. I thought I might be 
able to get Lagoa to do this, but haven't got very far. Any thoughts?


  Thanks

  Chris


  -- 

  Chris Marshall

  Mint Motion Limited
  029 20 37 27 57
  07730 533 115
  www.mintmotion.co.uk

  www.dot3d.com






-- 

Chris Marshall

Mint Motion Limited
029 20 37 27 57
07730 533 115
www.mintmotion.co.uk

www.dot3d.com

Re: Friday Flashback #223

[peter_b]

thanks, you guys make me feel so young again
From: Softimage 
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2015 8:55 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #223

Lol, you've got a little bit on me! Spaceward Supernova/Rodin backend of the 
80's and then Symbolics, Poweranimator, didn't touch Soft till mid 90's, can't 
remember the number, possibly 3.0 or just before!




On 9 May 2015, at 01:56, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net wrote:


  LOL...I meant Softimage 3D 1.0 (actually version 2.1, I believe) back in 
1987...prior to XSI 1.0 in 2000

  On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 7:48 PM, Softimage lp3ds...@gmail.com wrote:

I was 1.0 as well but realistically I was going back and forth between XSI 
and Soft a lot till 1.5!





On 8 May 2015, at 22:42, Stephen Davidson magic...@bellsouth.net wrote:


  Am I the only one here, left, that started with 1.0? 
  I think Joey did too, but I'm not sure.



  On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com 
wrote:

Yeah I started on 4.0 / 4.2...  was wondering when Stephen was going to 
get to this release. :)


Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Sven Constable 
sixsi_l...@imagefront.de wrote:

  especially since it was the first really 'production ready' version, 
wasn't it? Remembering two presentations (I think it was v1.0 (lol) and 3.0) 
And on the v3 presentation I thnk their claim was it's now 'production ready'. 
Well, I don't think it was it entirely but with version 4 they definetly got  
it.

  sven

  -Original Message-
  From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Alen
  Sent: Friday, May 08, 2015 5:00 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: Friday Flashback #223


  ah..my landing year on XSI ship. good times

  On 5/8/2015 3:46 PM, Stephen Blair wrote:
   i am 4.
   customization • speed • options • power • thought • imagination •
   integration
   SOFTIMAGE|XSI version 4.0 launch 04.19.2004
  
   http://wp.me/powV4-3cW








  -- 


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

  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic


   - Arthur C. Clarke








  -- 


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

  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

   
- Arthur C. Clarke

Re: unable to change reference model path

[peter_b]

did you try making the top model local? 
I’d say changing the paths of the nested models would be considered as a change 
in the top reference model – and perhaps one that is not accounted for or 
disallowed in it’s deltas perhaps?


From: Simon van de Lagemaat 
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 10:04 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: unable to change reference model path

We've got a weird issue with some nested models (yes they are bad I know).  I 
am unable to change the reference model path of a bunch of ref models that were 
embedded under another ref model.  Manually changing the path in the scene 
simply snaps back to the original path and also result in instability and will 
crash.  Changing the toc simply results in crashing on load. 

I'm banging my head on a wall at this point, I've deleted any deltas in those 
models and still no luck.

Re: volumetric particle render - with motion blur

[peter_b]

you might be a smarter cookie than I am (it’s likely even) – but as far as I 
know motion blur does NOT work on volumetric particles.
What does work with the particle volume shader, is aligning the particles along 
their velocity, and making them soft streaks which is going to give you 
something very similar to motion blur. You have to dig into the compound for 
this - I think it’s all in the particle shaper. Might that be what you had in 
mind?

From: Andi Farhall 
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 12:34 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: volumetric particle render - with motion blur

Hi chaps, 

it's been ages (years) since I've used mental ray, but I clearly remember 
rendering ice particles with the mental ray volume renderer and motion blur. It 
was very slow but it worked. 

Now I have to do something similar again, I can't for the life of me get it to 
work, the cloud is cached and motion blur works as expected with a phong but 
not a volume render. MB set to end on frame.  The camera is static. Anybody 
remember a specific hoop that needs to be jumped through?


cheers,

Andi 

...

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 
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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.

Re: Hypershade changes in Maya 2016

[peter_b]

 From: Sylvain Lebeau 
 You’ve never heard about a company blending 2 softwares togheter because 
 there was no existing one that needed to do so. Ever! Pretty normal.

What is Maya but the blending together of Alias Poweranimator and Wavefront 
Explore, with a sauce of Softimage 3D on top for good measure?
It can be done: two companies merging into one and merging their comparable 
products into one – sounds like a logical outcome. And it worked, because their 
merged software became a stronger contender from the very start, out of the 
heritage of it’s predecessors.

But that wasn’t under Autodesk of course. If AD had acquired Alias and 
Wavefront, Maya would have never existed, Poweranimator would have been killed 
off, and we’d have HyperExplore 2016 Platinum Subscription, with none of the 
different modules compatible between them.

Re: OT: I just had a brief with 4 of these in there :)

[peter_b]

 OT: I just had a brief with 4 of these in there :)

but will you do the ‘job’?
starving artists/studios are at least partly in fault, because they do accept 
to work for no pay.
the cunning ‘producer’ knows this and seeks it out.

might have a few to add to the list soon – the word isn’t out yet.



From: Gerbrand Nel 
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2015 10:04 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: OT: I just had a brief with 4 of these in there :)

 

Re: very slow skip frame

[peter_b]

“overrides from partitions had biggest performance gain so far”.

ok, so if you put all objects in a partition and put a default phong material 
on the partition (rendering everything as grey phong, no textures, no 
displacement...) – does it become really fast (or normal speed)? 


there are different ways to use overrides on partitions, and they have some 
caveats/consequences.

if you add an override material on a partition, you are replacing the 
material/s of the object/s completely with this material. it comes at very 
little performance cost – use at will, but keep in mind that if objects have 
displacement for instance you are loosing that too.

if you put an override on say the surface port, and plug something in there, 
something quite different is going on – if you look at the material, you will 
see that a new branch replaces what was in the surface port, while keeping 
everything on all other ports. (great, you get to keep the displacement and 
so). But this has some important consequences for performance. The way this is 
handled is that for every affected material, a duplicate is made, which is 
modified. (you can see this in the explorer if you look at the material 
libraries). if there is one object in the partition it hardly matters. If you 
have thousands of objects though, each with their own material, this can 
seriously slow down scene interaction and rendering.
And you can do more than one thing in an override: override various ports on 
various shaders, override parameters, add properties, all at the same time – 
which complicates things even more. I’ve seen production scenes increase up to 
30 fold in size when breaking out passes - switching passes in the interface 
would take up to 30 minutes! It was faster just to kill the scene, edit the TOC 
to switch to another pass and reopen the scene – which in itself was fairly 
slow as well.
We spent some time on the rendering pipeline to do things another way, and 
avoid some of the pitfalls of overrides – and it made a huge difference in 
performance as well as the daily life of the artists.
If your scene is really pushing the hardware’s capabilities as it is, and you 
add fancy overrides – you can make the scene unmanageable.

Without going in too much detail – if you can nail it down to the overrides 
being the cause for slowdown – perhaps you can approach them differently, and 
get the result you’re after, with less of a performance hit.


Now I come to think of it – there are different ways to render passes.
One way is to render one pass completely, then switch to the next pass and so 
on.
Another is to render the one frame for all passes, then the next frame for all 
passes and so on. This approach can be very ineffective and cause considerable 
slowdown or become unstable with complex scenes and overrides.
Say it takes a minute to switch passes, and you have ten of them. If you render 
with skip frames that way, it would take 10 minutes per frame, to render 
nothing at all - and many machines on the farm could be doing it at the same 
time.

A render manager should avoid all of this, by telling the machines which frames 
to render - so they don’t need to verify it themselves using skip frames – as 
well as avoiding switching passes – for instance by sending each pass as a 
separate job – and giving priority to the machine/s already working on a 
certain pass, to continue on it.



From: Ales Dlabac 
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2015 9:16 AM
To: softimage 
Subject: Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame

Yes you are right with difference between viewport skip and render skip what we 
are dealing with is the rendering skip.


it's is happening on renderfarm and as well as in local GUI session. There's no 
simulation just non simulated ice tree, our findings so far showing us that if 
we delete part of the scene objects than it will gain some speed back but 
doesn't matter which part.

In other words there isn't particular object which is causing the slowdown only 
amount of objects. We are using Arnold and we tried to replace some geometry 
with ass standins, this helped a little. We also suspected udims textures from 
confusing XSI as not existing texture paths but with no luck.
Regarding network traffic overload even if we removed all external resources 
like textures from scene it didn't help. Removing overrides from partitions had 
biggest performance gain so far. We keep searching.









On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 1:37 PM, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

  just a few stabs in the dark:

  is this on renderfarm / using a rendermanager?

  is there any simulations (not just ice, also syflex...) ? 
  if so, any chance that the caches aren’t working and it’s simulating – on 
each machine?
  lot’s of huge textures or other data from a shared server that isn’t up to 
the task?
  how is the pre-render time?

  there is a big difference between skipping frames in the viewport and 
skipping frames while rendering – which is: rendering. so any render 

Re: Fwd: very slow skip frame

[peter_b]

just a few stabs in the dark:

is this on renderfarm / using a rendermanager?

is there any simulations (not just ice, also syflex...) ? 
if so, any chance that the caches aren’t working and it’s simulating – on each 
machine?
lot’s of huge textures or other data from a shared server that isn’t up to the 
task?
how is the pre-render time?

there is a big difference between skipping frames in the viewport and skipping 
frames while rendering – which is: rendering. so any render related slowness 
could be misinterpreted as frame skipping slowness?

when rendering with skip frames, machines have to verify if each frame exists, 
or at least the placeholder 10kb file – normally that’s not a big deal but with 
heavy load on server (many people doing 3d, compositing, with textures and 
caches on the same server) things that are usually fast can become a hindrance 
– such as finding a 10kb file while someone else is copypasting 2TB of data. a 
rendermanager on a separate server than the fileserver(s) can help in 
distributing the rendertasks without needing to verify if data exists on the 
server
...


From: Ales Dlabac 
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 11:11 AM
To: softimage 
Subject: Fwd: very slow skip frame





Hi,


we are experiencing huge slowdown when we have active frame skip in render 
pass. Normally in simple scene frame skip occurs immediately but for unknown 
reason our specific scenes takes up to10mins to skip one existing frame. If you 
play the scene frame changes almost immediately, there is not any slow cache 
reading or similar thing.


Have anybody idea what it can be?


Thank you.


AD

Re: Retro reflective Materials?

[peter_b]

perhaps not very helpful, but have you tried plugging the incidence into a 
mixer_gradient?
experiment with the different types of incidence - there's a 360 degree 
incidence based on light - in combination with the gradient you get more 
control than from a simple incidence.



also - there is more to it than just the shader - sometimes you need to 
mimic/simulate how the real thing works to get a good result in CGI - can be 
a combination of modeling, materials, lighting - working with different 
layers of objects


some interesting bits of real world info on how reflectors work here:
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-12/977675178.Es.r.html

... All eyes reflect light well because the path for light always works in 
both directions. In other words, if incoming light is focused by the cat's 
cornea lens and forms a tiny bright spot on the retina... then that tiny 
bright spot can send light out through the cornea-lens, and beam it back to 
the original source. If you shine light at a cat, ONLY YOU will see the 
glowing eyes, since the cat's eyes are beaming the reflected light back 
towards the flashlight (and you are seeing some spill-light). People 
standing nearby might not see the glow at all. All eyes will glow like 
this. However certain animals' eyes glow very brightly because their retina 
has a reflective layer called the tapetum. (The tapetum improves their night 
vision by doubling the amount of light that hits retinal cells, and by 
getting rid of diffuse light inside the eye by throwing it back out through 
the pupil so bright moonlight won't cause glary washed-out nightime images.)
To REALLY make cats' eyes glow brightly, hold the flashlight near your face 
(or clamp it in your mouth) and gaze past it into the distance.
Human eyes do the same as cats, and that's where red-eye in flash 
photographs comes from. The eyes send the light from the camera flash back 
towards the camera. To get rid of red-eye, move the camera flash far from 
the camera lens. Tiny cameras create red-eye because the photoflash is too 
close to the camera lens, and the camera sees the light that the eyes are 
beaming back to the flash tube.
Very old railroad reflectors used cats eye reflectors in the form of glass 
lenses with a curved mirror in place of the retina. If you ever find an 
old ball of red glass by the side of the road that has silver on one side, 
it's an ancient cats eye safety reflector.
Road reflectors on a bike are based on something entirely different. If you 
place two mirrors together at a 90deg angle, then all incoming light will 
bounce twice and then retrace approximately the same path on its way out. 
(Try it, and you'll find that the reflection that you see in the mirror-pair 
is NOT REVERSED as it is in a single mirror!) And if you put THREE mirrors 
together and look into the corner of them, you'll see an upside- down, 
unreversed image of your face. And no matter how you twist the mirrors or 
move your head, the image of your face will stay in the same spot. This 
device is called a CORNER-CUBE REFLECTOR. It returns incoming light back to 
its source.
Bicycle reflectors are composed of hundreds of tiny Corner Cube reflectors 
formed into the plastic. (Call this device a Corner-Cube Array.) When you 
look at a bicycle reflector close up, notice that it looks black. The black 
color is actually the upside- down image of your eye's dark pupil! If the 
reflector facets were lots bigger, you'd see an image of your eye within 
each one. Gaze at the reflector while slowly moving the edge of a white 
piece of paper across your eye, and just before it blocks your vision, 
you'll see small white bits appear in the facets of the bicycle reflector.
If you take apart a bicycle reflector, you'll find that the faceted back of 
the plastic is NOT a metal-coated mirror. In fact, if it was metallized, it 
would only reflect about 80% of the light; same as normal mirrors. Without 
the metal, it reflects 100% of the light. This strange phenomenon occurs 
because the light is INSIDE THE PLASTIC when it strikes the tilted facets, 
and the 100% reflection is known as Total Internal Reflection. When light 
within a transparent material strikes the inner surface of that material at 
a glancing angle, it reflects totally. Total Internal Reflection causes the 
surface of water to look silver when viewed from underwater. It causes the 
bottom of a glass cup to look silver except where you touch it with wet 
fingers. (Try searching the www using keywords total internal reflection.) 
(Try dipping a bicycle reflector into an aquarium or other flat, water- 
filled container. Will it still reflect? Or will it become transparent?)
Optical fibers are just reflective tubes. Shine light down the tube, and it 
keeps going because it bounces from the walls. But if you've ever looked at 
optical fibers, you'll notice that they are NOT METALLIZED like a mirror, 
they have no silvery coating. They look like transparent 

Re: testing

[peter_b]

yep

From: Alok Gandhi 
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 8:26 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: testing

Anyone got this?


-- 

Re: ICE emit particles and follow branching geometry

[peter_b]

I hope the image gets through.
this is what I get with closest location on group of curves, and combining the 
pointtangent as a force, as well as a force pulling towards the closest 
position – in order not to stray too far from the curve.
particles get emitted from the curves in the center, and you see that here they 
follow the curves more closely, further out it does get more fuzzy – but they 
do follow the curves and they do branch automatically. 
I can see how this might not be precise enough compared to flow along curve.






From: Rob Chapman 
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 5:52 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: ICE emit particles and follow branching geometry

closest location does not cut it when different curves overlap.  you will have 
to build a system using a unique curve ID and translate along each curve ID's 
using curve u instead. 

at least this way you could gracefully hand over particles between curves as it 
reaches the end of each segment.

On 19 March 2015 at 16:42, Dave Sisk d...@janimation.com wrote:

  Thanks for the responses guys. 

  I've continued with my brute force method for now because it gets the job 
done. It involves several Select Case nodes with 29 cases each though, so you 
can imagine why I was reluctant to string that up. :)

  I've tried the suggested approach, but I usually get a jump to the same curve 
over and over again when they overlap instead of continuing along their first 
curve.




  On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 11:33 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com 
wrote:

Huh... works actually. I remember this not working before...  carry on 
never mind.

Eric T. 


On 3/19/2015 12:25 PM, Eric Thivierge wrote:

  Closest location doesn't work with curves fed in with a group. It always 
uses the first one.

  Eric T.

  On 3/19/2015 12:23 PM, Grahame Fuller wrote:

Greg, any details about not getting it to work on curves? As far as I 
know, it should.

gray

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 12:02 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: ICE emit particles and follow branching geometry

Your best bet is to create a mesh from those curves and transfer the 
curve's tangent onto the mesh as a vector attribute.

Emit from the curve but use the geo's attribute to set the direction. 
How Paul Smith's hair grooming stuff works essentially.

Using a group of curves or even doing one curve at a time won't get a 
nice smooth result I don't think. You'll probably get popping.

Eric T.
On 3/19/2015 11:48 AM, Greg Punchatz wrote:
Dave has got something worked out, but its not ideal.  He cannot get a 
group of curves to work, and is wiring up each one in by hand in the ICE tree.

What he wants to do is emit an objects from one end of a curve and the 
have it follow the curve to the end.. but he wants to do this to a group of 
curves.  He can make it work one curve at a time fine, he can wire the 
bizzilion curves up by hand but its not ideal.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 9:50 AM, 
pete...@skynet.bemailto:pete...@skynet.be wrote:
I think you can get the closest point on a group of curves,
get the point-tangent from there and use that (vector) as a force,
combine to taste with turbulence, and perhaps a force pulling towards 
the curve (vector from point to closest point) for extra control.

adding/removing curves to the group is all you’d need to do to add them 
to the simulation.
hope this helps.



From: Dave Siskmailto:d...@janimation.com
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 3:27 PM
To: 
softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: ICE emit particles and follow branching geometry

Hi, I'm trying to create an effect with particles flowing from one 
several ends of branching geometry to another of several ends on the same 
geometry.

Right now I'm working with Flow Along Curve and a bunch of 
partially-overlapping curves that go from one end to the other, but since ICE 
is pretty limited in what you can plug a geometry port into, I'm running into a 
LOT of duplication that makes adding or removing curves a labor intensive 
process.

Is there another approach to this I should be trying?

Thanks,
Dave Sisk

Re: baVolume fog pass with sprites

[peter_b]

I think Rob is right on this one - replacing the sprite shader with a 
constant should work (crank up the raydepth!) and should not affect the look 
of the volume


the reason this happens is that the sprite shader is a bit of a hack: it 
resets the raycount when a ray enters it - so you get proper transparency 
for endless overlapping sprites without having to increase the raydepth - 
but it can create problems such as this one where volumes don’t work well 
with the sprite shader.



-Original Message- 
From: adrian wyer

Sent: Friday, March 13, 2015 4:54 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: baVolume fog pass with sprites

sprite shader on rectangle particles, using original people alphas as
cutouts

works fine in beauty, but not as hold out with the volume

tried different volume shaders (basic fog and such) get the same incorrect
render... put it down to something the sprite shader is doing with
transparency rays

in then end i will live without the people in the volume pass, as the final
comp is degraded to look like a 1940 bw photo

a

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Rob Chapman
Sent: 13 March 2015 15:22
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: baVolume fog pass with sprites

oof. which shaders you tried for the sprites?  constant shader, sprite
or card/opacity .?


1 of them should work. if you are using physical light or sky for
rendering you may have to crank up some values in the sprite shader to
10k
to get them to work as it should

On 13 March 2015 at 14:50, adrian wyer adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com
wrote:

hi guys, trying to render a non homogenous fog pass for a shot, that has
sprite shader cut outs of people on particle cards



getting a very odd render result where the people are lighter than the
surrounding fog!



anyone seen this and found a solution?



ideally don't want a solution that changes the RGB as the client has

signed

it off!



thanks



a





Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
75-77 Margaret St.
London
W1W 8SY
++44(0) 207 580 0829


adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com

www.fluid-pictures.com



Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales.
Company number:5657815
VAT number: 872 6893 71

Re: Check this!

[peter_b]

Hey David
your mail is almost indistinguishable from spam.
I was about to write you to say that your email account was likely hacked 
:-).


so to our fellow listers - it is really worth a watch - saying too much 
would spoil it.




-Original Message- 
From: David Saber

Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2015 4:21 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Check this!

Hi everyone, check this video it's incredible!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiX5d3rC6o 

Re: Excellent Recent Gems

[peter_b]

you got a link or something? I wanna buy what they are using.

From: olivier jeannel 
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2015 7:05 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Excellent Recent Gems

That's the program they use, Softifromage or something like that if I 
remember ;)


Le 03/02/2015 18:21, Jordi Bares Dominguez a écrit :

  Great piece, quite amazing such a small team can pull such a big project all 
on their own.

  jb

On 3 Feb 2015, at 16:48, Paulo Cesar Duarte paulocdua...@gmail.com wrote:

Amazing work, all Softimage. 

http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/le-gouffre/


2015-02-03 11:01 GMT-02:00 Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com:


Pretty inspiring peice by 3 guys with a small budget, 
and seemingly as much audacity, creativity and determination at 
overcoming obstacles as the characters portrayed :)

Le Gouffre 
 http://vimeo.com/118471437

 The Journey behind...
 http://vimeo.com/118472904

 http://www.legouffre.com/en/

   Mail Attachment.jpeg











-- 

paulo-duarte.com

Re: Modo Sale again 40% off

[peter_b]

I remember iTunes disabling all optical drives in the registry upon 
installation on windows.
it was a well known/documented issue – that’s the last time I let anything from 
Apple on my computer.

Apple is evil.
(just to put things in perspective, I pretty much grew up with Apple computers 
in the house since the 80s)

From: Angus Davidson 
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 4:29 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: RE: Modo Sale again 40% off

Thats odd 

We run a mixed Mac and Windows network over 100 machines and we have never had 
an issue.  Can you remember which apps they were?





From: Rob Wuijster [r...@casema.nl]
Sent: 17 December 2014 05:12 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Modo Sale again 40% off


Don't really recall the exact reason, but I had to uninstall Bonjour to get 
some apps working again.
It interfered somehow with the existing network stacks, creating all kinds of 
issues.

But then again, most of the Apple stuff on Windows does ;-P

Rob

\/-\/\/On 17-12-2014 15:59, Angus Davidson wrote:

  Curious as why that is an issue. At best its built into Mac OS and at worse 
its a very small download and install for windows. 


--

  From: Francois Lord [flordli...@gmail.com]
  Sent: 17 December 2014 04:46 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: Modo Sale again 40% off


  Can anyone confirm that Modo801 can be installed without Bonjour? 

  This was a big downer for us when we bought 701. Good thing we only paid half 
price for it.


  On 17-Dec-14 05:25, Simon Reeves wrote:

Not sure anyone has mentioned it so just incase people aren't aware 

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/

Cheers


Simon Reeves
London, UK

si...@simonreeves.com
www.simonreeves.com
www.analogstudio.co.uk



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and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be 
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University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the 
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This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If 
you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and 
destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this 
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and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be 
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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: Modo Sale again 40% off

[peter_b]

can’t see how Apple could possibly need that – this market is much too small 
(+professional, specialized and difficult) to offer anything to a giant such as 
Apple. They need an ‘app’ they can sell in the millions, and that runs on 
phones and tablets, and doesn’t require any thinking by the user.
Now a very simple effects-for-home-videos app – an AfterFX extra-light. Perhaps.
From: Jason S 
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 9:31 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Modo Sale again 40% off

Maybe Apple is gonna buy Nuke because it really really needs it.

On 12/17/14 14:07, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

  I remember iTunes disabling all optical drives in the registry upon 
installation on windows.
  it was a well known/documented issue – that’s the last time I let anything 
from Apple on my computer.

  Apple is evil.
  (just to put things in perspective, I pretty much grew up with Apple 
computers in the house since the 80s)

  From: Angus Davidson 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 4:29 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: RE: Modo Sale again 40% off

  Thats odd 

  We run a mixed Mac and Windows network over 100 machines and we have never 
had an issue.  Can you remember which apps they were?



--

  From: Rob Wuijster [r...@casema.nl]
  Sent: 17 December 2014 05:12 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: Modo Sale again 40% off


  Don't really recall the exact reason, but I had to uninstall Bonjour to get 
some apps working again.
  It interfered somehow with the existing network stacks, creating all kinds of 
issues.

  But then again, most of the Apple stuff on Windows does ;-P

Rob

\/-\/\/On 17-12-2014 15:59, Angus Davidson wrote:

Curious as why that is an issue. At best its built into Mac OS and at worse 
its a very small download and install for windows. 




From: Francois Lord [flordli...@gmail.com]
Sent: 17 December 2014 04:46 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Modo Sale again 40% off


Can anyone confirm that Modo801 can be installed without Bonjour? 

This was a big downer for us when we bought 701. Good thing we only paid 
half price for it.


On 17-Dec-14 05:25, Simon Reeves wrote:

  Not sure anyone has mentioned it so just incase people aren't aware 

  http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/

  Cheers


  Simon Reeves
  London, UK

  si...@simonreeves.com
  www.simonreeves.com
  www.analogstudio.co.uk



No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2015.0.5577 / Virus Database: 4253/8751 - Release Date: 12/17/14

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



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

Re: Export to STL with textures?

[peter_b]

Looking good there!

so obj + mtl + jpg and edit the path in the mtl works - good to know!


-Original Message- 
From: David Saber 
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2014 2:29 AM 
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Export to STL with textures? 


Thanks Olivier for the help.
After some tests I was able to print the object with textures! I have 
written a short method in my blog, perhaps it can help others trying to 
print with textures:

http://www.dreamcraftdigital.com/3dprintingmyfrog/
David

On 2014-11-23 20:36, olivier jeannel wrote:

Hey David,
Obj should export one set of UVs. Not so sure the texture (picture) 
will be correctly included or referenced.

At best it comes with a Lambert or Phong wit diffuse color and specular.

Re: realistic hair shading SI-MR

[peter_b]

Thanks Matt -
interesting - I've come across a custom hair normals shader that was giving 
a better, more tube or cone feel - that gave some more presence to the 
hairs. (More so at close up) - and in my understanding the flat vs 
cylindrical normals was the explanation. But I stand corrected.
Still I've found the crosswise gradient as a bump useful on hair (and grass) 
to give them a less flat feel.


You're very right of course that flat ribbon is much more geometry efficient 
than cylinder - with all the memory advantages - but when 3Delight renders 
those beautiful hair 'tubes' without any geometric artifacts, much more 
convincing looking and much faster and at a fraction of the memory 
overhead - it's hard to complement MR on its very efficient choice of the 
flat ribbon. (apples and oranges, I know)


Yes, I did my own digging in rendersettings for hair on Barnyard. Having a 
screenful of unique characters, each with several patches of hair, with 
wildly different styles and requirements, 8 years ago, on MR, with 
requirement for a plethora of lights in the scene, all of them with 
(soft)shadows. The default settings fall down quick, as in: results not good 
enough plus too slow, but there is a lot to be got out MR in that respect 
yet. (which was the main reason for my reply to OP) I recall rasterizer and 
shadowmaps as two main ones for making it look better (also filtering and 
sampling ofcourse) - and then all those little parameters to get the 
rendertimes down. BSP, raydepth, and careful use of partitions and 
visibility settings!
And from that production (and others after) I've never had the feeling of 
hair being a real bottleneck for lighting. Particles and effects much more 
so in those pre-pre-ICE days.


Cheers

-Original Message- 
From: Matt Lind

Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2014 2:03 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: realistic hair shading SI-MR

@Peter

MR hair geometry is flat ribbon, but the normal is computed from a virtual
cylinder like a normal map with full control over shaft radius and taper
along the length.  For most practical purposes it should create the desired
look.  Using the utility shaders (math/lookup nodes) available in the
rendertree, you can read hair UV coords and surface normal yourself if you
want to shade them differently than the provided hair shaders.  Mental ray
stores hair information in the state which can be accessed by any shader
which cares to dig into that information.

The reason for flat ribbon is to allow hair to be represented as physical
geometry which can be styled and groomed, respond to dynamics, and use
material/texture shaders for shading while keeping memory consumption
low/reasonable (representing hair as geometry is hugely expensive).  Mental
ray does offer true cylinder hair, but to get cylinder hair would require
the hair shader to be implemented as a volume shader (which would have it's
own set of issues).  I believe that was how the original softimage hair
shader from 10 years ago was implemented.  It rendered hair convincingly for
the basics such as highlights, but most people didn't like it because as a
volume shader it did not permit styling and grooming (or at least not much
control over it), and rendered quite slow with frequent crashing as mental
ray volumes can be a bit finicky.

I experimented with hair rendering in mental ray for Barnyard all those
years ago.  From a purely technical point of view, writing shaders for hair
isn't too hard - it's just standard material/texture shader with additional
metadata for the hair.  The key to getting results is being smart with your
render settings.  You must be stringent on ray depth, recursion, shadow
type, memory limits, and so on.  Setting them too generously will make your
render times go through the roof as you're telling mental ray to wander and
find things to do which probably aren't necessary.  the default render
settings in Softimage are probably too generous for hair.


Matt

Re: Reddit Thread with Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, on 3D printers...

[peter_b]

not those specifically I thought – all the autodesk policy bashing questions 
really.

I like to see an AD responsible person grilled just as much as the next person 
– but as this was supposed to be about 3D printers and the future of making 
things, so most of it was way OT. It’s kind of comforting to see that users in 
other industries have it real bad too. (which doesn’t make SI come back 
ofcourse)

From: Alan Fregtman 
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2014 8:56 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Reddit Thread with Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, on 3D printers...

lol, he avoided the Softimage questions like the plague.



On Fri Dec 05 2014 at 06:15:21 Simon Reeves si...@simonreeves.com wrote:

  interesting  !



  Simon Reeves
  London, UK

  si...@simonreeves.com
  www.simonreeves.com
  www.analogstudio.co.uk


  On 5 December 2014 at 00:56, Eric Turman i.anima...@gmail.com wrote:


http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2oaei2/carl_bass_here_ceo_of_autodesk_designer/


Looks to be a currently active thread.

Of course there are comments about Softimage, Max, and Maya; some humorous 
ones if you skim.


-- 





-=T=-

Re: realistic hair shading SI-MR

[peter_b]

well, if it's a financial issue - get 3delight. You can use it for free with 
some number-of-cores limitation, that still makes it awesome at a lot of 
things were MR isnt. Hair in particular being one of those.



For me, a huge issue with hair in XSI/MR is the normals. The hair primitive 
is done as a flat ribbon, for decent light interaction it should be a 
cylinder. (which is what 3delight does - or is it a cone? anyway not a flat 
ribbon)
You can have cylinder like normals with a custom shader (if you write it 
yourself it's 'free', if you have someone write it for you this could end up 
more expensive that a renderlicense - so that's not very feasible).


You can make things a bit better (just a bit) with a gradient on the hair 
(black white black - crosswise) as a bump. This will give you somewhat 
better normals. But you will need very decent sampling for this to really 
matter - and decent sampling with hair in MR is going to be painful.
There's a couple of (out of the box) things that can improve hair rendering 
in MR - shadowmapped lights and  the rasterizer in particular jump to mind. 
But don’t expect miracles either.

...


-Original Message- 
From: Leendert A. Hartog

Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2014 1:16 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: realistic hair shading SI-MR

Okay, this was intended as a thread with a serious question about hair
shading in MR,
but it's turned into a Redshift infomercial. ;)
If I had the funds at my disposal, I already would have bought it.
Ah, well, a bald human head definitely is an artistic statement too.

Greetz
Leendert

--

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

Re: ICE: Speed, Velocity and circular motion

[peter_b]

This is normal behaviour.
the pointtangent is not giving a circular force/vector (that doesn’t exist) – 
it’s a straight vector, that is tangent to the circle. So at each simulation 
step, the particle gets moved a bit, away from the circle in a tangent 
direction. At the next step it gets the new tangent vector, which pulls it 
largely back in line and makes it move “roughly” in the circle.

Depending on the speed and the amount of steps in the simulation, the particle 
will describe the circle very precisely (and thus pretty much staying on it) or 
less precisely (and thus each time getting off the circle and ending up 
describing a larger circle.)
With a slow speed it’s a non-issue. With a higher speed you can try more steps 
in the simulation.

But you’re probably better off adding a force pulling towards the center of the 
circle to compensate for the radius getting larger. (vector between self 
pointposition and the center of the circle, multiply it by scalar and add to 
the pointtangent and then set velocity)
now tweak the scalar in “multiply by scalar” to find the amount needed to 
remain on the circle exactly.

From: gareth bell 
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2014 3:42 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: ICE: Speed, Velocity and circular motion

Hi guys,

Having an issue getting my head around this. 

I think I want to use the formula for circular motion on this one. 

I've got some particles moving around in a circular motion with their velocity 
determined by a circular curve. Using circleclosest locationpointtangentset 
velocity.

This works great however it's not moving the buggers fast enough. 

if I multiply it by a scalar it speeds up but the circle radius increases which 
is correct according to the maths, however, I don;t want this to happen. I want 
to keep closely to the circle radius but simple speed up the particles moving 
around it.

Any ideas?

G

Re: Export to STL with textures?

[peter_b]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_%28file_format%29

 ... STL files describe only the surface geometry of a three-dimensional 
object without any representation of color, texture or other common CAD 
model attributes ... 



-Original Message- 
From: David Saber

Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2014 5:25 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Export to STL with textures?

hi!
I'm trying to create an STL file from a Softimage model that has targa
textures.
I've tried :
Soft  export to STL via the plugin  import to Meshlab  textures don't
show up
Soft  export to OBJ  import to Meshlab  error message saying failure
loading textures
Soft  export to Collada  import to Meshlab  error message saying
failure loading textures
What's the matter? is it Meshlab not reading targas? Or is there a trick
I should know to export textures from Soft?
Thanks,
David 

Re: UV projection by raycasting from geo?

[peter_b]

SignatureGator?

From: Tim Crowson 
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 4:11 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: UV projection by raycasting from geo?

Is it possible to create a UV projection similar to a camera projection, but 
using geometry as the projector instead? I have a deforming surface with 
another deforming surface above it, and I'd like to use one mesh to project UVs 
onto the other...

-- 

 -Tim Crowson

Re: UV projection by raycasting from geo?

[peter_b]

SignatureGator as in my previous, retardedly short mail – or ICE of course! 
(get closest location – get data UV – set data)

From: Tim Crowson 
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2014 4:11 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: UV projection by raycasting from geo?

Is it possible to create a UV projection similar to a camera projection, but 
using geometry as the projector instead? I have a deforming surface with 
another deforming surface above it, and I'd like to use one mesh to project UVs 
onto the other...

-- 

 -Tim Crowson

Re: external material libraries.....

[peter_b]

well, that’s what you end up doing – everything is built into the model – 
reference it in scenes and add animation on it and override materials/shaders 
through the passes system. And it works fine.

but it would be interesting to have materials seperated, as a reference 
library– eg, one eye shader, one leather, one metal shader, one wood... for all 
assets across a production, and tweak those in a master scene. Switch the 
renderer? Just go to the master scene, drop in the renderer specific shaders, 
export the library – all assets are updated automagically on scene load. In 
theory it could work like this, but in practice it’s just not reliable to be 
any use.

From: Ognjen Vukovic 
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2014 3:06 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: external material libraries.

I assume when working withn ref. models you should plan on having everything 
locked more or less... so baisicly to set your rig up in the model with 
finalized shaders and then move foreward, and avoid having to change anything 
latter on, names and such should be frozen in the modeling phaze, shader 
paramters can be changed this way in the model and it will propagate to your 
scenea. the rest you can manipulate with overides to avoid breaking anything..

On Friday, September 19, 2014, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote:

  Too bad, but it's good that it's in great contrast with the rest of the 
referencing system :]

  On Friday, September 19, 2014 17:12:28, Matt Lind wrote:

No.

We've found trivial things such as renaming any object using a material 
from the referenced material library can cause all referenced materials to lose 
their assignments.  Adding/removing an object from a referenced model using the 
referenced material library can trigger it too.

In short, the system is too fragile to be of use in it's current state.  If 
the bugs were fixed, it could be really useful.


Matt




-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Jason S
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 1:45 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: external material libraries.


I recall exporting an .xsi with a bunch of materials, importing it as a 
reference model, and assigning materials from that, but it wouldn't stay 
referenced.

Even if end functionality is a bit sketchy, is there a specific process to 
make it work?
cheers

On Thursday, September 18, 2014 13:30:51, Ognjen Vukovic wrote:

  I reckon its safer to import them through referenced models.

  On Thursday, September 18, 2014, Paul Griswold
  pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com
  mailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote:

   Holy cow, talk about deja vu!

   I was up until 2:30 am dealing with the same issue.

   Are you using Mental Ray or something else?

   I'm using Redshift on this project.  The only solution that
   managed to work was to merge the dysfunctional scene into a new
   scene, make sure the external material library had all locks
   removed, and then save save save save as I fixed everything.

   I tried some of the solutions for the old disconnected shaders bug
   from previous versions of XSI, but all that did was crash
   Softimage.  Merging was the only solution.

   -Paul


   On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 5:02 AM, Rob Wuijster r...@casema.nl
   javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','r...@casema.nl'); wrote:

   Hi,

   Do people use external material libraries a lot?

   We tried them on a (now finished) project, but had some weird
   issues along the way;
   Objects loosing materials and rendering the default gray
   material, tons of non-used materials that magically appeard
   between sessions in scenes etc.
   In the end we made everything local again to fight the deadline.

   Any thoughts, tips on this?

   --

   cheers!

   Rob Wuijster
   er...@casema.nl
  javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','r...@casema.nl');

   \/-\/\/

Re: external material libraries.....

[peter_b]

well – it’s the inverse actually – I’d prefer nothing local in the 
scenes/models.

the workflow that I’d love, is having no materials in the models – only 
pointers to materials in an external library. (and pointers to texture supports 
and image clips – yeah I wanna have my cake and eat it)
modify only the library – and have the rest of the production follow.

switching the renderer was just an example.
but it’s more about look dev on a higher level, not one asset at a time, but a 
more global tweaking of all shaders for a production. 
Compounds and scripts for switching compounds are a workaround, for changing 
shaders “en masse” – but it’s not in line with the whole non-linear / non 
destructive nature of referencing.


From: Stephen Davidson 
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2014 9:35 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: external material libraries.

could this be of help? 
http://www.chris-g.net/2012/07/11/localise-matlib-in-softimage/


On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 2:18 PM, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

  well, that’s what you end up doing – everything is built into the model – 
reference it in scenes and add animation on it and override materials/shaders 
through the passes system. And it works fine.

  but it would be interesting to have materials seperated, as a reference 
library– eg, one eye shader, one leather, one metal shader, one wood... for all 
assets across a production, and tweak those in a master scene. Switch the 
renderer? Just go to the master scene, drop in the renderer specific shaders, 
export the library – all assets are updated automagically on scene load. In 
theory it could work like this, but in practice it’s just not reliable to be 
any use.

  From: Ognjen Vukovic 
  Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2014 3:06 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Re: external material libraries.

  I assume when working withn ref. models you should plan on having everything 
locked more or less... so baisicly to set your rig up in the model with 
finalized shaders and then move foreward, and avoid having to change anything 
latter on, names and such should be frozen in the modeling phaze, shader 
paramters can be changed this way in the model and it will propagate to your 
scenea. the rest you can manipulate with overides to avoid breaking anything..

  On Friday, September 19, 2014, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote:

Too bad, but it's good that it's in great contrast with the rest of the 
referencing system :]

On Friday, September 19, 2014 17:12:28, Matt Lind wrote:

  No.

  We've found trivial things such as renaming any object using a material 
from the referenced material library can cause all referenced materials to lose 
their assignments.  Adding/removing an object from a referenced model using the 
referenced material library can trigger it too.

  In short, the system is too fragile to be of use in it's current state.  
If the bugs were fixed, it could be really useful.


  Matt




  -Original Message-
  From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Jason S
  Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 1:45 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: external material libraries.


  I recall exporting an .xsi with a bunch of materials, importing it as a 
reference model, and assigning materials from that, but it wouldn't stay 
referenced.

  Even if end functionality is a bit sketchy, is there a specific process 
to make it work?
  cheers

  On Thursday, September 18, 2014 13:30:51, Ognjen Vukovic wrote:

I reckon its safer to import them through referenced models.

On Thursday, September 18, 2014, Paul Griswold
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com
mailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote:

 Holy cow, talk about deja vu!

 I was up until 2:30 am dealing with the same issue.

 Are you using Mental Ray or something else?

 I'm using Redshift on this project.  The only solution that
 managed to work was to merge the dysfunctional scene into a new
 scene, make sure the external material library had all locks
 removed, and then save save save save as I fixed everything.

 I tried some of the solutions for the old disconnected shaders bug
 from previous versions of XSI, but all that did was crash
 Softimage.  Merging was the only solution.

 -Paul


 On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 5:02 AM, Rob Wuijster r...@casema.nl
 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','r...@casema.nl'); wrote:

 Hi,

 Do people use external material libraries a lot?

 We tried them on a (now finished) project, but had some weird
 issues along the way;
 Objects loosing materials and rendering 

Re: unreal engine

[peter_b]

I’m no specialist at all – but it’s not because the lights move around that 
there’s no baking involved.
In my understanding and the little bit of research I did nearly a decade years 
ago – which was unrelated to Unreal – that was one of the paths being actively 
explored: baking a scene, and spherical harmonics in particular – which would 
allow to then have dynamic lights with radiosity in realtime. And the logistics 
at the time were a render/bake of a few hours and files running in the 
gigabytes...


From: Eugene Flormata 
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2014 7:36 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: ot: unreal engine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOkJ1-vnh-s
this doesn't really look baked though



On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote:

  It's all about baking. Recently, I made some arch viz app for Andriod and iOS 
and I was able to achieve good quality. It was for unity and I did all the 
baking in soft.

  Sent from my iPhone

  On 23-Aug-2014, at 4:06 am, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:


Consider that this is a kind of tech demo, means that Unreal Engine 4, 
being a game engine, is built to manage multiple aspect ( physics, characters 
movement and logic, enemies logic, particles and so on ) 
The video shows how good is UE4 with lighting and atmosphere, but the you 
actually build your scene as a game you need to do lots of compromises...
Cryengine 2 was used as well for archivz and the results were stunning, and 
lots of companies get a license to develop just that...

The main issue that I found right now is that if you want to share or send 
the work to your client ( as a walkthrough I mean ) you have to send ( and 
install ) a 1-2gb file, which most clients are not so comfortable 
with...otherwise you can just render a video with it...the main advantage is 
that you don't wait 5 minutes per frame, but just a couple of seconds.

Anyway this engine looks amazing and the constant updates are improving it 
more and more



2014-08-22 23:18 GMT+02:00 Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com:

  Some more in his work in kotaku: 

  
http://kotaku.com/next-gen-lighting-is-pushing-the-limits-of-realism-1625324795?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Twitterutm_source=Kotaku_Twitterutm_medium=Socialflow

  And also a while back this Swedish apartment was done in Unreal 
(previously done in octane). He even offers a download if you want to test the 
interactivity.

  http://vimeo.com/m/98625270



  On Friday, 22 August 2014, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

Addendum:



It’s also part of the reason why 3rd party apps such as Fabric Engine 
can render faster than the native viewports – less overhead.





Matt







From: Matt Lind 
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2014 2:11 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: ot: unreal engine



Not the entire reason, but a big part of it is DCC apps must spend a 
lot of time reading and evaluating construction histories and other user 
interaction whereas the displayed data in a game engine is stripped down to the 
bare minimum for performance.  Game engines will always be faster than DCC apps 
in that regard, and by a large factor.



As for look quality, it’s just a matter of writing the shaders.  You 
can do that in Softimage.





Matt







From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Jordi Bares
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2014 2:04 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: ot: unreal engine



I still wonder why the viewport of our 3D apps is not as good as that… 
:-P



Jordi Bares

jordiba...@gmail.com



On 22 Aug 2014, at 21:34, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com 
wrote:



it seems to be, it only tales 10 minutes to build the light mapping. 

details here:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?28163-ArchViz-Lighting



2014-08-22 17:30 GMT-03:00 David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr:

On 2014-08-22 18:55, Francisco Criado wrote:

  have to share this: 



  UE4 Archviz / Lighting 2
 




F.
   
 
   

wowo, this is realtime?

Re: EOL and using older Softimages

[peter_b]

 preventing the use of previous versions unless you basically commit forever,
and even then – only 3 versions back!
2012 is now officially off-limits for subscription customers.
I remember a message from an AD rep here, suggesting not to upgrade a few 
licenses just in order to keep access to an older version - thus diluting one’s 
license park.
it’s anti-customer behavior, directed ONLY at licensed and paying customers, 
devaluating their investment.

what you did up to 3 years ago is being ‘obsoleted’ - for long format work 
that’s like saying: your previous project is off bounds. This in an industry 
(entertainment) thriving on sequels ! 
funny reading just the other day about Weta’s own new renderer in that other 
thread – where they mention opening shots from “old” projects such as Tintin or 
the first Hobbit – and re-rendering them. Where this was actually a design 
constraint they set themselves.

And here’s AD going: hey, if we can prevent you from doing this, we will!

Sure, you can try and open those scenes on a newer version, and pray nothing 
breaks. Oh right, if you’re on Maya, don’t forget  to recompile all those 
plugins you don’t have the source code for. Doh.

 Personally can't wait for competition.

Amen to that. I stuck it out on Softimage, waiting for the next gen software 
from AD to replace Maya/Max/XSI. 
Definitely not doing that anymore - at this point my ONLY criterium for a 
replacement is that it isn’t AD.




On 08/09/14 8:22, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:

  Yes you lose the right to run three versions back when the subscription 
lapses.   You can only run the last version you installed. 

  On Aug 8, 2014 2:09 PM, phil harbath phil.harb...@jamination.com wrote:

What was the final verdict on using older versions of Softimage,  I saw on 
the EOL page you could use up to 3 versions back.  Does that require the user 
to be on active subscription.  My case is I am on 2015 but my subscription just 
lapsed.


Phil Harbath
jamination

Re: Scene crash on startup - any advice

[peter_b]

 ha ha I'm happy to hear both workflows! each scenario is different seeings I 
 explained
 more about the shot and that it needs rendering!

think of it in photoshop terms:
on one hand you work in layers, adjustment layers and groups – to be able to 
make modifications 
but at some point you flatten – all or part of it – to simplify, because you 
have to for certain things, for performance or to export the final version 
that’s used elsewhere – while keeping the layered version of course. 

Making one huge 3D scene where everything is interconnected, non-destructive, 
procedural, modifiable is great – especially while going through design changes 
– but at some point it can become counterproductive and consolidating things 
can be your way out.

The balance between these two is not a simple black and white thing – no 
absolute rules. Sometimes you need a mixture of both, sometimes either extreme. 
And when you run into trouble on one end, it might be worth trying the opposite 
approach. I think it’s an important skill to acquire, to understand these 
strategies, to know when to simplify and consolidate and when not to – ideally 
before things start to fall apart .

The photoshop analogy is far from perfect btw: flattening makes a file smaller 
and lighter. Localizing models is going to make the scene bigger

I hope you get your shot/shots out – and can consider such things when things 
calm down.


 ... but do confess from one house model to the next I shall have duplicate 
 materials that will be essentially connecting the same texture file.

a few duplicate materials or a couple of libraries is far from a problem – if 
you kept an eye on things you’re fine. But I’ve run into scenes with thousands 
of unnamed materials, that are all just the same default phong. It’s always 
worth it to go over what you have done - the more you can clean up, the less 
bloat the software has to deal with. You’ll run into situations where this 
becomes the difference between being able to achieve what you’re after or not.

About working in passes – again there’s no absolute rules. Sometimes you’re 
better off with passes and channels for absolutely everything, combining 
hundreds of passes in comp – sometimes a single pass and the odd mask or two.
Afaik - the industry is moving a bit away again from multi-pass towards beauty 
rendering – in no small amount because of Arnold.
But there’s still a lot to be said for being able to tweak in comp – and 
avoiding 3D re-renders.
...



From: Jon Hunt 
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 1:35 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Scene crash on startup - any advice

Hi Peter,

ha ha I'm happy to hear both workflows! each scenario is different seeings I 
explained more about the shot and that it needs rendering!
Localizing everything has been on my mind! seeings that the models are locked 
versions.

I have named all my materials (I did a pass of going through each master model 
file converting my shaders to arnold + tweaks and deleting unused materials 
through the external files tool)  but do confess from one house model to the 
next I shall have duplicate materials that will be essentially connecting the 
same texture file. Particularly the wood texture that services all the wooden 
beams that are a feature of the houses. I have a lot of material libraries and 
am sure I could consolidate this to a global material library.


I shall be kicking out multiple passes but more separating out objects with 
mattes rather than a set of channels to recomp. I am finding I am getting good 
results from Arnold and don't overly want to complicate things nor have the 
time. A decent compositior would tear my head off for saying this I'm sure!


I have held up on the scene until later today. I felt it be productive that I 
light another scene (seeings I can open it!!) besides it made me feel better!

I'm gonna check out the scntoc manager later but back at work/uni tomorrow so 
failing this I shall save a reference version of the scene then localize it 
all.  


Thanks again,

Jon







On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 11:17 AM, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

  Well, I’m going to suggest the exact opposite of before .

  Why don’t you try and localize EVERYTHING to the scene (did you get to open 
it when offloading the models?) – make sure all geometry is frozen and delete 
all unneeded clusters.
  and do a good cleanup of the materials - assuming you have named you 
materials it’s just a matter of selecting all corresponding parts and assign 
them to the same material (one single wood material, one single metal 
material,... for the whole of the scene)
  Also remove unused materials and clips – and do it repeatedly – it never 
hurts to click those buttons too often.
  You can also merge all objects with the same material (eg all chimneys, all 
rivets,...) which can drastically reduce the amount of objects without 
resorting to clusters.
  If you just want to render a single beauty pass – you can 

Re: Rendermap SSS albedo

[peter_b]

If the albedo drop down doesn’t work - you can try and set up a pass to 
produce flat lighting, and rendermap from that pass.

(you can set it up manually as well )

you can use ambience - texture you ambience channel with the proper texture, 
hide all lights, crank up the ambience to full white.


but usually you already have the diffuse channel textured on all objects and 
just want to use that - but without shading.

A useful trick to get that, is to:
- use just one infinite light ( intensity 1, full white, no shadows, turn 
specular off)  and rotate it along the y-axis pointing down (-90 rotation on 
x)

- override the bump with a save vector state set to 0 1 0
simply put, this makes sure that the shading normals are all pointing 
straight up along the y-axis, receiving the diffuse light full on


unfortunately some MR shaders will still have some shading regardless - 
there are some more involved variations on the above to work around this. 
for example have two lights, one straight down one straight up - and blend 
between 0 1 0 normals on the upper half of the object to 0 -1 0 normals 
on the lower half. (which you can do based on the green channel of a vector 
state set to normals.)


hope any of this helps?


-Original Message- 
From: Christian Freisleder

Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 8:46 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Rendermap SSS albedo

hey James,

thanks for the info. Do you remember if you baked the lighting into it
as well, or did it work without  the lighting too.
I get a fine rendermap, but I always get the lighting baked into as
well. It seems to ignore the drop down list where you can choose between
color and illumination or color only(albedo).

thanks
Christian

On 31.07.2014 03:43, James De Colling wrote:
there was a sss shader a while ago we used to do rendermaps with, cant 
remember exactly but it bypassed/ignored the lightmap input and was normal 
shader input. kin or something is all I rememeber.


cheers,

james,

Re: How many ?

[peter_b]

say a thousand places were using it for about ten years doing 10 productions 
per year.
that’s 100.000




From: olivier jeannel 
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2014 12:09 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: How many ?

Ok, it's sunday and I'm borred finishing that animatic

Since Softimage is going to EOL someday day, I was wondering how many 
productions that marvellous software has helped to accomplish.
I mean, not the complete or big or honorable production, I mean any 
productions. Any 3d thing in which XSI helped.

Must be what ? millions ?


yeah well ok, I feel  nostalgic...

Re: Running in circle, The CrossProduct question

[peter_b]

this does make sense to me, if I think of it as a rocket orbiting a planet.

at each moment in time the rocket is pushing itself forward with a linear force 
(the vector) - so it will tend to move from where it is to where the force is 
telling it to go – in a straight line, tangent to the circle you are after – 
but it already has it’s current speed, so you don’t end up exactly where you 
are pointing but a bit further out - leaving the circle a bit. The next moment 
in time you are correcting with the new tangent vector – so you are 
approximately following the circle.

if you want to get the perfect circle, you will need to add another force, 
pulling towards the centre. ( check on centripetal force: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centripetal_force )
in ice: subtract the pointposition from the center of the circle and multiply 
by scalar to finetune – add this vector to the one you have
In the example of the orbiting rocket I guess that would be gravity.






From: olivier jeannel 
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2014 10:00 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Running in circle, The CrossProduct question

Hi gang,

with my partner we were discussing crossproduct theory and I'm not sure what 
to believe or think.

I was persuaded that the result of a Cross Product of a PointPosition (x,y,z)  
and a vector 0,1,0 plugged in a the PointVelocity, would give a particle 
orbiting around 0,0,0 describing a perfect circle.

In fact, not exactly.

with simulation substep 1 I get this :


with simulation substep 10 I get this (but it travels much slower) :


So my question is :  Is this a problem of approximation from the or the 
computer, and then the mathematical nature of cross product is able to 
describe a circle.

or is this a normal behaviour, considering that the cross product vector is 
pushing in straight line a particle and that it could never describe a circle.

Re: A freelance job.... really?

[peter_b]

The person might as well just put No pay, will look good on your website 
/ demo and help you get future work.


would certainly generate more goodwill than what he wrote.

this will go wrong in so many ways it's not funny. unless you're into 
sarcasm.

which I am of course.



On Friday, June 27, 2014 10:10:43 AM, john clausing wrote:

i feel he should have written at the top

I'M DOING YOU A FAVOR


On Friday, June 27, 2014 10:06 AM, Tim Crowson
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com wrote:


I know, that's why it seemed odd. Seriously though, is that a legit ad?


On 6/27/2014 9:04 AM, Eric Thivierge wrote:

No, that seems awfully typical.

On Friday, June 27, 2014 10:03:46 AM, Tim Crowson wrote:

That sounds awfully deliberate.  :-D

-Tim

On 6/27/2014 8:54 AM, Stephen Davidson wrote:

I just thought I would post this freelance 3D animation Job, from
Craigslist,
for our professional animation group's ammusement.

I sure gave me a good laugh

http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/cpg/4529563953.html

--

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

/Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic/

 - Arthur C. Clarke

http://www.3danimationmagic.com http://www.3danimationmagic.com/



--
Signature




--
Signature

Re: Hanging basket

[peter_b]

 ncloth is your baby

wow radical thinking -  maya as a plugin to softimage?


as for an obvious, out of the (XSI) box solution, why yes: RBD’s are your 
friend!

I’ve done chains – 30 or so, each made out of about a hundred RBD elements, I 
think each a ball and socket joint or whatever it was.
suspending them, dropping them, lowering onto a floor, raising them again - 
worked a charm. And simulation times were reasonable. There was some 
trickyness, plotting the animation, slightly editing some of it and doing some 
cleanup where the collisions were a bit jittery – but overall I was pleasantly 
surprised at how well they worked for this.


From: Ben Beckett 
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 10:57 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Hanging basket

ncloth is your baby



On 27 June 2014 20:57, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote:

  Is there an obvious out of the box solution for simulating a basket or other 
rigid object being held by multiple ropes/chains? It's definitely beyond the 
rope sim since the rigid object has mass and is affected by gravity. Probably 
don't have time to RD a complex ICE solution from scratch.

Re: Eric MOOTZOID Mootz is nominated for a 3D World CG Award!

[peter_b]

Hi Eric,
you have enabled the whole Softimage community to do things they couldn’t do 
before - with simple as well as some very involved tools. 
Dependable, well thought out, genuinely useful and not just gimmicks – for many 
one or other of your tools has become an essential part of their work.
If Softimage the past few years got increasing interest beyond just the die 
hard users themselves – your tools have certainly played a role in that.
That is deserving of some recognition.
P.

From: Christian Lattuada 
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 8:14 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Eric MOOTZOID Mootz is nominated for a 3D World CG Award!

Go Eric!


.:.
Christian Lattuada

tel +39 3331277475
...




On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Arman Sernaz arma...@gmail.com wrote:

  Congratulations Eric!






  On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 3:03 AM, Eric Mootz e...@mootzoid.com wrote:

Gee, I don't know what to say. Wow, just wow.
I surely did not see this coming and am very honoured by this nomination by 
3D World magazine.

Thanks y'all!





  -- 
  www.lhvfx.com 

Re: Software company Autodesk creates synthetic virus

[peter_b]

AutoVir360 – design your own virus, on the cloud, in the knowledge that you are 
safe at all times*. When things run out of control, don’t worry! All cloud 
servers and manufacture tanks are installed in our underground facility in 
Singapore, right next to the vaults where we keep discontinued 3D software and 
AI experiments – never to see the light of day again.

I see a merger coming up: https://www.ucwrg.com/
WorldWarAD ftw!



*: airborne components only available to registered clients with valid 
subscription


From: Stefan Kubicek
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2014 10:18 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Software company Autodesk creates synthetic virus

I love science, but stuff like that scares the shit it of me.
Just because something is not explicitely forbidden doesnt automatically mean 
it is/should be allowed and done.





Written with my thumbs...

On Jun 6, 2014, at 1:51, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com 
wrote:


  Turns out old boys maya's a piece of shit as a DCC but it does have the odd 
side effect of curing E.coli :P




  On 6 June 2014 00:08, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

Autodesk doesn't just make synthetic virus's.

They ARE an synthetic virus.

OK, this is just too easy...

So, the company that can't figure out, or afford, to keep a small niche 
software app like Softimage going, and who also
can't be trusted to continue to develop a superior product even after they 
said they would as recently as 18 months prior to the EOL, is
now a company we should trust and believe are going to safely develop a 
synthetic virus and keep it out of the hands of those who wish to cause us all 
harm?

If this wasn't so freaking scary, I would laugh at my own jokes.





On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 6:58 PM, Sebastien Sterling 
sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote:

  Tomorrow’s biotech companies could look more like nimble and innovative 
software companies rather than big, risk-averse big pharma giants.


  you know incompetent and unscrupulous with a total disregard for the user 
?


  the future- Remember that xsi82 nano strand keeping the blood pumping 
through your heart? yea well we are canceling it, no, we feel like moving in a 
different direction and the violent deaths of millions is just a acceptable 
collateral :P unless you want to use this new strand that will keep you 
alive, but your legs will stop working and you will go intermittently blind :P


  If ME is a puppy, i wouldn't trust AD with cucumbers and Vaseline




  On 5 June 2014 22:51, Paulo César Duarte paulocdua...@gmail.com wrote:

These kind of research scare me.



2014-06-05 18:30 GMT-03:00 Serch Mucino sergio.muc...@gmail.com: 


  Hehehehe. Horribly possible (Monstanto it's already trying to get 
that model working... with Nestle behind them)


   
  Sergio Mucino




  On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Francois Lord flordli...@gmail.com 
wrote:

Soon, you'll need to pay your subscription just to stay alive!


On 05-Jun-14 16:42, Marc-Andre Carbonneau wrote:

  Okay…



  
https://www.seriouswonder.com/software-company-autodesk-creates-synthetic-virus/










-- 

www.pauloduarte.ws





-- 







Perry Harovas
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com


-25 Years Experience

-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation

[peter_b]

nope I’m freelancer.
I have worked on a few jobs for them, but that’s been a while.

nice people, if you were thinking of getting in touch with them – and their 
output is awesome.

From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 10:35 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation

Do you work for digital golem ?




On 3 June 2014 21:34, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote:

  Thank you Peter for taking the time to expand on this :), i am a character 
artist, and even if this is not a character job, it is good to know about such 
functionality its true that they really look like avid layers :P 




  On 3 June 2014 21:03, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

the animation mixer is for high level control over animation, including 
combining different types of animation. (fcurves, expressions, constraints, 
caches, plots,...)

the most obvious use is to combine a number of animation cycles on a 
character into a little edit.
Because it looks so much like a video editing timeline, one can easily 
overlook the usefulness of the mixer - on the surface it’s “just a timeline 
with video animationclips” – and many timing effects (including reversing 
animation: right click on a clip in the mixer – time properties – scale: -1) 
can be done with ease.

it lives in the model, and connects to the model using namespaces – 
allowing for the sharing of animation between different models. 
there’s things like offsetting the animation (in space!) with clip effects, 
allowing to blend between different animation sources that weren’t made to 
blend.
it can be useful for crowd animation, for instance by blending different 
animation cycles on the actors based on certain conditions.

I know the mixer only on the surface, and don’t need it very often, but 
each time I do, I discover more of what it can do.
Last time I needed it, I used it to turn a linear syflex simulation into 
timestretched, loopable + intro/outtro animations on a bunch of objects.
The mixer handled with ease what amounts to manipulating thousands of 
shapes on quite dense geometry, without being restricted to frames. A total 
nightmare to do with fcurves.

I think you’re a character artist, something which could be useful to you 
is setting up the restpose as well as a few animations and extreme poses in the 
mixer. This way you can easily stress test the skinning and topology. 

While it has seen some improvements over time, its another of those really 
unique tools that were in XSI from it’s very first version, and are still not 
really surpassed.


From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 9:13 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation

coming from different packages, never really got into the whole mixer 
system, i do get the appeal though. just would never really had a frame of 
reference for when to employ one.




On 3 June 2014 19:46, pete...@skynet.be wrote:

  usually it’s cache the dynamics first, then plot to the mixer, and then 
reverse the clip in the mixer.
  does this not work for you?


  From: Sebastien Sterling 
  Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 8:30 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
  Subject: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation

  i have a momentum simulationm i ploted, is it possible to reverse the 
animation ? i'd do it in post, but i'm hoping to use some motion blur on some 
text, i's like it not to be reversed

Re: Shameless plug

[peter_b]

wow – you’ve been at this since Barnyard?
that’s epic in itself.
I’m not much of a gamer, let alone online gaming – but I sure hope this one’s a 
success.
All the artwork I’ve seen is very appealing and different – and let’s not 
forget the teaser by Blur, which is just awesome.
Kudos for having the patience to see this through.



From: Matt Lind 
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2014 4:00 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Shameless plug

I don’t get to say this often, but I’ve finished a project using Softimage 
which all can see.  Well, it’s not actually ‘finished’ as it’s an online game 
which is continuously maintained, updated, and ongoing, but it’s now live and I 
can talk about it beyond generalizations.  Yay!   My last completed project was 
my previous production –Barnyard the animated feature back in 2006.  It’s been 
a long time coming, a relief, and refreshing to be able to refer to something I 
did in the current decade.

 

Wildstar officially launched last Friday night at midnight for early access, 
but opened up the flood gates today for everybody else.  The game is now 
running smoothly in North America and Europe for all to see and experience.  If 
you were part of the beta, let it be known significant improvements have been 
made since on all fronts.  If you haven’t tried the game yet, point your 
browser to www.wildstar-online.com and click on the shiny buttons.  The first 
30 days are free with initial purchase.

 

Production started in 2005 using Softimage XSI v3.5 and launched with Softimage 
2013 SP1 – all of it in 32 bit land.  Majority of the content created in 
Softimage 7.5 which we used for roughly 5 years.  Softimage was used for a 
heavy majority of the 3D artwork including characters, props, environments 
(other than the ground), buildings, dungeons, and everything inside of them.  
We didn’t use ICE at all (but not for lack of trying, and we tested heavily), 
so this is a good example of what the fundamental toolset can do.  Heavy use of 
custom properties, vertex colors, user normals, clusters, envelopes, UV spaces, 
and hardware (real time) shaders to customize and iterate on our content.  What 
made these simple components really nice is they were general and could be 
re-targeted for many uses outside of their original intended purpose.  Our 
particles were created and applied in Softimage, but simulated only in engine.  
The SDK was used to write 500+ tools to assist artists to create their content 
include tools like ‘mimick’ which is a command similar to GATOR which can 
transfer attributes, but do so on select subcomponents instead of the entire 
object, along with other bells and whistles.  Often overlooked and  
understated, but Softimage scaling was incredibly powerful for controlling the 
squash and stretch scaling of deformers used in our envelopes to animate 
characters with cartoon whimsy and without ugly shearing often associated with 
other software.  It is used on every asset that moves.  Relational views were 
used to create tools such as a face editor to view and animate faces for our 
player characters, and adjust face customizations to see how they’d appear in 
the game as each of our characters have multiple faces and other components 
which can plug in like a Mr. Potato head doll.  It was important to see the 
various components in context side-by-side for comparison while creating the 
content so consistency could be maintained.  This was achieved using many 
‘object view’ embedded into the relational view.  Under the hood the face 
editor drove the animation mixer to perform face pose blending so artists could 
see the animation in real time on their characters.  Also, NURBS, that’s right, 
NURBS surfaces were used to transfer face poses and clothing between 
characters.  The details must remain a trade secret, but I just had to mention 
we used NURBS in all their unfinished glory to get meaningful work done with 
significant contributions to the end product.  Render passes were used to 
re-dress environments to allow artists to create geometry once, then swap 
textures, shader settings, and other details many times for each variant of the 
environment.  Not only does it simplify the artist workflow by centralizing all 
their interaction to a few clicks, but it also allows assets to be packed into 
compact files for use in our engine. Render passes are used in housing and 
dungeons.  If we had to do this in Maya, we’d probably have to break up each 
variant into its own scene and have to figure out a way to merge all the scenes 
together that shared the same geometry.  These polished touches matter.  
Softimage for the win.

 

So that said, while many 3D software could create the assets in their own time 
and space vacuum, Softimage (in my opinion) was the only software that could’ve 
tackled this project given our specific time, resources, and budget as there 
were many close calls along the way.  I say Softimage because many of the 

Re: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation

[peter_b]

usually it’s cache the dynamics first, then plot to the mixer, and then reverse 
the clip in the mixer.
does this not work for you?


From: Sebastien Sterling 
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 8:30 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Nest Mommentum, reversing animation

i have a momentum simulationm i ploted, is it possible to reverse the animation 
? i'd do it in post, but i'm hoping to use some motion blur on some text, i's 
like it not to be reversed