Re: How long will it take (?)
Hi Yang-hai In my opinion as a generalist with longer experience in Softimage (7 years) than I have with Maya (3 years) to me fundamentally is the fact Softimage has a real non-linear workflow. Taking character rigging for example allows changes to the topology, shapes, uvs, after the character has been enveloped without breaking anything (some of these changes can be done literally in seconds) while for what I understand of Maya (I'm not really a rigger though), the riggers have to rebuild the rig (or parts of it) again relying on scripting if they can script. Now I truly hope Autodesk is really considering improving Maya in this area if they are seriously thinking Softimage users will jump to Maya after 2016. In my case Ill stick with Softimage until something else better in this area comes along (be it Maya or any other DCC) On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai, While I appreciate that you are all listening (honestly, I really do), it is really annoying that the Softimage team was supposedly moved to Maya, yet Autodesk seems to have no clue how to implement a Softimage workflow or feature into Maya. Look, don't get me wrong, it is better to have you guys ask us than to not ask, but if you truly have that many people from Softimage working on Maya, wouldn't THEY know better how to do this than we would? On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.commailto:yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is... in a meaningful/useful manner... basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I will follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Again, I know I'm not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto: davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto: davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted article http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things (most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig components as a con and ending with ; The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology
RE: How long will it take (?)
Yang, let me chime in here. I too appreciate you being present and asking these questions here. It goes to show that the Maya Humanize project might actually lead somewhere, and very importantly, that a significant change in Autodesk policy on user/dev interaction has taken place just recently. One thing that has me worried is the willingness of Autodesk to try and educate the 50x more Maya users and move them to adopt a more userfriendly interface like we know it from Soft. I believe you see the value of incorporating the good parts of Softimage in Maya, but as it might alienate a large portion of existing Maya users, I could fear you will not dare go all the way and make Maya as userfriendly as we would prefer. Can you, or perhaps Maurice elaborate on your thoughts in this respect? This is a very important point for me, and I suspect, most Softimage users. God it seems silly to even discuss the need for a userfriendly yet powerful interface here in 2014... Morten Den 20. marts 2014 kl. 20:40 skrev Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com: Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai, While I appreciate that you are all listening (honestly, I really do), it is really annoying that the Softimage team was supposedly moved to Maya, yet Autodesk seems to have no clue how to implement a Softimage workflow or feature into Maya. Look, don't get me wrong, it is better to have you guys ask us than to not ask, but if you truly have that many people from Softimage working on Maya, wouldn't THEY know better how to do this than we would? On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.commailto:yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is... in a meaningful/useful manner... basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I will follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Again, I know I'm not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted articlehttp://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things (most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig
Re: How long will it take (?)
Oh and by the way, the fact a modeler can do this kind of adjustments and be aware that he is not screwing up the rig (because of how clear is the UI in Soft) and thus not needing to send the rig back to the rigger to fix things up frees up the riggers so Softimage has smaller production costs in this respect. On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 10:37 AM, Nuno Conceicao nunoalexconcei...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Yang-hai In my opinion as a generalist with longer experience in Softimage (7 years) than I have with Maya (3 years) to me fundamentally is the fact Softimage has a real non-linear workflow. Taking character rigging for example allows changes to the topology, shapes, uvs, after the character has been enveloped without breaking anything (some of these changes can be done literally in seconds) while for what I understand of Maya (I'm not really a rigger though), the riggers have to rebuild the rig (or parts of it) again relying on scripting if they can script. Now I truly hope Autodesk is really considering improving Maya in this area if they are seriously thinking Softimage users will jump to Maya after 2016. In my case Ill stick with Softimage until something else better in this area comes along (be it Maya or any other DCC) On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai, While I appreciate that you are all listening (honestly, I really do), it is really annoying that the Softimage team was supposedly moved to Maya, yet Autodesk seems to have no clue how to implement a Softimage workflow or feature into Maya. Look, don't get me wrong, it is better to have you guys ask us than to not ask, but if you truly have that many people from Softimage working on Maya, wouldn't THEY know better how to do this than we would? On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.commailto:yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is... in a meaningful/useful manner... basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I will follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Again, I know I'm not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted articlehttp
RE: How long will it take (?)
Hello David, Thank you. I will definitely take you up on that offer! I will be contacting you directly to coordinate something over the next couple days. Thank you so much for offering to take the time to share this with us first hand. I think this will be very useful in helping us understand, and help us make it right. Looking forward to this! Thanks, Yang-hai From: David Gallagher [mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 9:02 PM To: Yang-hai Eakes; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com; davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) On 3/20/2014 12:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is… in a meaningful/useful manner… basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I “will” follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Glad to hear it! I would be happy to web conference with someone there to show the workflows in more detail. Thanks, Dave G Again, I know I’m not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted articlehttp://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things (most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig components as a con and ending with ; The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost. So how long will it take to get there? David Gallagher image001.gif Jan 8 I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known Malcolm rig for free. There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is profound. - At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, retaining almost every bit of work you've done. YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY. This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to make a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work. And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator your way out of a jam. - You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. - There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go to Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points. In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and scripts and HOPE that it works. If the scenario
Re: How long will it take (?)
On 03/20/14 14:33, Yang-hai Eakes wrote: As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. Hi Yang-hai Sorry I'm sure you mean well , but while I somewhat suspected someone would eventually jump on this saying "we are listening" and while I don't necessarily object to this "repurposing criticisms into requests" AND apart that ALL these things have been in highly requested since litterally forever.. AND that a list like that could easily be made in regards to every other aspect, .. the overlooking of the title and the crux of reposing David's post, was actually quite predictable. And was ( of course.. but whatever ) to shed light on the distance to which Maya still has to travel before actually catching-up on a number of fronts. ( and (yet again) to shed light on the (quite) *overwhelming prematurity* of the decision ) So if I could remind the title of the thread which was "Re: How long will it take (?)" and perhaps We are ( very-very-selectively ) listening would have been a more accurate statement. Otherwise, Yep.. indeed, pretty strong points David pointed-out . . . . . and given that (considerable) distance, and everything that's already on your plate, AND how "deep in the software" most of those things would touch, .. "assured" may be exactly what everyone may be pretty far from being .. (ie; in that list, there was 1 (bullet-)point (a baby step) solved (from an aquired plugin) in 1.5 years) Thank You.
RE: How long will it take (?)
Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is… in a meaningful/useful manner… basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I “will” follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Again, I know I’m not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted articlehttp://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things (most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig components as a con and ending with ; The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost. So how long will it take to get there? David Gallagher image001.gif Jan 8 I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known Malcolm rig for free. There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is profound. - At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, retaining almost every bit of work you've done. YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY. This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to make a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work. And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator your way out of a jam. - You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. - There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go to Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points. In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and scripts and HOPE that it works. If the scenario is simple enough, it might. Several people here tried to help a student make a single corrective blendshape on an elbow -- and we're all experienced Maya riggers--, after hours of attempting, we threw up our hands. There was something in that object's history that was making the blendshape plug-in fail. The answer is what it often is: just start over. - EDITING corrective blendshapes. In Maya, heaven help you if you want to edit that blendshape later. Start the process again and make a new one. In Softimage, drag a few points and you're done in seconds. - For facial work, being able to make face shapes in conjunction with the mixer, working directly on the main geo. To see other shapes muted, soloed as you're working. This allows you to craft
Re: How long will it take (?)
Yang-hai, While I appreciate that you are all listening (honestly, I really do), it is really annoying that the Softimage team was supposedly moved to Maya, yet Autodesk seems to have no clue how to implement a Softimage workflow or feature into Maya. Look, don't get me wrong, it is better to have you guys ask us than to not ask, but if you truly have that many people from Softimage working on Maya, wouldn't THEY know better how to do this than we would? On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is... in a meaningful/useful manner... basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I will follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Again, I know I'm not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted article http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things (most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig components as a con and ending with ; The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost. So how long will it take to get there? David Gallagher image001.gif Jan 8 I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known Malcolm rig for free. There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is profound. - At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, retaining almost every bit of work you've done. YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY. This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to make a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work. And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator your way out of a jam. - You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. - There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go to Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points. In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and scripts and HOPE that it works. If the scenario is simple enough, it might. Several people here tried to help a student make a single corrective blendshape on an elbow -- and we're all experienced Maya riggers--, after
RE: How long will it take (?)
Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai, While I appreciate that you are all listening (honestly, I really do), it is really annoying that the Softimage team was supposedly moved to Maya, yet Autodesk seems to have no clue how to implement a Softimage workflow or feature into Maya. Look, don't get me wrong, it is better to have you guys ask us than to not ask, but if you truly have that many people from Softimage working on Maya, wouldn't THEY know better how to do this than we would? On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.commailto:yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is... in a meaningful/useful manner... basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I will follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Again, I know I'm not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer From: David Gallagher Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.commailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable ( comprehensive) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and (seemingly purposefully) diluted articlehttp://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things (most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig components as a con and ending with ; The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost. So how long will it take to get there? David Gallagher image001.gif Jan 8 I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known Malcolm rig for free. There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is profound. - At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, retaining almost every bit of work you've done. YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE
Re: How long will it take (?)
Hi Yang-hai, There have been plenty of great posts already, but I'll give my quick-n-dirty approach to whether or not an app is user-friendly. Can I open the application, create a primitive (usually a torus), add a material, a light, look through the camera view to set up an image and render a single still without any help? In Maya I could not. I had no idea how to look through the camera. It's apparently a common question because as soon as I started typing in Google, Maya how to it finished my sentence with look through the camera. To me, that's really bad design. Other things I wanted to switch from wireframe to a shaded view, so I click on View in the viewport. You would think that View would mean View, but it apparently doesn't. In order to change the View I have to choose Shading. I would have thought Shading had something to do with surfacing my object, not the View. I see a menu called Renderer think to myself, hey, I wonder what render engines I can pick?. No Renderer doesn't mean Renderer in Maya. It means something entirely different. Why does that menu even exist if it has nothing to do with rendering??? You then also have a TAB that's called Rendering (not Renderer) which is actually where you choose a surface?? Why?? And why are there lights under a Rendering tab?? Then there's a menu called Panels. Panels means nothing to me. Panels are what you buy at a home improvement store. What is a Panel? Why would anyone choose that name? It has zero meaning. I could go on and on, but honestly it is probably second only to Blender in bad interface design. It's not in need of a make-over, it should be completely and utterly thrown away and you should start with a fresh, clean slate. Allow the old-farts to boot up Maya in compatibility mode to keep all the garbage, but you should start with a totally fresh interface. Otherwise you're putting lipstick on a pig. -Paul On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai,
Re: How long will it take (?)
hey Paul, i think they will never change that cause all maya users that are used to those illogical things will get confused if things start to make sense. 2014-03-20 21:22 GMT+01:00 Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com: Hi Yang-hai, There have been plenty of great posts already, but I'll give my quick-n-dirty approach to whether or not an app is user-friendly. Can I open the application, create a primitive (usually a torus), add a material, a light, look through the camera view to set up an image and render a single still without any help? In Maya I could not. I had no idea how to look through the camera. It's apparently a common question because as soon as I started typing in Google, Maya how to it finished my sentence with look through the camera. To me, that's really bad design. Other things I wanted to switch from wireframe to a shaded view, so I click on View in the viewport. You would think that View would mean View, but it apparently doesn't. In order to change the View I have to choose Shading. I would have thought Shading had something to do with surfacing my object, not the View. I see a menu called Renderer think to myself, hey, I wonder what render engines I can pick?. No Renderer doesn't mean Renderer in Maya. It means something entirely different. Why does that menu even exist if it has nothing to do with rendering??? You then also have a TAB that's called Rendering (not Renderer) which is actually where you choose a surface?? Why?? And why are there lights under a Rendering tab?? Then there's a menu called Panels. Panels means nothing to me. Panels are what you buy at a home improvement store. What is a Panel? Why would anyone choose that name? It has zero meaning. I could go on and on, but honestly it is probably second only to Blender in bad interface design. It's not in need of a make-over, it should be completely and utterly thrown away and you should start with a fresh, clean slate. Allow the old-farts to boot up Maya in compatibility mode to keep all the garbage, but you should start with a totally fresh interface. Otherwise you're putting lipstick on a pig. -Paul On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai,
Re: How long will it take (?)
What i don't understand is why Maya dev team, wait so long(years!!) to be reunited with Softimage dev-team, to began listening customers about new implementations or new workflows. Where were you 5 years ago? Merging AD acquisitions into Maya? Buying duct-tape? AD is a biggg BIG company, is not an small one, and the only way i could understand this, is that AD didn't like their own ME division from the beginning, so they gave them a small amount of resources; so dev-teams(Maya and Max) where only correcting bugs, nothing else. Why you need to kill Softimage, to put all those already few resources into Maya/Max/Softimage, and after 2016 version MAYBe.. MAYBE will began to see some improvements. Maybe there's amazing and talented people on the devs-team, but i think they're wasting their time trying to see Softimage workflows and applying them to Maya. This is not Pimp my Ride, you can't just go acquire few plugins or applications and merge things and called them NEW FEATURES. Maya was bad designed from the beginning, so at the end AD is going to loose more money, they could add w/e they want, but they'll never have a nice base to construct. That's why they killed the wrong software; Softimage had that base, but they didn't care. As people said before, if you really want to do something good, at least AD could learn from Maya Errors. START OVER! from the beginning. Make a NEW SoftMayax, with a good base for the coming decades. my two cents, sorry for english. Tenshi. On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:05 PM, Doeke Wartena clankil...@gmail.com wrote: hey Paul, i think they will never change that cause all maya users that are used to those illogical things will get confused if things start to make sense. 2014-03-20 21:22 GMT+01:00 Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com: Hi Yang-hai, There have been plenty of great posts already, but I'll give my quick-n-dirty approach to whether or not an app is user-friendly. Can I open the application, create a primitive (usually a torus), add a material, a light, look through the camera view to set up an image and render a single still without any help? In Maya I could not. I had no idea how to look through the camera. It's apparently a common question because as soon as I started typing in Google, Maya how to it finished my sentence with look through the camera. To me, that's really bad design. Other things I wanted to switch from wireframe to a shaded view, so I click on View in the viewport. You would think that View would mean View, but it apparently doesn't. In order to change the View I have to choose Shading. I would have thought Shading had something to do with surfacing my object, not the View. I see a menu called Renderer think to myself, hey, I wonder what render engines I can pick?. No Renderer doesn't mean Renderer in Maya. It means something entirely different. Why does that menu even exist if it has nothing to do with rendering??? You then also have a TAB that's called Rendering (not Renderer) which is actually where you choose a surface?? Why?? And why are there lights under a Rendering tab?? Then there's a menu called Panels. Panels means nothing to me. Panels are what you buy at a home improvement store. What is a Panel? Why would anyone choose that name? It has zero meaning. I could go on and on, but honestly it is probably second only to Blender in bad interface design. It's not in need of a make-over, it should be completely and utterly thrown away and you should start with a fresh, clean slate. Allow the old-farts to boot up Maya in compatibility mode to keep all the garbage, but you should start with a totally fresh interface. Otherwise you're putting lipstick on a pig. -Paul On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Yang-hai Eakes yang-hai.ea...@autodesk.com wrote: Hi Perry, Honestly, your voice is more important than any internal user, and that's the main reason. What I'm really trying to understand is what you want/need as a user, as a workflow from Softimage, and that's why I found this thread so helpful. Yes, we have internal people that are helping us understand and will be helping implement some of these feature/workflows, but we also want to make sure we are listening the user, you. Thanks for not beating me up! Yang-hai From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 3:11 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: How long will it take (?) Yang-hai,
Re: How long will it take (?)
On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 8:28 PM, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote: What i don't understand is why Maya dev team, wait so long(years!!) to be reunited with Softimage dev-team, to began listening customers about new implementations or new workflows. Where were you 5 years ago? Merging AD acquisitions into Maya? Buying duct-tape? It's probably not clear from the outside, you're seeing the after-Marc Petit era. Marc believed in serving the big film clients and let the work trickle down. So the team worked on data management, APIs, Qt, viewport, platform stuff. But now ME is realigning Maya to a appeal to a broader user base to there is a huge push in design and focus on the generalists. Maya LT is also putting pressure on the product because it is not for traditional studio users.
Re: How long will it take (?)
On 3/20/2014 12:33 PM, Yang-hai Eakes wrote: Hello David Gallagher, I would first like to thank you for sharing all this. As many of us at Autodesk, I honestly think you have some very strong points here and please rest assured that we are listening. I will be discussing these points in detail internally to see what could be done, sooner rather than later. Animation workflows, which for me includes rigging, is very important and will be an area of focus for Maya over the up-coming releases. The out-of-the-box workflows and the artist friendly mentality that Softimage has, are definitely areas that Maya would benefit from. We do want to bring some of these workflows into Maya. We simply need to make sure we properly understand, design and implement them, that is… in a meaningful/useful manner… basically respecting the workflows. This will be part of our thought process and plans for Maya moving forward. This is why this feedback is so important, so again, thank you. We are also getting a lot of similar feedback from many channels and need to respectfully take the time to listen, understand and compile that feedback. I “will” follow-up to this thread in a more detailed manner, but please do expect the detailed feedback to take some time, as I want to be confident about what can or cannot be addressed in a timely manner. Glad to hear it! I would be happy to web conference with someone there to show the workflows in more detail. Thanks, Dave G Again, I know I’m not the only one to agree with your point of view and feedback, so thank you for sharing this in detail. Regards, Yang-hai Autodesk Designer *From:* David Gallagher *Sent:* Wednesday, March 19, 2014 5:34 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com, davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com Thanks for posting that Jason. I'll keep using Softimage for AnimSchool's rigs. Over the next few years, I'll be looking for some software that allows me to do those things. On 3/19/2014 3:01 PM, Jason S wrote: (previously posted, yet I think it's worth a new thread with alink to the original Maya / XSI article) Here is a notable(_comprehensive_) post on rigging from David Gallagher in response to the super long and(seemingly purposefully) diluted article http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html comparing SI / Maya rigging (concerning rigging workflow -alone-) weighing pro cons, while overweighing pros, underweighing cons, overlooking a bunch of things(most of which outlined below) identifying things like the ability to use locators as rig components as a con and ending with ; /The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost./ /So how long will it take to get there?/ *David Gallagher* image001.gif Jan 8 I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known Malcolm rig for free. There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is profound. - At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, retaining almost every bit of work you've done. YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY. This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to make a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work. And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator your way out of a jam. - You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. - There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go to Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points. In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and scripts
