Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hey Angus. As Juhani pointed out earlier, I actually got Rich's
course to get me started. After that, it was just a matter of
translating my knowledge to Modo-world (which I must say, was not a
straight-forward experience, but that doesn't mean bad at all.
Actually, I am very pleased with the things I've been able to do in
Modo so far).
The thing with Modo is that it handles deformations in a very
particular way that I had not encountered in any other application.
In all applications I've used, deformations are usually normalized.
In Modo, this is a choice. Modo relies in what it calls "order of
operations" to figure out how an object should deform, ordering them
in a deformation stack. I know you'll say "Ah, but Soft and Max do
have a deformation stack"... but it's nothing like that, really. You
need to use it to understand how it works. It's a very open
deformation system, that once you figure it out, it enables you to
create some very fancy effects. I'm very pleased with what Modo
brings to the table.
That being said, Modo still has some way to go in regards to certain
tools and workflows. But I'm quite optimistic about what 801 will
bring to the table.
If you think you'll be doing bipedal characters quite a bit, do
yourself a favor and get ACS
(http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/kits/acs/). It's a kit for
Modo that creates ready-to-animate bipedal characters. From all the
"auto-rig" systems I've used before, this one is one of the best
designed and easiest to understand I've come across. It's quite
flexible too. And the developer is extremely friendly and open to
suggestions (I'm in constant contact with him). It's really worth
the asking price (and more). And the best part is that you can even
share your rigs with animators that don't have the kit installed.
They will only be missing the nice animation workflows and features
in ACS, but the rig remains fully functional.
I recently used it to rig a character for a client onto which I
added a fake muscle system to create more realistic deformations.
I'm adding some Modo rigging material to my Vimeo channel as time
permits. I have a couple of videos up, and will be adding more
advanced stuff as time allows. I already have a couple of things in
mind. You can find it here...
http://vimeo.com/channels/336554
I hope this helps a little when it comes to getting grips with
rigging in Modo. You can thrown me a PM if you have any further
questions. Cheers!
On 11/01/2014 4:26 PM, Paul wrote:
And I think he's pretty much modo's only rigger.
On 11 Jan 2014, at 13:30, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:
Lotta money for a course for modo
version 501. Then again he is the guy who helped Modo
develop their rigging tools. Any one seen this and can say
if its worthwhile ?
From:
Juhani Karlsson [juhani.karls...@talvi.com]
Sent: 11 January 2014 02:49 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Get the Richard Hurreys rigging master course
http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/riggingmastercourse/
Haven`t seen it myself but it should be ok.
On 11 January 2014 13:31,
Angus Davidson
angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:
Hi Sergio
Might I ask what learning materials you
use to get to grips with modo rigging or
did you figure it out your self.
I see DT has just release a new Intro
to rigging so it seems to be a more
requested subject ;)
Kind regards
Angus
From:
Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.com]
Sent: 09 January 2014 05:34
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hi Sergio Thank you very much for this in depth reply.Lot sof very good insights there. I will definitely look at the ACS and Rich's course. as soon as I have the labs set up I will get some time to dig into the rigging side of Modo. Kind regards Angus From: Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.com] Sent: 13 January 2014 05:12 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya Hey Angus. As Juhani pointed out earlier, I actually got Rich's course to get me started. After that, it was just a matter of translating my knowledge to Modo-world (which I must say, was not a straight-forward experience, but that doesn't mean bad at all. Actually, I am very pleased with the things I've been able to do in Modo so far). The thing with Modo is that it handles deformations in a very particular way that I had not encountered in any other application. In all applications I've used, deformations are usually normalized. In Modo, this is a choice. Modo relies in what it calls order of operations to figure out how an object should deform, ordering them in a deformation stack. I know you'll say Ah, but Soft and Max do have a deformation stack... but it's nothing like that, really. You need to use it to understand how it works. It's a very open deformation system, that once you figure it out, it enables you to create some very fancy effects. I'm very pleased with what Modo brings to the table. That being said, Modo still has some way to go in regards to certain tools and workflows. But I'm quite optimistic about what 801 will bring to the table. If you think you'll be doing bipedal characters quite a bit, do yourself a favor and get ACS (http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/kits/acs/). It's a kit for Modo that creates ready-to-animate bipedal characters. From all the auto-rig systems I've used before, this one is one of the best designed and easiest to understand I've come across. It's quite flexible too. And the developer is extremely friendly and open to suggestions (I'm in constant contact with him). It's really worth the asking price (and more). And the best part is that you can even share your rigs with animators that don't have the kit installed. They will only be missing the nice animation workflows and features in ACS, but the rig remains fully functional. I recently used it to rig a character for a client onto which I added a fake muscle system to create more realistic deformations. I'm adding some Modo rigging material to my Vimeo channel as time permits. I have a couple of videos up, and will be adding more advanced stuff as time allows. I already have a couple of things in mind. You can find it here... http://vimeo.com/channels/336554 I hope this helps a little when it comes to getting grips with rigging in Modo. You can thrown me a PM if you have any further questions. Cheers! [cid:part1.07050406.05090307@modusfx.com] On 11/01/2014 4:26 PM, Paul wrote: And I think he's pretty much modo's only rigger. On 11 Jan 2014, at 13:30, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.zamailto:angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote: Lotta money for a course for modo version 501. Then again he is the guy who helped Modo develop their rigging tools. Any one seen this and can say if its worthwhile ? From: Juhani Karlsson [juhani.karls...@talvi.commailto:juhani.karls...@talvi.com] Sent: 11 January 2014 02:49 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya Get the Richard Hurreys rigging master course http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/riggingmastercourse/ Haven`t seen it myself but it should be ok. On 11 January 2014 13:31, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.zamailto:angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote: Hi Sergio Might I ask what learning materials you use to get to grips with modo rigging or did you figure it out your self. I see DT has just release a new Intro to rigging so it seems to be a more requested subject ;) Kind regards Angus From: Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com] Sent: 09 January 2014 05:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): --Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets). --Target mesh must be only polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present. --No shared vertices
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hey Angus. As Juhani pointed out earlier, I actually got Rich's
course to get me started. After that, it was just a matter of
translating my knowledge to Modo-world (which I must say, was not a
straight-forward experience, but that doesn't mean bad at all.
Actually, I am very pleased with the things I've been able to do in
Modo so far).
The thing with Modo is that it handles deformations in a very
particular way that I had not encountered in any other application.
In all applications I've used, deformations are usually normalized.
In Modo, this is a choice. Modo relies in what it calls "order of
operations" to figure out how an object should deform, ordering them
in a deformation stack. I know you'll say "Ah, but Soft and Max do
have a deformation stack"... but it's nothing like that, really. You
need to use it to understand how it works. It's a very open
deformation system, that once you figure it out, it enables you to
create some very fancy effects. I'm very pleased with what Modo
brings to the table.
That being said, Modo still has some way to go in regards to certain
tools and workflows. But I'm quite optimistic about what 801 will
bring to the table.
If you think you'll be doing bipedal characters quite a bit, do
yourself a favor and get ACS (http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/kits/acs/).
It's a kit for Modo that creates ready-to-animate bipedal
characters. From all the "auto-rig" systems I've used before, this
one is one of the best designed and easiest to understand I've come
across. It's quite flexible too. And the developer is extremely
friendly and open to suggestions (I'm in constant contact with him).
It's really worth the asking price (and more). And the best part is
that you can even share your rigs with animators that don't have the
kit installed. They will only be missing the nice animation
workflows and features in ACS, but the rig remains fully functional.
I recently used it to rig a character for a client onto which I
added a fake muscle system to create more realistic deformations.
I'm adding some Modo rigging material to my Vimeo channel as time
permits. I have a couple of videos up, and will be adding more
advanced stuff as time allows. I already have a couple of things in
mind. You can find it here...
http://vimeo.com/channels/336554
I hope this helps a little when it comes to getting grips with
rigging in Modo. You can thrown me a PM if you have any further
questions. Cheers!
On 11/01/2014 4:26 PM, Paul wrote:
And I think he's pretty much modo's only rigger.
On 11 Jan 2014, at 13:30, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:
Lotta money for a course for modo
version 501. Then again he is the guy who helped Modo
develop their rigging tools. Any one seen this and can say
if its worthwhile ?
From:
Juhani Karlsson [juhani.karls...@talvi.com]
Sent: 11 January 2014 02:49 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Get the Richard Hurreys rigging master course
http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/riggingmastercourse/
Haven`t seen it myself but it should be ok.
On 11 January 2014 13:31,
Angus Davidson
angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:
Hi Sergio
Might I ask what learning materials you
use to get to grips with modo rigging or
did you figure it out your self.
I see DT has just release a new Intro
to rigging so it seems to be a more
requested subject ;)
Kind regards
Angus
From:
Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.com]
Sent: 09 January 2014 05:34
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hi Sergio Might I ask what learning materials you use to get to grips with modo rigging or did you figure it out your self. I see DT has just release a new Intro to rigging so it seems to be a more requested subject ;) Kind regards Angus From: Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.com] Sent: 09 January 2014 05:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): --Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets). --Target mesh must be only polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present. --No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. --All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. [cid:part1.04000500.03080601@modusfx.com] On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.demailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s -- table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 style=width:100%; tr td align=left style=text-align:justify;font face=arial,sans-serif size=1 color=#99span style=font-size:11px;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
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Get the Richard Hurreys rigging master course http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/riggingmastercourse/ Haven`t seen it myself but it should be ok. On 11 January 2014 13:31, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote: Hi Sergio Might I ask what learning materials you use to get to grips with modo rigging or did you figure it out your self. I see DT has just release a new Intro to rigging so it seems to be a more requested subject ;) Kind regards Angus -- *From:* Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.com] *Sent:* 09 January 2014 05:34 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: rigging in xsi vs maya I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): *--**Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets).* *--**Target mesh must be **only** polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present.* *--**No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. * *--**All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. * Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s -- 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
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Lotta money for a course for modo version 501. Then again he is the guy who helped Modo develop their rigging tools. Any one seen this and can say if its worthwhile ? From: Juhani Karlsson [juhani.karls...@talvi.com] Sent: 11 January 2014 02:49 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya Get the Richard Hurreys rigging master course http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/riggingmastercourse/ Haven`t seen it myself but it should be ok. On 11 January 2014 13:31, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.zamailto:angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote: Hi Sergio Might I ask what learning materials you use to get to grips with modo rigging or did you figure it out your self. I see DT has just release a new Intro to rigging so it seems to be a more requested subject ;) Kind regards Angus From: Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.commailto:sergio.muc...@modusfx.com] Sent: 09 January 2014 05:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): --Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets). --Target mesh must be only polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present. --No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. --All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. [cid:part1.04000500.03080601@modusfx.com] On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.demailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s -- This communication
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
And I think he's pretty much modo's only rigger. On 11 Jan 2014, at 13:30, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote: Lotta money for a course for modo version 501. Then again he is the guy who helped Modo develop their rigging tools. Any one seen this and can say if its worthwhile ? From: Juhani Karlsson [juhani.karls...@talvi.com] Sent: 11 January 2014 02:49 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya Get the Richard Hurreys rigging master course http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/riggingmastercourse/ Haven`t seen it myself but it should be ok. On 11 January 2014 13:31, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote: Hi Sergio Might I ask what learning materials you use to get to grips with modo rigging or did you figure it out your self. I see DT has just release a new Intro to rigging so it seems to be a more requested subject ;) Kind regards Angus From: Sergio Mucino [sergio.muc...@modusfx.com] Sent: 09 January 2014 05:34 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): --Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets). --Target mesh must be only polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present. --No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. --All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. CUserssergio.mucinoDownloadsSergioMucino_Signature_email.gif On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
That's all good points. However, all scanned meshes I've seen so far had such irregular topology, holes (Concave areas like behind the ears or around the neck behind collars and other clothing), and other errors (hair, beard, eyes) that excessive editing was required to make it look good, and to deform well, retopologizing was almost a must. I think in order to directly use scanned data for deforming objects, the scanning process needs to produce clean enough results first before you can start worrying about how to envelope, rig and animate all those points efficiently, and I don't see technology delivering such data yet. that you'd usually can't avoid fixing those anyway, depending on what you want to use it for of course What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? That is what I meant to suggest when I wrote: It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data Basically, a rigged lower density mesh and a displacement trying to capture small detail while at the same time loosing control over how that detail will actually react, that´s sort of the established standard for working with high detail. Reduce detail until you can handle it and hope nobody will notice. Depending on personality, wave away concerns. The reason why I suggest to go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones: That is the data you want to animate, everything else is already yet another degraded derrivate. Going and trying it will show the limitations of current toolsets. Then do some cloth sim ontop and fix interpenetration issues. Or first of all wait for collision simulation to finish. Like using *.jpg´s with lossy compression as the input for color grading, then re-compressing again as a lossy *.jpg and wondering why there´s block artifacts. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 14:34, Stefan Kubicek wrote: go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones. What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? I agree to the rigging paradigm needing some rethinking. I grew up with black box systems like Character Studio and CAT. Creating a rig based on those takes only minutes to hours, not days, but they lack customizability. Yet, results were good enough that I was constantly asking myself as to why anyone could possible want to use anything else for 90% of the work you see being produced anywhere. It's such a huge cost factor, both in terms of time it takes to create the rig and time it takes to trouble shoot and maintain it if it breaks (which the black box systems next to never do) or needs extensions. Autoriggers (Gear etc) reduce the creation time factor at the expense of flexibility, yet the maintenance aspect stays to a certain degree. What I also miss in them is the ability to have a mesh enveloped to joints and just put the rig on top, allowing to test deformations directly by posing the envelope rig without having to create a control rig - a given with the black box systems because the control rig _is_ the envelope rig. The only thing I know that works in a similar way is Motion Builder, in that you import your enveloped mesh and joints and apply rigging solvers to it, again at the expense of flexibility - it only supports humanoid and 4-legged creatures. Fabric/Osirirs looks like it could deliver such a paradigm change - a modular rigging system where the building blocks are encapsulated and the asset that the user interacts with in the scene is light-weight, fast and easy to manipulate, and hard to break. I'm really looking forward to that, even though flexibility beyond a certain point will probably need to be paid for with programming knowledge and -time again. Look at what comes in terms of animation and skeleton recognition in the xbox kinect sdk and the xbox one. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 13:09, Guillaume Laforge wrote: I didn't read every posts so maybe my understanding is wrong but based in last replies from Luc-Eric and Tim Leydecker, it sounds like point cloud scanning is a rigging feature. It is not, so lets return to the subject please :). That illustrate well that it is much more easy to put money on new techs (like point cloud scanning, web based applications, etc...) than to think about how to improve/re-design an existing workflow like character rigging ! We saw some new systems in modeling (ZBrush etc...) and rendering (Katana) some years ago, but still nothing in the rigging area. It make sense as rigging is really a different culture. You need to be a good character rigger to understand and build a good
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hi Stefan, you´re right about the initial quality of scan data. I do a little bit of worst case editing here myself, cleaning up kinect scans done with skanect and then trying to make them look nice in 3D coat voxel mode. It is more of an academic scenario to suggest to rig such a highrez mesh directly. to test how the current toolset handles such data for rigging. Nevertheless, ILM brought us Jurassic Park Dinos using Nurbssurfaces and higher detail as displacement. Since then, in terms of rigging, the general approach available hasn´t really changed. You can have muscles and cloth simulation but you can´t easily control small detailbehaviour. As a very simple means of illustrating how much control you loose through abstraction: Each time a polygon face is subdivided, you have to divide your direct control by 4. At a common lowrez2nd subdivision levels rigsurface ratio, you already just only control every 16th face directly. That doesn´t even include displacement levels. It´s all a huge interpolation. That´s what I´d like to see change a bit. There´s ways to edit animation afterwards but that´s better seen as beauty polishing, finetuning and last-minute tweaking,wonderful to have and surely great to negelect gravity in a women´s body, too: https://www.lightwave3d.com/chronosculpt/ Cheers, tim On 10.01.2014 15:00, Stefan Kubicek wrote: That's all good points. However, all scanned meshes I've seen so far had such irregular topology, holes (Concave areas like behind the ears or around the neck behind collars and other clothing), and other errors (hair, beard, eyes) that excessive editing was required to make it look good, and to deform well, retopologizing was almost a must. I think in order to directly use scanned data for deforming objects, the scanning process needs to produce clean enough results first before you can start worrying about how to envelope, rig and animate all those points efficiently, and I don't see technology delivering such data yet. that you'd usually can't avoid fixing those anyway, depending on what you want to use it for of course What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? That is what I meant to suggest when I wrote: It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data Basically, a rigged lower density mesh and a displacement trying to capture small detail while at the same time loosing control over how that detail will actually react, that´s sort of the established standard for working with high detail. Reduce detail until you can handle it and hope nobody will notice. Depending on personality, wave away concerns. The reason why I suggest to go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones: That is the data you want to animate, everything else is already yet another degraded derrivate. Going and trying it will show the limitations of current toolsets. Then do some cloth sim ontop and fix interpenetration issues. Or first of all wait for collision simulation to finish. Like using *.jpg´s with lossy compression as the input for color grading, then re-compressing again as a lossy *.jpg and wondering why there´s block artifacts. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 14:34, Stefan Kubicek wrote: go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones. What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? I agree to the rigging paradigm needing some rethinking. I grew up with black box systems like Character Studio and CAT. Creating a rig based on those takes only minutes to hours, not days, but they lack customizability. Yet, results were good enough that I was constantly asking myself as to why anyone could possible want to use anything else for 90% of the work you see being produced anywhere. It's such a huge cost factor, both in terms of time it takes to create the rig and time it takes to trouble shoot and maintain it if it breaks (which the black box systems next to never do) or needs extensions. Autoriggers (Gear etc) reduce the creation time factor at the expense of flexibility, yet the maintenance aspect stays to a certain degree. What I also miss in them is the ability to have a mesh enveloped to joints and just put the rig on top, allowing to test deformations directly by posing the envelope rig without having to create a control rig - a given with the black box systems because the control rig _is_ the envelope rig. The only thing I know that works in a similar way is Motion Builder, in that you import your enveloped mesh and joints and apply rigging solvers to it, again at the
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Autodesk is doing a lot of development in the area of 3D scan data handling. If you look into what is going on in the area of topology data aquisition for architecture, engineering and the military, there is a shift towards 3D pointcloud data which imho is compareable to what 2D tracking as a concept brought us in the 90s. (Facial recognition and finally image based modeling and camera positional data) It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data. The implication such data for 3D animation brings is that the concept of wheighting a fixed number of vertices to a bone may have to be extended beyond a fixed number of polygons. Unfortunately, taking fall-off based volume wheighting as in it´s current level of finesse may give worse results than before, especially if your shape options for the influence volume are limited to capsules, boxes or spheres. I am a bit worried that the process of riggingwheighting an organic character will become even more frustrating and stiff or at least will need even more steps, like creating an extra controlsurface with a fixed number of points and wrapping it around the high-density data. Such a wrap-deformer takes away control. It´s always the rims and little caveats that need extra care. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 02:13, Guillaume Laforge wrote: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow. I'm still wondering if a company ( not talking about Autodesk here ) will do anything new like that for our little world. Money for such large dev projects is just not in the animation/vfx world anymore. I'm not sarcastic, just realist. So lets embrace old techs like Maya or XSI. They won't evolve too much but won't disappear before many (many) years. Btw, Katana is not the futur, it is now :).
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I didn't read every posts so maybe my understanding is wrong but based in last replies from Luc-Eric and Tim Leydecker, it sounds like point cloud scanning is a rigging feature. It is not, so lets return to the subject please :). That illustrate well that it is much more easy to put money on new techs (like point cloud scanning, web based applications, etc...) than to think about how to improve/re-design an existing workflow like character rigging ! We saw some new systems in modeling (ZBrush etc...) and rendering (Katana) some years ago, but still nothing in the rigging area. It make sense as rigging is really a different culture. You need to be a good character rigger to understand and build a good rigging system. But being a good character rigger means spend a lot of time on existing tools like Maya or XSI. At the end you think only through the proposed tools of your app. If you are a developer interested in designing a rigging system, it is the opposite problem, you can have a fresh new vision but you can miss important concepts of character rigging in your tool. Interesting subject, if you forget about Maya and XSI :) Cheers, Guillaume Laforge On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Autodesk is doing a lot of development in the area of 3D scan data handling. If you look into what is going on in the area of topology data aquisition for architecture, engineering and the military, there is a shift towards 3D pointcloud data which imho is compareable to what 2D tracking as a concept brought us in the 90s. (Facial recognition and finally image based modeling and camera positional data) It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data. The implication such data for 3D animation brings is that the concept of wheighting a fixed number of vertices to a bone may have to be extended beyond a fixed number of polygons. Unfortunately, taking fall-off based volume wheighting as in it´s current level of finesse may give worse results than before, especially if your shape options for the influence volume are limited to capsules, boxes or spheres. I am a bit worried that the process of riggingwheighting an organic character will become even more frustrating and stiff or at least will need even more steps, like creating an extra controlsurface with a fixed number of points and wrapping it around the high-density data. Such a wrap-deformer takes away control. It´s always the rims and little caveats that need extra care. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 02:13, Guillaume Laforge wrote: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.commailto: luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow. I'm still wondering if a company ( not talking about Autodesk here ) will do anything new like that for our little world. Money for such large dev projects is just not in the animation/vfx world anymore. I'm not sarcastic, just realist. So lets embrace old techs like Maya or XSI. They won't evolve too much but won't disappear before many (many) years. Btw, Katana is not the futur, it is now :).
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hey Guillaume, go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones. Look at what comes in terms of animation and skeleton recognition in the xbox kinect sdk and the xbox one. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 13:09, Guillaume Laforge wrote: I didn't read every posts so maybe my understanding is wrong but based in last replies from Luc-Eric and Tim Leydecker, it sounds like point cloud scanning is a rigging feature. It is not, so lets return to the subject please :). That illustrate well that it is much more easy to put money on new techs (like point cloud scanning, web based applications, etc...) than to think about how to improve/re-design an existing workflow like character rigging ! We saw some new systems in modeling (ZBrush etc...) and rendering (Katana) some years ago, but still nothing in the rigging area. It make sense as rigging is really a different culture. You need to be a good character rigger to understand and build a good rigging system. But being a good character rigger means spend a lot of time on existing tools like Maya or XSI. At the end you think only through the proposed tools of your app. If you are a developer interested in designing a rigging system, it is the opposite problem, you can have a fresh new vision but you can miss important concepts of character rigging in your tool. Interesting subject, if you forget about Maya and XSI :) Cheers, Guillaume Laforge On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de mailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Autodesk is doing a lot of development in the area of 3D scan data handling. If you look into what is going on in the area of topology data aquisition for architecture, engineering and the military, there is a shift towards 3D pointcloud data which imho is compareable to what 2D tracking as a concept brought us in the 90s. (Facial recognition and finally image based modeling and camera positional data) It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data. The implication such data for 3D animation brings is that the concept of wheighting a fixed number of vertices to a bone may have to be extended beyond a fixed number of polygons. Unfortunately, taking fall-off based volume wheighting as in it´s current level of finesse may give worse results than before, especially if your shape options for the influence volume are limited to capsules, boxes or spheres. I am a bit worried that the process of riggingwheighting an organic character will become even more frustrating and stiff or at least will need even more steps, like creating an extra controlsurface with a fixed number of points and wrapping it around the high-density data. Such a wrap-deformer takes away control. It´s always the rims and little caveats that need extra care. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 02:13, Guillaume Laforge wrote: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow. I'm still wondering if a company ( not talking about Autodesk here ) will do anything new like that for our little world. Money for such large dev projects is just not in the animation/vfx world anymore. I'm not sarcastic, just realist. So lets embrace old techs like Maya or XSI. They won't evolve too much but won't disappear before many (many) years. Btw, Katana is not the futur, it is now :).
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Why not a node based rigging system ? (not necessarily an ice node system) but its own thing, you arrange your nulls, you add rig trees to them in a small interface graph where you have nodes for different behaviours like ik, fk, hik, twist, strech, you plug the nulls according to the hierarchy you want, each node has its own params so you can expose or lock or modify them in the rig or synoptic. i'm sure such a system wouldn't cover everything, its often what i get told, that rigging is so complex a proses that in the end the longest traditional method is the only one that allows for the flexibility and reactivity necessary for a pipe. in spite of this i think such a system has merrit and deserves to go past prototype, if only to offer another perspective. its quite probable that neither xsi or mayas architecture is able to accommodate such a system natively, but plug-ins like yeti are basically like their own independent little engines running within the shell of a dcc, the same is true for fabric i assume. On 9 January 2014 13:09, Guillaume Laforge guillaume.laforge...@gmail.comwrote: I didn't read every posts so maybe my understanding is wrong but based in last replies from Luc-Eric and Tim Leydecker, it sounds like point cloud scanning is a rigging feature. It is not, so lets return to the subject please :). That illustrate well that it is much more easy to put money on new techs (like point cloud scanning, web based applications, etc...) than to think about how to improve/re-design an existing workflow like character rigging ! We saw some new systems in modeling (ZBrush etc...) and rendering (Katana) some years ago, but still nothing in the rigging area. It make sense as rigging is really a different culture. You need to be a good character rigger to understand and build a good rigging system. But being a good character rigger means spend a lot of time on existing tools like Maya or XSI. At the end you think only through the proposed tools of your app. If you are a developer interested in designing a rigging system, it is the opposite problem, you can have a fresh new vision but you can miss important concepts of character rigging in your tool. Interesting subject, if you forget about Maya and XSI :) Cheers, Guillaume Laforge On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Autodesk is doing a lot of development in the area of 3D scan data handling. If you look into what is going on in the area of topology data aquisition for architecture, engineering and the military, there is a shift towards 3D pointcloud data which imho is compareable to what 2D tracking as a concept brought us in the 90s. (Facial recognition and finally image based modeling and camera positional data) It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data. The implication such data for 3D animation brings is that the concept of wheighting a fixed number of vertices to a bone may have to be extended beyond a fixed number of polygons. Unfortunately, taking fall-off based volume wheighting as in it´s current level of finesse may give worse results than before, especially if your shape options for the influence volume are limited to capsules, boxes or spheres. I am a bit worried that the process of riggingwheighting an organic character will become even more frustrating and stiff or at least will need even more steps, like creating an extra controlsurface with a fixed number of points and wrapping it around the high-density data. Such a wrap-deformer takes away control. It´s always the rims and little caveats that need extra care. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 02:13, Guillaume Laforge wrote: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.commailto: luceri...@gmail.com wrote: In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow. I'm still wondering if a company ( not talking about Autodesk here ) will do anything new like that for our little world. Money for such large dev projects is just not in the animation/vfx world anymore. I'm not sarcastic, just realist. So lets embrace old techs like Maya or XSI. They won't evolve too much but won't disappear before many (many) years. Btw, Katana is not the futur, it is now :).
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones. What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? I agree to the rigging paradigm needing some rethinking. I grew up with black box systems like Character Studio and CAT. Creating a rig based on those takes only minutes to hours, not days, but they lack customizability. Yet, results were good enough that I was constantly asking myself as to why anyone could possible want to use anything else for 90% of the work you see being produced anywhere. It's such a huge cost factor, both in terms of time it takes to create the rig and time it takes to trouble shoot and maintain it if it breaks (which the black box systems next to never do) or needs extensions. Autoriggers (Gear etc) reduce the creation time factor at the expense of flexibility, yet the maintenance aspect stays to a certain degree. What I also miss in them is the ability to have a mesh enveloped to joints and just put the rig on top, allowing to test deformations directly by posing the envelope rig without having to create a control rig - a given with the black box systems because the control rig _is_ the envelope rig. The only thing I know that works in a similar way is Motion Builder, in that you import your enveloped mesh and joints and apply rigging solvers to it, again at the expense of flexibility - it only supports humanoid and 4-legged creatures. Fabric/Osirirs looks like it could deliver such a paradigm change - a modular rigging system where the building blocks are encapsulated and the asset that the user interacts with in the scene is light-weight, fast and easy to manipulate, and hard to break. I'm really looking forward to that, even though flexibility beyond a certain point will probably need to be paid for with programming knowledge and -time again. Look at what comes in terms of animation and skeleton recognition in the xbox kinect sdk and the xbox one. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 13:09, Guillaume Laforge wrote: I didn't read every posts so maybe my understanding is wrong but based in last replies from Luc-Eric and Tim Leydecker, it sounds like point cloud scanning is a rigging feature. It is not, so lets return to the subject please :). That illustrate well that it is much more easy to put money on new techs (like point cloud scanning, web based applications, etc...) than to think about how to improve/re-design an existing workflow like character rigging ! We saw some new systems in modeling (ZBrush etc...) and rendering (Katana) some years ago, but still nothing in the rigging area. It make sense as rigging is really a different culture. You need to be a good character rigger to understand and build a good rigging system. But being a good character rigger means spend a lot of time on existing tools like Maya or XSI. At the end you think only through the proposed tools of your app. If you are a developer interested in designing a rigging system, it is the opposite problem, you can have a fresh new vision but you can miss important concepts of character rigging in your tool. Interesting subject, if you forget about Maya and XSI :) Cheers, Guillaume Laforge On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de mailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Autodesk is doing a lot of development in the area of 3D scan data handling. If you look into what is going on in the area of topology data aquisition for architecture, engineering and the military, there is a shift towards 3D pointcloud data which imho is compareable to what 2D tracking as a concept brought us in the 90s. (Facial recognition and finally image based modeling and camera positional data) It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data. The implication such data for 3D animation brings is that the concept of wheighting a fixed number of vertices to a bone may have to be extended beyond a fixed number of polygons. Unfortunately, taking fall-off based volume wheighting as in it´s current level of finesse may give worse results than before, especially if your shape options for the influence volume are limited to capsules, boxes or spheres. I am a bit worried that the process of riggingwheighting an organic character will become even more frustrating and stiff or at least will need even more steps, like creating an extra controlsurface with a fixed number of points and wrapping it around the high-density data. Such a wrap-deformer takes away control. It´s always the rims and little caveats that need extra care. Cheers, tim
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? That is what I meant to suggest when I wrote: It is at hand that the more complex, raw 3D point cloud data will need new and abstracted ways of handling and manipulation, filtering options and adaptive control layers for approximated data Basically, a rigged lower density mesh and a displacement trying to capture small detail while at the same time loosing control over how that detail will actually react, that´s sort of the established standard for working with high detail. Reduce detail until you can handle it and hope nobody will notice. Depending on personality, wave away concerns. The reason why I suggest to go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones: That is the data you want to animate, everything else is already yet another degraded derrivate. Going and trying it will show the limitations of current toolsets. Then do some cloth sim ontop and fix interpenetration issues. Or first of all wait for collision simulation to finish. Like using *.jpg´s with lossy compression as the input for color grading, then re-compressing again as a lossy *.jpg and wondering why there´s block artifacts. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 14:34, Stefan Kubicek wrote: go and skin/rig/wheight a raw 3D scan mesh directly to bones. What would be a typical scenario for this? The point count is adjustable (at the expense of detail), but the topology will aways be a mess unless properly retopo-ed, wouldn't it? I agree to the rigging paradigm needing some rethinking. I grew up with black box systems like Character Studio and CAT. Creating a rig based on those takes only minutes to hours, not days, but they lack customizability. Yet, results were good enough that I was constantly asking myself as to why anyone could possible want to use anything else for 90% of the work you see being produced anywhere. It's such a huge cost factor, both in terms of time it takes to create the rig and time it takes to trouble shoot and maintain it if it breaks (which the black box systems next to never do) or needs extensions. Autoriggers (Gear etc) reduce the creation time factor at the expense of flexibility, yet the maintenance aspect stays to a certain degree. What I also miss in them is the ability to have a mesh enveloped to joints and just put the rig on top, allowing to test deformations directly by posing the envelope rig without having to create a control rig - a given with the black box systems because the control rig _is_ the envelope rig. The only thing I know that works in a similar way is Motion Builder, in that you import your enveloped mesh and joints and apply rigging solvers to it, again at the expense of flexibility - it only supports humanoid and 4-legged creatures. Fabric/Osirirs looks like it could deliver such a paradigm change - a modular rigging system where the building blocks are encapsulated and the asset that the user interacts with in the scene is light-weight, fast and easy to manipulate, and hard to break. I'm really looking forward to that, even though flexibility beyond a certain point will probably need to be paid for with programming knowledge and -time again. Look at what comes in terms of animation and skeleton recognition in the xbox kinect sdk and the xbox one. Cheers, tim On 09.01.2014 13:09, Guillaume Laforge wrote: I didn't read every posts so maybe my understanding is wrong but based in last replies from Luc-Eric and Tim Leydecker, it sounds like point cloud scanning is a rigging feature. It is not, so lets return to the subject please :). That illustrate well that it is much more easy to put money on new techs (like point cloud scanning, web based applications, etc...) than to think about how to improve/re-design an existing workflow like character rigging ! We saw some new systems in modeling (ZBrush etc...) and rendering (Katana) some years ago, but still nothing in the rigging area. It make sense as rigging is really a different culture. You need to be a good character rigger to understand and build a good rigging system. But being a good character rigger means spend a lot of time on existing tools like Maya or XSI. At the end you think only through the proposed tools of your app. If you are a developer interested in designing a rigging system, it is the opposite problem, you can have a fresh new vision but you can miss important concepts of character rigging in your tool. Interesting subject, if you forget about Maya and XSI :) Cheers, Guillaume Laforge On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de mailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Autodesk is doing a lot of development in the area of 3D scan data handling. If you look into what is going on in the area of topology data aquisition for architecture,
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Sebastian, look at ILM's Block Party 2 rigging system. On 1/9/2014 7:53 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: Why not a node based rigging system ? (not necessarily an ice node system) but its own thing, you arrange your nulls, you add rig trees to them in a small interface graph where you have nodes for different behaviours like ik, fk, hik, twist, strech, you plug the nulls according to the hierarchy you want, each node has its own params so you can expose or lock or modify them in the rig or synoptic. i'm sure such a system wouldn't cover everything, its often what i get told, that rigging is so complex a proses that in the end the longest traditional method is the only one that allows for the flexibility and reactivity necessary for a pipe. in spite of this i think such a system has merrit and deserves to go past prototype, if only to offer another perspective. its quite probable that neither xsi or mayas architecture is able to accommodate such a system natively, but plug-ins like yeti are basically like their own independent little engines running within the shell of a dcc, the same is true for fabric i assume.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Maybe we could rename constraints with ICE? Eat it Maya! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 9:57 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Butbut.buteverybody said ICE can do oh so much more. Say it ain't so.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): --Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets). --Target mesh must be only polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present. --No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. --All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didnt try to export any rig controls, just a "human" rig. Its worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to "Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla" (im on 2012s). I cant say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I posted this on the Softimage User Voice but I really really want to try this Geodesic Voxel Binding: https://vimeo.com/69268846 On Thursday, January 09, 2014 10:34:36 AM, Sergio Mucino wrote: I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): /--//Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets).// --//Target mesh must be //only//polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present.// --//No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. // --//All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. / Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de mailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s --
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I saw that video a while ago. I would expect to see this show up in Maya sometime 'soon' (hopefully).' On 09/01/2014 10:38 AM, Eric Thivierge wrote: I posted this on the Softimage User Voice but I really really want to try this Geodesic Voxel Binding: https://vimeo.com/69268846 On Thursday, January 09, 2014 10:34:36 AM, Sergio Mucino wrote: I've been doing quite a bit of rigging in Modo lately, and I have been very surprised by its capabilities. One thing they do support is heat mapping. It's quite nice to use, but there are several requirement that need to be met for a mesh to be acceptable for heat binding. I don't know if all heat mapping implementations are based on the same algo(s), and therefore, inherit the same requirements, but here they go (copying/pasting from the docs): /--//Mesh must form a volume, though holes are supported (such as eye sockets).// --//Target mesh must be //only//polygonal, no single vertices, floating edges or curves can be present.// --//No shared vertices, edges or polygons (non-manifold surfaces) allowed between multiple components. // --//All joints must be contained within the volume of the mesh. / Otherwise, you can still use the available smooth or rigid binding methods. I don't know if any problems you ran into could be due to some of these conditions, but there... just in case. On 08/01/2014 8:31 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de mailto:bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a "human" rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to "Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla" (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
This has been pretty much my only "um..." regarding ICE. It seems to be like a (powerful) local black box that is related to one object. I know that an ICE graph can actually get and set data to multiple locations, but in some cases, one needs to jump through hoops (for example, it's difficult to read-write data from other ICE graphs... or at least, not straight-forward). In Maya, everything is part of the scene graph, so its a lot easier to read/write data, and find all related operations to a certain node. However, Maya has to have the worst node editor I've ever had to touch. I would definitely not want to see something like that in Softimage (or anywhere else for that matter). Every time I try to use it, it makes me want to kick puppies, and come back flying to the Hypergraph. I much prefer the ICE UI/workflow (I'd just like it more if it was "global") and Modo's Schematic View (by orders of magnitude). On 08/01/2014 5:00 PM, Eric Thivierge wrote: Yeah, ICE could do that if they keep pushing it... maybe? Though I think it's pretty black boxed in terms of just having the high level access to objects, not the underlying nodes. A Node Editor like Maya plus exposing more of the internals in the Scene Explorer would be something to look at if this ever gets any attention. @Emilio, we need this in Softimage as well! On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:58:03 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Haha. Maybe because Maya needs it, so you can dig in there and get it working properly. While in Softimage not ;) Just fueling the fire! 2014/1/8 Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com mailto:ethivie...@hybride.com Just because I want to fuel the fire, I'll toss in that while the workflow in Maya is quite flawed out of the box, you can get to more internals of the scene graph and manipulate it than we have in Softimage. On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:15:04 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote: Bravo! Bravo!! :) I echo your exact sentiments, David (though my own credentials are puny by comparison.) The operator stack should be permanently on the box as a "hot feature". We all take it for granted all the time, but seriously it's one of the best features in Soft. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagelist@__gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I absolutely hate this behavior in Maya. It's, frankly, ridiculous. Maya's weighting tools are totally sub-par compared to any other 3d application I've used (including Max). Why it is this way, I don't know, but as a user, it's incredibly frustrating to have to focus on not shooting yourself in the foot (as daring to perform a smooth weights operation with all bones unlocked) more than getting actual work done. Maya has great things for it, but binding and weighting is definitely not one of them. It's pretty bad, actually. Ok, rant off. :-) On 07/01/2014 9:57 PM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to "lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes" failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the "cometSaveWeights" format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s --
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Maya's component editor really sucks because of that lock thing. It really slow my workflow so I usually deal with the export / import to SI and work there my weighting. But when I can, I skin my model in Maya before sending it to SI, because it has a much better default weighting than SI and Maya bones are easier to deal with when you do game assets (and FBX convert them nicely into nulls when importing). With proper settings you can use the default Maya weights for a test model where precise weights aren't needed. SI weights are pretty much useless, not even for a mob or test character. You need to re-weight almost everything manually, and if you work with nulls, it is even worst. I haven't used yet that heat skin or whatever from newer Maya versions but it looks cool. (I only use old versions for work) Martin Sent from my iPhone Maya has great things for it, but binding and weighting is definitely not one of them. It's pretty bad, actually. Ok, rant off.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
if you do a lot of bipeds, and you have a base set of deformers with a good naming convention. you can skin a generic biped mesh and use gator to transfer the weights... never use default weighting again. On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Martin furik...@gmail.com wrote: Maya's component editor really sucks because of that lock thing. It really slow my workflow so I usually deal with the export / import to SI and work there my weighting. But when I can, I skin my model in Maya before sending it to SI, because it has a much better default weighting than SI and Maya bones are easier to deal with when you do game assets (and FBX convert them nicely into nulls when importing). With proper settings you can use the default Maya weights for a test model where precise weights aren't needed. SI weights are pretty much useless, not even for a mob or test character. You need to re-weight almost everything manually, and if you work with nulls, it is even worst. I haven't used yet that heat skin or whatever from newer Maya versions but it looks cool. (I only use old versions for work) Martin Sent from my iPhone Maya has great things for it, but binding and weighting is definitely not one of them. It's pretty bad, actually. Ok, rant off.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I used the default weighting before a lot, but never again, neither Maya nor Softimage. It is much faster to have a proper weighting using the inside out method on both apps. Wich in my case it is faster and more controlable in Softimage than in Maya. Specially by using the weight editor in Softimage, I had some funky experiences using the same in Maya. 2014/1/9 Steven Caron car...@gmail.com if you do a lot of bipeds, and you have a base set of deformers with a good naming convention. you can skin a generic biped mesh and use gator to transfer the weights... never use default weighting again. On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 11:32 AM, Martin furik...@gmail.com wrote: Maya's component editor really sucks because of that lock thing. It really slow my workflow so I usually deal with the export / import to SI and work there my weighting. But when I can, I skin my model in Maya before sending it to SI, because it has a much better default weighting than SI and Maya bones are easier to deal with when you do game assets (and FBX convert them nicely into nulls when importing). With proper settings you can use the default Maya weights for a test model where precise weights aren't needed. SI weights are pretty much useless, not even for a mob or test character. You need to re-weight almost everything manually, and if you work with nulls, it is even worst. I haven't used yet that heat skin or whatever from newer Maya versions but it looks cool. (I only use old versions for work) Martin Sent from my iPhone Maya has great things for it, but binding and weighting is definitely not one of them. It's pretty bad, actually. Ok, rant off.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
looks interesting eric, but i can only find one page, kind of what i had in mind but a little more abstract, i suppose it all depends how much of this system is basically reusing elements in maya, and how much is its own thing, e.g does it still use maya bones or does it have its own custom primitive, locator null, helper... thanks for sharing i had not seen this before its pretty cool :) On 9 January 2014 15:28, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com wrote: Sebastian, look at ILM's Block Party 2 rigging system. On 1/9/2014 7:53 AM, Sebastien Sterling wrote: Why not a node based rigging system ? (not necessarily an ice node system) but its own thing, you arrange your nulls, you add rig trees to them in a small interface graph where you have nodes for different behaviours like ik, fk, hik, twist, strech, you plug the nulls according to the hierarchy you want, each node has its own params so you can expose or lock or modify them in the rig or synoptic. i'm sure such a system wouldn't cover everything, its often what i get told, that rigging is so complex a proses that in the end the longest traditional method is the only one that allows for the flexibility and reactivity necessary for a pipe. in spite of this i think such a system has merrit and deserves to go past prototype, if only to offer another perspective. its quite probable that neither xsi or mayas architecture is able to accommodate such a system natively, but plug-ins like yeti are basically like their own independent little engines running within the shell of a dcc, the same is true for fabric i assume.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly 'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing. Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to get a quite decent base to work on.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Hi guys. Now I adapt the Norman's rig for XSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUTkJcWPv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUTCBbQaYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZajrQCVbLU 2014/1/10 Cesar Saez cesa...@gmail.com We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly 'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing. Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to get a quite decent base to work on. -- Евграфов Максим.(Summatr) https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos --- Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
there are many free rigs for maya and there are little free rigs for xi. justice must prevail! 2014/1/10 Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com Hi guys. Now I adapt the Norman's rig for XSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUTkJcWPv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUTCBbQaYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZajrQCVbLU 2014/1/10 Cesar Saez cesa...@gmail.com We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly 'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing. Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to get a quite decent base to work on. -- Евграфов Максим.(Summatr) https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos --- Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-) -- Евграфов Максим.(Summatr) https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos --- Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Lovely stuff Max ! On 10 January 2014 04:29, Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com wrote: Hi guys. Now I adapt the Norman's rig for XSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUTkJcWPv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUTCBbQaYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZajrQCVbLU 2014/1/10 Cesar Saez cesa...@gmail.com We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly 'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing. Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to get a quite decent base to work on. -- Евграфов Максим.(Summatr) https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos --- Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Looks like you really brought him through ! Is it identical to the maya version ? at any rate i salute you sir ! On 10 January 2014 04:57, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.comwrote: Lovely stuff Max ! On 10 January 2014 04:29, Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com wrote: Hi guys. Now I adapt the Norman's rig for XSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUTkJcWPv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUTCBbQaYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZajrQCVbLU 2014/1/10 Cesar Saez cesa...@gmail.com We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly 'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing. Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to get a quite decent base to work on. -- Евграфов Максим.(Summatr) https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos --- Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Great! I love Norman. On 1/9/2014 8:29 PM, Max Evgrafov wrote: Hi guys. Now I adapt the Norman's rig for XSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUTkJcWPv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUTCBbQaYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZajrQCVbLU 2014/1/10 Cesar Saez cesa...@gmail.com mailto:cesa...@gmail.com We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly 'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing. Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to get a quite decent base to work on. -- Евграфов Максим.(Summatr) https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos --- Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
In games we have different name conventions, bones count and structure, model and unit size, character proportions, etc. so a base mesh is not very useful outside that project. But of course I do use Gator and Maya's copy weights to accelerate my character mass production when it is possible. I also use the SI default weighting with 1 deformer as a base, enforce limit bones if needed, then retouch and smooth where needed. SI's envelope with more than 1 deformer is unusable because you don't have any control in the smooth distance or dropoff rate. In Softimage's Set Envelope you have what, number of skeletons option and a Method option that I haven't figured out yet in what situation I could use the Normal-based one. We use only nulls in games (Softimage), not bones (bones are only for rigging), and therefore the default weights sucks even harder because the nulls position are taken as the bone center, so it is totally unusable. Re-weight from scratch. I could slice the character, envelope, smooth, and gator like Cesar said, I guess. Or I could convert my nulls to bones. I may have to write something to convert nulls to SI bones. Does anyone have a null to bone script ? When I have to do more than 1 similar character, I usually create a very low poly base character and then use Gator / Copy Weights. But if not, I have to set all the weights manually without a decent base, or do it in Maya. I remember that when I was a junior, learning Maya, somehow I messed up the weights with a couple of hours to deadline to deliver a few still renders. The character was a monster with a few tentacles and all that weird stuff so copy weights wasn't an option. The senior came, increased the default dropoff rate, apply, and the character was good enough for posing and deliver. With heat map now, it seems it's got better. And that's the only weight related thing that I like in Maya. Another thing I like in maya is that you can lock everything, even points positions (In SI I had to write an script and an ice compound to lock points), but that's another story. Martin
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Insanity made acceptable... How is that possible? Reminds me of a great book about software Dev called the inmates running the asylum. Appropriate isn't it? Jb Sent from my iPhone On 8 Jan 2014, at 06:54, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com wrote: Like mentioend couple times before... working in Maya is like walking on glass legs. Expect every time that everything will collapse under you ;) On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 5:39 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: This is exactly what I am talking about of the weighing in Maya... I forgot to check the lock at some point and... KABOOM 2014/1/7 Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com Yup, and that slider that was mentioned earlier is a booby trap that does just that. Throws your weights around willy nilly. That's why there's a ancient workflow of adding influence only and never subtracting. -Lu On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the cometSaveWeights format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the years but I never experienced anything like that.When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into occasionally was when painting weights, and then undoing that operation, which in rare cases does what you describe, but I think they fixed that in version 2013 or 2014. I never locked the skin weights, workflow wise I always found that highly disruptive.I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to "lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes" failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the "cometSaveWeights" format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out.import pymel.core as pmpm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out.s -- --- Stefan Kubicek--- keyvis digital imagery Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3 A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien Phone:+43/699/12614231 www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at-- This email and its attachments are confidential and for the recipient only--
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
One feature i would have loved to see implemented across the board of autodesk products (apart from Alembic which should really just be a new standard by now...) is the heat map algorithm. in theory, is this that difficult to implement in Soft and Max ? apparently it was made by a bunch of students checking up on heat distribution algorithm papers for designing old radiators. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBx8MjEvvo On paper it looks like the best shit ever, so we of the CHR Dep wanted to use it to test characters for deformation in maya pre rigging. trouble was, apparently its extremely susceptible, and i'm not quite sure to what, topology, mesh density... but in any case a Lead at rigging scripted a small ui allowing us to just bypass most of the checks, making the tech actually usable, and it worked great... until we realised that it actually pops vertices slightly away from their initial position... in fairness we used a script to access these capabilities so maybe that caused the problem, i doubt it but there was tampering, maybe someone else has had more controled experiences with Heat mapping, like i said before it still seems like a really useful addition, On 8 January 2014 10:52, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: Using a 3DSMax rigged sample character scene from the UDK docs, I made a roundtrip through Maya and Softimage using the *.fbx format. I didn´t try to export any rig controls, just a human rig. It´s worth checking to have the latest *.fbx version installed and using an export preset that seems applicable, I think I resorted to Autodesk Media Entertainment 2012 bla (im on 2012´s). I can´t say if that was the best way but that roundtrip worked. I ended up with Maya/3DSMax/Softimage each having the rigged, animated character in a scene. In my case, there was some nuisance with the BIPED rig getting interpreted as a second rig the character is rigged to in Softimage, I had to delete that biped in XSI to get back to similar results as in 3DSMax, leaving only the rig meant for export - it is likely that was my export settings or selection settings. I had straight results going from Maya to Softimage. Cheers, tim On 07.01.2014 23:58, Steven Caron wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I'm going to hold back on expressing how I really feel about it, and leave it at: It's utter shit. I read/reviewed that a while ago as I was requested to (helping with training and cross training) and it's asinine and a plain display of incompetence in both softwares and of extremely inefficient and unrefined ways to operate them. I could write a long list of cookie point toss-ups between the two coming from using both extensively since their first version, probably none of it, and I do mean none of it literally, would align to that post. On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 7:10 AM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump through hoops all day. As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive. On 1/8/2014 2:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote: To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the years but I never experienced anything like that. When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into occasionally was when painting weights, and then undoing that operation, which in rare cases does what you describe, but I think they fixed that in version 2013 or 2014. I never locked the skin weights, workflow wise I always found that highly disruptive. I was quite shocked to learn from
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Dave that's a great summary, especially coming from someone with the proper credentials in both packages. This should find it's way up the ladder at AD. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 2:45 PM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump through hoops all day. As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive. On 1/8/2014 2:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote: To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the years but I never experienced anything like that. When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into occasionally was when painting weights, and then
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump through hoops all day. As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I just worked on a project in Maya that had some very complex facial rigs. I was flabbergasted to learn that we couldn't do *ANYTHING* at the artist level to make shape adjustments of even the most basic kind, until we got the rigger/TD (the excellent Lee Wolland) back in to build us a tool that would let us do it. This was considered normal by the Maya animators on the job -- they were surprised that I thought it would even be possible to, say, put a lattice deformer into the rig -- at any stage of the operator history. I now understand why the animator/artist vs. TD divide is much deeper in Maya than Soft. Basically, the animators are powerless to do anything but set keyframes on the controls they've been given. Anyone with enough knowledge to do anything else is going to be kept busy with TD or rigger tasks. I guess it does let the animators focus on animation, but outside of an industrial-scale assembly-line shop, it makes for some enormous headaches.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Bravo! Bravo!! :) I echo your exact sentiments, David (though my own credentials are puny by comparison.) The operator stack should be permanently on the box as a hot feature. We all take it for granted all the time, but seriously it's one of the best features in Soft. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump through hoops all day. As a result, our characters are more flexible and
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Great analysis, thanks for putting the time to do it and share it with the community. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 8 Jan 2014, at 19:45, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump through hoops all day. As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive. On 1/8/2014 2:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote: To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the years but I never experienced anything like that. When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into occasionally was when painting
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Well Dave just said it. And as I said before... maybe the guy who wrote the post in the blog that didn't sign it properly was rigging a sphere and cylinder... Some one that makes such statements and does not leave his name... or allow to reply 2014/1/8 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com Great analysis, thanks for putting the time to do it and share it with the community. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 8 Jan 2014, at 19:45, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump through hoops all day. As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive. On 1/8/2014 2:30
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Just because I want to fuel the fire, I'll toss in that while the workflow in Maya is quite flawed out of the box, you can get to more internals of the scene graph and manipulate it than we have in Softimage. On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:15:04 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote: Bravo! Bravo!! :) I echo your exact sentiments, David (though my own credentials are puny by comparison.) The operator stack should be permanently on the box as a hot feature. We all take it for granted all the time, but seriously it's one of the best features in Soft. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Butbut.buteverybody said ICE can do oh so much more. Say it ain't so. -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 1:50 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya Just because I want to fuel the fire, I'll toss in that while the workflow in Maya is quite flawed out of the box, you can get to more internals of the scene graph and manipulate it than we have in Softimage. On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:15:04 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote: Bravo! Bravo!! :) I echo your exact sentiments, David (though my own credentials are puny by comparison.) The operator stack should be permanently on the box as a hot feature. We all take it for granted all the time, but seriously it's one of the best features in Soft. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Haha. Maybe because Maya needs it, so you can dig in there and get it working properly. While in Softimage not ;) Just fueling the fire! 2014/1/8 Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com Just because I want to fuel the fire, I'll toss in that while the workflow in Maya is quite flawed out of the box, you can get to more internals of the scene graph and manipulate it than we have in Softimage. On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:15:04 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote: Bravo! Bravo!! :) I echo your exact sentiments, David (though my own credentials are puny by comparison.) The operator stack should be permanently on the box as a hot feature. We all take it for granted all the time, but seriously it's one of the best features in Soft. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Yeah, ICE could do that if they keep pushing it... maybe? Though I think it's pretty black boxed in terms of just having the high level access to objects, not the underlying nodes. A Node Editor like Maya plus exposing more of the internals in the Scene Explorer would be something to look at if this ever gets any attention. @Emilio, we need this in Softimage as well! On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:58:03 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Haha. Maybe because Maya needs it, so you can dig in there and get it working properly. While in Softimage not ;) Just fueling the fire! 2014/1/8 Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com mailto:ethivie...@hybride.com Just because I want to fuel the fire, I'll toss in that while the workflow in Maya is quite flawed out of the box, you can get to more internals of the scene graph and manipulate it than we have in Softimage. On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 4:15:04 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote: Bravo! Bravo!! :) I echo your exact sentiments, David (though my own credentials are puny by comparison.) The operator stack should be permanently on the box as a hot feature. We all take it for granted all the time, but seriously it's one of the best features in Soft. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: thank you! thank you! thank you!... i knew i wasn't crazy thinking rigging in maya is a PITA! On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 11:45 AM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagelist@__gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: 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 you're 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 shapes that work for different scenarios,
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
how many years ago was the BlueSky rigging experience and how much was it? I remember seeing you as a Softimage fan since very early XSI - perhaps a Softimage 3D user before that as well? I might be confusing you with another user. The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Le mercredi 8 janvier 2014, David Gallagher a écrit : 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 you're way out of a jam. -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. Ith -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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. -The smooth preview Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more stable in Softimage. -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of heirarchy parts. All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
On 1/8/2014 4:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote: how many years ago was the BlueSky rigging experience and how much was it? I remember seeing you as a Softimage fan since very early XSI - perhaps a Softimage 3D user before that as well? I might be confusing you with another user. The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Oh, I hope you're wrong and whatever product comes out of the marriage of Maya/Softimage/Max has that! Yes, I worked on all the Blue Sky movies from Ice Age 1. I rigged for a few films, then animated, then oversaw the rigs from the animation side. Yes, I used Softimage 3D as well. Le mercredi 8 janvier 2014, David Gallagher a écrit : 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 you're way out of a jam. -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. Ith -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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are pose readers out there,
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Aren't you the guy who made the 3D Cat in the Hat animation I saw on the ride at Universal Studios? I also remember some training tutorial videos and a UV mapping tool. ;-) I'm not sure, but as a casual outside observer this entire thread seems like a trolling job. Nice to see Luc-Eric is still playing the role of agent provocateur. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 5:52 PM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: On 1/8/2014 4:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote: how many years ago was the BlueSky rigging experience and how much was it? I remember seeing you as a Softimage fan since very early XSI - perhaps a Softimage 3D user before that as well? I might be confusing you with another user. The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Oh, I hope you're wrong and whatever product comes out of the marriage of Maya/Softimage/Max has that! Yes, I worked on all the Blue Sky movies from Ice Age 1. I rigged for a few films, then animated, then oversaw the rigs from the animation side. Yes, I used Softimage 3D as well. Le mercredi 8 janvier 2014, David Gallagher a écrit : 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 you're way out of a jam. -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. Ith -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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since 1999.) -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change the point sizes.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
On 1/8/2014 5:12 PM, Bradley Gabe wrote: Aren't you the guy who made the 3D Cat in the Hat animation I saw on the ride at Universal Studios? I also remember some training tutorial videos and a UV mapping tool. ;-) I'm not sure, but as a casual outside observer this entire thread seems like a trolling job. Nice to see Luc-Eric is still playing the role of agent provocateur. Ha! Yes. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 5:52 PM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: On 1/8/2014 4:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote: how many years ago was the BlueSky rigging experience and how much was it? I remember seeing you as a Softimage fan since very early XSI - perhaps a Softimage 3D user before that as well? I might be confusing you with another user. The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Oh, I hope you're wrong and whatever product comes out of the marriage of Maya/Softimage/Max has that! Yes, I worked on all the Blue Sky movies from Ice Age 1. I rigged for a few films, then animated, then oversaw the rigs from the animation side. Yes, I used Softimage 3D as well. Le mercredi 8 janvier 2014, David Gallagher a écrit : 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 you're way out of a jam. -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of on a separate blendshape object. Ith -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 shapes that work for different scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine to make the range of expressive results. -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 6:52 PM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: On 1/8/2014 4:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote: The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Oh, I hope you're wrong and whatever product comes out of the marriage of Maya/Softimage/Max has that! In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
That was incomprehensible; I meant (point clouds tools are necessary also for ptex-based workflows) On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 6:52 PM, David Gallagher davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote: On 1/8/2014 4:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote: The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Oh, I hope you're wrong and whatever product comes out of the marriage of Maya/Softimage/Max has that! In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:55 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: In the new future ( not talking about autodesk here) I think workflows will standards will be Gator-like tools to deal with topo changes (point clouds tools as necessary also ptex-based workflows) and katana-like proceduralism for render passes-like workflow. I'm still wondering if a company ( not talking about Autodesk here ) will do anything new like that for our little world. Money for such large dev projects is just not in the animation/vfx world anymore. I'm not sarcastic, just realist. So lets embrace old techs like Maya or XSI. They won't evolve too much but won't disappear before many (many) years. Btw, Katana is not the futur, it is now :).
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
+1 David.G,(single tear) Another beautiful feature of softimage, which must get taken for granted, as i've never seen it brought up in comparison: isn't it nice... to be able to hide components (poly's,islands)? just select a group of faces and H its gone !!! but you get to keep the other stuff in the scene ?! to be able to hide elements when you're modelling or skinning (e.g mouth interior) or even animating ?!, in Soft this is really intuitive, and dare i say it...Fun? it seems like such a small thing i know, but i really feel its done well: I like the fact that other selection do not affect hidden faces, unless i use Proportional modelling. I like the fact that when i DO use prop modelling it gives me a nice visual representation of the verts in the hidden area I'm about to modify. I like the fact I can't accidentally select hidden faces. I like the fact I can select through hidden faces as if i had deleted them. I like the fact I can hide clusters I like the fact I can hide things at any moment during workflow. I like the fact it's all as simple as pressing H and SHIFT/CTRL H out of the box. I'm aware this may seem like a really dumb thing to like in a DCC, in spite of none of this being available in Maya. I'm sure Maya users have learned to cope with what they have in this area. key word being cope. People can flaunt the merits of node based workflows, and fully customisable gui's till the cows come home. But if you can't even get this tiny infinitesimal shard of user experience right then good lord, I'm at a loss for a punchline.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
+1 2014/1/8 Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com +1 David.G,(single tear) Another beautiful feature of softimage, which must get taken for granted, as i've never seen it brought up in comparison: isn't it nice... to be able to hide components (poly's,islands)? just select a group of faces and H its gone !!! but you get to keep the other stuff in the scene ?! to be able to hide elements when you're modelling or skinning (e.g mouth interior) or even animating ?!, in Soft this is really intuitive, and dare i say it...Fun? it seems like such a small thing i know, but i really feel its done well: I like the fact that other selection do not affect hidden faces, unless i use Proportional modelling. I like the fact that when i DO use prop modelling it gives me a nice visual representation of the verts in the hidden area I'm about to modify. I like the fact I can't accidentally select hidden faces. I like the fact I can select through hidden faces as if i had deleted them. I like the fact I can hide clusters I like the fact I can hide things at any moment during workflow. I like the fact it's all as simple as pressing H and SHIFT/CTRL H out of the box. I'm aware this may seem like a really dumb thing to like in a DCC, in spite of none of this being available in Maya. I'm sure Maya users have learned to cope with what they have in this area. key word being cope. People can flaunt the merits of node based workflows, and fully customisable gui's till the cows come home. But if you can't even get this tiny infinitesimal shard of user experience right then good lord, I'm at a loss for a punchline.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
A generalisation is never precise but... Rigging is not that technical, it is that riggers want to complicate it and what you find is bizarre, unreadable code from wannabe programmers that it is literally unmaintainable. The worst is that they don really know how to animate and on top of the mess add a bazillion things nobody asked for (nor want) avoiding any basic stress rest for example but providing useless controls. Jb Sent from my iPhone On 7 Jan 2014, at 04:05, Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de wrote: --- I really suck at the technical side of rigging, which is why I never get to the point of showing my own characters in motion and I would welcome anything hat helps me get closer to such a point. From that biased view, I think all the 3D DCC apps suck in the way they let you create control over a mesh and animate it. project pinochio from autodesk is really cool because it provides top notch wheighted meshes with a rig that fits the human ik Maya way of suggesting control. That said, when you just take it and go and animate that in Maya, Human Ik may jump around and gives you a middle finger the moment you scrub the timeline, simply because there´s IK and FK and the pose you set may not have been the pose you keyed because there may have been constraint/rig blend presets you may need to adjust first. For me, that´s typical Maya. Still, I am happy there is project pinochio and at least such rigs to learn from. Rigging is so complicated, it´s become a very specialised field but that shouldn´t be the excuse to not go there and see if there´s a way to improve things for everyone... This is for Matt Lind: In Maya 2008, I had to animate a super special fleece of a new and improved sanitary pad in a tight deadline with an Agency girl present. It´s a similar scenario, you want nice, believable motions but have to hit keyposes and keyframes exactly, the whole shot was some 76 frames. I´m not an Animator and was a Junior at that company but had a trusting Lead and we decided we would risk using a rigged cloth sim, I think it was the first incarnation of nCloth in Maya. On top we had the option to impose blendshapes and use cached frames to blend into or out of. I struggled a lot with the tools and that job but would still resort to a similar approach, maybe looking for simplification and improvements. Regarding cloth for games, you probably know the nVidia toolkit (for udk) for Maya. It´s really nice but runtime sim. I would prefer a vertex cache, just because I don´t want *surprise*. In terms of simulation, I´m looking into the UDK versus the CRYENGINE way of creating and storing animation data, CRYENGINE has the character translate around, UDK is expecting the pedestal. Not easy to come up with a solution that works for both. Out of naivity (in terms of animation and rigging) I would think restricting the character´s world space translation to the top node for animation and preview and then just ignore/freeze/mute/delete those keys might work for cache/bake/export. I´m stupid and romantically optimistic, I know. Cheers, tim On 06.01.2014 23:52, Matt Lind wrote: Arguments are good. That’s where the truth comes out from having to prove a point one way or another. We need to do simulation too, but mostly for clothing or tapestries. The hard part for us is getting the motion to look natural and meaningful, but also loop seamlessly over a short duration and blend with other actions doing the same. Example: Our main avatar has over 700 unique actions (walk, run, jump, roll left, roll right, die, etc…). The longest action I can find is about 200 frames long and the average case about 45-60 frames (animating at 30 fps). If a piece of cloth is animated, it needs to start and end in the same position for all actions that move that cloth because any action can transition into almost any other action at runtime. The hard part is finding cloth poses that look natural and flow nicely in those transitions while being able to loop without looking stupid. Another difficult part is getting the cloth to animate correctly because all the avatar performs his actions in place a the world origin on a pedastal. He doesn’t travel around as seen in the runtime environment. So far we’ve been doing it all manually via keying the envelope deformers. Matt *From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Meng-Yang Lu *Sent:* Monday, January 06, 2014 2:27 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: rigging in xsi vs maya What does XSI users use for skin simulation these days? All custom stuff in ICE? We've been leveraging nCloth quite a bit lately and arguably, it's the only piece of tech that 3D peeps here regardless of app preference can unanimously agree
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
The advantage is a logistic and economic one as having a rigger doing the same job in 3 times the time is easier to find and you can stack people up if necessary. Also the constant flow if students makes it cheaper (not true) On this I have a lot to say... Jb Sent from my iPhone Sorry maybe the Industry Standard has other benefits above Softimage. I don't know what they are except that it is easier to get a job and it has a nice viewport
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Jordi's past 3 emails. Awesome. + On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: Following where I left it with my iPhone… It is the perception that is cheaper that is the problem, I have proved myself and the company I work for now that it is not the case, super-senior people are indeed cheaper as they can get the job done much faster, the trick is simply to make sure there is as little downtime during the job and prioritise all you can so they are never waiting for others (that IS expensive) The results are there for you to see, the last 3 jobs we have done over the last year were big challenges with such complexity and deadlines they would have backfired if it wasn't for our approach, a tiny team of super-seniors (all 17+ years doing CG, 2 of them 25+ years doing CG). They do know what they are doing to a degree is difficult to explain. The same happens with Softimage artists, they tend to come from the previous generation and are much more frugal, efficient and simply know what is happening under the bonnet and pretty much all the tricks, they become in my eyes much more valuable even if the daily rate is double or quadruple the rate of a junior because they can deliver 4-5x faster and nail it first time, they don't need an army of producers (also freelancers) poking artists around as if they were cows and building a huge amount of stress on the way. my 2 cents part 2 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 7 Jan 2014, at 08:32, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The advantage is a logistic and economic one as having a rigger doing the same job in 3 times the time is easier to find and you can stack people up if necessary. Also the constant flow if students makes it cheaper (not true) On this I have a lot to say... Jb Sent from my iPhone Sorry maybe the Industry Standard has other benefits above Softimage. I don't know what they are except that it is easier to get a job and it has a nice viewport -- *Greg Maguire* | Inlifesize Mobile: +44 7512 361462 | Phone: +44 2890 204739 g...@inlifesize.com | www.inlifesize.com
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
-Original Message- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau ... I have two side projects that need diaper changes. Oooh, does your wife know? ;-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Jordi, nailed it in last one especially. But I was trying to explain something similar in one of the companies aI was working for... They had different approach, they bring in couple cheap juniors and keeps them for couple months and then mostly they leave and company looks for another team.. going cheap as possible. Instead of getting small core team of seniors and bring in extra help only if needed and depending on tasks.. But with going cheap approach projects take 3-6 months when they could actually be finished in 1-2 months at least... oh well.. On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:38 AM, pete...@skynet.be wrote: -Original Message- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau ... I have two side projects that need diaper changes. Oooh, does your wife know? ;-)
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
As a father to two young boys, one thing about having two kids in diapers is it teaches you how to simplify your workflows ;) Maybe the maya dev team needs more babies ;) Will bring a whole new perception to the UI ;) On 2014/01/07, 11:38 AM, pete...@skynet.be pete...@skynet.be wrote: -Original Message- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau ... I have two side projects that need diaper changes. Oooh, does your wife know? ;-) table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 style=width:100%; tr td align=left style=text-align:justify;font face=arial,sans-serif size=1 color=#99span style=font-size:11px;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 African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary. /span/font/td /tr /table
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I don't find Maya and XSI that different when it comes to rigging. I have cross trained juniors back and forth too many times to remember, all I had to explain is that xsi chains are IK by default, most of the time they don't have to bother with bone orientation and that simple pose based deformers are in the box. Do the opposite from Xsi to Maya. As long as the person can rig (meaning creating simple and useful rigs), the software is not an issue. I've switched myself many times as well (I don't do any hands on rigging these days, but I do follow the changes in Maya) and never had any big issues or traumas. I didn't really read the article, there was too many inconsistencies at the beginning. TBH I don't really get all of this software is better than another discussions. Fundamental methods which form the base of skill are all the same pretty much in every application (maybe not in Houdini ;) ). On 7 January 2014 09:38, pete...@skynet.be wrote: -Original Message- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau ... I have two side projects that need diaper changes. Oooh, does your wife know? ;-) -- -- Michal http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Sorry but I strongly disagree. Topic is a bit wide and all but software vs software is real deal not just fan wars. As one example.. character animation inside Max compared to ANY other software... Most of animators I know unless then don;t know anything else but max will say big NO to character animation in Max. That is the pain! :) So yes everything else probably is better for character animation then Max. Then same goes for bunch of other topics.. some things are simply better made and better workflow then others.. On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Michal Doniec doni...@gmail.com wrote: I don't find Maya and XSI that different when it comes to rigging. I have cross trained juniors back and forth too many times to remember, all I had to explain is that xsi chains are IK by default, most of the time they don't have to bother with bone orientation and that simple pose based deformers are in the box. Do the opposite from Xsi to Maya. As long as the person can rig (meaning creating simple and useful rigs), the software is not an issue. I've switched myself many times as well (I don't do any hands on rigging these days, but I do follow the changes in Maya) and never had any big issues or traumas. I didn't really read the article, there was too many inconsistencies at the beginning. TBH I don't really get all of this software is better than another discussions. Fundamental methods which form the base of skill are all the same pretty much in every application (maybe not in Houdini ;) ). On 7 January 2014 09:38, pete...@skynet.be wrote: -Original Message- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau ... I have two side projects that need diaper changes. Oooh, does your wife know? ;-) -- -- Michal http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Agreed, like an sculptor used different tools if is carving wood or working with stone the truth is that it is not just a tool, specially when these tools force you to do things in a certain way. My guess is that anyone may find themselves at him after years of work on any package, it is a different thing how efficient that is for the individual and even more important for the team. A good example of this would be the use or render passes in XSI vs the ones in Maya, it is not the same at all and workflow wise is a mess in Maya which ends up being a huge issue for the team and has a net result of the XSI artists being far more efficient. The same goes with rigging unless muscles are involved and then the huge amount of extra effort XSI artists need to do to get these effects make Maya an interesting proposition, the problem then is that you have to accept that you may want to cache things in/out which is a big ask for the team and company, from coordination/communication to disk space and network stress this decision has huge implications. Would you model in Maya? The same goes with Houdini, are you going to animate characters in houdini? well, you certainly can but the fact is that it way less efficient and as you don't have a higher level view of the animation process (it is too granular to jump back and forth to Chops to do the animation layering for example) the tool simply gets on the way. hope it clarifies my thinking a bit. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 7 Jan 2014, at 10:13, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry but I strongly disagree. Topic is a bit wide and all but software vs software is real deal not just fan wars. As one example.. character animation inside Max compared to ANY other software... Most of animators I know unless then don;t know anything else but max will say big NO to character animation in Max. That is the pain! :) So yes everything else probably is better for character animation then Max. Then same goes for bunch of other topics.. some things are simply better made and better workflow then others.. On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Michal Doniec doni...@gmail.com wrote: I don't find Maya and XSI that different when it comes to rigging. I have cross trained juniors back and forth too many times to remember, all I had to explain is that xsi chains are IK by default, most of the time they don't have to bother with bone orientation and that simple pose based deformers are in the box. Do the opposite from Xsi to Maya. As long as the person can rig (meaning creating simple and useful rigs), the software is not an issue. I've switched myself many times as well (I don't do any hands on rigging these days, but I do follow the changes in Maya) and never had any big issues or traumas. I didn't really read the article, there was too many inconsistencies at the beginning. TBH I don't really get all of this software is better than another discussions. Fundamental methods which form the base of skill are all the same pretty much in every application (maybe not in Houdini ;) ). On 7 January 2014 09:38, pete...@skynet.be wrote: -Original Message- From: Luc-Eric Rousseau ... I have two side projects that need diaper changes. Oooh, does your wife know? ;-) -- -- Michal http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
You can also slide weight values in the component editor using the slider at the bottom of the UI. I'm not sure if that's what you were referring to, though. On 06/01/2014 6:42 PM, Meng-Yang Lu wrote: It's called the Component Editor. Does the same thing. However, XSI lets you slide the weights around until it feels right. Beats typing it in. I just remembered a pretty silly conversation involving a rigging supe and an XSI developer regarding locking weights. It was like the only crutch to hang onto for a Maya user. Then afterward it was implemented and I think the weighting system in XSI has been far superior since then. I really do thing volumetric ideas like OpenVDB is something to explore. Not only would you have your classic joint/influence relationship, but also add in psuedo collision evalualtion around those nasty parts like armpits, elbow crooks, and the backs of legs. -Lu On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com wrote: I think different ways of calculating the influence is probably the highest hurdle right now. The default calculations get you a good starting point but there are the other heat map methods and another voxel based one I saw a vimeo video on that are going to get you much closer than our current option of the default influence calculations. Having the new feature in Maya to place bones in the middle of a volume I think would help a bit as well. Right now we're just stuck with creating a cluster, null cluster constraint. Snap to null. Delete null and cluster. I find weight painting much better in Softimage than Maya. The weight editor is a really good feature that I think Maya should have (Admitting my ignorance on the topic if there is such editor and I've missed it, unlike some blog posters out there). Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 5:36 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Let me narrow down the question to the specific task of applying an envelope or weighting/re-weighting an envelope. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 2:27 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: rigging in xsi vs maya Open question to anybody with significant experience in both Softimage and maya. I have to address some envelope and rigging tools internally pretty soon. Having this discussion now is convenience for me. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Love this one, Jordi :) Morten Den 7. januar 2014 kl. 10:21 skrev Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com: Following where I left it with my iPhone… It is the perception that is cheaper that is the problem, I have proved myself and the company I work for now that it is not the case, super-senior people are indeed cheaper as they can get the job done much faster, the trick is simply to make sure there is as little downtime during the job and prioritise all you can so they are never waiting for others (that IS expensive) The results are there for you to see, the last 3 jobs we have done over the last year were big challenges with such complexity and deadlines they would have backfired if it wasn't for our approach, a tiny team of super-seniors (all 17+ years doing CG, 2 of them 25+ years doing CG). They do know what they are doing to a degree is difficult to explain. The same happens with Softimage artists, they tend to come from the previous generation and are much more frugal, efficient and simply know what is happening under the bonnet and pretty much all the tricks, they become in my eyes much more valuable even if the daily rate is double or quadruple the rate of a junior because they can deliver 4-5x faster and nail it first time, they don't need an army of producers (also freelancers) poking artists around as if they were cows and building a huge amount of stress on the way. my 2 cents part 2 Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 7 Jan 2014, at 08:32, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: The advantage is a logistic and economic one as having a rigger doing the same job in 3 times the time is easier to find and you can stack people up if necessary. Also the constant flow if students makes it cheaper (not true) On this I have a lot to say... Jb Sent from my iPhone Sorry maybe the Industry Standard has other benefits above Softimage. I don't know what they are except that it is easier to get a job and it has a nice viewport
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the *cometSaveWeights* format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the *cometSaveWeights* format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Yup, and that slider that was mentioned earlier is a booby trap that does just that. Throws your weights around willy nilly. That's why there's a ancient workflow of adding influence only and never subtracting. -Lu On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the *cometSaveWeights* format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
This is exactly what I am talking about of the weighing in Maya... I forgot to check the lock at some point and... KABOOM 2014/1/7 Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com Yup, and that slider that was mentioned earlier is a booby trap that does just that. Throws your weights around willy nilly. That's why there's a ancient workflow of adding influence only and never subtracting. -Lu On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the *cometSaveWeights* format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Like mentioend couple times before... working in Maya is like walking on glass legs. Expect every time that everything will collapse under you ;) On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 5:39 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: This is exactly what I am talking about of the weighing in Maya... I forgot to check the lock at some point and... KABOOM 2014/1/7 Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com Yup, and that slider that was mentioned earlier is a booby trap that does just that. Throws your weights around willy nilly. That's why there's a ancient workflow of adding influence only and never subtracting. -Lu On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:57 PM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you have to lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick boxes failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences around... On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an exporter that saved out my weights in the *cometSaveWeights* format. Life saver! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: arg, figured it out. import pymel.core as pm pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) best UI ever! On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with 'remove all constraints' is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring it out. s
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I saw that a long time ago (its from 2011) and was very upset when it was sent around as it is obviously not done by someone who really understands both systems. It's a shame it's even posted for public consumption. I'm a hater on the general workflow clunkiness of Maya but giving it a fair shot and having used it over the years off and on, rigging is very similar in both and most of the times the knowledge and methods can be translated over to the other app without too much hassle. Eric T. On Monday, January 06, 2014 3:13:20 PM, Steven Caron wrote: oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
It is so embarrassing to read I can't pass the third paragraph, but that is what happens when you see someone that knows so little about one piece of software and feels has the the authority to throw his opinion on the internet. ahhh… now I am going to have to answer him. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 6 Jan 2014, at 20:10, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Simon says.. What?? ;-) Rob \/-\/\/ On 6-1-2014 21:13, Steven Caron wrote: oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com http://www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4259 / Virus Database: 3658/6980 - Release Date: 01/06/14
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
i have only skimmed this but he has arbitrary decisions when to give one app a 'point' and when to 'dock a point'. he docks a point because he doesn't like the floating property pages then adds a point later because he likes it (two explorers to drag and drop). @luc-eric, please please don't tell me anyone at autodesk is taking this serious? s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
*The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost.* HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA I saw this a long ago and not then not now it makes any sense at all.. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i have only skimmed this but he has arbitrary decisions when to give one app a 'point' and when to 'dock a point'. he docks a point because he doesn't like the floating property pages then adds a point later because he likes it (two explorers to drag and drop). @luc-eric, please please don't tell me anyone at autodesk is taking this serious? s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
What I find highly offensive is that the author left out any of their qualifications or contact information... I think it's Simon Payne. you can read his bio at the bottom right here (scroll all the way down) http://cmivfx.com/store/495-Creature+Creators+Handbook+Volume+01 i have only skimmed this but he has arbitrary decisions when to give one app a 'point' and when to 'dock a point'. everyone would do this, imho, everyone has their thing they like here or there. About the IK chains in Softimage, when all you did in 10 years is rig like Softimage, it's second nature and you accept the way it works as how things work (with nulls, etc) I think the discussion in general is deep and interesting, although those first 3 paragraphs seem way too harsh. I've read some of these comments from client reports.
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
It reads like a maya evangelist tried XSI/Softimage for a first time and beeing disappointed because it's different in getting thing done. [Quote]: ...If [Maya] costs 40% more,... you can do more advanced characters, with less bugs, in half the time, then choosing XSI for Characters is in fact a choice for the more expensive outlay, and the lower level of results...[End of quote] I don't think so. Not even in 2011. :) -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 9:10 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: rigging in xsi vs maya what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Over the years I've stopped looking at rigging as just a collection of joints, iks, and constraints. There's an overarching support toolset that needs to be in place to manage rigs and animation data that needs to be part of the equation too. From the maya side, I miss stuff like the Mixer and GATOR. I would give body parts for XSI's operators stacks and ICE integration. The blog is missing a lot. These days, I think rigging has gotten so sophisticated that the stuff he's comparing only accounts for about 40 percent of the rigging process. There's a hefty 70 percent regarding muscles, collisions, and deformer creation that is still handled via custom tools. That right bitches. Rigging is 110% effort. At least that's how it feels to me these days. -Lu On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
For flexibility and workflow, Maya wins the blendshape *point* by quite a distance. I call shenanigans. lol -- Last time I tried to make a corrective shape in Maya *while in the same pose* using what's in the box, I wanted to shoot myself in the foot. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comwrote: *The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost.* HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA I saw this a long ago and not then not now it makes any sense at all.. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i have only skimmed this but he has arbitrary decisions when to give one app a 'point' and when to 'dock a point'. he docks a point because he doesn't like the floating property pages then adds a point later because he likes it (two explorers to drag and drop). @luc-eric, please please don't tell me anyone at autodesk is taking this serious? s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Last paragraph needs to be framed and hung on the wall. :P On Monday, January 06, 2014 3:47:41 PM, Meng-Yang Lu wrote: These days, I think rigging has gotten so sophisticated that the stuff he's comparing only accounts for about 40 percent of the rigging process. There's a hefty 70 percent regarding muscles, collisions, and deformer creation that is still handled via custom tools. That right bitches. Rigging is 110% effort. At least that's how it feels to me these days.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I would say 1% got discussed and very badly discussed. Regarding rigging I remember once a very senior rigger throwing tons of cr@p in the rig and I had to sit down and re-rig it in front of him and actually _prove_ him you could do the same with just a tenth of the bones and controls. The same with topology and the paranoia riggers have with loops being in certain way, I ended up putting the same mesh thru the same rig only with different loops to _prove_ him it was actually worst to use regular topology than stress based topology. My issue really is that there are too many people that read posts and training videos like these and believe it hands down without even trying for themselves in a real way. Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 6 Jan 2014, at 20:47, Meng-Yang Lu ntmon...@gmail.com wrote: Over the years I've stopped looking at rigging as just a collection of joints, iks, and constraints. There's an overarching support toolset that needs to be in place to manage rigs and animation data that needs to be part of the equation too. From the maya side, I miss stuff like the Mixer and GATOR. I would give body parts for XSI's operators stacks and ICE integration. The blog is missing a lot. These days, I think rigging has gotten so sophisticated that the stuff he's comparing only accounts for about 40 percent of the rigging process. There's a hefty 70 percent regarding muscles, collisions, and deformer creation that is still handled via custom tools. That right bitches. Rigging is 110% effort. At least that's how it feels to me these days. -Lu On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Very much so on framing that quote. I think its most telling that out of all of the maya vs xsi pieces he created (7) he only posted one. We no longer teach rigging in our animation course as it has just become too time consuming to get people new to 3D to understand it decently (our course is only a year) and quite frankly very few animation students are going to end up as riggers. (I think we have had two in 10 years). In the short time we have we would rather teach them to animate properly using a supplied rig (and getting to understand how to use controls better). In the case of getting the rare student who was interested in rigging we have always accommodated them. Rigging has become such a specialized field that its both very scary for new people , and I can only hope also very rewarding for those people who have the dedication and drive to master it. From: Eric Thivierge [ethivie...@hybride.com] Sent: 06 January 2014 10:58 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya Last paragraph needs to be framed and hung on the wall. :P On Monday, January 06, 2014 3:47:41 PM, Meng-Yang Lu wrote: These days, I think rigging has gotten so sophisticated that the stuff he's comparing only accounts for about 40 percent of the rigging process. There's a hefty 70 percent regarding muscles, collisions, and deformer creation that is still handled via custom tools. That right bitches. Rigging is 110% effort. At least that's how it feels to me these days. = table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 style=width:100%; tr td align=left style=text-align:justify;font face=arial,sans-serif size=1 color=#99span style=font-size:11px;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 African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary. /span/font/td /tr /table
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Depends how many Animators I have to deal with... :P On Monday, January 06, 2014 4:24:39 PM, Angus Davidson wrote: Rigging has become such a specialized field that its both very scary for new people , and I can only hope also very rewarding for those people who have the dedication and drive to master it.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
HAHAHAHAHA! What a farce. On 1/6/2014 1:46 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote: For flexibility and workflow, Maya wins the blendshape *point* by quite a distance. I call shenanigans. lol -- Last time I tried to make a corrective shape in Maya *while in the same pose* using what's in the box, I wanted to shoot myself in the foot. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com mailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com wrote: *The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior workflow, outweighs the additional cost.* HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA I saw this a long ago and not then not now it makes any sense at all.. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: i have only skimmed this but he has arbitrary decisions when to give one app a 'point' and when to 'dock a point'. he docks a point because he doesn't like the floating property pages then adds a point later because he likes it (two explorers to drag and drop). @luc-eric, please please don't tell me anyone at autodesk is taking this serious? s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com mailto:car...@gmail.com wrote: oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
That's funny. A few months ago, when I started rigging in Soft, I was googling a lot of information and pestering this list (trying to keep the hair loss to a minimum, you know...), and I landed on this article. I read it through and through and thought some things were missed. Honestly, it's really hard to come through a real expert on several applications, even if for a single purpose. I don't blame this guys for missing solutions to different problems in his article. My own personal experience is that there are things I love in Soft that I wish Maya had, and there are things in Maya that I definitely miss in Soft (to different degrees of "needing"... from "it'd be nice if", to "Are you f***ing kidding me???!") :-) . All in all, I believe I could deliver any kind of rig in any application (and I'll include Max and Modo in the list), but there would be definitely be pain involved (and brain-picking). And the use of 3rd-party scripts and tools, for sure. There is no greener grass. Live fast, die young. There is no rest for the wicked. Eat fruits and vegetables. Peace! On 06/01/2014 3:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote: what do you guys think about this blog post: http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html --
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn't that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 1:58 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya of course everyone would do this, which is why it seems silly to attempt and quantify it at all. i know i have bias and i know trained maya talent do too... i love to squabble about this stuff in my work environment but it is half fun these days. i know there are issues on both sides... but i am not going to post a blog dedicated to it. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.commailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: everyone would do this, imho, everyone has their thing they like here or there. About the IK chains in Softimage, when all you did in 10 years is rig like Softimage, it's second nature and you accept the way it works as how things work (with nulls, etc) I think the discussion in general is deep and interesting, although those first 3 paragraphs seem way too harsh. I've read some of these comments from client reports.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
In my opinion the only thing I would love to have from maya is the ability to get deformation from objects vertices rather than object centres so you can build pseudo-muscles easily. The whole muscle system would be nice but it is not critical imho given that I am of the opinion that the animator has to see the silhouette to take an informed decision and simulating muscles goes against that. therefore I rather do it by hand. The rest I believe is simply a matter of taste. hope it helps Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 6 Jan 2014, at 22:03, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn’t that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 1:58 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya of course everyone would do this, which is why it seems silly to attempt and quantify it at all. i know i have bias and i know trained maya talent do too... i love to squabble about this stuff in my work environment but it is half fun these days. i know there are issues on both sides... but i am not going to post a blog dedicated to it. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: everyone would do this, imho, everyone has their thing they like here or there. About the IK chains in Softimage, when all you did in 10 years is rig like Softimage, it's second nature and you accept the way it works as how things work (with nulls, etc) I think the discussion in general is deep and interesting, although those first 3 paragraphs seem way too harsh. I've read some of these comments from client reports.
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
are you asking me personally? i think some studios might favor the dependency graph structure of maya for custom nodes and behaviors. they would choose that over the better initially organized softimage environment which lacks some customization options that maya has. a topic discussed to death already, maya's dominance is because of timing (of their release years ago) and it's extensibility. s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn’t that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
What does XSI users use for skin simulation these days? All custom stuff in ICE? We've been leveraging nCloth quite a bit lately and arguably, it's the only piece of tech that 3D peeps here regardless of app preference can unanimously agree that it is indeed pretty good. Maybe not significant for games, but plays a big part of what we do day to day. The other thing is speed. This is subjective, but not without me observing over the years that if you get rigs of similar complexity, however you get there, animating a handful in Maya is usually no problem while doing the same in XSI feels a bit slow. Not trying to argue, Matt. If forced to pick A or B, I'd find a way regardless. Just trying to be objective and see what bounces back because we're always looking for faster and better ways of doing stuff. -Lu On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn’t that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven Caron *Sent:* Monday, January 06, 2014 1:58 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: rigging in xsi vs maya of course everyone would do this, which is why it seems silly to attempt and quantify it at all. i know i have bias and i know trained maya talent do too... i love to squabble about this stuff in my work environment but it is half fun these days. i know there are issues on both sides... but i am not going to post a blog dedicated to it. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: everyone would do this, imho, everyone has their thing they like here or there. About the IK chains in Softimage, when all you did in 10 years is rig like Softimage, it's second nature and you accept the way it works as how things work (with nulls, etc) I think the discussion in general is deep and interesting, although those first 3 paragraphs seem way too harsh. I've read some of these comments from client reports.
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Open question to anybody with significant experience in both Softimage and maya. I have to address some envelope and rigging tools internally pretty soon. Having this discussion now is convenience for me. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 2:21 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya are you asking me personally? i think some studios might favor the dependency graph structure of maya for custom nodes and behaviors. they would choose that over the better initially organized softimage environment which lacks some customization options that maya has. a topic discussed to death already, maya's dominance is because of timing (of their release years ago) and it's extensibility. s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.commailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn't that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
I found that the biggest problems in rigging are management issues: listening and weighing input, absorbing unexpected changes gracefully, and finding solutions that fit into a much larger pipeline over which you have limited control. Rarely are you even in a position to dictate the software, it's simply another variable to consider. Often there are overarching political issues that you must absorb and translate into production. Like all things, it always comes back to people. Really, moving vertices is the easiest part of the job. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: are you asking me personally? i think some studios might favor the dependency graph structure of maya for custom nodes and behaviors. they would choose that over the better initially organized softimage environment which lacks some customization options that maya has. a topic discussed to death already, maya's dominance is because of timing (of their release years ago) and it's extensibility. s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.comwrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn’t that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt
Re: rigging in xsi vs maya
Well.. I really hope that Fabric Engine will be our fixing solution. I think both SI and Maya way of handling solvers/gizmos ect are bit sloppy compaired to Fabric... n slow.. : ) On 7 January 2014 00:30, Ben Barker ben.bar...@gmail.com wrote: I found that the biggest problems in rigging are management issues: listening and weighing input, absorbing unexpected changes gracefully, and finding solutions that fit into a much larger pipeline over which you have limited control. Rarely are you even in a position to dictate the software, it's simply another variable to consider. Often there are overarching political issues that you must absorb and translate into production. Like all things, it always comes back to people. Really, moving vertices is the easiest part of the job. On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 5:20 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: are you asking me personally? i think some studios might favor the dependency graph structure of maya for custom nodes and behaviors. they would choose that over the better initially organized softimage environment which lacks some customization options that maya has. a topic discussed to death already, maya's dominance is because of timing (of their release years ago) and it's extensibility. s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.comwrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn’t that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt -- -- Juhani Karlsson 3D Artist/TD Talvi Digital Oy Pursimiehenkatu 29-31 b 2krs. 00150 Helsinki +358 443443088 juhani.karls...@talvi.fi www.vimeo.com/talvi
RE: rigging in xsi vs maya
Let me narrow down the question to the specific task of applying an envelope or weighting/re-weighting an envelope. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 2:27 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: rigging in xsi vs maya Open question to anybody with significant experience in both Softimage and maya. I have to address some envelope and rigging tools internally pretty soon. Having this discussion now is convenience for me. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 2:21 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rigging in xsi vs maya are you asking me personally? i think some studios might favor the dependency graph structure of maya for custom nodes and behaviors. they would choose that over the better initially organized softimage environment which lacks some customization options that maya has. a topic discussed to death already, maya's dominance is because of timing (of their release years ago) and it's extensibility. s On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.commailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: So what does maya rigging tools have that Softimage doesn't that makes a significant difference at the end of the day? Matt
