FBX and vertex colors
Hi guys, Is it possible to turn off vertex color exporting for FBX export? Cheers Szabolcs ___ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. Crytek GmbH - http://www.crytek.com - Grüneburgweg 16-18, 60322 Frankfurt - HRB77322 Amtsgericht Frankfurt a. Main- UST IdentNr.: DE20432461 - Geschaeftsfuehrer: Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli
RE: FBX and vertex colors
Just curious, what's stopping you from removing the Vertex color from the cluster of the imported fbx obj? ;) From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Szabolcs Matefy Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 4:03 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: FBX and vertex colors Hi guys, Is it possible to turn off vertex color exporting for FBX export? Cheers Szabolcs ___ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. Crytek GmbH - http://www.crytek.com - Grüneburgweg 16-18, 60322 Frankfurt - HRB77322 Amtsgericht Frankfurt a. Main- UST IdentNr.: DE20432461 - Geschaeftsfuehrer: Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli attachment: winmail.dat
Re: icecache zlib or gzip?
thanks. In the python the use gzip instead of zlib as well so i suppose the wiki is outdated. 2013/6/17 Chris Chia chris.c...@autodesk.com Take a look at this example? http://code.google.com/p/ice-cache-explorer/source/browse/trunk/icereader.py https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/xsi_list/_XC2ArOhED8 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Doeke Wartena Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 6:25 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: icecache zlib or gzip? Believing the documentation a icecache is compressed with zlib. I tried multiple ways to decompress it but all give problems. Here is a post on stackoverflow. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17053145/unknown-compression-method-with-zlib?noredirect=1#comment24663064_17053145 Is it changed over time from zlib to gzip without updating the reference or something? would be nice if someone can help. best Doeke
How to use Normal Maps with Arnold?
Arnold bump2d is designed for bump map(B/W map), now I've some normal map, it could not work correctly with bump2d. I've read the user guide, it tells that Arnold could support XSI Normal Map2/3, but Normal Map3 node output vector as result, I don't see how to use it, connect it to bump port of material doesn't make it. Anyone happened to meet the problem before? Any help would be thanks!
RE: FBX and vertex colors
Quite easy, FBX exports tangents as vertex colors. Sometimes we need vertex colors, sometimes not, it'd be nice to have an option for it. Deleting this is a destructive option, and I prefer non-destructive solutions J From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Chris Chia Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 11:35 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: FBX and vertex colors Just curious, what's stopping you from removing the Vertex color from the cluster of the imported fbx obj? ;) From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Szabolcs Matefy Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 4:03 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: FBX and vertex colors Hi guys, Is it possible to turn off vertex color exporting for FBX export? Cheers Szabolcs ___ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. Crytek GmbH - http://www.crytek.com - Grüneburgweg 16-18, 60322 Frankfurt - HRB77322 Amtsgericht Frankfurt a. Main- UST IdentNr.: DE20432461 - Geschaeftsfuehrer: Avni Yerli, Cevat Yerli, Faruk Yerli
RE: CustomTool Pick
Hi Vincent, The first place to start is by checking the return values to make sure the calls succeed before attempting to use the values. Just because picking got an intersection doesn't mean the point locator query will succeed because they are using different techniques for testing intersection. Also picking generally uses a small region around the cursor. (so you could still get a picking hit when your cursor is a few pixels outside the surface) I found this code snippet from Piotrek on this thread that shows how to check the point locator setup/results for errors. http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=16t=2595 I think that with proper error checking your issue will probably go away. -- Brent -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Vincent Ullmann Sent: 14 June 2013 20:35 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: CustomTool Pick Hey List, currently i try to develop a little CustomTool. Most of it works fine, except one annoying Issue. I use the Pick-Command to get a current Location under my Cursor As demonstrated in the attached picture, when the cursor is near the Edge between Object and ViewportBackground there seems to be an Error. Does anyone know how to avoid this? attachment: winmail.dat
OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/on-game-schools Small but very informative vid, part of a much larger series which is equally excellent and accessible. Make sure he understands what exactly a Dev does. It often gets tossed like a blanket statement to cover a vast number of disciplines. (coder, director, writer, art director...) Early exposure to game engines and especially languages (c#,c++,java script, python) serves the dual purpose of letting you discover if this is something you like doing, and gives you a head start when entering a related curriculum. Finally I'd say don't sugar coat it, its going to be hard, its a very competitive path to take in life. On 17 June 2013 13:42, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
He should be directed to download all three of these game engines. Digital-Tutors has training on all three engines, and Eat 3D has training for Unreal and CryEngine. Free edition of Unreal Engine 3 http://www.unrealengine.com/udk Free edition of CryEngine 3 http://mycryengine.com Free edition of Unity 3D. Unity is primarily used to create mobile and web games, but can also deploy games to consoles or the PC. http://unity3d.com/unity/download/ Daniel VFXM On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 7:13 AM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/on-game-schools Small but very informative vid, part of a much larger series which is equally excellent and accessible. Make sure he understands what exactly a Dev does. It often gets tossed like a blanket statement to cover a vast number of disciplines. (coder, director, writer, art director...) Early exposure to game engines and especially languages (c#,c++,java script, python) serves the dual purpose of letting you discover if this is something you like doing, and gives you a head start when entering a related curriculum. Finally I'd say don't sugar coat it, its going to be hard, its a very competitive path to take in life. On 17 June 2013 13:42, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
I don't know what exactly he is interested in. Modelling, mapping, programming etc. But i think it can be good to get involved in a mod team. For the rest, i think unknown world are doing an interesting job. They started with a mod for halflife 1 and now have a company of around 9 people so it's a small team. http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/ The game got in the top 25 shooters all time by pc gamer at a position of 15. It's coded in lua script which allows a lot to be done with less code. But if he's interested in programming i think a good start is learning processing. www.processing.org It's a dialect for java which allows a lot to be done quite easy. They have huge friendly community. hope that helps. 2013/6/17 Daniel H vfxc...@gmail.com He should be directed to download all three of these game engines. Digital-Tutors has training on all three engines, and Eat 3D has training for Unreal and CryEngine. Free edition of Unreal Engine 3 http://www.unrealengine.com/udk Free edition of CryEngine 3 http://mycryengine.com Free edition of Unity 3D. Unity is primarily used to create mobile and web games, but can also deploy games to consoles or the PC. http://unity3d.com/unity/download/ Daniel VFXM On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 7:13 AM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/on-game-schools Small but very informative vid, part of a much larger series which is equally excellent and accessible. Make sure he understands what exactly a Dev does. It often gets tossed like a blanket statement to cover a vast number of disciplines. (coder, director, writer, art director...) Early exposure to game engines and especially languages (c#,c++,java script, python) serves the dual purpose of letting you discover if this is something you like doing, and gives you a head start when entering a related curriculum. Finally I'd say don't sugar coat it, its going to be hard, its a very competitive path to take in life. On 17 June 2013 13:42, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
I recommend full sail university ... they are specialized in game dev On 17 Jun 2013 14:43, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
RE: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
He should look at the polycount website - http://www.polycount.com/ There's lots of good info there, especially on the wiki pages. There's lots of information there about the industry, getting in, folios, roles, etc. G From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Daniel H Sent: 17 June 2013 13:39 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev He should be directed to download all three of these game engines. Digital-Tutors has training on all three engines, and Eat 3D has training for Unreal and CryEngine. Free edition of Unreal Engine 3 http://www.unrealengine.com/udk Free edition of CryEngine 3 http://mycryengine.com Free edition of Unity 3D. Unity is primarily used to create mobile and web games, but can also deploy games to consoles or the PC. http://unity3d.com/unity/download/ Daniel VFXM On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 7:13 AM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.commailto:sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/on-game-schools Small but very informative vid, part of a much larger series which is equally excellent and accessible. Make sure he understands what exactly a Dev does. It often gets tossed like a blanket statement to cover a vast number of disciplines. (coder, director, writer, art director...) Early exposure to game engines and especially languages (c#,c++,java script, python) serves the dual purpose of letting you discover if this is something you like doing, and gives you a head start when entering a related curriculum. Finally I'd say don't sugar coat it, its going to be hard, its a very competitive path to take in life. On 17 June 2013 13:42, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.commailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul attachment: winmail.dat
Re: icecache zlib or gzip?
zlib is an open source C library you can get from zlib.net. ICE chache uses zlib's gzip API, gzopen, gzread, etc. The wiki is written for c++ developers. On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 5:54 AM, Doeke Wartena clankil...@gmail.com wrote: thanks. In the python the use gzip instead of zlib as well so i suppose the wiki is outdated. 2013/6/17 Chris Chia chris.c...@autodesk.com Take a look at this example? http://code.google.com/p/ice-cache-explorer/source/browse/trunk/icereader.py https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/xsi_list/_XC2ArOhED8 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Doeke Wartena Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 6:25 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: icecache zlib or gzip? Believing the documentation a icecache is compressed with zlib. I tried multiple ways to decompress it but all give problems. Here is a post on stackoverflow. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17053145/unknown-compression-method-with-zlib?noredirect=1#comment24663064_17053145 Is it changed over time from zlib to gzip without updating the reference or something? would be nice if someone can help. best Doeke
Re: How to use Normal Maps with Arnold?
If you ask this in the private Arnold beta list you'll be more likely to get meaningful responses. Besides, with the NDAs Arnold testers signed it's uncertain how much folks can comfortably help out in public forums like this one. If you aren't registered but your employer is part of the beta, ask your IT guy to ask SolidAngle to sign you up, or contact SolidAngle directly explaining who your employer is. On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 6:24 AM, Antonieo anton...@163.com wrote: Arnold bump2d is designed for bump map(B/W map), now I've some normal map, it could not work correctly with bump2d. I've read the user guide, it tells that Arnold could support XSI Normal Map2/3, but Normal Map3 node output vector as result, I don't see how to use it, connect it to bump port of material doesn't make it. Anyone happened to meet the problem before? Any help would be thanks!
Re: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
Dissuade him - advise him to get a medical degree. Your daughter will hate you for it short term, but thank you long term - when paycheck has more importance than some childhood disillusion. If she stays with him, that’s the long term, so you win. But i f she breaks up, that’s the short term – her hate for you dissuading the boyfriend will turn around when she breaks up anyway. Eventually - if he sticks with the medical degree – once he’s established a profitable practice, he can just buy a games company and ask his new employees to show him how things work. I’m sure Bradley can give some helpful pointers for where to get a medical degree. From: Raffaele Fragapane Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 2:57 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev Saying I want to get into games is like saying I want to have something to do with buildings. Laying the bricks, engineering anti-seismic structures, or decorating the interiors? :) First thing I'd try and push him for is to form some rough idea of what he likes in a game and how he feels he'd like to contribute (code, art, assets, level design etc.). If he says he wants to be the one that comes up with the ideas (lead game designer), then I think you're allowed to slap him in on the neck repeatedly. If he wants to become a producer you need to change your daughter's mind in regards to this boy :p -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
I think you need to be brutally honest with him about the nature of the business, game development and visual F/X. I have some contact with students who go to my alma mater, Pratt Institute. I've been very honest with them about how our industry is changing and how tough it might be to make a career of it over the long haul. I've gone so far as to encourage them to look at other areas where they can use their skills in a different industry. It's simple economics, the amount they have to pay back is staggering and I do not envy anyone just coming out of school this year. I think the number one issue a lot of students aren't considering before they choose a school and a career is ROI - Return On Investement. There was a student I knew who wanted to be an architect, and she was considering a school that cost around $40-$50k per year for a 5 year program. I asked her if she knew what kind of money Architects made and she didn't. Knowing many architects personally, I told her what she could expect and explained how long at that salary range it would take to pay back those loans. Before our discussion, no one ever bothered to point this out, and she went away wiser for it. We've all seen the news, the studios closing or moving to other countries where labor is cheaper, or there is a subsidy to be had. The last several years has been especially tough for freelancers, we tend to really feel the effects of these things faster since our work is solely driven by demand and we're the first to go when things slow down. I think for young people looking to our line of work as being exciting and fun, which it is, but you have to also have them take a good long look at what it takes these days to get your foot in the door. An honest assessment of their skills is also important. Far better to wound their pride a little now rather than leading them down a path where they will find themselves unemployed or so saddled with debt that they regret the decision, maybe both. Not trying to be doom and gloom, but I see what's happening in VFX to be eerily similar to what happened in IT about 10-15 years ago. I'm just not sure how it's going to pan out. On the subject of schools, I haven't heard many good things about Full Sail. Do a quick google search and you'll find a lot of unhappy people who went there. Eric Freelance 3D and VFX animator http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Nasser Al-Ostath mushin@gmail.com wrote: I recommend full sail university ... they are specialized in game dev On 17 Jun 2013 14:43, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
Re: icecache zlib or gzip?
no, they are similar. i used zlib streams for my krakatoa/prt exporter and i saw other code from someone else using gzip functions *written with my thumbs On Jun 17, 2013, at 2:54 AM, Doeke Wartena clankil...@gmail.com wrote: thanks. In the python the use gzip instead of zlib as well so i suppose the wiki is outdated. 2013/6/17 Chris Chia chris.c...@autodesk.com Take a look at this example? http://code.google.com/p/ice-cache-explorer/source/browse/trunk/icereader.py https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/xsi_list/ _XC2ArOhED8 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Doeke Wartena Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 6:25 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: icecache zlib or gzip? Believing the documentation a icecache is compressed with zlib. I tried multiple ways to decompress it but all give problems. Here is a post on stackoverflow. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17053145/unknown-compression-method-with-zlib?noredirect=1#comment24663064_17053145 Is it changed over time from zlib to gzip without updating the reference or something? would be nice if someone can help. best Doeke
RE: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
From what I've seen, many of the kids coming out of schools these days are expecting to get a job handed to them right out the door because they have a piece of paper which states they're competent. Yay for competency, but employers want to see passion too. They want to see people who are cranking away and really into what it is they're doing, not someone who has a shiny new degree and completely devoid of clues. Honestly, I would avoid college altogether. One of the many unintended consequences of subsidization is the bidding up of tuition prices to the point the 1 trillion dollar student loan bubble in the US is on the brink of bursting. All the distortion that has occurred in the pricing will eventually get washed away by the incoming tide of reality, regardless of what anyone wants or says, or how benevolent the motivations were for the subsidization in the first place. Cue le sadface. I know it sounds all touchy feely warm fizzlies inside but things like persistence/perseverance, practice and passion. Those things will get him a long way towards accomplishing his goal. There's absolutely no reason he can't learn what he needs from forums, online tutorials and the like( eat3d, 3dmotive, 3dtotal, gnomonworkshops, zbrushworkshops, etc). It's far cheaper and will help determine if he's really passionate about this pursuit. If it's something he REALLY wants to do he WILL spend whatever amount of time it takes to accomplish the goal of breaking into the industry in whatever area it is he's most interested. Figuring out what that passion isthat's the hard part. This is advice coming from someone who followed that path though. It's not a methodology cut out for everyone. Some people need the structure and that provided by a classroom setting. Other people are very self-motivated and like making video games (or vfx or whatever else) and learn about it in their free time because it's fun and something they enjoy doing. Do that long enough and before too long he will have a job in the industry. It might not be Lead Designer at the outset but he will get a job doing something, I can guarantee it. From there he can spread his wings and fly towards whatever area it is that interests him most. -Wayne -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Lampi Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 10:31 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev I think you need to be brutally honest with him about the nature of the business, game development and visual F/X. I have some contact with students who go to my alma mater, Pratt Institute. I've been very honest with them about how our industry is changing and how tough it might be to make a career of it over the long haul. I've gone so far as to encourage them to look at other areas where they can use their skills in a different industry. It's simple economics, the amount they have to pay back is staggering and I do not envy anyone just coming out of school this year. I think the number one issue a lot of students aren't considering before they choose a school and a career is ROI - Return On Investement. There was a student I knew who wanted to be an architect, and she was considering a school that cost around $40-$50k per year for a 5 year program. I asked her if she knew what kind of money Architects made and she didn't. Knowing many architects personally, I told her what she could expect and explained how long at that salary range it would take to pay back those loans. Before our discussion, no one ever bothered to point this out, and she went away wiser for it. We've all seen the news, the studios closing or moving to other countries where labor is cheaper, or there is a subsidy to be had. The last several years has been especially tough for freelancers, we tend to really feel the effects of these things faster since our work is solely driven by demand and we're the first to go when things slow down. I think for young people looking to our line of work as being exciting and fun, which it is, but you have to also have them take a good long look at what it takes these days to get your foot in the door. An honest assessment of their skills is also important. Far better to wound their pride a little now rather than leading them down a path where they will find themselves unemployed or so saddled with debt that they regret the decision, maybe both. Not trying to be doom and gloom, but I see what's happening in VFX to be eerily similar to what happened in IT about 10-15 years ago. I'm just not sure how it's going to pan out. On the subject of schools, I haven't heard many good things about Full Sail. Do a quick google search and you'll find a lot of unhappy people who went there. Eric Freelance 3D and VFX animator http://vimeopro.com/user7979713/3d-work On Mon, Jun
Re: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
Haha, yes I have friends who went into medical school and they're a lot better off then pretty much everyone I went to film school with. But saying he wants to get into game development is a lot better than what he said the first time I asked what he wanted to do with his life. He said, dunno... haven't given it much thought yet... - this is an 18 year old saying this to the father of his girlfriend when asked about his future plans So hearing any sort of direction was a big plus for me! -Paul On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 10:24 AM, pete...@skynet.be wrote: Dissuade him - advise him to get a medical degree. Your daughter will hate you for it short term, but thank you long term - when paycheck has more importance than some childhood disillusion. If she stays with him, that’s the long term, so you win. But i f she breaks up, that’s the short term – her hate for you dissuading the boyfriend will turn around when she breaks up anyway. Eventually - if he sticks with the medical degree – once he’s established a profitable practice, he can just buy a games company and ask his new employees to show him how things work. I’m sure Bradley can give some helpful pointers for where to get a medical degree. *From:* Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com *Sent:* Monday, June 17, 2013 2:57 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev Saying I want to get into games is like saying I want to have something to do with buildings. Laying the bricks, engineering anti-seismic structures, or decorating the interiors? :) First thing I'd try and push him for is to form some rough idea of what he likes in a game and how he feels he'd like to contribute (code, art, assets, level design etc.). If he says he wants to be the one that comes up with the ideas (lead game designer), then I think you're allowed to slap him in on the neck repeatedly. If he wants to become a producer you need to change your daughter's mind in regards to this boy :p -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
RE: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
That's a broad question. Having worked in the games industry on and off since the mid 1990s, I can say the industry is going through a lot of change right now, but the overall picture for somebody coming out of high school, the path isn't too different than it was back then. What he needs to do right now is get his feet wet with the concept of what game development really is. If he wants to be an artist or animator, then it's simply a matter of learning to make art, but with an emphasis on being organized and efficient with the output (eg. Make Rome from pocket lint). If he wants to be a producer or designer, then it's a matter of understanding how games are built and going from there. In the latter cases, they usually start in QA and work their way up. Those aren't positions you take directly out of school. Education costs have risen significantly, but a lot of the cost is unnecessary. For example, in most programs your first 2 years are spent on satisfying pre-requisites and other base courses which feed into your major for junior and senior year. Therefore, no need to spend $40K per year on that stuff. Go to community college which would allow money to be saved. That's what I did. I only had to take out a loan for my last 2 years of school and was able to pay it off within 4 years of graduation. There's nothing (relevant) about games development that a college can teach that requires you be in the program for 4 years. In fact, I'd argue to say that a college cannot effectively teach games development as there are no standards and the technology changes too quickly. The best that can be done is to teach students how to think and be efficient with their work. Since students will be doing grunt work their first few years in the industry, spending the extra $$ on game-specific programs won't pay off as they'll be obsolete before the information can be used. That said, avoid game-specific schools like FullSail. What I've seen from those programs is lack of fundamentals from students. They know the buttons to push that they were shown, but they tend to lack attention span and critical thinking - both of which are highly important in games development. Not saying that there haven't been success stories, but the trend is not encouraging. The other point I'd like to make is as technology and methods change, those who went to a more traditional school tend to fare better because they have the fundamentals to fall back on to allow them to adapt. Basically, game-specific programs are like high stakes poker. You're going 'all in' expecting a quick payday whereas with traditional college you're taking the slower route of building up your wealth over several hands. The ones who do best have critical thinking skills and are good at not getting caught up in the hype and crap from the ADD folks who surround them. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 4:42 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
RE: Rendering crowds on a farm
Manny, Just curious - when you say well documented do you mean via forums or is there an active/up to date Autodesk link which covers these kinds of details? I had similar issues early this year and would say that I struggled to find any information for this or other issues other than asking via the forums. Wondering if there is an Autodesk go to location that would be a good place to start when having troubles like this... Apologies if I am missing the obvious Jeff From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Manny Papamanos Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 1:05 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Rendering crowds on a farm This is a known issue and well documented. From my tests at the time, I would repro this if I rendered on several computers with 'xsibatch -render' and the -skip flag. If your render management app is using the same flag internally, it will have the same issue. However, there was no issue when I tested on two computers with: On one: xsibatch -render [path to .scn in quotes] -frames 1,100,2 on the other: xsibatch -render [path to .scn in quotes] -frames 2,100,2 run this on a SI command prompt. Manny Papamanos Autodesk Softimage and MotionBuilder Support From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andi Farhall Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:01 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Rendering crowds on a farm Hello, having got completely stuffed by crowd texturing and FBX exporting i've taken the fairly drastic measure of not using textured characters and just using a coloured shader, and also reverted to the conventional point cache way of caching rather than using fbx which is much simpler and much quicker However. i'm getting issues when rendering on the farm, i.e all my actors are now a single colour. Load the scene and render it locally and it's fine which makes debugging it rather tricky I'm using a technique i saw on Stephen Blairs blog for colouring crowds which works a treat but i can't be sure if the farm is disliking this, but i've added the user attributes to the cache list, i've cached from frame one, rendered from frame one and it still comes out incorrectly. I've tried a get and set for all the custom attributes on the cached cloud, I even locked the farm submission to one machine for the whole sequence and still i'm not getting the goods. I have spoken to someone from another company who was doing crowd stuff recently and he said they had to render everything locally as the their farm did exactly the same thing. I'm just wondering if there's anything i've missed before i resign myself to rendering everything locally myself. cheers, Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error.
Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option?
Hey guys, I'm curious if anyone has already tackled the problem of creating a corrective shape (that is, a shape difference in a pose that has been readjusted to be relative to the neutral character pose) when SecondaryShapeModeling isn't viable? If you use classic envelopes and the ClusterShapeCombiner, you can make adjustments in SecondaryShape mode and store a shape that is automatically adjusted to the neutral pose for you, and that's cool, but if you have anything much fancier, it doesn't do the neutralization right. I'm contemplating perhaps storing the shape vector difference relative to the PointReferenceFrame matrices; maybe that'll do it. Any other/better ideas? Cheers, -- Alan
RE: Rendering crowds on a farm
Hi Jeff. I meant 'well documented' inside the defect log of SOFT-9095, for an eventual fix. The defects and feature-requests are accessible by AD staff only. -manny From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Jeff McFall Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 2:36 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Rendering crowds on a farm Manny, Just curious - when you say well documented do you mean via forums or is there an active/up to date Autodesk link which covers these kinds of details? I had similar issues early this year and would say that I struggled to find any information for this or other issues other than asking via the forums. Wondering if there is an Autodesk go to location that would be a good place to start when having troubles like this... Apologies if I am missing the obvious Jeff From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Manny Papamanos Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 1:05 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Rendering crowds on a farm This is a known issue and well documented. From my tests at the time, I would repro this if I rendered on several computers with 'xsibatch -render' and the -skip flag. If your render management app is using the same flag internally, it will have the same issue. However, there was no issue when I tested on two computers with: On one: xsibatch -render [path to .scn in quotes] -frames 1,100,2 on the other: xsibatch -render [path to .scn in quotes] -frames 2,100,2 run this on a SI command prompt. Manny Papamanos Autodesk Softimage and MotionBuilder Support From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andi Farhall Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:01 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Rendering crowds on a farm Hello, having got completely stuffed by crowd texturing and FBX exporting i've taken the fairly drastic measure of not using textured characters and just using a coloured shader, and also reverted to the conventional point cache way of caching rather than using fbx which is much simpler and much quicker However. i'm getting issues when rendering on the farm, i.e all my actors are now a single colour. Load the scene and render it locally and it's fine which makes debugging it rather tricky I'm using a technique i saw on Stephen Blairs blog for colouring crowds which works a treat but i can't be sure if the farm is disliking this, but i've added the user attributes to the cache list, i've cached from frame one, rendered from frame one and it still comes out incorrectly. I've tried a get and set for all the custom attributes on the cached cloud, I even locked the farm submission to one machine for the whole sequence and still i'm not getting the goods. I have spoken to someone from another company who was doing crowd stuff recently and he said they had to render everything locally as the their farm did exactly the same thing. I'm just wondering if there's anything i've missed before i resign myself to rendering everything locally myself. cheers, Andi. ... http://www.hackneyeffects.com/ https://vimeo.com/user4174293 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21 http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/ http://spylon.tumblr.com/ This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. attachment: winmail.dat
Re: CustomTool Pick
Hi, thanks for your response. Also picking generally uses a small region around the cursor This might be the Issue. So sometimes Pick will get a Object, but my GetRaycastIntersections will fail then becouse of that Radius. I assuemd Pick and Raycast will work similar enough so i could be sure to use Raycast-Information without have to recheck them. I saw Piotrek's Snippet bevore. I learend a lot from this (so thanks here) but i dint understood why he was checking everything twice. Now i know. ;-) Vincent Am 17.06.2013 12:42, schrieb Brent McPherson: Hi Vincent, The first place to start is by checking the return values to make sure the calls succeed before attempting to use the values. Just because picking got an intersection doesn't mean the point locator query will succeed because they are using different techniques for testing intersection. Also picking generally uses a small region around the cursor. (so you could still get a picking hit when your cursor is a few pixels outside the surface) I found this code snippet from Piotrek on this thread that shows how to check the point locator setup/results for errors. http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=16t=2595 I think that with proper error checking your issue will probably go away. -- Brent -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Vincent Ullmann Sent: 14 June 2013 20:35 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: CustomTool Pick Hey List, currently i try to develop a little CustomTool. Most of it works fine, except one annoying Issue. I use the Pick-Command to get a current Location under my Cursor As demonstrated in the attached picture, when the cursor is near the Edge between Object and ViewportBackground there seems to be an Error. Does anyone know how to avoid this?
Re: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option?
See what you think of this technique https://vimeo.com/67402407 I find the results are far more natural looking and easier to manage and edit. I doubt I'll ever use that shapes-before-bones method again for correctives on limbs. On 17 Jun 2013, at 20:27, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, I'm curious if anyone has already tackled the problem of creating a corrective shape (that is, a shape difference in a pose that has been readjusted to be relative to the neutral character pose) when SecondaryShapeModeling isn't viable? If you use classic envelopes and the ClusterShapeCombiner, you can make adjustments in SecondaryShape mode and store a shape that is automatically adjusted to the neutral pose for you, and that's cool, but if you have anything much fancier, it doesn't do the neutralization right. I'm contemplating perhaps storing the shape vector difference relative to the PointReferenceFrame matrices; maybe that'll do it. Any other/better ideas? Cheers, -- Alan
Re: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option?
This is the process I've found works best for me - it's from memory as I don't have Soft at home so hopefully it's all in the right order. I have used an ICE PointRefFrame technique to try to get the rotational changes, but the result never seemed to work as well as this: 1) Move the rig from it's bind to the pose you want to correct 2) Export the mesh as an obj, store an action clip of the bind pose, the corrective pose and a preset for the envelope 3) Fix the obj 4) Back in the rig scene; import the fixed obj, give it an envelope and apply the preset so it matches the main mesh 5) Apply the corrective pose to the rig 6) Reset the Static Kinestate of the bones whilst still in the corrective pose 7) Apply the bind pose again 8) Export the mesh as an obj, then bring it in later to use as a standard shape in whatever system you use A bit convoluted, but such is the way of these things. :) On 17 June 2013 22:57, Bk p...@bustykelp.com wrote: See what you think of this technique https://vimeo.com/67402407 I find the results are far more natural looking and easier to manage and edit. I doubt I'll ever use that shapes-before-bones method again for correctives on limbs. On 17 Jun 2013, at 20:27, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, I'm curious if anyone has already tackled the problem of creating a corrective shape (that is, a shape difference in a pose that has been readjusted to be relative to the neutral character pose) when SecondaryShapeModeling isn't viable? If you use classic envelopes and the ClusterShapeCombiner, you can make adjustments in SecondaryShape mode and store a shape that is automatically adjusted to the neutral pose for you, and that's cool, but if you have anything much fancier, it doesn't do the neutralization right. I'm contemplating perhaps storing the shape vector difference relative to the PointReferenceFrame matrices; maybe that'll do it. Any other/better ideas? Cheers, -- Alan
RE: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option?
Just a sidenote: Mr. Smith, your tutorials are the most charming ones regarding softimage I saw in the last 15 years. It's just my professional opinion. :) Its pure joy to listen to them. I really like the kind of understatement that is always present in your videos. And of course the information. The videos about procedural UVing or something (with particles?) were great. I just wanted to say this in the mailing list rather than post a comment a a video platform Thank you for the effort, Sir! sven -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Bk Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 23:58 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option? See what you think of this technique https://vimeo.com/67402407 I find the results are far more natural looking and easier to manage and edit. I doubt I'll ever use that shapes-before-bones method again for correctives on limbs. On 17 Jun 2013, at 20:27, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, I'm curious if anyone has already tackled the problem of creating a corrective shape (that is, a shape difference in a pose that has been readjusted to be relative to the neutral character pose) when SecondaryShapeModeling isn't viable? If you use classic envelopes and the ClusterShapeCombiner, you can make adjustments in SecondaryShape mode and store a shape that is automatically adjusted to the neutral pose for you, and that's cool, but if you have anything much fancier, it doesn't do the neutralization right. I'm contemplating perhaps storing the shape vector difference relative to the PointReferenceFrame matrices; maybe that'll do it. Any other/better ideas? Cheers, -- Alan
Re: No anti aliasing while navigating?
having just upgraded here, im finding the same thing. whats happened? I cant find any checkbox for AA whilst navigating. James, On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 6:19 PM, Christian Gotzinger cgo...@googlemail.comwrote: Hi list, I turned on the High Quality viewport in SI 2014 in my scene to get anti-aliasing. But the anti-aliasing only works when the camera is stationary. As soon as start navigating, I get the old pixelated mess. I want it to be enabled all the time, not just when I stop navigating. What gives? Thank you
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
As others have said, he should decide what about games he really wants to do first. I'd suggest you point him to some free/open source tools - Blender, Unity3D, etc. These programs will often have a vast amount of tutorials or user forums available to assist in the learning curve. Have him start with those and see what he can come up with - no, he won't be making Final Fantasy his first try, but he might at least get a basic matching game working first. If that makes his brain melt, maybe get him to try some game editors, or join a modding community. Games like Torchlight II, The WItcher 2, etc are under $20 I believe and come with the same tools the game makers used to build the levels. After he builds a few, and assuming his brain hasn't melted, have him put a few of his levels out for the larger community to play with and critique. If the critique makes him roll up into a ball sobbing, this is a good sign he should re-think his career options. After a month or so of trying each he's come up with absolutely nothing, again, time to re-think his career options. Don't expect a fully working game in this time, unless its purely been copied from a tutorial; but it will at least open his eyes to see how much work is really involved, and how little glamor there is. I too would caution against a too narrowly focused school. I've had friends attend Full Sail, and while almost all raved about how amazing the program was, it seems that most studios would bring them on board as an unpaid intern to complete one small aspect of a game and then move on to the next years batch. If he likes coding, suggest a computer science program where his skills can be used for any number of tasks, not just games. If it's the art work he likes, then I'm sure you can offer him a variety of suggestions on where to go next. If there are any game studios in your area, it might be an idea for him to contact one and see if he can arrange a tour or speak with someone there. It was definitely an eye opener for me while attending University in Toronto to be able to go see two completely different animation studios. The first we saw looked like the animation studio on every single behind the scenes DVD you've ever seen; the second had about 30ppl crammed into a tiny attic apartment converted to studio complete with render farms to make it 40 degrees inside in the dead of winter. Today he also has the option to self publish any games he creates. For a one-time fee of $25 he can begin selling Android games almost immediately, or for $99/yr he can sell games on iOS (though be prepared for many, many arbitrary rejections from Apple). I'm not sure how things are on the Xbox side of the world, but Sony has been making a number of pushes to get Indie game developers on PSN. Nintendo and Sony have both made commitments to bring Unity support to their consoles - can't say for sure, but I imagine Microsoft would have something similar as well. Again, none of this will make him rich or have typical 8hr days, unless he's incredibly talented and incredibly lucky. As long as he understands that clearly and still has passion for it - let him loose and see what he comes up with. On 6/17/2013 7:42 AM, Paul Griswold wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
RE: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
Tim certainly has some good thoughts. Let me throw a penny onto the pile. Best piece of advice I would give these days...don't be a CG artist. I know...given this list...but I have been in games for 16+ years in the art field and the single most important role in a studio is a software developer and then maybe creative. I hear it all the time, its easier to outsource the art than it is to outsource the development and its mostly true. Talking with recruiter friends of mine, its pretty scary out there for art. You have tons of seasoned top notch guys getting laid off and these for profit schools (Full Sail, DigiPen, AI, and the like) turning out brand new artists at high volume and no one can get a steady job. You need to have serious art chops. I really don't see this getting better. Even if you are not in games, a software developer for the most part will be in demand. I as noted to a friend recently, there really isn't much of a plan B for a character artist\animator\rigger\lighter. Heck, I don't know a single artist that has retired from the CG industry. But there are a ton more options for a decent dev. I know of a number of really good game devs that just left all together and have completely different careers. One friend was a lead graphics dev and after the last layoff he went to Nokia working on NavTeq stuff. Happily employed and taking care of his family. My Plan B is to grow parsnips. ___ Marc Brinkley GO GO GO Microsoft Studios [Fun]ction Studio marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Thorburn Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 5:44 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev As others have said, he should decide what about games he really wants to do first. I'd suggest you point him to some free/open source tools - Blender, Unity3D, etc. These programs will often have a vast amount of tutorials or user forums available to assist in the learning curve. Have him start with those and see what he can come up with - no, he won't be making Final Fantasy his first try, but he might at least get a basic matching game working first. If that makes his brain melt, maybe get him to try some game editors, or join a modding community. Games like Torchlight II, The WItcher 2, etc are under $20 I believe and come with the same tools the game makers used to build the levels. After he builds a few, and assuming his brain hasn't melted, have him put a few of his levels out for the larger community to play with and critique. If the critique makes him roll up into a ball sobbing, this is a good sign he should re-think his career options. After a month or so of trying each he's come up with absolutely nothing, again, time to re-think his career options. Don't expect a fully working game in this time, unless its purely been copied from a tutorial; but it will at least open his eyes to see how much work is really involved, and how little glamor there is. I too would caution against a too narrowly focused school. I've had friends attend Full Sail, and while almost all raved about how amazing the program was, it seems that most studios would bring them on board as an unpaid intern to complete one small aspect of a game and then move on to the next years batch. If he likes coding, suggest a computer science program where his skills can be used for any number of tasks, not just games. If it's the art work he likes, then I'm sure you can offer him a variety of suggestions on where to go next. If there are any game studios in your area, it might be an idea for him to contact one and see if he can arrange a tour or speak with someone there. It was definitely an eye opener for me while attending University in Toronto to be able to go see two completely different animation studios. The first we saw looked like the animation studio on every single behind the scenes DVD you've ever seen; the second had about 30ppl crammed into a tiny attic apartment converted to studio complete with render farms to make it 40 degrees inside in the dead of winter. Today he also has the option to self publish any games he creates. For a one-time fee of $25 he can begin selling Android games almost immediately, or for $99/yr he can sell games on iOS (though be prepared for many, many arbitrary rejections from Apple). I'm not sure how things are on the Xbox side of the world, but Sony has been making a number of pushes to get Indie game developers on PSN. Nintendo and Sony have both made commitments to bring Unity support to their consoles - can't say for sure, but I imagine Microsoft would have something similar as well. Again, none of this will make him rich or have typical 8hr days, unless he's incredibly talented and incredibly lucky. As long as he
Re: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option?
alan all the time this is how i do it duplicate the mesh twice 1. neutral pose 2. posed where it needs the corrective shape 3. duplicate 2 again create the corrective shape on # 2 mesh. You now have a mesh that is posed, and has the fix applied create the corrective shape on it. you now have 1. neutral pose 2. posed mesh with corrective shape on it 3. pose shape that needs corrective shape now apply the #2 mesh as a shape to the neutral pose mesh, set it to weight of 1 now apply the #3 mesh as a shape to the neutral pose mesh, set it to weight -1 this effectively removes the posing, and leaves only the corrective shape, its just a vector subtraction after all. you now have the corrective shape d On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 7:45 AM, Sven Constable sixsi_l...@imagefront.dewrote: Just a sidenote: Mr. Smith, your tutorials are the most charming ones regarding softimage I saw in the last 15 years. It's just my professional opinion. :) Its pure joy to listen to them. I really like the kind of understatement that is always present in your videos. And of course the information. The videos about procedural UVing or something (with particles?) were great. I just wanted to say this in the mailing list rather than post a comment a a video platform Thank you for the effort, Sir! sven -Original Message- From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Bk Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 23:58 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option? See what you think of this technique https://vimeo.com/67402407 I find the results are far more natural looking and easier to manage and edit. I doubt I'll ever use that shapes-before-bones method again for correctives on limbs. On 17 Jun 2013, at 20:27, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, I'm curious if anyone has already tackled the problem of creating a corrective shape (that is, a shape difference in a pose that has been readjusted to be relative to the neutral character pose) when SecondaryShapeModeling isn't viable? If you use classic envelopes and the ClusterShapeCombiner, you can make adjustments in SecondaryShape mode and store a shape that is automatically adjusted to the neutral pose for you, and that's cool, but if you have anything much fancier, it doesn't do the neutralization right. I'm contemplating perhaps storing the shape vector difference relative to the PointReferenceFrame matrices; maybe that'll do it. Any other/better ideas? Cheers, -- Alan
Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset?
Is there anything like pyQT for JavaScript peoples :-) ::Christopher:: using pyqt would be another solution, you could create a custom .ui and just import it for every asset. I am having to do something similar at work and debating which way to go, I would prefer softimage native of course.. On 14 June 2013 16:45, Michael Heberlein micheberl...@gmail.com mailto:micheberl...@gmail.com wrote: Last week I also stumbled upon Daniele's persistent layouts blog post. To do exactly the quick and dirty end-user stuff and store PPG layouts per scene or per model, to me it looks like a good solution to use just one self-installed GenericProperty instead of many. Michael On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:47 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: If you store the PPGLogic externally in a file, you can dynamically call different logic files depending on what you want to display. The callbacks can then be married to what is displayed. This is useful for one-to-many relationships like this or in cases where the data gets embedded into assets and you don't want to have to run a batch process to update them each time the custom property is revised. Modify the external logic file and the next time the asset is loaded and viewing content, it'll use the latest version of the logic file to display the information. The code to choose what to display can be provided as a function/callback embedded in the external logic file and called from _OnInit(). Just make sure to call PPG.Refresh() at the end. Matt *From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:09 PM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? In retrospect, I worded my thread wrong. I meant converting one customproperty to another. I guess it's too much to ask of the software. I don't need Logic. I just want a way to make logic-free ppgs with infinitely different persistent layouts. The SI Blog post is what I'm after (unless there's some trick I've overlooked.) On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: In that case you definitely don't want to migrate to a customparamset. You want to convert to a more intelligently designed custom property. I don't see the need for storing the PPGLayout code as a string as _DefineLayout() or _OnInit() could house that code. You can also load PPGLogic from an external file, so really no need to go the generic property route in terms of implementation. Matt *From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 11:24 AM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? Well, /somebody/ thought it was a /brilliant/ idea to be making whole new plugins for character-specific rig properties, just because they wanted a ppglayout. (None of these properties had any logic whatsoever.) I'm looking to migrate those to a GenericProperty property like: http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/172 so it only relies on 1 plugin instead of 6 or 7. On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Once you've deployed the custom property, it needs to be supported until you've removed it from all content which uses it. The primary difference between a custom property and a customparamset is structure. Customparamsets are a generic custom property for end users to do quick and dirty stuff. They have very little support for PPGLayouts and cannot be identified from script code as all CustomParamSets have the same 'type' (customparamset).
RE: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
+1 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Nasser Al-Ostath Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 8:53 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev I recommend full sail university ... they are specialized in game dev On 17 Jun 2013 14:43, Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.commailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote: Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than I want to get into games. But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul attachment: winmail.dat
Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev
To no-one in particular: Software development, thinking cooly, is ALWAYS going to be a safer choice in terms of future proofing your arse than most content work, and a good chunk of the artistic work. It simply gives you a much broader range of skills and a much higher level of portability of efforts the more you do it at almost any level. If you've worked in an RnD department in a film shop for years, or did work on a game engine, chances are in a pinch you can move to mobile development in no time if needed, or web development, with just some minor language adjustments. It doesn't mean anybody can do it though. Not that's beyond people's intelligence, but because not everybody has the aptitude or interest, or is willing to put up with the relatively steep entry fee, much like not everybody is up for the gruelling years it takes before being able to do half decent concept design It's a mistake to think this is purely related to development work. It's just development work tends to cater to a certain type of individual more frequently than most other roles (but you'll also find plenty fossilized one-trick-pony developers that didn't survive some bubble or other bursting). A big problem with our industry is that it's always encouraged too many and too much in the middle ground of button pushing and hacking together culture, and now large amounts of people find themselves with skills and mentalities that have absolutely zero portability whatsoever, because they focused on tools and procedure, and never on fundamentals and concepts. The way out of that is encouraging a healthy and curious approach to disciplines, whichever they are, that has little to do with one's previous employment, and a lot more to do with what you learned, how and why. When all you do is pull levers and push buttons in some exotic software, with little knowledge of cause and reason, you shouldn't be surprised when you find out they'll replace you with a monkey the moment they invent a machine with less and better levers. Just make sure you learn more than pulling levers and pushing buttons and you'll be a lot more likely to have a plan B, and possibly a healthier outlook on employment in general. If you're pointing a kid in some direction in his life at the present and uncertain times, don't start showering him in horror stories about the field (because you can dredge up many of those in practically ANY line of intellectual work), just make sure he doesn't become a monkey.
Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset?
None that will run inside Softimage. The only available browser front-ended ports around largely out-date the netview and JS. Softimage also DOES NOT use Javascript. It uses JScript, which is Microsoft's stillborn half arsed effort at it. On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Christopher christop...@thecreativesheep.ca wrote: Is there anything like pyQT for JavaScript peoples :-) ::Christopher:: using pyqt would be another solution, you could create a custom .ui and just import it for every asset. I am having to do something similar at work and debating which way to go, I would prefer softimage native of course.. On 14 June 2013 16:45, Michael Heberlein micheberl...@gmail.com wrote: Last week I also stumbled upon Daniele's persistent layouts blog post. To do exactly the quick and dirty end-user stuff and store PPG layouts per scene or per model, to me it looks like a good solution to use just one self-installed GenericProperty instead of many. Michael On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:47 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.comwrote: If you store the PPGLogic externally in a file, you can dynamically call different logic files depending on what you want to display. The callbacks can then be married to what is displayed. This is useful for one-to-many relationships like this or in cases where the data gets embedded into assets and you don’t want to have to run a batch process to update them each time the custom property is revised. Modify the external logic file and the next time the asset is loaded and viewing content, it’ll use the latest version of the logic file to display the information. The code to choose what to display can be provided as a function/callback embedded in the external logic file and called from _OnInit(). Just make sure to call PPG.Refresh() at the end. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:09 PM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? In retrospect, I worded my thread wrong. I meant converting one customproperty to another. I guess it's too much to ask of the software. I don't need Logic. I just want a way to make logic-free ppgs with infinitely different persistent layouts. The SI Blog post is what I'm after (unless there's some trick I've overlooked.) On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: In that case you definitely don’t want to migrate to a customparamset. You want to convert to a more intelligently designed custom property. I don’t see the need for storing the PPGLayout code as a string as _DefineLayout() or _OnInit() could house that code. You can also load PPGLogic from an external file, so really no need to go the generic property route in terms of implementation. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 11:24 AM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? Well, *somebody* thought it was a *brilliant* idea to be making whole new plugins for character-specific rig properties, just because they wanted a ppglayout. (None of these properties had any logic whatsoever.) I'm looking to migrate those to a GenericProperty property like: http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/172 so it only relies on 1 plugin instead of 6 or 7. On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Once you’ve deployed the custom property, it needs to be supported until you’ve removed it from all content which uses it. The primary difference between a custom property and a customparamset is structure. Customparamsets are a generic custom property for end users to do quick and dirty stuff. They have very little support for PPGLayouts and cannot be identified from script code as all CustomParamSets have the same ‘type’ (customparamset). The only way you can identify them is by name or by comparing parameters. That is why the self installing CustomProperty was invented. I’ve never heard of wanting to migrate from CustomProperty to CustomParamSet, so this is a bit odd. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 11:00 AM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? Hey guys, I have a customproperty defined in a plugin and it is used in a few assets, but I no longer care for the plugin and just want it to be a regular customparamset, however, Softimage complains that the plugin doesn't exist. Is there a trick
Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset?
Steve Caron was key to the pyQt Soft efforts though, you could write him an e-mail asking if he wouldn't mind writing JScript bindings maybe. On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Christopher christop...@thecreativesheep.ca wrote: Is there anything like pyQT for JavaScript peoples :-) ::Christopher:: using pyqt would be another solution, you could create a custom .ui and just import it for every asset. I am having to do something similar at work and debating which way to go, I would prefer softimage native of course.. On 14 June 2013 16:45, Michael Heberlein micheberl...@gmail.com wrote: Last week I also stumbled upon Daniele's persistent layouts blog post. To do exactly the quick and dirty end-user stuff and store PPG layouts per scene or per model, to me it looks like a good solution to use just one self-installed GenericProperty instead of many. Michael On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:47 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.comwrote: If you store the PPGLogic externally in a file, you can dynamically call different logic files depending on what you want to display. The callbacks can then be married to what is displayed. This is useful for one-to-many relationships like this or in cases where the data gets embedded into assets and you don’t want to have to run a batch process to update them each time the custom property is revised. Modify the external logic file and the next time the asset is loaded and viewing content, it’ll use the latest version of the logic file to display the information. The code to choose what to display can be provided as a function/callback embedded in the external logic file and called from _OnInit(). Just make sure to call PPG.Refresh() at the end. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:09 PM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? In retrospect, I worded my thread wrong. I meant converting one customproperty to another. I guess it's too much to ask of the software. I don't need Logic. I just want a way to make logic-free ppgs with infinitely different persistent layouts. The SI Blog post is what I'm after (unless there's some trick I've overlooked.) On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: In that case you definitely don’t want to migrate to a customparamset. You want to convert to a more intelligently designed custom property. I don’t see the need for storing the PPGLayout code as a string as _DefineLayout() or _OnInit() could house that code. You can also load PPGLogic from an external file, so really no need to go the generic property route in terms of implementation. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 11:24 AM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? Well, *somebody* thought it was a *brilliant* idea to be making whole new plugins for character-specific rig properties, just because they wanted a ppglayout. (None of these properties had any logic whatsoever.) I'm looking to migrate those to a GenericProperty property like: http://www.softimageblog.com/archives/172 so it only relies on 1 plugin instead of 6 or 7. On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Once you’ve deployed the custom property, it needs to be supported until you’ve removed it from all content which uses it. The primary difference between a custom property and a customparamset is structure. Customparamsets are a generic custom property for end users to do quick and dirty stuff. They have very little support for PPGLayouts and cannot be identified from script code as all CustomParamSets have the same ‘type’ (customparamset). The only way you can identify them is by name or by comparing parameters. That is why the self installing CustomProperty was invented. I’ve never heard of wanting to migrate from CustomProperty to CustomParamSet, so this is a bit odd. Matt *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alan Fregtman *Sent:* Thursday, June 13, 2013 11:00 AM *To:* XSI Mailing List *Subject:* Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset? Hey guys, I have a customproperty defined in a plugin and it is used in a few assets, but I no longer care for the plugin and just want it to be a regular customparamset, however, Softimage complains that the plugin doesn't exist. Is there a trick to converting a customproperty to a paramset without having to recreate parameters one by one?
Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset?
i guess i gotta add raff to my filter too? ;P On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:35 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Steve Caron was key to the pyQt Soft efforts though, you could write him an e-mail asking if he wouldn't mind writing JScript bindings maybe.
Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset?
You don't like Javascript peoples?! Does it mean you'll add Matt Lind as well? On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i guess i gotta add raff to my filter too? ;P On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:35 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Steve Caron was key to the pyQt Soft efforts though, you could write him an e-mail asking if he wouldn't mind writing JScript bindings maybe. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Anyone got a tip to convert a customproperty to a regular customparamset?
*filtering all the peeples*... i will be on the list, alone. On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: You don't like Javascript peoples?! Does it mean you'll add Matt Lind as well? On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i guess i gotta add raff to my filter too? ;P On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:35 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Steve Caron was key to the pyQt Soft efforts though, you could write him an e-mail asking if he wouldn't mind writing JScript bindings maybe. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Anyone done corrective shapes when SecondaryShapeModeling is not an option?
Duplicate mesh twice, fix one, subtract point pos of one from the other, freeze, transfer frozen ice attributes to original mesh. Works fine for world and object. For component relative (equivalent to local) it's a bit trickier as you will have to transform the resulting vector (object space) by the inverse of the component transform (normal - normal x 1st edge - previous axis x normal), and then transform it by the component transform on the mesh it's applied to, but can still be done. Corrective shapes are best done in ICE :p On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 5:27 AM, Alan Fregtman alan.fregt...@gmail.comwrote: Hey guys, I'm curious if anyone has already tackled the problem of creating a corrective shape (that is, a shape difference in a pose that has been readjusted to be relative to the neutral character pose) when SecondaryShapeModeling isn't viable? If you use classic envelopes and the ClusterShapeCombiner, you can make adjustments in SecondaryShape mode and store a shape that is automatically adjusted to the neutral pose for you, and that's cool, but if you have anything much fancier, it doesn't do the neutralization right. I'm contemplating perhaps storing the shape vector difference relative to the PointReferenceFrame matrices; maybe that'll do it. Any other/better ideas? Cheers, -- Alan -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Anyone have an idea what error message it is?
Hi guys I get this error message from a scene. Rendering still works, but it keep pops up and I have no idea what it is. Does anyone have an idea what this error message is about? ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. --- Daniel Kim Animation Director Professional 3D Generalist http://www.danielkim3d.com ---
Re: Anyone have an idea what error message it is?
TIFFs support storing arbitrary metadata. (In fact, TIFF stands for just that... Tagged Image File Format.) Some programs store custom tags or other things in the format, and I guess the renderer just doesn't know what to do with this particular bit of data, but because the image itself is intact, it continues anyway. Like the message says, it's just a warning. No harm done. On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 12:08 AM, Daniel Kim danielki...@gmail.com wrote: Hi guys I get this error message from a scene. Rendering still works, but it keep pops up and I have no idea what it is. Does anyone have an idea what this error message is about? ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.2 62 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. ' WARNING : IMG 0.7 17 MB warn 102023: TIFFReadDirectory: :wrong data type 7 for RichTIFFIPTC; tag ignored. --- Daniel Kim Animation Director Professional 3D Generalist http://www.danielkim3d.com ---
