i think this underlines a much wider problem; the docs are woefully
inadequate!
for example;
http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/softimage2012/en_us/userguide/files
/iceref_Extrude_Polygon_Island.htm
i would expect, at the very LEAST, to have some of the 'inputs' to be backed
up with an example image, to DEMONSTRATE what they do in context.
when it comes to ICE, a great deal CAN be learned by pulling apart other
people's solutions, or just randomly plugging and trying to figure out why
it's not working.... but with the more complicated concepts, such as
modelling/rigging in ICE, nothing would compare to comprehensive
documentation and examples...
i would add my vote to spending some development money on better docs, and
staged, step by step, versioned example scenes, possibly with video
walkthroughs associated with them.
my 2c
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric Cosky
Sent: 17 July 2012 23:57
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: ICE modeling
I was referring to ICE rigging like the rabbit sample. Simple kinematics
have been functional solutions for me, but a couple of serious attempts at
full character ICE rigging set up similar to the rabbit sample wound up with
me going back to basic skeletons. Not for lack of trying (several days each
time); the main problem for me was when something wasn't set up right it was
very difficult and time consuming to figure out what was wrong. I don't have
anything specific to point at right now, just the general "wtf" that tends
to happen when nodes seemingly set up correctly just don't want to work and
the error messages don't really seem to help. For instance the other day I
was trying to do a simple clone mesh ICE tree and it just wouldn't work, but
rebuilding the tree from scratch - same exact tree as far as I could tell -
did. Bug perhaps? Hard to say. I've encountered (and reported) a few in the
past so I don't assume anything at this point, but the errors didn't really
say enough to tell.
I blame my inexperience with ICE, and I am sure lots of people in this list
could work through issues like mine easily. My email was really just in
support of the wishing there was better error feedback for people not yet
expert with ICE but acknowledging that it's hard for it to really
communicate more, but that more docs would be helpful in avoiding the errors
in the first place.
The rabbit scene is a good example of ICE rigging, and it seems to me that a
walkthrough of building that rig - including all the support scripts - would
be a solid addition to the docs/samples. A feature as significant as ICE
rigging should have more than a single page of general commentary in the
docs
(http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/softimage2013/en_us/userguide/inde
x.html?url=files/ikine_kinematics2_ICERigs.htm,topicNumber=d30e307742). It
should have at least a couple of useful & practical examples explained in
depth.
Just my 2 cents, no big deal to me really. My animations are super simple
compared to what most people here do with their eyes closed.
-Eric Cosky
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Fregtman
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 1:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: ICE modeling
Are you talking about ICE rigging as in doing a whole character with ICE? Or
just ICE kinematics? What's confusing about them in your opinion?
On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Eric Cosky <[email protected]> wrote:
I was trying to find a way to describe my difficulty with ICE modeling,
you pretty much summed it up. I have no problem with the math side of using
ICE, but even the simplest tasks sometimes become very frustrating when
something goes wrong. When nodes go red they often lack any meaningful clues
about how to fix whatever is wrong. I am sure there is always a good reason
for whatever fails, but it sometimes seems - and in practice actually is -
impossible to figure out what actually needs to be done to fix it. While I
have no problem attributing most of the frustration to my lack of experience
with the system, I can't help but think that it should be possible to
improve the error feedback.
As a programmer I can appreciate how hard it would be to improve the
situation all that much given it is essentially a visual programming
environment and I suspect errors from low level systems just need to
percolate up and there just isn't much to do other than drill down and
figure it out.. I think perhaps the best thing we can hope for is more
thorough ICE documentation, including examples of troubleshooting of common
problems and debugging techniques. So much of ICE feels so barely documented
that much of what I have tried to do so far has been difficult at best and
borderline good luck when I do manage to figure it out. ICE rigging for
instance has been a real challenge. The current docs & samples are IMHO not
nearly as comprehensive as they deserve to be and I can only hope they get
more attention.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andy
Nicholas
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 4:13 AM
To: Rob Chapman; [email protected]
Subject: Re: ICE modeling
I find the most frustrating thing with ICE modelling is the lack of
feedback when something goes wrong. For example, if I feed an array of point
positions and indices to make some polygons using the Create Topo node, and
something's wrong in that data, it's extraordinarily difficult to figure out
what's gone wrong as there's no feedback or error message from the ICE node.
Proper support for 2D arrays as a basic type would also be very useful.
Particularly when trying to retrieve array type data from arrays of
locations.
That's a really common stumbling block for doing complex effects.
On 17 July 2012 at 10:48 Rob Chapman <[email protected]> wrote:
Agreed, also how to 'grow' meshes from curves or animation data, on
these newly generated meshes to then select polys by area or closest
to a pointcloud ,merge surrounding polys to current selection,
extrude this etc. maybe how to blend between some instances and a ICE
modelling mesh. A controllable (by proximity, CAV map,weight,)
localized subdivision would be great. I have no clue how to get all
this to work in one ICE modelling tree together - have managed to
bodge together two different examples - a repeated extrude from a
random selection, but I cannot control the extrusion very well - but
this is the only examples we have so far that are not crowds or
fences
:)
https://vimeo.com/40452537
http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/ice-modeling-extruding-a-r
a
ndom-polygon/
Cheers
Rob
On 17 July 2012 10:21, Chris Marshall <[email protected]> wrote:
What I'm finding is simply that almost everything I try either
doesn't do what I expect or doesn't do anything at all.
Some fundamental basic workflow examples would be useful, just to
get the general logic clear.
Understanding why repeat loops don't work and how to work around that.
How to get animation of particles from a point cloud to build an ice
object.
I spent a day trying to get that to work with no luck.
I'd like to be able to control the positioning of elements by
translating or rotating them in local space.
Thanks
By lunch today would be useful!?
;-)
On 16 July 2012 18:05, Grahame Fuller <[email protected]>
wrote:
What sort of tutorials do you want to see? Creating shapes from
the ground up, or something else?
What I have found is that the topo nodes themselves are not that
complicated. The hard part is the math and logic you need to control
them.
So maybe math tutorials are needed?
gray
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Chris Marshall
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 09:44 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: ICE modeling
Yes!!
On 16 July 2012 11:50, adrian wyer
<[email protected]<mailto:adrian.wyer@fluid-pictures.
c
om>>
wrote:
+1 on the request for ICE modelling 101
had a glance at the digital tutors one, but it's more about
cloning than actually 'modelling'
this feature REALLY needs some in depth tutorials!!
a
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