Just to add to the discussion, when I made EssGeo (a geometry plugin, http://www.boundingboxgames.com/tools/essgeo) I had to disable a couple of features due to problems with cluster management. Namely, a random cluster op and a greeble op. I think they could have been pretty useful tools.
I made an imgur gallery that showed the features I had to abandon, check it out here: http://imgur.com/a/5T7v0 Its been a while since I wrote all this, but if memory serves I couldnt find what I needed for cluster management in the C++ API, so I had to resort to this sort of thing which basically builds a VB command to make changes to clusters: CString prefix = cluster.GetFullName() + L", " + pname + L".poly["; if(ecount > 0) { CString arg = prefix + L"0-" + CString(CValue(pcount-1)) + L"]"; args[0] = arg; status = Application().ExecuteCommand(L"RemoveFromCluster", args, val); DEBUG_ASSERT_OK(status); } This of course is pretty slow compared to a proper native API, but it generally solved that part of the problem and in practice wasnt a performance problem since clusters didnt change all the time. Unfortunately I had to yank these features because I could never get them stable. Changing anything that changed cluster data had the potential to crash Softimage. I usually assume when something doesnt work that its my fault, because there always seems to be a tendency for things to actually turn out to be my fault the moment I point the finger somewhere else, but in this case I wound up convinced the cluster management internals of Softimage was buggy and there was nothing I could do about it. Id love to be wrong so I could fix my plugin but this thread suggests otherwise. If someone on the Softimage dev team would like the source code to this plugin along with an already-built version with these features enabled in order to fix the crash and see a specific example of what cluster API changes would be useful, Id be happy to provide it. -Eric Cosky From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sebastien Sterling Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 5:40 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Softimage 2014 If these things are to hard to accomplish for third party people, then what realistic chance is there that they will ever be implemented ? is what i want to know, Autodesk don't exactly have a good track record of treating there customers as a valid source of input... is there some secret ballot where this stuff gets decided ? Also, is the problem that the SDK is just too archaic ? does it need a complete rewrite ? or are aspects of the code unavailable or illegal to be changed to/by scripters ? if so does Autodesk have the ability to make the code available ? On 9 April 2013 09:27, Eugen Sares <softim...@keyvis.at> wrote: Oil on my fire. That cluster SDK restriction really really sucks. It is the reason why there never were any good topology/modelling addons from 3rd parties, which leads to stagantion if there aren't any new "factory" modelling tools brought also. In 3ds max or Maya, all kinds of plugins are available, completely natural. Not so in Softimage. The few ICE modelling tools like Cap are nice, but slow. Native code is nice and fast. Luc-Eric mentioned once, ICE was meant to be the "new SDK", that's why this cluster update mechanism has been implemented for ICE already. Imho that's an excuse. ICE complements the SDK, it is NOT a replacement! Cluster updates should be supported by the SDK as well, even if it is complicated, and thus somewhat of a challenge for a 3rd party dev. Try us! Provide a good code example alongside, and we'll do fine. Be wise and do it. Please. Am 09.04.2013 09:08, schrieb Piotrek Marczak: Just give us proper SDK and let community do the rest. " Softimage currently does not fully support custom topology operators. The problem is that any cluster or cluster property will not properly update when a topology operator adds or removes points that belong to the cluster. In the worst case Softimage may crash. Hence custom topology operators should only be used in the more limited scenario of objects that do not have any clusters. Once the geometry is ready it would be possible to freeze the object to remove the custom topology operators (but leave the result of their evaluation), then to add the clusters and other operators. " ?? 2013/4/8 olivier jeannel <olivier.jean...@noos.fr> They do modo for birds ? Le 08/04/2013 20:27, pete...@skynet.be a écrit : Im pretty sure theres neither gentlemen nor ladies on this list. as for Modo vs SI a little bird tells me theres more important issues at stake than selection. From: Rob Chapman <mailto:tekano....@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 3:35 PM To: ron...@toonafish.nl ; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Softimage 2014 now now gentlemen, there are ladies present on the list too! lets just say , when it comes to apps and selection methods, leave the race courses for the race horses..! :) On 8 April 2013 15:32, Toonafish <ron...@toonafish.nl> wrote: ...but I prefer brunettes with bigger boobs. If you get the idea J That's prolly because bigger boobs aren't obstructed so much, so they are much easier to select in shaded mode ;-) - Ronald
