When you have Eric in a video you don't make it public. The beard
defaults them to R rated.
On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 4:27 AM, Kris Rivel <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Private video :-) It must be REALLY good!
On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Paul Doyle <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Some comments on Fabric that we recorded at Siggraph from a
few familiar VFX faces: https://vimeo.com/71818285
Eric is in this video, but don't hold that against us ;)
On 6 August 2013 09:06, Eric Thivierge <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Raf basically said what I was trying to say in a shooting
from the hip quick response that probably failed
miserably. Either way I'm in agreement with Raf (look at
that, you agree with an American, Raf!). The future seems
to be platforms and frameworks to build out your pipeline
tools as needed and in the way you want. You also have
flexibility to change a deep level of structures your apps
are running on.
As Raf pointed out it's clear to me especially after
Siggraph that there is not going to be a one app to rule
them all. It's going to be a mixed bag of apps with
standard formats supported across them to pass the data
back and forth and use the app best for particular parts
of the pipeline.
So many companies branching out and incorporating open
source solutions (again as Raf mentioned) and not being
shy about it either. So many Siggraph talks this year
talking about how they implemented an open source format
and used it in their projects.
Do I want an Uber Autodesk app? No. I've lost trust at
this point in AD and it doesn't make sense.
Eric Thivierge
===============
Character TD / RnD
Hybride Technologies
On August-06-13 1:10:47 AM, Matt Lind wrote:
I think the ‘age of the platform’ assessment will be
restricted to
film/video as I see a fork in the road developing
between games and
film/video pipelines. Actually, it’s already been
happening for many
years.
Traditionally games have borrowed film/video tools for
3D work because
needs were simple and the film/video tools could be
bent to service.
But now as graphics hardware improves, games
requirements are much
more demanding and divergent from that which
film/video caters.
Film/video has always moved towards larger and larger
datasets
requiring subdivision of labor to the N’th degree.
Quality was the
overriding factor. If it takes N hours to render that
one awe
inspiring frame, you do it. That growth requires asset
management to
manage all the facilities and assets. The assets last
only as long as
the production, unless there is a sequel. Each
production typically
involves reworking and re-inventing the wheel unless
you work at one
of the older mainstays that have significant R+D
investment into their
pipelines. Basically assets are generated, a picture
is taken of
them, then they are dumped into a box where they sit
on a virtual
shelf until needed again. Kind of like the old gag on
Popeye cartoons
where they chop down the redwoods, send them to the
saw mill, then
whittle it down to a single toothpick where it’s
shipped off in a box.
In games, it’s a bit different. In the case of the
MMO I’m working on
the assets must have a very long shelf life – measured
in decades.
The assets contribute to live software environments,
must be very
optimal, and are under constant iteration. While
growth is also
occurring in the games pipeline, it’s moving in a
different direction
than film/video. Games is moving fast towards ‘in
context’ editing of
assets, as in, creating/editing the assets in the live
game
environment. To accomplish the feat requires being
very tightly bound
to the runtime environment of the game engine.
Therefore a DCC
application which serves as a ‘platform’ will not
serve any role where
the work is done in the game environment. I would
venture to say that
many games developers are actively pursuing the route
of removing DCC
applications from their pipelines completely. It will
be many years
before it is actually accomplished, however.
I remember a discussion with former Softimage PM
Gareth Morgan back in
the late 1990s where he said they were actively
working to make
‘sumatra’ a game engine with DCC tools. That vision
is not far off
from reality. The only part he got wrong is the DCC
application isn’t
the host, it’s the guest.
What you’ll see emerge in the games development arena
for content
creation are application(s) which can attach live
agents to the
content being created so it can be merged into the
game environment.
In other words, something a game engine can host. The
difficulty
comes in the area of viewing the work. Something like
Fabric Engine
has its own language for compiling and preparing the
assets for
display. This is the exact same responsibility of the
game engine.
While the DCC application clearly isn’t a solution
here, the Fabric
Engine model isn’t a hands-down winner either (but
much closer to the
correct solution). It’ll be interesting to see how
that problem is
addressed.
Matt
*From:*softimage-bounces@__listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:[email protected]>
[mailto:softimage-bounces@__listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:[email protected]>] *On
Behalf Of
*Raffaele Fragapane
*Sent:* Monday, August 05, 2013 9:23 PM
*To:* [email protected].__com
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: OT: Yost Group - related to the
Naiad/SIGGRAPH discussion
Why Fanboi, and why conspiracy?
I consider Paul and Co. to be smart enough to know
that that is
EXACTLY what they should be shooting for.
AD knows it themselves IMO, as does SideFX, and the
Foundry, and many
others.
The writing couldn't be plainer on all walls that the
industry is
shifting again.
>From blackboxed, fragmented specialistic apps in the
end80s to mid
nineties, to the rise of the artist friendly monolith
in the end 90s,
to the monolithic but moderately open app from end-90s
until now,
we're now moving fast towards a common stream of OSS
standards which
will be injected into by various small footprint, very
specialized and
tailored apps (ZB, Mari, Katana etc.), and have a
layer floating on
top to interface pipe and content/operation management
on top of that
will be platform centric.
You have pointed out bits of that youreself.
Maya and Soft are more and more used as mere scene
assembly and
animation platforms. That type of approach is becoming
more widely
available by the minute to smaller and smaller
entities, even to
individuals. It's only the middle end caught into hard
software locks
at this point.
The age of the platform is coming.
Everybody already manages shots with shotgun, assets
with tank (or
perforce, or propietary, or what else you have it),
models with ZB,
retopos with 3DC or Topogun, textures with mudbox or
mari, does
effects in Houdini, or Realflow, hair is left to
plugins (shave,
yeti), lights with katana, renders with PRMan,
composites with Nuke,
finals with DaVinci...
Who caches with something other Alembic (or propietary
formats) or
writes images other than EXR?
All UIs are Qt, threading is beind coalesced in fewer
solutions by the
day, libraries emerge to abstract and generalise many
things (OCL,
Thrust etc.).
What little is left out has initiatives that might be
caught up on
(OSL, partIO, openVDB), or will one day see an
alternative that will
become the standard.
What's left for Maya or Soft to do but assemblying
assets and
rig/animation? Which are ultimately just scene
Management tasks, a
specialized type of graph which, of the lot, is the
most backwards and
dated of all sections of the pipe.
There will be churn, as always for a few years one
sub-field using CGI
is left better or worse serviced than others, one size
more or less
competitive, but I don't think there will be a
next-gen big app, not
one as big (proportionally) as Soft was, or Maya is.
Fabric did the right thing, all they have to do is
garner the
attention and sustenance to punch through the industry
catching up to
the obvious through lean years.
On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Matt Lind
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
<mailto:mlind@carbinestudios.__com
<mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:
And to throw some fanboi conspiracy theory gas into
the flames:
If you integrate with all the DCC apps, you’ve
essentially built up
the trust with all the user bases and have the ability
to suck them
into your DCC of the future to reduce any and all risk
of switching a
production pipeline to another base application.
At least give us a ray of hope, Paul. ;-)
Matt
--
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship
it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
