how many years ago was the BlueSky rigging experience and how much was it? I remember seeing you as a Softimage fan since very early XSI - perhaps a Softimage 3D user before that as well? I might be confusing you with another user.
The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature, along with render passes (property propagation). I think no other app will ever have this. There are architecture overhead and performance issue associated with that, though. can't talk about animation without talking about performance, and referencing. Le mercredi 8 janvier 2014, David Gallagher a écrit : > > I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now > (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known "Malcolm" rig for free. > > There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of > rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but > I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are > to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of > working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is > profound. > > -At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model > stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, > you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, > retaining almost every bit of work you've done. > YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY. > This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of > losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to > make a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work. > And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator you're way > out of a jam. > > -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead > of on a separate blendshape object. > Ith > > -There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go > to Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points. > In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and > scripts and HOPE that it works. If the scenario is simple enough, it might. > Several people here tried to help a student make a single corrective > blendshape on an elbow -- and we're all experienced Maya riggers. After > hours of attempting, we threw up our hands. There was something in that > object's history that was making the blendshape plug-in fail. The answer is > what it often is: just start over. > -EDITING corrective blendshapes. In Maya, heaven help you if you want to > edit that blendshape later. Start the process again and make a new one. In > Softimage, drag a few points and you're done in seconds. > > -For facial work, being able to make face shapes in conjunction with the > mixer, working directly on the main geo. To see other shapes muted, soloed > as you're working. This allows you to craft shapes that work for different > scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape > combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions > combine to make the range of expressive results. > > -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and > more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. > Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter > rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. > I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to > Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. > Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no > reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since > 1999.) > > -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let > you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) > > -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest > point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing > and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far > prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. > > -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can > change the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, > not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. > > -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there > are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. > > -The "smooth preview" Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more > stable in Softimage. > > -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I > would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. > > -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its > children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting > will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a > mixture of heirarchy parts. > > All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not > jump through hoops all day. > As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive. > > > > On 1/8/2014 2:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote: > To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the years > but I never experienced anything like that. > When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into occasionally > was when painting weights, and then undoing that operation, which in rare > cases does what you describe, but I think they fixed that in version 2013 > or 2014. I never locked the skin weights, workflow wise I always found that > highly disruptive. > > > I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya > you have to "lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small > tick boxes" failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random > influences around... > > > On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman <[email protected]> wrote: > > Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned > mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an > exporter that saved out my weights in the "*cometSaveWeights*" format. > Life saver! > > > > On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron <[email protected]> wrote: > > arg, figured it out. > > import pymel.core as pm > pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) > > best UI ever! > > > On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron <[email protected]> wrote: > > this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need > to get a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this > object and i don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through > inspection. in softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers > from envelope, then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on > them in mass with 'remove all constraints' > >
