Houdini, no question. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nika Ragua Sent: Saturday, 1 March 2014 9:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: ICE migration thread. no tears here )))
and yeah, guys i really respect you all, and i fully understand your emotions, but this thread is about programming with blocks and arrows - where will YOU personally put your feet next ))) keep it simple, direct, head cool - no emotions, no dust 2014-03-01 3:36 GMT+04:00 Nika Ragua <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Just to get the thread on track a bit (sort of) - would people share what it is they like/dislike about ICE (or any other visual programming system)? My experience is there are often two camps: one group that are not programmers (not even python), so ICE gives them a level of customization previously closed to them. The other group like the emergent/tinkering behaviour that node systems provide. I'm just wondering if the 'where do we go next?' question is going to vary between those two sets. Hi, Paul, thanks for looking to the thread - i can give you a fundamental feedback on this topic, if you would like to read it, because its very important to me, i don`t know about the other guys exactly, how they feel and where they were stuck, but in ICE there are some flaws - cryptic parts, where people were stuck, and it took a lot of efforts to go through them 2014-03-01 2:38 GMT+04:00 Eric Thivierge <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Haha, it's actually a bit interesting to see how much people are getting bent out of shape from my comment. You all know I'm a super huge fan of Softimage I hope. I've been around long enough contributing to the community enough to know that I think Softimage IS the best software to be doing rigging. I know Animal Logic is serious, erm, I worked there I should know. :P I'll try to clear it up a bit... Sorry I didn't understand it was for the pure ICE users here. For pure ICE related stuff, I'm not sure what to tell you. Probably Houdini? Maya's node graph isn't great by far. Not sure what the new versions are going to bring but it is clunky. I don't use ICE for rigging. I only use it for custom deformers and other tools. If I need to do some of that in the future Fabric is probably going to be the choice, but within Maya. Softimage is my preferred software and I'm going to be using it still within the next few years. However, during the same time I'm going to be working in Maya (I've been in both the past 9 months) and starting the transition over to Maya. Why switch? Well, you can't wait until Softimage no longer runs / isn't getting bug fixes that are crucial to getting your work done. If you're serious about working in this business, it's my opinion that you have to be pushing your tools and use of technology as much as you can or else you're going to stagnate and won't be able to pull in the work. It's nice to hear everyone that is going to continue to use and develop on Softimage once it's canned, but there have been many instances where there is a bug that needs to get fixed to get a project or plug-in done. If there is no one to fix it, how are you going to finish your tool? You're not. Animation wise, what other tool has the same level of animation editing tools with the level of rigging tools that we have in Softimage, other than Softimage? My classification of serious film work was meant that you need the full breadth of features that you find in Softimage and Maya to get the same work done that you're doing in Softimage. Do you have those tools currently in Modo? Houdini? I'm sorry but I can't take those apps seriously for rigging at this moment. I apologize for tossing in the "film" part in that statement. There are some insane work coming out of the commercial space as well. I know full well as I've done my fair share of freelance at some of those studios. Please trust me when I say I'd rather not use Maya. It's clunky, not a lot of essential small tools out of the box, full of bugs itself, but honestly it's the only valid app I see that anim and rigging can move to. Eric T.
