Unbelievable .. (in a most excellent way for a change lol)
If you ever need nice looking demo material I'd be willing to give some
time, just let me know!
J
On 03/05/14 13:18, Paul Doyle wrote:
(cross-posted to SI-Community and to our mailing list)
Hi everyone,
We've been mentioned in a few places recently in relation to what has
happened to Softimage, and particularly in discussions regarding 'what
now?'. I'm going to try and cover everything that's come up in various
emails and forum threads. If I missed anything, let me know and I'll
do my best to get back to you. You can reach me directly using
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>, and I will
track responses in the places this is posted.
Before getting into anything else, you need to know that *FABRIC IS
FREE* to individuals. Freelancers, hobbyists, students, professionals
- we don't care. We strongly believe that the way for Fabric to become
successful is for people to have easy access to it. We make money from
studios adopting the technology, not from people trying to use it.
"What the &^%$ is Fabric Engine?"
Fabric Engine is a platform for building custom tools and
applications. It's designed to be open and extensible. That doesn't
really mean much though, so let me explain a bit about the major
components.
*Fabric Core - *this is a high-performance multi-threading engine. It
takes the code you write in KL, and makes sure that it runs as fast as
possible on the hardware you're running it on.
*Kernel Language (KL)* -- this is the high-level language used for
writing this code. KL has been designed to be accessible to someone
that is most comfortable writing Python code -- it behaves as a
dynamic language, so you can iterate quickly. However, it is as fast
as statically compiled code. Soon we will be able to execute KL on
your graphics card, without needing to change a line of code - GPU
compute for free, using a language that anyone can learn. You can
learn a lot more about the KL language here:
http://fabricengine.com/splice/kernel-language-kl/
*Extensions - *we ship a range of libraries that Fabric can use.
Alembic, FBX, Bullet, Open Image IO, hardware devices and so on. We
also ship the EDK to make your own extensions, and all the source code
to our extensions, and tools to make it as easy possible. This means
that you can use these libraries inside of your existing DCCs.
*Splice API - *this API makes it possible for you to use the Fabric
Core and KL within other applications. That might be a commercial DCC
- we currently support Maya, Softimage, Arnold and Nuke (Max and
Houdini coming soon) - or it could be a custom framework. This allows
you to use Fabric to build tools that are DCC-agnostic - you can
easily move them between applications, which can be very powerful.
There is a full demo here: https://vimeo.com/76325922
*Get Started*
So if you're a Softimage user, this is where I suggest you start -
you'll be working within your familiar application environment, and
you'll get a good sense of what is possible with the Fabric Core:
1) Get Fabric: http://fabricengine.com/get-fabric/
2) Get Splice: http://dist.fabric-engine.com/FabricSplice/1.11.0/
3) Follow the tutorials:
http://documentation.fabric-engine.com/Splice/latest/HTML/Workshops/klworkshop.html
*Scene Graph - *We also have a standalone Python/Qt framework. However
- we are currently working on 2.0 of this (due early summer). My
recommendation is that you take a look at the version 2.0 outline
presentation: https://vimeo.com/84300368 but that you limit your
testing to the Fabric in Softimage stuff linked above.
*Managed transition - *Everything that you do in other applications
with Fabric and the Splice API will be portable to the 2.0 scenegraph.
This gives you a path to the future without abandoning your current
toolset - you might decide to move to Maya down the line, or another
application, or to the Fabric standalone framework. It gives you
options and most importantly, it allows you a managed transition.
*Real-Time Renderer (RTR) - *we have a powerful real-time renderer
that is targeted at production. It's written completely in KL, which
is testament to the power of the framework - it also means it's
completely open. You must remember that it is a platform for building
rendering applications - so far we have customers using Fabric and the
RTR for deep image compositing, scene assembly with Arnold
integration, animation preview, projection mapping and asset preview.
You can see some additional information here:
http://fabricengine.com/splice-2/fabric-engine/rendering/
*"What does it do out of the box?" - *right now, not much. We ship a
range of demo applications, but right now if you aren't comfortable
writing python or similar then you're going to struggle. However,
Fabric 2.0 will have much more for you by way of visual programming
and 'instant utility' tools that you can just use. Over time we will
have more and more functionality like this, but we elected to start
with the platform capabilities first - it's taken us a while but it's
starting to pay off. This will change over the next year as we see the
community pushing functionality themselves, and hopefully we'll see a
few collaborative projects come to fruition soon. We're also
supporting 3rd party developers like Eric Mootz, so we're looking
forward to seeing more artist-centric tools coming through this year.
*"What's the long term roadmap?" - *watch the Fabric 2.0 video (linked
above - https://vimeo.com/84300368) for an inkling. We are thinking in
broad strokes about: scene assembly, rigging and animation, virtual
production and visual programming. We see these as areas that are ripe
for some innovation and we have a platform that offers all of the
building blocks to do this. However - we aren't beholden to investors
or shareholders, so our roadmap sometimes changes according to what
our customers are telling us they need.
*"Are you in control of the company?" - *Yes. We have investors but
Phil, Peter and I run the company. Nothing can happen without us
agreeing to it.
*We can't do it alone* - if you want to see change happen, you have to
get involved. Small companies like Fabric need your support, we need
you to kick things around and tell us what you think. We need to know
what you need. It's immensely frustrating to be told "this is cool, if
only it did X" and then we do X and the response is "now if it did Y
then I'd take a look". Get involved - it's free!
*Let's get creative - *we are open to creating a consortium and
finding ways to open-source work done there. Obviously there are hooks
into Fabric and the concern will be around vendor dependency -
however, a lot of that can be addressed in the design of a particular
project. We have done deals that give source code access to customers
after a certain number of years, and we will work with studios to give
that kind of security. We see this as something where we would not be
controlling anything, but working on a partnership basis with the
studios that want to do this. It has to be driven by studios that want
to see some control over their destiny, with companies like Fabric
getting involved to support and drive innovation. We are a platform,
so for us this is the way to success - providing high-performance,
dependable components that can be used to build production-specific
tools, which are best built by you. If you are interested in becoming
a part of this working group then please email me
([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>) - right now
I'm just gauging interest with the hope that we can do something
amazing together.
Thanks,
Paul and the Fabric team
