Swiped together on the phone while having a smoke, guess the autocorrects, or swap things around as appropriate to make the mail funnier ;) On 31 Mar 2014 23:44, "Raffaele Fragapane" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ultimately I can do the same things in all three packages, in Maya in > example I don't even try to find workarounds, whenever I bump into one of > the innumerable gaps I just write my way out of it with a node, which > incidentally is also why I'm taking a looking to splice and looking forward > to their CUDA implementation instead of using my own in c++. > Text is tremendously expressive, if expensive in terms of learning curve, > which is also a cookie point for vex really. > > The problem comes when you have deadlines and you simply want to > experiment without redoing at the end of the process. For that Soft was > simply the perfect storm. > ICE limitation of having a strict I/O domain and the sequential stack with > entry points, the clarity and abundance of atomic nodes, and a generally > cohesive experience remain unbeaten. > > In Soft when you hit a wall you often hit it hard, but those are few and > far between, and in between you could really fly. Same goes for clusters, > properties, drag'n'drop and how Soft presents and links those larger > aggregates, they simply work 99% of the time. > Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their learning > curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while with Soft > we had people who never used it literally flying around within a month. > > As a creature TD Houdini simply doesn't get you on the zone quickly > enough, if ever. It's brilliant for a number of things, infinitely > powerful, has best of breed solvers, but it gets in the way constantly. > It's patently obvious they rarely, almost never in fact, had to address > teams like the ones I run as user base. > > Performance in general is also pretty abysmal (was, might be better know) > and optimisation is opaque and lacking in immediately useful tools and > diagnostics. > Again, as of two and half years ago. Might be different now and I wouldn't > know, but nothing I've read or seen suggests so. > On 31 Mar 2014 23:18, "Jordi Bares" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Slow performance depends on many things like having nested assets, and >> yes, you won't find an interface to manage your blend shapes but what you >> can do with your rig imho is truly phenomenal. >> >> Regarding the deformations ICE versus VOPs I would love to know more >> about it, what do you feel you can do in ICE you can't in Houdini? >> >> Assuming you are doing with the off-the-self toolkit and without any >> proprietary pipeline tools to speed up rigging building a proper asset >> interface, protect it from the user and all that takes time but do you feel >> is much longer than any other package? >> >> jb >> >> On 31 Mar 2014, at 12:04, Raffaele Fragapane <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> I have to admit to not having tried again in at least two and half years, >> but I haven't seen any related release notes related to rigging since then, >> so bear with me if this is not recent or still actual information, but in >> what way is rigging in Houdini phenomenal? >> It's a major pain in the arse, generally slow both performance wise and >> to actually produce the rigs, and it has absolutely zero adequate >> facilities for a lot of stuff such as shape manipulation, and while VOPs >> are great, when it comes to deformations they don't even scratch the >> surface of what ICE can do. >> And while it's true assets are phenomenal, the sheer scope of investment >> to wrap a character up to give it to an animator is staggering, it takes >> forever to truly and properly armor up a rig and expose only the right >> context in the right way. >> >> >>
