That reminds me of the old trailer from 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtlFw15tj1k&feature=kp
Still one of my favorite blur pieces.
i can see the love that went into this project, it shines out from every
frame
http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/media/videos/flicks/
congrats!
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Crowson
Sent: 04 June 2014 16:35
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Shameless plug
Way to go Matt! Hat's off to you and the rest of the team!
-Tim
On 6/4/2014 9:39 AM, Chris Johnson wrote:
Looks Amazing!
Can't believe you've been working on just this since Barnyard!!! It
shows.
Congratulations!
On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 10:00 PM, Matt Lind <ml...@carbinestudios.com>
wrote:
I don’t get to say this often, but I’ve finished a project using
Softimage which all can see. Well, it’s not actually ‘finished’ as
it’s >>>an online game which is continuously maintained, updated, and
ongoing, but it’s now live and I can talk about it beyond
>>>generalizations. Yay! My last completed project was my previous
production –Barnyard the animated feature back in 2006. It’s >>>been
a long time coming, a relief, and refreshing to be able to refer to
something I did in the current decade.
Wildstar officially launched last Friday night at midnight for early
access, but opened up the flood gates today for everybody >>>else.
The game is now running smoothly in North America and Europe for all
to see and experience. If you were part of the beta, >>>let it be
known significant improvements have been made since on all fronts. If
you haven’t tried the game yet, point your >>>browser to
www.wildstar-online.com and click on the shiny buttons. The first 30
days are free with initial purchase.
Production started in 2005 using Softimage XSI v3.5 and launched with
Softimage 2013 SP1 – all of it in 32 bit land. Majority of >>>the
content created in Softimage 7.5 which we used for roughly 5 years.
Softimage was used for a heavy majority of the 3D >>>artwork including
characters, props, environments (other than the ground), buildings,
dungeons, and everything inside of them. >>>We didn’t use ICE at all
(but not for lack of trying, and we tested heavily), so this is a good
example of what the fundamental >>>toolset can do. Heavy use of
custom properties, vertex colors, user normals, clusters, envelopes,
UV spaces, and hardware (real >>>time) shaders to customize and
iterate on our content. What made these simple components really nice
is they were general and >>>could be re-targeted for many uses outside
of their original intended purpose. Our particles were created and
applied in >>>Softimage, but simulated only in engine. The SDK was
used to write 500+ tools to assist artists to create their content
include >>>tools like ‘mimick’ which is a command similar to GATOR
which can transfer attributes, but do so on select subcomponents
>>>instead of the entire object, along with other bells and whistles.
Often overlooked and understated, but Softimage scaling was
>>>incredibly powerful for controlling the squash and stretch scaling
of deformers used in our envelopes to animate characters with
>>>cartoon whimsy and without ugly shearing often associated with
other software. It is used on every asset that moves. >>>Relational
views were used to create tools such as a face editor to view and
animate faces for our player characters, and adjust >>>face
customizations to see how they’d appear in the game as each of our
characters have multiple faces and other components >>>which can plug
in like a Mr. Potato head doll. It was important to see the various
components in context side-by-side for >>>comparison while creating
the content so consistency could be maintained. This was achieved
using many ‘object view’ >>>embedded into the relational view. Under
the hood the face editor drove the animation mixer to perform face
pose blending so >>>artists could see the animation in real time on
their characters. Also, NURBS, that’s right, NURBS surfaces were used
to transfer >>>face poses and clothing between characters. The
details must remain a trade secret, but I just had to mention we used
NURBS in >>>all their unfinished glory to get meaningful work done
with significant contributions to the end product. Render passes were
>>>used to re-dress environments to allow artists to create geometry
once, then swap textures, shader settings, and other details >>>many
times for each variant of the environment. Not only does it simplify
the artist workflow by centralizing all their interaction >>>to a few
clicks, but it also allows assets to be packed into compact files for
use in our engine. Render passes are used in housing >>>and dungeons.
If we had to do this in Maya, we’d probably have to break up each
variant into its own scene and have to figure >>>out a way to merge
all the scenes together that shared the same geometry. These polished
touches matter. Softimage for the >>>win.
So that said, while many 3D software could create the assets in their
own time and space vacuum, Softimage (in my opinion) was >>>the only
software that could’ve tackled this project given our specific time,
resources, and budget as there were many close calls >>>along the
way. I say Softimage because many of the aforementioned features came
out of the box with us ready to roll and not >>>have to spend oodles
of time reinventing the wheel. Not having to write an animation mixer
to do face pose blending, or render >>>pass systems to do
texture/shader swaps were incredible time savers and something we
could lean on. Spreadsheet queries and >>>custom selection filters
allowed us to quickly and easily find our custom data in any scene
with just a click, view the data in a >>>clean environment, and change
it in bulk, if necessary without worry of missing a spot – highly
important for finding and fixing >>>bugs. The elegant user experience
was paramount to getting work done on tight schedules at high quality
with minimal >>>development resources available. Everybody says that,
but in our case it couldn’t be more true. That user experience
extends to >>>the SDK as well. Not having to relearn or rewrite code
over many versions and upgrades over the span of nearly a decade was
>>>quite important in maintaining continuity and stability. The
scripting object model was more than a blessing to get under the
>>>hood and target only what we needed rather than having to rely on
combinations of commands which do more work than >>>necessary or don’t
do exactly what we need as is available in most other 3D software.
Backward compatibility with the API for C>>>++ development was very
important too. While today’s OpenGL/DirectX viewport may seem
antiquated, at the time this project >>>started it was ahead of and
more capable than any other in the industry, and fully compatible with
all the other tools such as >>>render passes. That cannot be
overlooked.
Finally, I should thank all the hard work and contributions from the
Softimage developers and support, past and present, who >>>put such an
application together to make it possible. Not just the foresight to
see and understand the artist’s point of view, but >>>also in the
continued listening and support when we needed help along the way
whether it be to fix bugs, augment existing >>>features, or implement
new features to accommodate our needs. Building such an application
is more than just writing and >>>compiling code – it’s about
understanding people. You cannot understand people without forming
relationships and >>>maintaining those relationships over the long
haul. Softimage made the effort to establish and maintain those
relationships >>>contributing help and advice along the way, and that
is why so many successful projects have resulted. As much as I’ve
ragged >>>on many points, the bigger picture is not lost on the fact
Softimage is a very capable and strong swiss army knife of 3D software
>>>to tackle many projects fearlessly. It’s just a shame that in all
my years of working with Softimage|XSI, this is only the 2nd long
>>>form project I’ve been able to call complete (due to project
durations) and will be a shame that there will likely not be a 3rd.
One >>>point of satisfaction is of having worked on one of the first
XSI projects in ‘Panic Room’, and now finishing one of the last in
>>>‘Wildstar’. Both poetically apropos as Panic Room was a project
fighting with a then beta-quality release rushed to market full >>>of
many bugs while Wildstar is a game about exploring and settling the
planet Nexus much like the old west of America’s pioneer >>>days of
the 1800’s with wagons, staking claims to territory, gold rushes, and
shootouts. Only fitting as I must now look forward >>>to a new
destiny in uncharted territory as Softimage has literally been part of
half my life in the 21 years I’ve used both >>>Softimage|3D and
Softimage|XSI….(and Eddie too!).
Thank you, Softimage.
Matt
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Stefan Kubicek
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keyvis digital imagery
Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3
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Phone: +43/699/12614231
www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at
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