No, not WOW, they’re our competitor ;-)
Matt From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Francisco Criado Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2014 12:31 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Shameless plug wooww! very nice job! congratulations F: 2014-06-04 17:45 GMT+01:00 Emilio Hernandez <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Amazing job Matt! Congratulations for you and all the ones involved! I wish you big success with the game and more to come! Cheers! ------------------------------------------------------- Emilio Hernández VFX & 3D animation. 2014-06-04 11:40 GMT-05:00 Anthor <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>: Congrats, Matt! Now I have a new game to play this summer! ATR On Wed, 4 Jun 2014 02:00:34 +0000, Matt Lind 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<http://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 Anthony Rossano [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
