I think one thing I took away from Siggraph is that the technology is
here to be able to do this. It may cost a lot (PREMO by Dreamworks) or
you have to get into new technology (Fabric Engine) but it's definitely
at a point where we can start dumping higher quality representations
into the viewports for artists.
It is important to have actually. Being able to see high res geometry
deformed by the rig in the viewport with still interactive speed is
something that is becoming more and more essential and that riggers and
animators haven't been able to do without lots of RnD. Definitely not
able to do that out of the box in Maya or Softimage. If you're able to
give animators an almost 1 to 1 result on screen to what they'll get in
render that means that you don't have to playblast / test render and
can iterate on different ideas faster.
When you give animators this ability, your first inclination may be
that work will get done faster. This is incorrect. It means they can
iterate faster and are able to test out ideas much faster. This has
value as it will mean that your project will evolve faster and will
show story / layout / camera / animation problems much sooner in the
process and will be able to be fixed before you have to ship it out the
door.
One thing I can't really get behind is companies just not getting to
things like standard PSD tools and other tools implementing workflows
and techniques that have been around for almost 10 years now. Do you
want an applause? You're late to the game and are putting in these
things that users have been using for years... it's not innovative,
it's slightly helpful, but most likely, it's black boxed and requires a
very specific workflow.
The Modo animation tools that were shown in the last release were very
neat and I can applaud that. However, in my opinion and from my
perspective rigs need to be fast and able to load high resolution
geometries with full deformations. If that isn't a super high priority
for companies in the next 2 years, you're missing the boat.
Eric T.
