Arch-viz addons for Softimage?

[rray]

probably something in the upper range of the "budget" price category would be best, because at anything lower you'll probably not sell _that_ much more. maybe ~40-60$

[ActionArt]

For a real pro tool set I'd be willing to pay. I paid $150 for the first LWCAD and I'd be willing to do the same again.

[Paulrus]

I was one of the people begging for a LWCAD-style addon for Softimage, but a few years ago I purchased MOI3D and haven't looked back. I even talked with the LWCAD folks about getting it ported over, but they had no interest in Softimage at all.

If someone could bring MOI's style of curve-based workflow in to Softimage, it would be absolutely amazing. After having used MOI3D for quite a while now, I find Softimage curve tools to just be annoying to work with.

MOI (yes I know it's not a poly modeler so it's not entirely a fair comparison) has fantastic tools for dealing with curves that let you do things like slice, join & mirror multiple curves. Use a curve as a boolean to cut through your geometry. Use a curve as a slicing object to cut through geometry. Overall it has fantastic boolean, bevel/chamfer & extrusion tools for both solid objects & curves.

MOI3D is $295 & it does a very good job of exporting OBJs, so I would say that'd be the top of the price range for any kind of plug-in for Softimage.

Just my $.02.

-Paul

[Eugen]

Since we are talking about curves:
sad but true, but Softimage's factory curve tools suck.
On top of that there's this missing feature in the topology operator SDK preventing clusters from being updated properly by 3rd party plugins. This is where it gets really stupid.
Therefore I would like to encourage everbody interested in progress on Softimage's modeling toolset to put pressure on the SI developers to fix this as soon as possible. I filed a feature request in the beta, and nag them regularly, but the more, the merrier.

[ActionArt]

but a few years ago I purchased MOI3D and haven't looked back.

Hey, another MoI fan! I love that program. If we could just get MoI seamlessly integrated into SI as another modeling tab it would be outstanding.

The only thing keeping me from using it more is that it is a separate program which leads to so much exporting time wasted (even though it does a nice job). Having something like that integrated would be so much nicer.

I also tried to get LWCAD interested in SI but as you say, no interest.

[Hirazi Blue]

Now here's a delicate question: how much would you be willing to pay for such a plugin, if anything at all?
(...)
I'd like the general idea of crowd funding such tools, but I'm not aware of anybody having done it yet.
The AD app store is not particularly attractive at this time, besides that Softimage is still unupported.

While it's an interesting thread hijack, in more general terms (i.e. with your plugin specifics edited out) this would make for an interesting thread in itself. IIRC, it's been a long time since the Softimage crowd discussed paying for plugins in a more general manner.

Restored edit (as Eugen already quoted it):

Therefore I would like to encourage everbody interested in progress on Softimage's modeling toolset to put pressure on the SI developers to fix this as soon as possible. I filed a feature request in the beta, and nag them regularly, but the more, the merrier.

I sincerely doubt, you'll get Autodesk to change much in that respect anymore, unless you get full backing from the people that got "SOFT-9089" fixed so quickly...

[Eugen]

MoI: nice idea, but before any 3rd party developer can provide anything watertight when it comes to curves/surfaces, the SDK needs to provide all the necessities.
ICE modeling also still needs support for curves and surfaces, it cannot be used as a workaround for now.

Unfortunately, the Softimage SDK is more restrictive as, say, 3ds Max's. You cannot add new geometry base classes here. In Max, you can, also in Maya afaik.

[ActionArt]

That's really sad. Such a shame the SDK is limiting work like this so badly. If the pace of development with the new team continues as is I don't suppose there is much hope for improvement.

[Eugen]

I sincerely doubt, you'll get Autodesk to change much in that respect anymore, unless you get full backing from the people that got "SOFT-9089" fixed so quickly...

Yeah... among the heavyweights, Matt Lind for example is pushing for those SDK fixes, too.
Still nothing.
But what should we do? Give up on this completely? It would simply mean we will always have to depend on the good will of the AD devs for decent modeling tools, because if there's no complete SDK support, there's nothing you can do, or use sorry hacks. And you know how much emphasis is put on the modeling toolset - not much, besides the few ICE based poly modeling tools.

In other words, if this does not get fixed, Softimage will remain third choice regarding arch/design visualization. A damn shame, and actually a really stupid marketing decision, because a huge part of the SI userbase are freelancers, and they tend to deal with visualization a lot.

The irony is that this cluster update mechanism is in place internally, and also in ICE. How difficult can it be to implement it in the SDK (both C++ and scripting)?


Edit: this SDK debate is going on for years now. Luc-Eric once stated, that you need to be a Softimage architect to be able to handle this.
I don't really think so. Provided with a good code example, it must be possible, and curves are a relatively simple kind of geometry to deal with.
Surfaces of course are much more demanding, but if the door is open basically, someone will go through it in time.

[Hirazi Blue]

I agree it seems a "lost cause"...
I was very surprised when they didn't at least introduce some ICE Curves,
although even those wouldn't probably even begin to "cover it".

[Eugen]

Maybe we should start one of those online petitions like this, which was a success:
http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/w ... age_notice

...and nag the hell out of them.

[ActionArt]

Wouldn't hurt to try I guess

[Daniel Brassard]

http://www.opennurbs.org/

http://blog.rhino3d.com/2011/01/rhino-s ... ource.html

http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/

Can OperNURBS and OpenSubdiv be ported to Soft?

What does it take? What are the obstacles?

[luceric]

dude, unrelated reply? If all you wanted to do was model the nurbs and import them into soft, IGES should work for that. adding another SDK doesn't change a thing to what was being discussed here. and opensubdiv is off-topic.

[Daniel Brassard]

The Dude abides!

[ActionArt]

Dude! (as in Luceric). I think you might have missed the point altogether. I think what Dan was trying to do is come up with ideas for an INTEGRATED solution. Sure, we already have MoI and a many other curve modelers which are fantastic and they export whatever you want. The problem (at least for us freelancers or small shops) is this...we model a nice model in MoI. We import to SI. Then we start texturing, rigging, animating or whatever and then...oh crap...we have to change the model for whatever reason. Back to MoI, then re-do, re-do....you get the idea. So an external modeler will never be a great solution, ever.

It seems (I'll have to take their word for it) that the SDK as it is has some major roadblocks to creating such tools in SI.

Dan has a valid question in can some other form of Nurbs (OpenNurbs or whatever and yes OpenSubs would be nice too) be somehow brought into SI in some form or another and work in an integrated way? Us users don't really care how it just a matter of finding a way.

I'm no help in that area at all but maybe someone will come up with a cool idea. ;)