Motion Tools

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gustavoeb
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by gustavoeb » 22 Mar 2012, 20:20

So I am trying some new stuff here. I see many "user friendly" software use stacks instead of Nodes. This is possible in this case, and you would still be able to go in and change individual operations inside ICE... Here are some pros and cons and I got a little question for users at the end. Oh and I also posted pictures of both workflows...

Stacks
The Ups.
  • Just double click an operator directly from the explorer to inspect it
    Reordering of operations through the stack is easier
    You can always go in ICETree mode and customize it yourself
The Downs:
  • No multiple Roots (for having different point generation and modification inside the same object)
    User might have a simplified vision of things and miss oportunity of greater customization
ICETree
The Ups
  • You are always working inside the place where you can customize the effect the most
    Separate multiple points generation and modification with a Root node
    It is really the default way to work with point clouds in SI this days
The Downs:
  • Reordering is not that great
So my question is:
Do you see yourself more as an artsy or techy guy?
Would you rather interect with Motion Graphic tools inside Softimage through regular operators or ICETrees? (I've posted a pic of both options)

Ps: Im leaning towards the stack approach
Attachments
stack.PNG
stack.PNG (9.13 KiB) Viewed 2321 times
nodes.PNG
Gustavo Eggert Boehs
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EricTRocks
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by EricTRocks » 22 Mar 2012, 23:42

I'm on the techy side myself. One thing I find problematic with the stack based approach is the shear number of operators you'll end up with and won't be able to remember what part of what ICE Tree you're after. Having 1 ICE Tree with group/comments to dictate each area would be better in my opinion.
Eric Thivierge
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schyzomaniac
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by schyzomaniac » 23 Mar 2012, 02:07

+1 for staying inside one ICE tree for as much as possible. Reordering might not be as simple as drag n' drop, but still simple enough to justify the benefits of being inside the tree. I can easily bring in other ICE nodes and play/test things out.

cheers,
Daniel

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bottleofram
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by bottleofram » 23 Mar 2012, 02:31

Artsy. Would still prefer nodes, but not sure which of those two solutions would be better, tbh.

Whether we like it or not, ICE Tree is not the fastest way to setup the stuff around. For example, i can easely see a user not very familiar with ICE (or softimage even) giving it a try and going
"Right! So i just get this node, and this one..."
"And there are bunch of those, i dont know what they do."
"I'll connect this..."
"No, thats not going in there."
"Ill just connect this than..."
"Why the hell is it red now? Whats going on?"
"..."
"What am i even doing?
"..."
"Someone... Please help!"

Compare that with a "press button, acquire results" approach and you're at the root of all that was ever wrong with ICE from an artist point of view.

Well, im of no help at all, im afraid... :))

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Re: Motion Tools

Post by EricTRocks » 23 Mar 2012, 03:16

bottleofram wrote:Artsy. Would still prefer nodes, but not sure which of those two solutions would be better, tbh.

Whether we like it or not, ICE Tree is not the fastest way to setup the stuff around. For example, i can easely see a user not very familiar with ICE (or softimage even) giving it a try and going
"Right! So i just get this node, and this one..."
"And there are bunch of those, i dont know what they do."
"I'll connect this..."
"No, thats not going in there."
"Ill just connect this than..."
"Why the hell is it red now? Whats going on?"
"..."
"What am i even doing?
"..."
"Someone... Please help!"

Compare that with a "press button, acquire results" approach and you're at the root of all that was ever wrong with ICE from an artist point of view.

Well, im of no help at all, im afraid... :))
They shouldn't be using ICE then.
Eric Thivierge
Lead Kraken Developer, Fabric Engine
http://fabric-engine.github.io/Kraken

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bottleofram
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by bottleofram » 23 Mar 2012, 03:43

EricTRocks wrote:They shouldn't be using ICE then.
True, true... Than again, you are possibly writing off a lot of extremely gifted people, Eric. After all, motion graphics are not about the way you get to the effect, but about the end result itself.

Just playing devils advocate, i guess. :)
Last edited by bottleofram on 23 Mar 2012, 04:07, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Motion Tools

Post by EricTRocks » 23 Mar 2012, 03:51

bottleofram wrote:
EricTRocks wrote:They shouldn't be using ICE then.
True, true... Than again, you are possibly writing off a lot of extremely gifted people there, Eric. After all, motion graphics are not about the way you get to the effect, but about the end result itself.

Just playing devils advocate, i guess. :)
I see your point but people go into ICE thinking hey I'm an artist I can use it without knowing anything technical. Which is prettys illy since the application that hosts it is a pretty technical piece of software. :) I think that the interface for the motion tools needs to be easy and intuitive, but not dumbing things down so much that you have 1 node for every single possible thing someone without a technical understanding could use. Its a balance for sure.

I think if you look at the new scatter tools toolbars and workflow its aiming pretty on target.
Eric Thivierge
Lead Kraken Developer, Fabric Engine
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by gustavoeb » 23 Mar 2012, 05:27

Hey guys, thanks so much for the nice and fast feedback :ymhug:

I thought everybody would be cool with the stack approach, so Im glad I askerd... Certanly everybody here is used to ICE by now, so I guess we are all a little biased, but the arguments are solid anyways. It is a tough one...
schyzomaniac wrote:Compare that with a "press button, acquire results" approach and you're at the root of all that was ever wrong with ICE from an artist point of view.
The idea is to have everything acessible trhough menus (either way), so that should not be (a major) problem.

Anyone coming from C4D, Modo, others?
Gustavo Eggert Boehs
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by bottleofram » 23 Mar 2012, 11:57

EricTRocks wrote:I see your point but people go into ICE thinking hey I'm an artist I can use it without knowing anything technical.
Thats me, word for word. =))

But seriously, i think its easy to underestimate how big of a change it can be for people to start thinking in nodes versus operators. Im not hiding the fact that im not the most technical person, but im convinced everyone can learn and use ICE. (Thank you, Paul Smith.) It can just be strange enough to discourage people and drive them away too soon.

Youre probably very right about striking the balance, though. It would be nice to know if people have found new ICE toolbar (left hand side) helpful. I rarely use it, but thats what softimage team came up with when asked to make ICE more user friendly.
gustavoeb wrote:Certanly everybody here is used to ICE by now, so I guess we are all a little biased
My point exactly. Im not a motion graphics artist but i have no doubt i will use your tools. So from a personal standpoint, im very much in favor of keeping it graph form, nice and expandable, but thats only after a year of getting comfortable in ICE. Knowing some after effects and c4d guys, im under impression they wouldn't be too trilled about it.

One more thing to think about: ICE Tree takes up a lot of screen space. By forcing a user to always keep it up you are requiring him to have a huge resolution monitor or even a two monitor setup. I always hated this fact and heard other people complain as well.

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Re: Motion Tools

Post by milanvasek » 23 Mar 2012, 12:26

first of all, i vote for keeping it in one ICE tree as well.

making some toolbar/menu is nice, but when i was making my scatter tools, i found it really difficult to cover more complex things, because nodes are so flexible and its impossible to cover all possibilities with buttons...

as far as i know from some c4d people, ICE seems really complicated to them. (they have xpresso in C4D but most of them don't use it). they just want to drag&drop things, use 3d manipulators (effectors) in viewport etc...
i think softimage would need some easier to build custom UI stuff, that could make life for these people easier...
of course once you get to some level, you start really enjoying the flexibility ICE offers, but for some basic stuff that can be done in c4d with 2 clicks and then tweaked with tool in viewport, you have to build some nulls+nodes system in ICE and that's just slower and too complicated.
would be nice to give it more thought... :)
Milan Vasek
ceramic artist & softimage fan
http://www.milanvasek.com

NNois
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by NNois » 23 Mar 2012, 15:36

Hi gustavo,
I use a lot your motion tools coumpouds ! thanks
Maybe it could help you, in my case it need to be as modular as possible.
For example i've splitted your modifiers compounds in parts: scale rotation position with an input for the stepper: harmo linear object plus a selector by ID or range by U V W.
It's more easy for me to spot problems or bugs
but each time i end up with a very big tree... normal...

For me the perfect setup will be a stack in the tree, could we build a coumpound composed entirely with case selectors with for only input the type of effect than we want ?
Well sorry this is not very clear ! i'll try if i have a moment to think about it

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Re: Motion Tools

Post by gustavoeb » 23 Mar 2012, 22:05

NNois wrote:For example i've splitted your modifiers compounds in parts: scale rotation position with an input for the stepper: harmo linear object plus a selector by ID or range by U V W.
I see what you mean I want it to be very modular also, but I want to becarful not to overdue this for people not to get huge trees :)
I like the idea of separating scale/rot/pos. I brought the concept of how things are organized now from C4D but that might feel a little bit more natural. I'll do some experimentation.
NNois wrote:could we build a coumpound composed entirely with case selectors with for only input the type of effect than we want
Not quite sure what you mean...
Gustavo Eggert Boehs
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by gustavoeb » 28 Mar 2012, 18:37

New alpha build. V0.3



Main focus in this build was to revvamp modfiiers and menus, both in code and functionality.
Menus have a lot more functionality and cleaner code that will help future maintanance.
Modifiers (and Modulators) are more modular and have a better overall feel. Almost everything can be done without the ICEtree, even picking target geometry and stuff like that.
Hope you like it.

Release notes:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39280733/Motion ... eNotes.txt

Download at:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39280733/Motion ... 3.xsiaddon

edited by self: correct links
Gustavo Eggert Boehs
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bottleofram
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by bottleofram » 28 Mar 2012, 21:21

Gustavo, you got your links wrong, i think. :)

Not a fan of your choice of color for the menu, but looks good otherwise. ;)

Wish i had the time to test it out. Weekend is coming, though. :)

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Re: Motion Tools

Post by gustavoeb » 28 Mar 2012, 21:31

geez... I did that again :/
clumsy mee
bottleofram wrote:Wish i had the time to test it out.
Cool, in case you do tell me what you think... Feedback has been most valuable so far.
Even though I dont have the time to tackle most stuff people feedback about :))
Gustavo Eggert Boehs
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Re: Motion Tools

Post by bottleofram » 05 Apr 2012, 03:28

ERROR FEEDBACK

1) You included your own Generate 3D Point Grid (1.2) but didnt assign it a category. ICE sees it as a newer version of factory compound (1.1) and gives it a priority but since you made it invisible to search, we lose the compound inside softimage. Please, be careful what you pack with a plugin... I suggest prefixing all included compounds.

2) I get this error when opening keyboard manager:
# ERROR : 2268 - This function is missing:
# <function: ICEFlow_AddModifiers_Menu_Init>

3) Modify Color command in the menu doesn't work for me. It adds the compound, but it fails to connect.


COMPOUND FEEDBACK

1) Instancer Root
- you have a disconnected compound inside

2) Set Initial Shape and Color
- Ramdones -> beware the spelling nazi
- expose Animated boolean of "Randomize Around Value" (might also want do disable it by default)

3) Create Point Array on Geometry
- voxel grid can be very resource heavy, especially when using instances (not sure what you can do about it)
- smart scaling is really useful when doing voxel grid but it generates spacing. If i dont want this, i can increase the scale a little bit or maybe you could try to expose an option for it. I did a quick modification to better illustrate what i mean:
p1.jpg
p2.jpg
Create Point Array on Geometry.0.3.rar
(15.15 KiB) Downloaded 114 times
Thats it for now.

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