Additional si licenses

General discussion about 3D DCC and other topics
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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by Hirazi Blue » 09 Apr 2014, 22:05

Tekano wrote:the grammatical errors being made in this thread are shocking
I have pointed this out to others on earlier occasions, so it seems only fair to point it out again: Criticism (however mild/implicit) of the language skills of non-English members of a world-wide community like ours is considered bad form...
;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pluMmet » 09 Apr 2014, 22:55

I understand that Houdini has a powerfull procidural CHOPS mixer that is neat with lots of things like particles.

The problem is that Houdini as it stands now looks like a great particle system with an animation package wraped around it as an after thought.

Character animation is the heart of all of these and gentalmen Houdini aint got it.

I wish it did considering what AD has done to si.

All info I have seen says that CHOPS is not intuitive or effieient in reguards to the most important aspect of an Animation Mixer which is probabley why there are no results in Google for Animation Mixer in Houdini.

Retard means slow... SideFX is very late to the party being @ release 13 without a proper character animation method.

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by grendizer » 09 Apr 2014, 23:34

Retard means slow
LOL, I think this is what triggered this big fight. You meant "solw" but PCB understood "retard"

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by Tekano » 09 Apr 2014, 23:40

pluMmet wrote:
Retard means slow... SideFX is very late to the party being @ release 13 without a proper character animation method.
ah ok well in UK a 'retard' is like a severely mentally challenged person and is an extreme insult. cultural differences aside using the word retard in this fashion was wrong. for you to use it in a sentence (and get away with it being used properly) would be something like.

"I believe the development of character animation & track mixing of clips in Houdini is happening at an extremely retarded pace"

and yet you wrote:
pluMmet wrote: Am I missing something wonderfull or are You a Full Retard?
so yes you did call him 'slow' which again is pretty insulting, no?

but anyway yes, they (Houdini) I guess, have not had much demand for that side of things yet, even after 13 releases. also have you visited the sideFX forum for Softimage users and asked this question? it may be possible to wrap some kind of a GUI into a lot of functions, a digital asset or whatever its called :) to do some kind of track based editing and blending in Houdini.. who knows if anyone tried yet?

finally, just want to add, old Softimage aint going anywhere for a while. I intend to be using it well into its 30's so stick with it whilst checking out other options and until there is better and have the luxury to do so, then don't switch and use both when in the transition... As for interop between future apps and animation clips of your rigs... not much hope there unless there becomes some kind of universal standard for rigging which I have not seen yet, but you could get some milage using a motion capture format like .bvh etc but do alembic animation clips appear in the animation mixer i wonder? if not its simple to make them into shapes and bake out the results of your mixing. so as long as you are good to get stuff in and out you are OK, just saying..
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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pluMmet » 10 Apr 2014, 00:28

Tekano wrote:
pluMmet wrote:
Retard means slow... SideFX is very late to the party being @ release 13 without a proper character animation method.
ah ok well in UK a 'retard' is like a severely mentally challenged person and is an extreme insult. cultural differences aside using the word retard in this fashion was wrong. for you to use it in a sentence (and get away with it being used properly) would be something like.

"I believe the development of character animation & track mixing of clips in Houdini is happening at an extremely retarded pace"

and yet you wrote:
pluMmet wrote: Am I missing something wonderfull or are You a Full Retard?
so yes you did call him 'slow' which again is pretty insulting, no?

but anyway yes, they (Houdini) I guess, have not had much demand for that side of things yet, even after 13 releases. also have you visited the sideFX forum for Softimage users and asked this question? it may be possible to wrap some kind of a GUI into a lot of functions, a digital asset or whatever its called :) to do some kind of track based editing and blending in Houdini.. who knows if anyone tried yet?

finally, just want to add, old Softimage aint going anywhere for a while. I intend to be using it well into its 30's so stick with it whilst checking out other options and until there is better and have the luxury to do so, then don't switch and use both when in the transition... As for interop between future apps and animation clips of your rigs... not much hope there unless there becomes some kind of universal standard for rigging which I have not seen yet, but you could get some milage using a motion capture format like .bvh etc but do alembic animation clips appear in the animation mixer i wonder? if not its simple to make them into shapes and bake out the results of your mixing. so as long as you are good to get stuff in and out you are OK, just saying..
i am fully aware of the negavtive connitations of the word however using any negative word in assosiation with an inanimate object (weird pun here I guess lol) has never been an issue ie. this junk car of your is ass.

I refrained from being nasty to the fellow even after he ignored my reply that I had indeed searched for the information and he again suggested that I was inept in not understanding his brilliance.

As far as my (our) problems with animation packages I love Messiah Studio for animating but I don't know honestly how to get proper deformations out of it much less take the less then enhanced defformations (muscle bulges and wrinkles, self collisions) to another package for futher work so I would just use it to create mocap files to put into a package like Houdini for futher refinement but without a proper animation mixer....

Pipeline is a big topic but to me it's just a word for packages that lack being strung together creating issue after issue hence I want that pipeline to be as short as possible.

I knew from years back researching Houdini that it sucked at character animation and modeling but that was years ago and I had no reason to believe that it was such a retarded program :P

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by Mathaeus » 10 Apr 2014, 01:20

pluMmet wrote:
As far as my (our) problems with animation packages I love Messiah Studio for animating but I don't know honestly how to get proper deformations out of it much less take the less then enhanced defformations (muscle bulges and wrinkles, self collisions) to another package for futher work so I would just use it to create mocap files to put into a package like Houdini for futher refinement but without a proper animation mixer....
Yeah it doesn't have such functionality. I think even plotting has to be done... manually. And who knows what else, of basic functions, does not exist. Anyway, what's most fascinating with such systems, including ICE, it is believing, that everyone who have a mid level kitchen, should be able to do the same as master chef, veteran.
Another fascinating thing is a kind of revolutionary passion, where every damn common procedure gets a new 'value', just because it is performed in new way. It's not ordinary shrink wrap anymore, it's ICE shrink wrap. The same engine behind, but who cares. Few irrelevant options more, enough to justify the ergonomic stone age. And yes, it's not AD, it is a small honest company who just asking $$$$ for this thing.

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pcd » 10 Apr 2014, 07:42

pluMmet wrote:thx because Houdini is full retard @ 13 releases w/o animation mixer.

Lets get straight who started in on who here:

I have yet to see any info from Google or you on how 'great" Houdini is with character animation mixing just a lot of self important responses.
You started this non-sense attacks against the software on witch most of the SI switchers go to and you keep going on with it. So it looks to me like you are an autodesk employer or reseller pissed off at Houdini getting your clients. Keep repeating 'Houdini has no character animation tools' even after i showed you CHOPS and procedural animation way above your beloved Maya, will not make the former SI users not to switch. Keeping Softimage alive will prevent this. And by the way i have pose library, auto-character rigging tools very easy to use, very nice weights tools(witch by the way don't distribute the bone influence random over the mesh as Maya does, so i don't need 1 week to paint weights on my biped) dedicated procedural animation tools for characters so i don't know where you get this 'it does not have character animation tools' from. But yea, keep on repeating this, maybe this will bring clients back to you. Oh no, wait, actually putting features in your software will. And by the way, if you really want to learn a software you might go with other learning channels then Google. And since you look like you can't find things even using Google let me give you some help. Here is a full blown DVD about Houdini character animation. The fun part is that is done by the former XSI instructor and teacher Christopher Tedin. Enjoy your lecture:

https://cmivfx.com/store/574-houdini+animation+principles

End a film production rig you may really want to take a look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo6Lue1TMZU

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pluMmet » 10 Apr 2014, 08:55

pcd wrote:
pluMmet wrote:thx because Houdini is full retard @ 13 releases w/o animation mixer.

Lets get straight who started in on who here:

I have yet to see any info from Google or you on how 'great" Houdini is with character animation mixing just a lot of self important responses.
You started this non-sense attacks against the software on witch most of the SI switchers go to and you keep going on with it. So it looks to me like you are an autodesk employer or reseller pissed off at Houdini getting your clients. Keep repeating 'Houdini has no character animation tools' even after i showed you CHOPS and procedural animation way above your beloved Maya, will not make the former SI users not to switch. Keeping Softimage alive will prevent this. And by the way i have pose library, auto-character rigging tools very easy to use, very nice weights tools(witch by the way don't distribute the bone influence random over the mesh as Maya does, so i don't need 1 week to paint weights on my biped) dedicated procedural animation tools for characters so i don't know where you get this 'it does not have character animation tools' from. But yea, keep on repeating this, maybe this will bring clients back to you. Oh no, wait, actually putting features in your software will. And by the way, if you really want to learn a software you might go with other learning channels then Google. And since you look like you can't find things even using Google let me give you some help. Here is a full blown DVD about Houdini character animation. The fun part is that is done by the former XSI instructor and teacher Christopher Tedin. Enjoy your lecture:

https://cmivfx.com/store/574-houdini+animation+principles

End a film production rig you may really want to take a look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo6Lue1TMZU

I looked at the information you linked and let me start by saying that that is a wonderful rig.

Unfortunately that is not at all the topic of my contention.

You also linked a video for me to presumably purchase because you could not find any free example of what I am saying which right out of the gate seems a bit odd.

I never claimed that I could not animate a biped in Houdini so that link is proof of nothing but your ignorance.

The contention I have is specifically the ease with which one can animate a character by hand with an animation mixer and the fact that Houdini has gotten to release 13 without this basic tool.

You are deluding yourself that CHOPS can do what an animation mixer can and you are deluding yourself that I have any love for AD.

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pluMmet » 10 Apr 2014, 09:00

Mathaeus wrote:
pluMmet wrote:
As far as my (our) problems with animation packages I love Messiah Studio for animating but I don't know honestly how to get proper deformations out of it much less take the less then enhanced defformations (muscle bulges and wrinkles, self collisions) to another package for futher work so I would just use it to create mocap files to put into a package like Houdini for futher refinement but without a proper animation mixer....
Yeah it doesn't have such functionality. I think even plotting has to be done... manually. And who knows what else, of basic functions, does not exist. Anyway, what's most fascinating with such systems, including ICE, it is believing, that everyone who have a mid level kitchen, should be able to do the same as master chef, veteran.
Another fascinating thing is a kind of revolutionary passion, where every damn common procedure gets a new 'value', just because it is performed in new way. It's not ordinary shrink wrap anymore, it's ICE shrink wrap. The same engine behind, but who cares. Few irrelevant options more, enough to justify the ergonomic stone age. And yes, it's not AD, it is a small honest company who just asking $$$$ for this thing.
I could not agree more. There has been a big missconception in the art world that "A true artist maks art reguardless of the tools." and thought that is true, poor tools hinder either the final piece or the time it took to make it. So at the end of the day with the right tools you have better art and more of it.

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by Mathaeus » 10 Apr 2014, 12:41

pcd wrote: End a film production rig you may really want to take a look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo6Lue1TMZU
[/quote]

I'd be free to act as advocatus diaboli and say that this one, really does not show anything.... impressive. Looks like author was impressed by ability to put something under envelope, not hesitating to put this trick anywhere possible. So, old fashion, imho wrong approach, based on 'let's see what this OP offers'.
Imho, much more creative would be, to go with a brand new concept, once the 3d app already doesn't offer the 'classic" workflow. Let's say
1: improved interaction - that is, rig behaves differently in manipulation and playback. Some kind of bi-directional behavior, but without (at least, visible) simulation under the hood. My wild guess, both can't be done with supplied tools.
2: what probably can be done: a way of automatic, or half-automatic procedural or simulated animation, as an comment or correction on top of hand made key-framing. Automatic calculation of 'weighting', maybe. Traditional animators won't be happy with this - but I believe this should be much more interesting.

Long story short, if 3d app is already 'different', if I'll defend the cause, I'll try to put more on that, 'different'. Wouldn't go into discussion, does it have animation mixer, trax, or not.

edit: I've removed one frequent word in this thread
Last edited by Mathaeus on 10 Apr 2014, 13:15, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by luceric » 10 Apr 2014, 12:48

ah ok well in UK a 'retard' is like a severely mentally challenged person and is an extreme insult. cultural differences aside using the word retard in this fashion was wrong.
full retard looks like is a Tropic Thunder pop culture reference
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/full-retard

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pcd » 16 Apr 2014, 19:47

Mathaeus wrote:
pcd wrote: End a film production rig you may really want to take a look at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo6Lue1TMZU

I'd be free to act as advocatus diaboli and say that this one, really does not show anything.... impressive. Looks like author was impressed by ability to put something under envelope, not hesitating to put this trick anywhere possible. So, old fashion, imho wrong approach, based on 'let's see what this OP offers'.
Imho, much more creative would be, to go with a brand new concept, once the 3d app already doesn't offer the 'classic" workflow. Let's say
1: improved interaction - that is, rig behaves differently in manipulation and playback. Some kind of bi-directional behavior, but without (at least, visible) simulation under the hood. My wild guess, both can't be done with supplied tools.
2: what probably can be done: a way of automatic, or half-automatic procedural or simulated animation, as an comment or correction on top of hand made key-framing. Automatic calculation of 'weighting', maybe. Traditional animators won't be happy with this - but I believe this should be much more interesting.
Long story short, if 3d app is already 'different', if I'll defend the cause, I'll try to put more on that, 'different'. Wouldn't go into discussion, does it have animation mixer, trax, or not.

I am puzzled that you say what an application can or can't do only watching a 10 minutes video. Maybe you can enlighten us all with your super artistic skills by reproducing the behavior from the video bellow in Maya. If you don't understand what you see: the geometry is set up such as it auto-detects collision/obstacles and all is PROCEDURAL, meaning that i can do changes even after the rigging is finished without re-doing weight painting or loosing FK/IK deformations. Can you do this in Maya??? Can you add/delete blend shapes on top of a rigged/weighted character without re-painting weights in Maya??? Because from what i know so far you can't go back and edit your geometry or blend shapes on a rigged character in Maya without affecting the weight maps. Hell, you don't even have access to your construction history(or weight painting history, rig history etc). You can for example change the position of a bone in Houdini network(remember all you have it's a network of nodes, even for a rig), and the network will adapt to this! You can't edit a bone over a weighted character in Maya(or other application that i am aware of). You can construct similar rigs within ICE(not quite this easy or this powerful though), but this is beyond point here, it's all about Houdini animation tools witch some keep tell that are somehow lacking. Not true at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRqQqPurTbs

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pluMmet » 21 Apr 2014, 14:06

pcd wrote:
Mathaeus wrote:
pcd wrote: does it have animation mixer, trax, or not.
it's all about Houdini animation tools witch some keep tell that are somehow lacking. Not true at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRqQqPurTbs
pcd- any references I made to you have been up to this point stipulative ie. If this then that.

Your comments about me have been definitive ie. you are not trying to find info that is there.

Now it is my turn to be definitive.
(Edited out - HB) but here is the best way I can explain to you what you are doing wrong in this discussion.

I say that car A has no A/C unit like the unit in car B

You are going on and on about all the great stuff in car A like the engine the seats the wheels and every other peice of non relevent stuff.

I nor has anyone said that these itmes are not nice.

You trying to tie in a problem I have with Messiah Studio with how great Houdini is at animating is an obfuscation of a delusional mind that is suffering from some sort of cognitive dissonance.

It is impossible for you to focus on the issue of biped animation in Houdiini so you are throwing out any thing that will allow you to maintain your personal delusion.

Moderator edit: edited out the IMHO most unwanted part of your post and I urge both of you to "play nice" - HB

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by Hirazi Blue » 21 Apr 2014, 15:00

While questioning each others sanity once in a while would seem unavoidable, I would appreciate it if we"d stop suggesting that someone might suffer from a mental illness simply because there is some verbal disagreement...
;)
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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by angus_davidson » 21 Apr 2014, 17:18

luceric wrote:
ah ok well in UK a 'retard' is like a severely mentally challenged person and is an extreme insult. cultural differences aside using the word retard in this fashion was wrong.
full retard looks like is a Tropic Thunder pop culture reference
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/full-retard
As a father to a boy with special needs. the reference is immaterial. It is offensive no matter what.
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Wits University

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Re: Additional si licenses

Post by pcd » 21 Apr 2014, 18:07

Moderator edit: As the level of unfriendliness has risen to extremes, this thread is now officially closed. - HB

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