Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

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Bellsey
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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Bellsey » 11 Jan 2017, 15:05

Well, personally I still stand by my comment of Softimage not really being a viable choice for a hobbyist, especially if someone has never even used it. As I said Its harsh thing for some to swallow and it's not a recommendation I like to say considering my history, but at the same time I'm practical and realistic.
If someone is starting new, then I wouldn't really see the point. It would be like someone wanting to look at compositing and starting with Combustion, when you can get Nuke and even Fusion.
But that's just my view.

Btw as for ILM and Softimage, I believe they stopped using it some time back. In terms of Warcraft and Horde, some of that was done by Hybride who are on Soft (amongst others) and some Fabric in there as well.

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mc_axe
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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by mc_axe » 11 Jan 2017, 21:32

Combustion is EOL for a decade, while Nuke or Fusion had a rapid evolution, unlike dinosaurs like Softimage and Maya that remained practically the same (during the same time)with a few facelifts and some new tools on same core, i dont see where that gap came from that made softimage all of a sudden a software irrelevant, or even bad ... If not ILM then Glassworks you said it by your self 'amonst others'.

Hobbyists or freelancers that do simple projects, ulnike studios with mixed pipelines and heavy data (that work all individual parts in diferent apps ) can keep using these monoliths for big parts of their creations, while these softwares still best enviroments for PUT TOGETHER purposes, riging animantion and render and interaction between assets. So if softimage has to compete with maya thats on stability how its organized how it inherits or allows access to everything. And is preety good in all that. Si maybe cant handle 10000 bones not a problem that bothers many ppl out there.

So we just dissagree, i respect your opinion, but i dont have to swalow it, is just an opinion.
I find super eazy to teach fundamentals with SI as learning platform, and new users love it, thats what I get so far.

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Hirazi Blue » 11 Jan 2017, 21:41

Bellsey wrote:Well, personally I still stand by my comment of Softimage not really being a viable choice for a hobbyist
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. If the software were still available, I would still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone for its ease of use and well-designed workflow...
;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Bellsey » 11 Jan 2017, 23:08

Hirazi Blue wrote:
Bellsey wrote:Well, personally I still stand by my comment of Softimage not really being a viable choice for a hobbyist
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. If the software were still available, I would still wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone for its ease of use and well-designed workflow...
;)
But that's it, it's not available, not really. Ok, you can get Soft via the education site but in reality I wonder how many are actually downloading and using it. I'd wager not many, not when you can get Maya/Max in the same way. And I doubt many are actually seeking it out.

In my dept, I have a lot of juniors, grads or 2/3 year grads. Most had vaguely heard of of Softimage (XSI), but not many had actually used it. And those that did used it a couple of times, but then just stayed with Maya/Max. It wasn't that they didn't like it, they quickly realised that it wasn't widely used so saw no point continuing. Nearly all of them had used Blender and some still did. Now this is just a small sample, but I do believe it's reflective of a majority of people entering the industry.

The parallel with Combustion (and Toxik) is quite apt. Combustion was an excellent piece of software, as was Toxik, but when it ended in 2007/8, the end came quickly. On my travels I would encounter people who used both, it wasn't long before they died off.
The same will happen with Softimage, although it will probably hang around longer as many studios still have a lot invested in it. But the ultimate end will come.

I really do admire the efforts of people to keep the torch burning, but I'd rather not flog the horse that's already dead. (Even it was a true thoroughbred :) )
I prefer to look back fondly of the good times of Softimage.

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Mathaeus » 12 Jan 2017, 00:10

Bullit wrote:
wesserbro wrote: One day i thought it would be nice to have everything you need in one cheap app like houdini became. But then i gave up, stopped fighting houdini cloth (so many good cloth solutions around), and now the only thing i need from it is FEM volumetrics\tetrahedrons :)
Yes Cloth is one of the reasons that i don't consider Houdini yet, it was a big disappointment and completely unacceptable if the application wants to be considered as the top simulation standard DCC. From what i have seen i consider it worse than Max and Cinema 4D.
FEM Cloth in H is more a thin soft body forced to behave as cloth, I think it's still single threaded. With all due respect to H, 'top simulation standard DCC' for me is looking more like 'filling the gaps of Maya' and others sometimes, which is completely understandable business concept, btw. So, because Maya nCloth is still one of top solutions, for studios or individuals, it has usable presets like denim or wool for long time... I don't believe we will see that much of H cloth sim in future. It will be interesting to see what will happen with H liquid sims, as Bifrost/Naiad in Maya is getting more and more updates, and Real Flow seems to coming back (at least prices are nicer).

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by wesserbro » 12 Jan 2017, 01:16

Regarding usage of old software... This thread brought me the memories about one app i heard good thing about long time ago, called Messiah Studio. And i dont know, call it some sort of borderline retardation, but i've downloaded the demo of this 'walking dead' and the whole Y-day evening was messing around with it, was even able to setup from scratch some interesting things like soft-ik and such. Dont know why i did that (instead of, for example, improving my 3dsmax skills, which i use at work), but it was fun! :)

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Draise
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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Draise » 12 Jan 2017, 03:43

Messiah Studio!!!

I consider myself a necrophiliac when it comes to using dead software, it gives me a lot of pleasure :ymdaydream: ... using a limited, finite yet capable product really pushes my imagination and actually improves my skills a lot - eventually either turning what I do into a unique stylized product, or makes me quick to pick up another tool when needed (mainly because I know the technique REALLY well in one finite product making it easy to adapt to another that is still evolving).

Example: TrueSpace 7.61 beta 8 RIP 2009, Mach Studio Pro 2 RIP 2011, Wall Paper Changer RIP 2007, Softimage EOL 2015, Bryce7.1 (development stopped), VirtualDub (development stopped) 2013. All of these I use actively today.

Philysophically you live once. What you do with your time and work should give you the most satisfaction and yeild possible and the means should not have to be so debated.

And also, touching that topic, history is what makes today. Software shouldn't be forgotten. And I would even argue that houses built from a hammer instead of a nailgun should be celebrated and encouraged every now and then. The end result is the same.

Yes, ultimately one day Softimage will be as obsolete as much as trueSpace is today (though not yet) - but I still earned money from work done in trueSpace just last year (longevity, 7 years!? With less features than SI?!?). Just for the pleasure of it, I would still consider doing a personal project to sell and live off with it in the near future. I still don't know of a standalone 3D authoring app where I can link another machine by LAN and model with a student or friend of mine without needing a webbrowser to do so (and it was just beta!) - not to mention a viewport that still rivals Blender in some really practical aspects. It may be slower than most software (32 bit), and sometimes buggy.. but it's a pleasure to me. Atleast there won't be any new bugs.

I've seen wonderful work in Houdini, Cinema3D, Modo, Sculptris, Maya, Max, Blender, Softimage and others.. but at the end of the day... does it matter?

Learn to make logical and functional rigs, learn to animate, learn to make great products and art with whatever makes you enjoy your work.

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by wesserbro » 12 Jan 2017, 17:44

MachStudio seamed like a brilliant idea: lets give directX 10s instead of 1/60s (x600 more time!), and it should produce something nice! But Mach didn't take a wing for varienty of reasons. Yet still i would like to see non-realtime DirectX renderer with displacement, GI, area lights, etc. done right. Some crazy wishes one would say.
But on the other hand , being desperate for some interesting stuff, i was one of the first alpha users of Redshift, when almost everyone else was in oldf*g mode: "what? biased gpu renderer? Who need that cr*p". And i'm so glad Redshift could make it through.

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by mirkoj » 13 Jan 2017, 23:18

I had HUGE wall of text but decided that it can be summed to much shorter version so here it is.
WHY would you suggest maya at all?
It is ancient software full of crap built by Frankenstein method, buying out and plugging in misc pieces of software and usually implementing it poorly and not having proper workflow simply because there is no planed workflow juts adding misc crap in it. Mostly Adding something that PR can push next time they shove you with subscription and soon to be only online software usage.

So lest get back to dead software call.
Yea Softimage is dead from stores. Does it still do the work it has done? Same frames are being rendered out before and after announcement of EOL. Nothing changed.

But lets say ok EOL is reason not to recommend Softimage.

So why would you recommend Maya? To whom are you recommending it?

So.. you wanna be modeler?
Learn anatomy, drawing, sculpting, zbrush and for example topogun.
Doing texturing? Take Mari
Simulations and FX? Houdini
Rendering? Lighting? Learn katana and learn misc render engines, you don't need maya.
Hell even learn Unreal 4 and get all that in almost real time :)
Rigging? Best bet is go Fabric route and make rigs for every piece of software out there, don't limit your self to one.
See the point?
Recommending any software is bad idea. Recommending best tool for work he wanna do with best advice to keep the eyes out for new tools and learn tools. That is advice.
Software does trick for you or me? I'm keeping it as long as it pays my bills.
Got character animation jobs in maya? No problem. animation here or there same thing.
Except Max. I wouldn't touch that with a stick with piece of crap at its tip. :)

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Bellsey » 14 Jan 2017, 16:32

That's some good advice, though I wouldn't agree with the first statement around Maya. There's somewhat half-truths there (imo), but tbh you could apply the statement to many software out there, not just Maya. :)

The thing to bare in mind, while the solutions listed are all excellent at what they do, they're 'branches' of workflow. They still rely on data to be imported/exported from a core 3D application, be that Maya, Max, whatever. You will need a 3D software at the heart of your pipeline, so yeah I would recommend Maya, simply because it's one of its core strengths. It always has been ever since day one, it's why so many people went to it and have stayed. Some did the same with Max but personally I've always thought Maya has always had that edge.

Softimage (XSI) was no slouch at this either to be fair and more than gave Maya a run for its money. But the thing is Maya got there first. It didn't 'win' by default, it's still good at what it does, but history has shown when it comes to rival technologies in the same space, the one that gets there first and allows easy adoption and developing, tends to come out as the winner.

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by luceric » 14 Jan 2017, 18:37

mirkoj wrote: Recommending any software is bad idea. Recommending best tool for work he wanna do with best advice to keep the eyes out for new tools and learn tools. That is advice.
I think it rarely is. It's not only often impractical, there is often no first-hand knowledge behind that advice.

Saying you believe that Softimage is still a good choice, because that's the choice you made, is totally valid advice.

However, advising people to learn Fabric for rigging, or katana for rendering, when you 're not actually doing that, is just noise in the internet echo chamber and doesn't help anyone.

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by mirkoj » 14 Jan 2017, 21:55

War between Maya and Softimage was more marketing war not who got technology first war. If it was that SI would beat maya hands down. There are things even today that maya never got to grasp and you hve them for years in Softimage.
Just for one example, blend shape system with creating dozens of duplicates of mesh and keeping them floating around main characterless is pure retarded. Softimage blend shape system was like god given once I tried it after maya. Revelation.
Rigging was rediscovered fun, tools that Maya simply didn't made for who knows what reason they were so logical and normal in SI.
Just one example.

Ad got fabric and katana, you are right,m I'm not using them and it is more hear and say around.
But at the same time.. on one hand you have old Maya full of some really bad design decisions that makes no sense at all and are due to be gone for years now, and then you have fresh aggressively developed toola that are following all good new stuff.
What do you think who will win the rest in couple years :)

Sorry but for years now all maya improvements are mostly some crap PR polishing that rarely gets to be used simply because it is more nice PR material for selling new subscriptions then really useful tool.
Also even when there are good progress tools you need to wait for 5 service packs after initial version to get to the usable states at all not crashing every single day 10 times. Not talking bout bugs that are part of every software development especially something huge like this but being unable at all and wondering if anyone that is selling that software actually even turned it on and worked it in for 15 minutes long. There is no one with right mind with any experience in work that would recommend installing new version as soon as it is out for nothing more then to test those new PR fancy buttons that will be used once in 6 months.. maybe :)

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Bellsey » 15 Jan 2017, 14:22

mirkoj wrote:War between Maya and Softimage was more marketing war not who got technology first war. If it was that SI would beat maya hands down. There are things even today that maya never got to grasp and you hve them for years in Softimage.
Just for one example, blend shape system with creating dozens of duplicates of mesh and keeping them floating around main characterless is pure retarded. Softimage blend shape system was like god given once I tried it after maya. Revelation.
Rigging was rediscovered fun, tools that Maya simply didn't made for who knows what reason they were so logical and normal in SI.
Just one example.
I think you might need to check your history. Maya released in 1998, a good two years before Softimage XSI 1.0 and even then XSI was like a patch for Soft3D which didn't have any modelling tools. By the time XSI got to a more credible release with v2/3.0, Maya was already up to v3.0

Soft3D had a good user base and was still being widely used, but you can't underestimate the effect Maya had at the time. For starters the animation tools were vastly improved from those of its predecessor Power Animator. However, one of the biggest single factors (imho) to Maya's adoption was MEL. The ability to create tools with an easily accessible scripting system, without having to rely on proper programmers and software devs was huge. It just made everything more open.

Thats when studios, who were always good Softimage users started to switch. It's not that they disliked Softimage, many weren't in a position to wait and see when XSI would finally land. By the time it did, they'd already committed. Certainly here in Soho, when one of the bigger film studios moved from Softimage, they all did.

I agree though, there are many things in Softimage now, that beat many others even now after EOL, but its incidental now in many ways. That 2-3 year period of first releases is perhaps where the biggest impact was. If Maya had been late, or XSI earlier, who knows what might have happened.

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Draise
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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Draise » 15 Jan 2017, 14:51

I thought XSI was being used on Silicon Graphics machines on unix systems when Maya was still being called Alias and Windows still wasn't a thing.

I think I need to fact check this..

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Mathaeus
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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Mathaeus » 15 Jan 2017, 14:57

Bellsey wrote:That's some good advice, though I wouldn't agree with the first statement around Maya. There's somewhat half-truths there (imo), but tbh you could apply the statement to many software out there, not just Maya. :)
Yeah but Maya is still an unreachable, traditional negative champion, no excuse there I'm afraid. Now in Maya 2017 and update 2, GUI behaves like candid camera show, un-docked script editor appears in form of outliner, script editor into window of hyper shade, or together with outliner, so on. Switching the docked outliner is looking like small earthquake, because Maya have to display a sequence of windows, to get into desired state. No one 3d is doing that.
Or, legendary post on Houdini forums, where former Mayan is asking for procedures, how to fix corrupted scene in H - so Houdini people have to explain, firstly, that Houdini do not make a corrupted scene. And that's a typical, traditional Mayan's mix of ignorance and arrogance. Powerful software but in ergonomic stone age and unbelievable low consistency, where users don't even known for better, and they don't want to know. So, because Max, Cinema or Blender are not used by big companies, that's enough for single user to believe that there is no alternative for SI and Maya, for him, too.
While I'm not blaming only AD for that. Openness of software as formula of success when it comes to big projects, had a terrible price, too. Today there are thousands of professional Maya 'fixers', having a zero interest for consistent or 'too much' stable Maya. If so, what they'll do.

While I'm also one of these snobs, who also can benefit of fixing the crap, when it comes to personal use, this new year I had no other choice (my XSI 7.01 is really old) - downloaded Blender again and spent some time to customize it. For now Blender is 3d for modeling, Maya LT is only for rigs not able to playback real time by Blender (not that much in life of single user, btw), uv editing in Maya is also nice, but too weak for high resolutions. For jobs, I'll see, let's say that Maya simply is not option if there is no 20+ Mayas in facility. Bellow that, Max or C4d is destiny.

Regarding Fabric, would be great if people from Hybride would be able to say more about rigging for Arrival . From what I've tried with Maya 2016 and Fabric from last year, it is looking as great tool for special tasks, but not really for direct, plain rigs, or not completely, let's say to use Fabric for all driven transforms, but still with Maya skin. Similar to way how ICE is used with SI. Small problem with Fabric and Maya, it is again, extremely conservative community of TDs who actually do not want any innovation, it's only a 'used by big facility' that can push them to do something in year or two, or never if they are lucky enough. So really good news is Fabric for Max, Maxers always were more open for innovations (once there is no heavy superstructure of in-house this or that, there's nothing to loose).
However, multi-platform thing, even it is operational, still sounds like more theoretical advantage. Habits are different between the apps, there's good chance to have a huge percent of work dedicated only to particular 3d.

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Re: Animation and Rigging in Softimage after years

Post by Bellsey » 15 Jan 2017, 16:53

Draise wrote:I thought XSI was being used on Silicon Graphics machines on unix systems when Maya was still being called Alias and Windows still wasn't a thing.

I think I need to fact check this..
Both PowerAnimator and Softimage3D were on SG machines. In '96-97 Soft3D was launched on the windows NT platform. I recall where I worked at the time we all had SG machines but then moved to Intergraph workstations running NT when we upgraded to Softimage 3D 3.7

Alias kept PowerAnimator on unix only because they were about to ship Maya. Maya launched first on unix, but had an NT version on Beta. The following year they started shipping Maya on unix and NT.
Then in 2000, XSI 1.0 launched on SG and Windows, then in '01 both Alias and Softimage started supporting linux.

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