Siggraph 2011

News concerning 3D DCC business
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Rez007
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Rez007 » 17 Aug 2011, 21:10

Chris_TC wrote:
Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote:using the famous move-normal addon combined with the extrude [...]
There are at least two thickness addons I use regularly [...]
Am I the only one who hates, hates, hates having to bother with external plugins? I'm very glad that we get functionality out of the box.
+1

The only "external" anything that I have running in Softimage is Rork's material conversion that he did - which is a time saver.

- If I pay $3,000+ in addition to my Subscription fee ~$900.00 I don't feel that I should have to rely on plug-ins to do things, I much rather prefer "out of box." I am pretty happy with the new additions, as it looks like other componants are being looked at like the modeling area - that was nice. I really wish iRay would have been in as that would have "beefed" up the SAP, as it seems like myself and maybe a few select others on here don't have access to Arnold...it seems like all of the AD demos that show a final product or a heavy sim are rendered out in Arnold - am I the only one who uses Mentral Ray? - it feels like it.
Last edited by Rez007 on 17 Aug 2011, 21:17, edited 2 times in total.

luceric
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by luceric » 17 Aug 2011, 21:12

Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote:For example freeing the "alt" key completely, so you can have alt navigation like in most other packages. Doubleclick selection could have done that - almost - but I fear, the problem with parallel polyloops as it is in maya, will not make alt selection redundant...
(as you know) Alt for navigation is in the Maya mode, and have sorted all the keymaps conflicts with there. We're not plannign to introduce yet another mode and keymap that's "Softimage-alt keys you're used to+Alt camera". The user can create a keymap with your own preference by copying the maya one and add back a few chosen Softimage keys. There is not a huge amount of difference, actually between the maya keymap and the Softimage one, it should be relativly easy to cook up. We just don't want to start pushing another mode on users.

can you give me more information about the "problem with parallel polyloops"?
Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote:But honestly: including sample scenes in the feature list just shows how desperate autodesk is....
Best to not de-humanize things by saying "Autodesk". The feature list that you're referring to is my team's full change list, extracted from the notes we give to the beta list, and posted by Mark on the blog. The autodesk official feature list is just three bullet points. What goes in the product is Chinny's decision, though I worked with Brent to add some of the modeling features like Flow Connect and Move Along Normal. The sample scenes are important ICE modeling tutorials Guillaume made as a result of questions from the mailing list. The new model meshes are a little more bizarre. These are the sample models from Mudbox. The thinking is to be able make multi-application suite tutorials (i.e. demo/document Send To Mudbox, for example).

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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Lord Futzi Voldemort » 18 Aug 2011, 15:23

luceric wrote:
Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote:For example freeing the "alt" key completely, so you can have alt navigation like in most other packages. Doubleclick selection could have done that - almost - but I fear, the problem with parallel polyloops as it is in maya, will not make alt selection redundant...
(as you know) Alt for navigation is in the Maya mode, and have sorted all the keymaps conflicts with there. We're not plannign to introduce yet another mode and keymap that's "Softimage-alt keys you're used to+Alt camera". The user can create a keymap with your own preference by copying the maya one and add back a few chosen Softimage keys. There is not a huge amount of difference, actually between the maya keymap and the Softimage one, it should be relativly easy to cook up. We just don't want to start pushing another mode on users.

can you give me more information about the "problem with parallel polyloops"?
Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote:But honestly: including sample scenes in the feature list just shows how desperate autodesk is....
Best to not de-humanize things by saying "Autodesk". The feature list that you're referring to is my team's full change list, extracted from the notes we give to the beta list, and posted by Mark on the blog. The autodesk official feature list is just three bullet points. What goes in the product is Chinny's decision, though I worked with Brent to add some of the modeling features like Flow Connect and Move Along Normal. The sample scenes are important ICE modeling tutorials Guillaume made as a result of questions from the mailing list. The new model meshes are a little more bizarre. These are the sample models from Mudbox. The thinking is to be able make multi-application suite tutorials (i.e. demo/document Send To Mudbox, for example).
Alt key:
There is no need for another method. What I´m saying is: if the doubleclick selection works better than in maya, there is no need to use alt selection anymore for me which I´d be perfectly happy with, because I can actually use the build in maya navigation mode, without sacrificing the ability to quickly select loops and ranges using the alt key.
The problem in maya is: You select one polyloop using doubleclick. Then if you want to select an additional (adjacent) polyloop, you need to first select one poly next to the loop you already have selected, and then doubleclick another poly that is automaticcally connected to the selected loop AND the single poly, which leaves maya 2 choices of loops to select parallel and perpendicular to the first selected loop. Half of the time maya gets it wrong.
You don´t have that problem with alt loop/range selection.
As I said, if it works better in SI than in Maya, I´m perfectly happy. No need for other modifications. The alt rightclick menues are not that important. And as a user who permantently switches between maya and si, I could use a consistent navigation key. That would make things simpler.

The list: That´s what I meant. First it looks quite impressive, but when you look closer and strip it from everything that is not exactly a feature, there is not much left. I´m sure that what you have done however, you have done perfectly, but selling that as (Quote):

"New modeling and selection tools that greatly improve productivity and ease of use"

is just not appropriate, because something I already have in another form, doesn´t improve my productivity. And I personally don´t care if it´s ICE and I could edit it, because if I could edit it, I could implement it myself.

As for the send to mudbox: Is the UV seams bug fixed? it isn´t in Sp1... otherwise the send to mudbox function is useless and so are the samplescenes.
And speaking of multi application suites: see "Alt key".


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Memag
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Memag » 18 Aug 2011, 16:49

Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote: Alt key:
There is no need for another method. What I´m saying is: if the doubleclick selection works better than in maya, there is no need to use alt selection anymore for me which I´d be perfectly happy with, because I can actually use the build in maya navigation mode, without sacrificing the ability to quickly select loops and ranges using the alt key.

Achim
I use "Q" key for loop/range.
When holding Q (select tool) I get loop/range ability.
Easy to rememberl and faster than ALT.

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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Lord Futzi Voldemort » 18 Aug 2011, 17:22

Wooops! Thanks for the heads up.
And I lived for years under the impression, range selection was hardcoded to "Alt". Never seen it in the Key mapping Editor.
This changes a lot of course, you may ignore, dump, delete or burn my posting about the alt key thing thing.

This however questions the need of another loopslectionmethod even more. ;)

Achim
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luceric
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by luceric » 18 Aug 2011, 18:26

Lord Futzi Voldemort wrote: Alt key:
There is no need for another method. What I´m saying is: if the doubleclick selection works better than in maya, there is no need to use alt selection anymore for me which I´d be perfectly happy with, because I can actually use the build in maya navigation mode, without sacrificing the ability to quickly select loops and ranges using the alt key.
The problem in maya is: You select one polyloop using doubleclick. Then if you want to select an additional (adjacent) polyloop, you need to first select one poly next to the loop you already have selected, and then doubleclick another poly that is automaticcally connected to the selected loop AND the single poly, which leaves maya 2 choices of loops to select parallel and perpendicular to the first selected loop. Half of the time maya gets it wrong.
I think it's going to be the same as maya. Double-click in polygon mode selects polygon island. If double-click with Shift, it selects a 'path' to the last selected polygon. In softimage it actually doesn't need to be a straight path, our mesh walker will figure it out. In edge mode, double-click it selects edge loops.

it saves time+trouble to model with edge loops instead of polygon loops.

luceric
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by luceric » 18 Aug 2011, 18:30

all the ALT key commands are mapped to the "D" in the Maya interaction mode.
this is why loop selection is remappable to a key.

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Memag
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Memag » 18 Aug 2011, 18:52

Here's a suggestion how to do gap loops and ranges.

[flv]http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/2449/file19635.mp4[/flv]

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McNistor
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by McNistor » 18 Aug 2011, 19:01

The new method of selecting ranges of components is - excuse my lack of diplomacy - plain stupid.
I don't care how many other packages have it, it simply can't beat the Alt-key combo. Double clicking is not faster than single clicking plus holding a key since the former needs to be executed in a sequence while the latter simultaneously.
I'm glad they didn't remove the old method and I hope it will stay there in the future.
The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
-Thucydides

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Memag
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Memag » 18 Aug 2011, 19:31

Yeah, but what if you're holding a cold beer in your left hand?
This new method is pure hedonism.

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ActionArt
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by ActionArt » 18 Aug 2011, 20:57

Good point! The SI devs really do have our best interest in mind :)

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by Hirazi Blue » 18 Aug 2011, 21:01

So apparently everybody's happy now... Time to close this thread? :-?
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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ActionArt
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by ActionArt » 18 Aug 2011, 21:10

one more thing...a question for Luc-Eric. Can you comment on Iray at all? Is there a specific reason it hasn't been implemented? Is it a lot of work (more than we think), just a low priority, or is it a intentional decision to not include it in SI? Is it in development at all?

If you can't comment on it right now that's fine, just very curious as I'm sure others are.

luceric
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by luceric » 18 Aug 2011, 23:19

Softimage's program manager's current position is to not have iray in softimage. Not because it's awesome and must be reserved for Max, but because isn't so hot, and it isn't useful for most of the user base (everything must fit in the GPU RAM for using the GPU, no motion blur, no programmable shader trees, no particles, etc) and is costly to integrate and maintain. (It's not going to be in Maya either, afaik) The time that would be spent on that will be spent instead on the OpenGL Viewports, maintenance/stability of the current rendering engine, and helping third parties such as Arnold.

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ActionArt
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by ActionArt » 18 Aug 2011, 23:34

Thank you very much for the insight! :)

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McNistor
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Re: Siggraph 2011

Post by McNistor » 19 Aug 2011, 00:55

Yeah, good news indeed - ogl viewport and stuff - and I'm actually glad that time and resources are not spent onto something useless for most of XSI users (sorry Actionart) but on things we all benefit regardless of our domain/industry we work on.
The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
-Thucydides

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