Hello everyone.

Just in case, if youre looking for a Softimage ICE technical artist, I am available right now (21-02-2013).
Pierre Lalancette
www.lalancelot.com
lancelot@cgocable.ca
lalancelot@hotmail.com

But the real reason for this thread is to present you my ICE volume rendering tool.  It is available on my site and it is FREE!

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/014_final.jpg[/img]

The first things you need to do is to go to my web site [url]www.lalancelot.com[/url], under Scripts section, and download the BACKGRID.zip file.  Into that zip file, you will find 2 other files:
Back_GridPlugin.py
BackGrid.xsicompound

The first one (Back_GridPlugin.py) is a python script (Oh yes!  I can program in python) that you need to install into your Plugins folder of Softimage.  Mine is located:
C:\Users\Lancelot\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Application\Plugins

The second one (BackGrid.xsicompound) is and ICE compound that the script will use to setup the scene.  It is the heart of the tool and it is imperative that you put it into your Compounds folder of Softimage.  Mine is located:
C:\Users\Lancelot\Autodesk\Softimage_2012\Data\Compounds

After a restart, you should get a new entry in your Model/Primitive menu.  Select Back_Grid.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/001_menu.jpg[/img]

You will be prompt to select a camera.  This is what the script does.  It creates a back grid with a weightmap that will measure the density of the ICE pointcloud that you plug into its ICE compounds.  Once you selected the camera, it creates the grids, controls and a property set.  All of those are child to the camera.  In the property set, you set the resolution of the grid, its position and the position of the Limits gizmo.  This gizmo is the start of the sampling that ends to the grid.

You also get four nulls.  The upper_left is the limit of the view of the camera.  It will adapt in size as you change the grid positions value.  Its the same thing for the down_right null.  But if you want to size down the grid to your subject, you can by using upper_left_gizmo and down_right_gizmo.  This way, you can reduce the area of sampling.  You want the grid to always be the full size of the camera frustum?   Just constrain the gizmo to its corresponding  corner limit, and you are set to go.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/002_backgrid.jpg[/img]

We are not done yet.  You need to have a pointcloud to sample.  And to do so, you select the grid in the explorer (it is set unselectable into the view) and then access its ICE Tree.  You now can plug the geometry of your pointcloud into the PointCloud Geo input of the BackGrid compound.  It should turn from red to green.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/003_pointcloud.jpg[/img]

Adjust the grid and limits using the easy controls available.  I love to do tools for the 3d artist.  Did I say that I was available for a job right now?

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/004_adjust.jpg[/img]

Put your view to constant.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/005_constant.jpg[/img]

Fire your view visibility option (Shift+S).

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/006_visibility.jpg[/img]

Set both Propety Maps entries to true.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/007_options.jpg[/img]

The grid turns black.  Its ok. Now, we need to add some depth samples.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/008_black.jpg[/img]
[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/009_depth.jpg[/img]

At last, some results!

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/010_result.jpg[/img]

Now, just hide your pointcloud.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/011_hide.jpg[/img]

Here you go.  The depth samples seams more important than the grid resolution for a better image.  The next image took seven minutes to render.

[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/012_final.jpg[/img]

Render time is affected by the particles number.  But it gives much better results. With five time the particles, a few adjustments and twenty five minutes of render, I got this:
[img] http://sites.rapidus.net/plalance/backgrid/014_final.jpg[/img]

Now, you can produce videos like these:
[url]http://vimeo.com/57951266[/url]
[url]http://vimeo.com/59717912[/url]

Known issues:
There is an issue if you start animating the camera or the pointcloud position.  Sometimes, you will get weightmaps values all set to one (full blue).  It is the Get closest point inside the Backgrid compound that stops using its cutoff distance for no apparent reason.  The work around that I found is to put the pointcloud child of the camera and drive the particle position with an external null.  This will force you to use the painful matrix to get what you want, but it worked for me.
[url]http://vimeo.com/59754268[/url]

The second issue that you could see in the previous video is that if you animate the backgrid size by its gizmos (constrained to animated nulls), the intensity of the sampling changes.  Even though that the grid resolution is adjusted to its size.  I have no solution but not to animate the grid size.

So, have fun.  If you have any trouble, just post it here and Ill try to help you out.  Use as you wish at your own risk.

Oh!  And  Did I mention that I am looking for a job right now? [url]www.lalancelot.com[/url]

Pierre Lalancette
www.lalancelot.com
lancelot@cgocable.ca
lalancelot@hotmail.com












