Re: PointLocators in ICE

[Raffaele Fragapane]

locators are more or less that, barycentric coordinates coupled with a
facet index kinda thing.
Why they are not exposed atomically isn't 100% clear. It might be some eval
issues with those atoms if they were to be exposed, just lack of foresight
in the implementation somewhere back then, simply something missing that
might one day come, or they might look up additional data of sorts
(accelstruct?) and can't be decoupled from that.

Regardless, they can't be cracked open that I know of, not to read from
them more granular-ly, nor to write directly into or over one.


On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Vincent Fortin  wrote:

> Figured I'd start a new thread. This has been arousing my curiosity for a
> while and I need your wisdom :-)
>
> In Houdini I build locations by providing a polygon index and what is
> called a "uv parametric location". The term uv is misleading here. All it
> is, is a coordinate on each polygon plane.
>
> Softimage's sdk calls it "subtriangle barycentric weights". So along with
> the polygon index and the vertex indices I managed to build my location in
> python. I didn't test this thoroughly but I seem to be getting an
> equivalent to what I'm used to in Houdini.
>
> With regard to recreate this in ICE:
> 1) Do we have access to the necessary data? (that is, polygon index,
> subtriangle indices and the normalized weights on the triangle?)
> 2) How would we go about assembling it?
>
> I understand this all sounds a bit abstract. Like everyone I use locations
> a lot in ICE, they're amazing and manipulating them is easy. Maybe there is
> no need for exposing lower-level functionalities.
> I'm merely experimenting here to see how far I can push them. An example
> would be to access those barycentric coordinates and, say, slide a particle
> on a polygon without having to resort to the Get Closest Location node.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>


-- 
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it
and let them flee like the dogs they are!

PointLocators in ICE

[Vincent Fortin]

Figured I'd start a new thread. This has been arousing my curiosity for a
while and I need your wisdom :-)

In Houdini I build locations by providing a polygon index and what is
called a "uv parametric location". The term uv is misleading here. All it
is, is a coordinate on each polygon plane.

Softimage's sdk calls it "subtriangle barycentric weights". So along with
the polygon index and the vertex indices I managed to build my location in
python. I didn't test this thoroughly but I seem to be getting an
equivalent to what I'm used to in Houdini.

With regard to recreate this in ICE:
1) Do we have access to the necessary data? (that is, polygon index,
subtriangle indices and the normalized weights on the triangle?)
2) How would we go about assembling it?

I understand this all sounds a bit abstract. Like everyone I use locations
a lot in ICE, they're amazing and manipulating them is easy. Maybe there is
no need for exposing lower-level functionalities.
I'm merely experimenting here to see how far I can push them. An example
would be to access those barycentric coordinates and, say, slide a particle
on a polygon without having to resort to the Get Closest Location node.

Thoughts?

Re: getting subsurface index

[Vincent Fortin]

I understand the problem, I had to work with combined curves and found
difficult (impossible?) to access subcurves. Looks like an area of ICE that
could be improved a lot by exposing the right attribute.
Good luck and keep us posted with your discoveries.


On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Matt Lind  wrote:

> You only need that method when comparing PointLocators across multiple
> subsurfaces to make decisions.  In my case I only need the nearest location
> on the surface mesh.  NURBSSurfaceMesh.GetClosestSurfacePosition2() returns
> the subsurface index as part of the PointLocator object.
>
> ** **
>
> In the case of ICE, the subsurface index can be specified in the UV to
> Location node to apply a location on a surface mesh, but there is no way to
> read the subsurface index from a PointLocator on a surface mesh – that is
> the problem.  I spent most of last night at home scratching my head on
> various ways to determine the subsurface index.  I tried using group
> geometry, metadata in weightmaps and so forth.  Bottom line is no matter
> what workaround I attempted, I needed the subsurface index to be delivered
> from the PointLocator.  The only option in ICE is to use the Reinterpret
> Location node, but it doesn’t expose the subsurface index which makes it
> impossible to apply a UV offset as I need to do.
>
> ** **
>
> Since the ICE SDK doesn’t expose locators, looks like I’ll have to use C++
> or a scripted operator.
>
> ** **
>
> Matt
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Vincent Fortin
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:48 PM
> *To:* softimage
> *Subject:* Re: getting subsurface index
>
> ** **
>
> Looks like this 
> methodwould
>  be useful to you if it was implemented in ICE. It'd be perfect with
> the UV to Location node.
>
> ** **
>
> It's the opposite issue with polygons. You can extract the polygon index
> from the location but it's missing the polygon UV.
>
> I was hoping to be able to build a location from scratch using those two
> attributes. But I couldn't find anything about polygon UVs, even in the sdk.
> 
>
> ** **
>
> Maybe Grahame knows?
>
> ** **
>
> On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Matt Lind 
> wrote:
>
> And to follow – I wish the subsurface index wasn’t encapsulated in the
> location.  It should be exposed as a port on the reinterpret location and
> UV to location nodes so you can perform one-to-many and many-to-one
> remappings.  Reinterpret location should expose a UV coordinate port as
> well.
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Matt
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Matt Lind
> *Sent:* Monday, June 10, 2013 3:16 PM
>
>
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* RE: getting subsurface index
>
>  
>
> I need to remap with an offset in the UV coordinate.  Reinterpret doesn’t
> allow for that.
>
>  
>
> Matt
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [
> mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
> *On Behalf Of *Grahame Fuller
> *Sent:* Monday, June 10, 2013 12:53 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* RE: getting subsurface index
>
>  
>
> An ICE  location on a surface mesh essentially consists of the subsurface
> index and the UV parameters on that subsurface, in other words, the
> subsurface index is built in to the location. So, you should be able to
> simply use Reinterpret Location to New Geometry. Is that not working?  ***
> *
>
>  
>
> gray
>
>  
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [
> mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
> *On Behalf Of *Matt Lind
> *Sent:* Monday, June 10, 2013 03:03 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* ICE: getting subsurface index
>
>  
>
> I have to write a tool which remaps a position from a surface mesh onto
> another surface mesh.  I am hoping to use ICE, but am running into a
> barrier – how to obtain the subsurface index of a surface mesh which a
> location was found.
>
>  
>
> Anybody?
>
>  
>
>  
>
> Matt
>
>  
>
>  
>
> ** **
>

Re: placing random sized shapes in ICE

[John Clausing]

These are bits of textured geometryunfortunately rather specific shaped 
bits of geometry, though simple rectangular-ish boxes.

I thought it might be tough :)

I might try emitting in em flock to use the particle avoidance, and use their 
initial positions on another cloud to emit the instances..

Thanks,

J

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 11, 2013, at 7:56 PM, Raffaele Fragapane  
wrote:

> Finding the distance across a parametric surface is a miminization problem 
> (there is no direct solution to just go from this point give me a point at 
> this distance along this axis, you have to integrate your way to it), and 
> setting rectangles flush within boundaries is a packing problem, which is 
> also an iterative kind of problem to solve.
> 
> You've picked a bitch of a thing to deal with if you're using ICE :p
> 
> Is the rectangle just a flat space with boundaries? If that's the case you 
> only need to resolve the packing and then can place/transform the result from 
> an arbitrary point on the surface.
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 8:48 AM, john clausing  wrote:
>> hello all,
>> 
>> i need to place particle instances.on a surface. each of 5 instances in 
>> a group are rectangular, but of different lengths.
>> like boards in a floor. there can be no gaps. i can do this with similarly 
>> sized rectangles but fail in arranging these randomly and sensing their 
>> sizes/shapes so that they but up against each other.
>> 
>> any ideas?
>> brain = scratching
>> 
>> thanks,
>> 
>> john
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and 
> let them flee like the dogs they are!

Re: placing random sized shapes in ICE

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Finding the distance across a parametric surface is a miminization problem
(there is no direct solution to just go from this point give me a point at
this distance along this axis, you have to integrate your way to it), and
setting rectangles flush within boundaries is a packing problem, which is
also an iterative kind of problem to solve.

You've picked a bitch of a thing to deal with if you're using ICE :p

Is the rectangle just a flat space with boundaries? If that's the case you
only need to resolve the packing and then can place/transform the result
from an arbitrary point on the surface.


On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 8:48 AM, john clausing wrote:

> hello all,
>
> i need to place particle instances.on a surface. each of 5 instances
> in a group are rectangular, but of different lengths.
> like boards in a floor. there can be no gaps. i can do this with similarly
> sized rectangles but fail in arranging these randomly and sensing their
> sizes/shapes so that they but up against each other.
>
> any ideas?
> brain = scratching
>
> thanks,
>
> john
>



-- 
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it
and let them flee like the dogs they are!

placing random sized shapes in ICE

[john clausing]

hello all,

i need to place particle instances.on a surface. each of 5 instances in a 
group are rectangular, but of different lengths.
like boards in a floor. there can be no gaps. i can do this with similarly 
sized rectangles but fail in arranging these randomly and sensing their 
sizes/shapes so that they but up against each other.

any ideas?
brain = scratching

thanks,

john 

RE: getting subsurface index

[Matt Lind]

BTW - you get the UVW coordinates from the polygon node index array returned 
from the PointLocator.

The UVW coordinates are stored in a ClusterProperty of type 'uvspace'.  You 
need to use the Polygon Node Indices returned from the PointLocator to look 
them up in the uvspace property.


Matt




From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 2:10 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: getting subsurface index

You only need that method when comparing PointLocators across multiple 
subsurfaces to make decisions.  In my case I only need the nearest location on 
the surface mesh.  NURBSSurfaceMesh.GetClosestSurfacePosition2() returns the 
subsurface index as part of the PointLocator object.

In the case of ICE, the subsurface index can be specified in the UV to Location 
node to apply a location on a surface mesh, but there is no way to read the 
subsurface index from a PointLocator on a surface mesh - that is the problem.  
I spent most of last night at home scratching my head on various ways to 
determine the subsurface index.  I tried using group geometry, metadata in 
weightmaps and so forth.  Bottom line is no matter what workaround I attempted, 
I needed the subsurface index to be delivered from the PointLocator.  The only 
option in ICE is to use the Reinterpret Location node, but it doesn't expose 
the subsurface index which makes it impossible to apply a UV offset as I need 
to do.

Since the ICE SDK doesn't expose locators, looks like I'll have to use C++ or a 
scripted operator.

Matt


From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Vincent Fortin
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:48 PM
To: softimage
Subject: Re: getting subsurface index

Looks like this 
method
 would be useful to you if it was implemented in ICE. It'd be perfect with the 
UV to Location node.

It's the opposite issue with polygons. You can extract the polygon index from 
the location but it's missing the polygon UV.
I was hoping to be able to build a location from scratch using those two 
attributes. But I couldn't find anything about polygon UVs, even in the sdk.

Maybe Grahame knows?

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Matt Lind 
mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com>> wrote:
And to follow - I wish the subsurface index wasn't encapsulated in the 
location.  It should be exposed as a port on the reinterpret location and UV to 
location nodes so you can perform one-to-many and many-to-one remappings.  
Reinterpret location should expose a UV coordinate port as well.


Matt


From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
 On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 3:16 PM

To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: getting subsurface index

I need to remap with an offset in the UV coordinate.  Reinterpret doesn't allow 
for that.

Matt




From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Grahame Fuller
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 12:53 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: getting subsurface index

An ICE  location on a surface mesh essentially consists of the subsurface index 
and the UV parameters on that subsurface, in other words, the subsurface index 
is built in to the location. So, you should be able to simply use Reinterpret 
Location to New Geometry. Is that not working?

gray

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 03:03 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: ICE: getting subsurface index

I have to write a tool which remaps a position from a surface mesh onto another 
surface mesh.  I am hoping to use ICE, but am running into a barrier - how to 
obtain the subsurface index of a surface mesh which a location was found.

Anybody?


Matt

RE: getting subsurface index

[Matt Lind]

You only need that method when comparing PointLocators across multiple 
subsurfaces to make decisions.  In my case I only need the nearest location on 
the surface mesh.  NURBSSurfaceMesh.GetClosestSurfacePosition2() returns the 
subsurface index as part of the PointLocator object.

In the case of ICE, the subsurface index can be specified in the UV to Location 
node to apply a location on a surface mesh, but there is no way to read the 
subsurface index from a PointLocator on a surface mesh - that is the problem.  
I spent most of last night at home scratching my head on various ways to 
determine the subsurface index.  I tried using group geometry, metadata in 
weightmaps and so forth.  Bottom line is no matter what workaround I attempted, 
I needed the subsurface index to be delivered from the PointLocator.  The only 
option in ICE is to use the Reinterpret Location node, but it doesn't expose 
the subsurface index which makes it impossible to apply a UV offset as I need 
to do.

Since the ICE SDK doesn't expose locators, looks like I'll have to use C++ or a 
scripted operator.

Matt


From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Vincent Fortin
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:48 PM
To: softimage
Subject: Re: getting subsurface index

Looks like this 
method
 would be useful to you if it was implemented in ICE. It'd be perfect with the 
UV to Location node.

It's the opposite issue with polygons. You can extract the polygon index from 
the location but it's missing the polygon UV.
I was hoping to be able to build a location from scratch using those two 
attributes. But I couldn't find anything about polygon UVs, even in the sdk.

Maybe Grahame knows?

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Matt Lind 
mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com>> wrote:
And to follow - I wish the subsurface index wasn't encapsulated in the 
location.  It should be exposed as a port on the reinterpret location and UV to 
location nodes so you can perform one-to-many and many-to-one remappings.  
Reinterpret location should expose a UV coordinate port as well.


Matt


From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
 On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 3:16 PM

To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: getting subsurface index

I need to remap with an offset in the UV coordinate.  Reinterpret doesn't allow 
for that.

Matt




From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Grahame Fuller
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 12:53 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: getting subsurface index

An ICE  location on a surface mesh essentially consists of the subsurface index 
and the UV parameters on that subsurface, in other words, the subsurface index 
is built in to the location. So, you should be able to simply use Reinterpret 
Location to New Geometry. Is that not working?

gray

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 03:03 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: ICE: getting subsurface index

I have to write a tool which remaps a position from a surface mesh onto another 
surface mesh.  I am hoping to use ICE, but am running into a barrier - how to 
obtain the subsurface index of a surface mesh which a location was found.

Anybody?


Matt

Re: getting subsurface index

[Vincent Fortin]

Looks like this
methodwould
be useful to you if it was implemented in ICE. It'd be perfect with
the UV to Location node.

It's the opposite issue with polygons. You can extract the polygon index
from the location but it's missing the polygon UV.
I was hoping to be able to build a location from scratch using those two
attributes. But I couldn't find anything about polygon UVs, even in the sdk.

Maybe Grahame knows?


On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Matt Lind  wrote:

> And to follow – I wish the subsurface index wasn’t encapsulated in the
> location.  It should be exposed as a port on the reinterpret location and
> UV to location nodes so you can perform one-to-many and many-to-one
> remappings.  Reinterpret location should expose a UV coordinate port as
> well.
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Matt
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Matt Lind
> *Sent:* Monday, June 10, 2013 3:16 PM
>
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* RE: getting subsurface index
>
> ** **
>
> I need to remap with an offset in the UV coordinate.  Reinterpret doesn’t
> allow for that.
>
> ** **
>
> Matt
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [
> mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
> *On Behalf Of *Grahame Fuller
> *Sent:* Monday, June 10, 2013 12:53 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* RE: getting subsurface index
>
> ** **
>
> An ICE  location on a surface mesh essentially consists of the subsurface
> index and the UV parameters on that subsurface, in other words, the
> subsurface index is built in to the location. So, you should be able to
> simply use Reinterpret Location to New Geometry. Is that not working?  ***
> *
>
> ** **
>
> gray
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [
> mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
> *On Behalf Of *Matt Lind
> *Sent:* Monday, June 10, 2013 03:03 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* ICE: getting subsurface index
>
> ** **
>
> I have to write a tool which remaps a position from a surface mesh onto
> another surface mesh.  I am hoping to use ICE, but am running into a
> barrier – how to obtain the subsurface index of a surface mesh which a
> location was found.
>
> ** **
>
> Anybody?
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Matt
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>

Re: Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[olivier jeannel]

Great idea !

Le 11/06/2013 19:16, Renaud Bousquet a écrit :

Hi,

Could this one be helpful?
http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2262

cheers,
Renaud

On 11/06/2013 1:05 PM, olivier jeannel wrote:

Nope, sorry can't use that. I need 1 sided poly, but thanks Adam !

Le 11/06/2013 18:27, Adam Sale a écrit :
what if you were to boolean the surface with a pushed copy of the 
original, to get a thin shell, and then fracture the result?



On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Matt Morris > wrote:


one of those guys (momentum/kratos) I'm sure creates clusters
for the surface object and clusters for the inner faces - select
cluster and delete?



On 11 June 2013 17:09, olivier jeannel mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr>> wrote:

Hi people,

i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture
(voronoi or else) an object but without any thickness.
For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos,
it gives you big fat volumic chunks .
What if I want only the surface ?

I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.

Hope I'm clear.

Thank's for any idea :)




-- 
www.matinai.com 

Re: Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[Renaud Bousquet]

Hi,

Could this one be helpful?
http://www.si-community.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2262 



cheers,
Renaud

On 11/06/2013 1:05 PM, olivier jeannel wrote:

Nope, sorry can't use that. I need 1 sided poly, but thanks Adam !

Le 11/06/2013 18:27, Adam Sale a écrit :
what if you were to boolean the surface with a pushed copy of the 
original, to get a thin shell, and then fracture the result?



On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Matt Morris > wrote:


one of those guys (momentum/kratos) I'm sure creates clusters for
the surface object and clusters for the inner faces - select
cluster and delete?



On 11 June 2013 17:09, olivier jeannel mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr>> wrote:

Hi people,

i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture (voronoi
or else) an object but without any thickness.
For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos,
it gives you big fat volumic chunks .
What if I want only the surface ?

I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.

Hope I'm clear.

Thank's for any idea :)




-- 
www.matinai.com 

Re: Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[olivier jeannel]

Nope, sorry can't use that. I need 1 sided poly, but thanks Adam !

Le 11/06/2013 18:27, Adam Sale a écrit :
what if you were to boolean the surface with a pushed copy of the 
original, to get a thin shell, and then fracture the result?



On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Matt Morris > wrote:


one of those guys (momentum/kratos) I'm sure creates clusters for
the surface object and clusters for the inner faces - select
cluster and delete?



On 11 June 2013 17:09, olivier jeannel mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr>> wrote:

Hi people,

i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture (voronoi
or else) an object but without any thickness.
For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos, it
gives you big fat volumic chunks .
What if I want only the surface ?

I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.

Hope I'm clear.

Thank's for any idea :)




-- 
www.matinai.com 

RE: Rendering crowds on a farm

[Manny Papamanos]

This is a known issue and well documented.

>From my tests at the time, I would repro this if I rendered on several 
>computers with
'xsibatch -render' and the "-skip" flag.
If your render management app is using the same flag internally, it will have 
the same issue.

However, there was no issue when I tested on two computers with:

On one:
xsibatch -render [path to .scn in quotes] -frames 1,100,2
on the other:
xsibatch -render [path to .scn in quotes] -frames 2,100,2

run this on a SI command prompt.


Manny Papamanos
Autodesk Softimage and MotionBuilder Support


From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andi Farhall
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:01 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Rendering crowds on a farm

Hello, having got completely stuffed by crowd texturing and FBX exporting i've 
taken the fairly drastic measure of not using textured characters and just 
using a coloured shader, and also reverted to the conventional point cache way 
of caching rather than using fbx which is much simpler and much quicker 
However. i'm getting issues when rendering on the farm, i.e all my actors 
are now a single colour. Load the scene and render it locally and it's fine 
which makes debugging it rather tricky

I'm using a technique i saw on Stephen Blairs blog for colouring crowds which 
works a treat but i can't be sure if the farm is disliking this, but i've added 
the user attributes to the cache list, i've cached from frame one, rendered 
from frame one and it still comes out incorrectly. I've tried a get and set for 
all the custom attributes on the cached cloud, I even locked the farm 
submission to one machine for the whole sequence and still i'm not getting the 
goods.

I have spoken to someone from another company who was doing crowd stuff 
recently and he said they had to render everything locally as the their farm 
did exactly the same thing.

I'm just wondering if there's anything i've missed before i resign myself to 
rendering everything locally myself.


cheers,

Andi.



...
http://www.hackneyeffects.com/
https://vimeo.com/user4174293
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21


http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/
http://spylon.tumblr.com/

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opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily 
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Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error.

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Re: Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[olivier jeannel]

Hey Matt, Thank you !
I just throwed the question here before I give any try. Might be as easy 
as you say ^^;


Le 11/06/2013 18:14, Matt Morris a écrit :
one of those guys (momentum/kratos) I'm sure creates clusters for the 
surface object and clusters for the inner faces - select cluster and 
delete?




On 11 June 2013 17:09, olivier jeannel > wrote:


Hi people,

i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture (voronoi or
else) an object but without any thickness.
For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos, it
gives you big fat volumic chunks .
What if I want only the surface ?

I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.

Hope I'm clear.

Thank's for any idea :)




--
www.matinai.com 

Re: Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[Adam Sale]

what if you were to boolean the surface with a pushed copy of the original,
to get a thin shell, and then fracture the result?


On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Matt Morris  wrote:

> one of those guys (momentum/kratos) I'm sure creates clusters for the
> surface object and clusters for the inner faces - select cluster and delete?
>
>
>
> On 11 June 2013 17:09, olivier jeannel  wrote:
>
>> Hi people,
>>
>> i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture (voronoi or else) an
>> object but without any thickness.
>> For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos, it gives you
>> big fat volumic chunks .
>> What if I want only the surface ?
>>
>> I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.
>>
>> Hope I'm clear.
>>
>> Thank's for any idea :)
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> www.matinai.com
>

Re: Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[Matt Morris]

one of those guys (momentum/kratos) I'm sure creates clusters for the
surface object and clusters for the inner faces - select cluster and delete?



On 11 June 2013 17:09, olivier jeannel  wrote:

> Hi people,
>
> i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture (voronoi or else) an
> object but without any thickness.
> For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos, it gives you
> big fat volumic chunks .
> What if I want only the surface ?
>
> I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.
>
> Hope I'm clear.
>
> Thank's for any idea :)
>
>


-- 
www.matinai.com

Thunder Moon post mortem in the context of Softimage

[Eric Cosky]

Hi,

 

I thought a few people in the list might be interested in a little bit about
how I use Softimage as the core of the 3d asset pipeline I have created for
my game engine. A mini post mortem, if you will. I'm always promoting
Softimage in the various social spaces I hang out in, giving advice and
looking for others who use it for making games. Seems like there aren't a
lot of us to be honest and this seems as good of a place as any to share
this kind of thing.

 

Before I get into it, and apologies for the spam, but I also wanted to
quickly plug the game I've been working on for so long. Thunder Moon hit the
Xbox marketplace last week. If you have an Xbox and don't mind helping out a
fellow softie, please find Thunder Moon in the marketplace
http://bit.ly/15TgjB6, trial it (or even buy it!) and give it a rating,
hopefully 5-stars. It really helps me out at this critical stage of the PR
process to maintain visibility in the ratings list. You can find out more
about the game here, http://blog.boundingboxgames.com/ or here
https://www.facebook.com/thundermoongame.

 

So, here are some of my experiences with Softimage in the context of the
exporter & pipeline I created for my game engine. 

 

I have written an exporter for Softimage that produces files in an
intermediate binary format (.ecf, for Engine Content File) that is processed
by tools specific to my game engine to make the final data loaded by the
game. Pretty typical stuff I suppose, but I wanted to mention that for me, I
found it easier and more useful to make my own exporters than to write
parsers for FBX or Collada (which I put a lot of effort into trying to do,
not just guessing here). Those formats are either proprietary or pretty dang
complicated to deal with and by writing my own exporter to my own binary
format I regained control of the situation and the problem of how to get
data from Softimage to the game became much more straightforward. There were
some challenges getting all the UV data and shader data out of Softimage,
but in the end it all worked out well enough. 

 

One challenging part of this has been the real time shaders, because the
pipeline supports arbitrary shaders and will export all the parameter
settings. The APIs for this work well enough but there seems to have been
some undocumented changes over the past few versions. For instance, SI2014
seems to have a few new shader parameters associated with RT shaders that
are automatically created by Softimage, which my exporter discovers and
exports like it does any other global glsl variable despite me not actually
having these variables in the code. This was a small issue for me because
the game runs using parallel HLSL shaders and expects to be able to set all
parameters that were exported. Since these "ghost" variables do not exist in
either the glsl or hlsl source, I had to put special case code to handle
this recent change. Of all the things I wish Softimage would open up the
source to and let us tinker, this would be it. One thing that worked well
here was to make a "property dictionary" that had was basically a set of
dictionaries, one for each data type, all keyed by string, which let me
export an arbitrary amount of loose data without having to change the file
format. This was essential for dealing with different shaders that usually
had different parameters to push to the game engine.

 

The game supports rigid bodies made of composite shapes. The exporter knows
how to produce physics data for the models being exported. Originally, these
were set up with the Softimage rigid body objects but I had to stop using
them because of crashes that would occur when attempting to get data out of
them with the C++ api (I think it was GetPatriarch or something like that).
I reported these bugs, and I think it was about a year and a half later that
they were fixed with SI2014 but I had long since moved on to a workaround as
is often the case with Softimage. I now do something a little different,
which works better for me anyway. I use a collection of meshes that are each
constrained to a bone in the character or model. The hierarchy of these
messages, combined with custom properties for essentially "rigid body root"
and "rigid body part" allow me to define a collection of rigid bodies for an
asset. When exported, each RBR is composed of all the RBPs underneath it,
with any sub-RBR's defining a new rigid body. The RBR property has various
parameters to define the rigid body as a whole such as total mass and
various game metadata, and the RBP has parameters that mainly define that
shape of that part of the composite rigid body. Shape being a sphere,
capsule, box, or mesh etc, the actual final geometry being derived by the
local axis and the points the mesh is composed of. It took a little work to
get the shape generators to properly contain these control points but it
wasn't too big of a deal and this approach allows me to circumvent the
limited set of primitive objects provide

Voronoi, but only on surface, no thickness

[olivier jeannel]

Hi people,

i was wondering if there is a simple way to fracture (voronoi or else) 
an object but without any thickness.
For example when you shatter an object with the old Kratos, it gives you 
big fat volumic chunks .

What if I want only the surface ?

I'd like to prepare a pealing effect.

Hope I'm clear.

Thank's for any idea :)

Rendering crowds on a farm

[Andi Farhall]

Hello, having got completely stuffed by crowd texturing and FBX exporting i've 
taken the fairly drastic measure of not using textured characters and just 
using a coloured shader, and also reverted to the conventional point cache way 
of caching rather than using fbx which is much simpler and much quicker 
However. i'm getting issues when rendering on the farm, i.e all my actors 
are now a single colour. Load the scene and render it locally and it's fine 
which makes debugging it rather tricky
 
I'm using a technique i saw on Stephen Blairs blog for colouring crowds which 
works a treat but i can't be sure if the farm is disliking this, but i've added 
the user attributes to the cache list, i've cached from frame one, rendered 
from frame one and it still comes out incorrectly. I've tried a get and set for 
all the custom attributes on the cached cloud, I even locked the farm 
submission to one machine for the whole sequence and still i'm not getting the 
goods.
 
I have spoken to someone from another company who was doing crowd stuff 
recently and he said they had to render everything locally as the their farm 
did exactly the same thing. 
 
I'm just wondering if there's anything i've missed before i resign myself to 
rendering everything locally myself.
 
 
cheers,
 
Andi.
 


...

http://www.hackneyeffects.com/https://vimeo.com/user4174293http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andi-farhall/b/496/b21

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lord_hackney/
http://spylon.tumblr.com/
This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended 
solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or 
opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily 
represent those of Hackney Effects Ltd.If you are not the intended recipient of 
this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy 
or show it to anyone.Please contact the sender if you believe you have received 
this email in 
error.  
   

Re: import pointcloud data

[olivier jeannel]

There you go :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ajcaq8ai3rueu4/Xport_Icecache.rar

The cache is in /Simulation/
and the scene in /scene/


Le 11/06/2013 11:22, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

yeah i will keep it up to date here.
I think i will do it without the oni format so it's a bit less limited 
to kinect.
Could some people send me some different Icecache files so i have some 
examples to look at.




2013/6/11 olivier jeannel >


Oni Split maybe ?
http://wiki.oni2.net/OniSplit
says :
|-extract:dae  | Extracts 3D
data in .oni file (or all M3GM, ONWC and ONCC instances in a .dat)
into Collada DAE files
It's possible to get collada in softimage

Le 11/06/2013 10:37, olivier jeannel a écrit :

I love that idea :)
Could you keep us posted on that if you manage to get something
working?

In that forum, there is a similar (I think) discussion
http://forum.openframeworks.cc/index.php?topic=10514.0
that link to this :
https://github.com/roymacdonald/kinectToTexturedOBJ
seems to convert .oni to .obj

Le 10/06/2013 22:05, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

Hi,

i would like to create something like
http://www.onformative.com/work/unnamed-soundsculpture/ as a
experiment.
An important thing is that in the end it should be easy to
record cloud data and get it into ice.
I either want to use processing which is a great
and popular dialect for java (www.processing.org
) or else i move to c++ but i don't
have experience yet in c++. Also i would like to make a small
library which would make it easier to get content from
processing (java) to softimage.

I checked the IcecacheFileFormat, i have some questions,

-what if i have more then 4000 particles?
-do i need a iceCache file for every frame?

I prefer not to use the software provided by the sdk cause i
prefer to work in processing so i have more freedom with it.
For the rest the icecache is probably easy when you know how but
for me it seems a bit difficult at first.
I would like to see some icecache's in a texteditor but i have
to unzip them first.
Here i see a big list:
http://zlib.net/

Is there any way of decrompessing it without having to run
scripts in terminal or any other programming ide?

Doeke









2013/6/10 olivier jeannel mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr>>

Hi,
I've used the kinect to scan people with software provided
by the 1.7 SDK and it was exporting to obj file directly.
Can you explain what you're doing ?

Olivier

Le 10/06/2013 14:10, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

hi,

I would like to load pointcloud data from the kinect
into softimage.
Does anyone know a good way to do that?
Kinect has a .oni file but it's no problem for me to
write a script to export the pointcloud data into
another format (as long as it is not binary or it should
be easy to make binary).

hope someone can help!

best Doeke

Re: import pointcloud data

[Doeke Wartena]

yeah i will keep it up to date here.
I think i will do it without the oni format so it's a bit less limited to
kinect.
Could some people send me some different Icecache files so i have some
examples to look at.



2013/6/11 olivier jeannel 

>  Oni Split maybe ?
> http://wiki.oni2.net/OniSplit
> says :
> -extract:dae   Extracts 3D data in
> .oni file (or all M3GM, ONWC and ONCC instances in a .dat) into Collada DAE
> files
> It's possible to get collada in softimage
>
> Le 11/06/2013 10:37, olivier jeannel a écrit :
>
> I love that idea :)
> Could you keep us posted on that if you manage to get something working?
>
> In that forum, there is a similar (I think) discussion
> http://forum.openframeworks.cc/index.php?topic=10514.0
> that link to this : https://github.com/roymacdonald/kinectToTexturedOBJ
> seems to convert .oni to .obj
>
> Le 10/06/2013 22:05, Doeke Wartena a écrit :
>
> Hi,
>
>  i would like to create something like
> http://www.onformative.com/work/unnamed-soundsculpture/ as a experiment.
> An important thing is that in the end it should be easy to record cloud
> data and get it into ice.
> I either want to use processing which is a great and popular dialect for
> java (www.processing.org) or else i move to c++ but i don't have
> experience yet in c++. Also i would like to make a small library which
> would make it easier to get content from processing (java) to softimage.
>
>  I checked the IcecacheFileFormat, i have some questions,
>
>  -what if i have more then 4000 particles?
> -do i need a iceCache file for every frame?
>
>  I prefer not to use the software provided by the sdk cause i prefer to
> work in processing so i have more freedom with it.
> For the rest the icecache is probably easy when you know how but for me it
> seems a bit difficult at first.
> I would like to see some icecache's in a texteditor but i have to unzip
> them first.
> Here i see a big list:
> http://zlib.net/
>
>  Is there any way of decrompessing it without having to run scripts in
> terminal or any other programming ide?
>
>  Doeke
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 2013/6/10 olivier jeannel 
>
>> Hi,
>> I've used the kinect to scan people with software provided by the 1.7 SDK
>> and it was exporting to obj file directly.
>> Can you explain what you're doing ?
>>
>> Olivier
>>
>> Le 10/06/2013 14:10, Doeke Wartena a écrit :
>>
>>  hi,
>>>
>>> I would like to load pointcloud data from the kinect into softimage.
>>> Does anyone know a good way to do that?
>>> Kinect has a .oni file but it's no problem for me to write a script to
>>> export the pointcloud data into another format (as long as it is not binary
>>> or it should be easy to make binary).
>>>
>>> hope someone can help!
>>>
>>> best Doeke
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

Re: import pointcloud data

[olivier jeannel]

Oni Split maybe ?
http://wiki.oni2.net/OniSplit
says :
|-extract:dae  | Extracts 3D data 
in .oni file (or all M3GM, ONWC and ONCC instances in a .dat) into 
Collada DAE files

It's possible to get collada in softimage

Le 11/06/2013 10:37, olivier jeannel a écrit :

I love that idea :)
Could you keep us posted on that if you manage to get something working?

In that forum, there is a similar (I think) discussion
http://forum.openframeworks.cc/index.php?topic=10514.0
that link to this : https://github.com/roymacdonald/kinectToTexturedOBJ
seems to convert .oni to .obj

Le 10/06/2013 22:05, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

Hi,

i would like to create something like 
http://www.onformative.com/work/unnamed-soundsculpture/ as a experiment.
An important thing is that in the end it should be easy to record 
cloud data and get it into ice.
I either want to use processing which is a great and popular dialect 
for java (www.processing.org ) or else i 
move to c++ but i don't have experience yet in c++. Also i would like 
to make a small library which would make it easier to get content 
from processing (java) to softimage.


I checked the IcecacheFileFormat, i have some questions,

-what if i have more then 4000 particles?
-do i need a iceCache file for every frame?

I prefer not to use the software provided by the sdk cause i prefer 
to work in processing so i have more freedom with it.
For the rest the icecache is probably easy when you know how but for 
me it seems a bit difficult at first.
I would like to see some icecache's in a texteditor but i have to 
unzip them first.

Here i see a big list:
http://zlib.net/

Is there any way of decrompessing it without having to run scripts in 
terminal or any other programming ide?


Doeke









2013/6/10 olivier jeannel >


Hi,
I've used the kinect to scan people with software provided by the
1.7 SDK and it was exporting to obj file directly.
Can you explain what you're doing ?

Olivier

Le 10/06/2013 14:10, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

hi,

I would like to load pointcloud data from the kinect into
softimage.
Does anyone know a good way to do that?
Kinect has a .oni file but it's no problem for me to write a
script to export the pointcloud data into another format (as
long as it is not binary or it should be easy to make binary).

hope someone can help!

best Doeke

Re: import pointcloud data

[olivier jeannel]

I love that idea :)
Could you keep us posted on that if you manage to get something working?

In that forum, there is a similar (I think) discussion
http://forum.openframeworks.cc/index.php?topic=10514.0
that link to this : https://github.com/roymacdonald/kinectToTexturedOBJ
seems to convert .oni to .obj

Le 10/06/2013 22:05, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

Hi,

i would like to create something like 
http://www.onformative.com/work/unnamed-soundsculpture/ as a experiment.
An important thing is that in the end it should be easy to record 
cloud data and get it into ice.
I either want to use processing which is a great and popular dialect 
for java (www.processing.org ) or else i 
move to c++ but i don't have experience yet in c++. Also i would like 
to make a small library which would make it easier to get content from 
processing (java) to softimage.


I checked the IcecacheFileFormat, i have some questions,

-what if i have more then 4000 particles?
-do i need a iceCache file for every frame?

I prefer not to use the software provided by the sdk cause i prefer to 
work in processing so i have more freedom with it.
For the rest the icecache is probably easy when you know how but for 
me it seems a bit difficult at first.
I would like to see some icecache's in a texteditor but i have to 
unzip them first.

Here i see a big list:
http://zlib.net/

Is there any way of decrompessing it without having to run scripts in 
terminal or any other programming ide?


Doeke









2013/6/10 olivier jeannel >


Hi,
I've used the kinect to scan people with software provided by the
1.7 SDK and it was exporting to obj file directly.
Can you explain what you're doing ?

Olivier

Le 10/06/2013 14:10, Doeke Wartena a écrit :

hi,

I would like to load pointcloud data from the kinect into
softimage.
Does anyone know a good way to do that?
Kinect has a .oni file but it's no problem for me to write a
script to export the pointcloud data into another format (as
long as it is not binary or it should be easy to make binary).

hope someone can help!

best Doeke

No anti aliasing while navigating?

[Christian Gotzinger]

Hi list,

I turned on the High Quality viewport in SI 2014 in my scene to get
anti-aliasing. But the anti-aliasing only works when the camera is
stationary. As soon as start navigating, I get the old pixelated mess. I
want it to be enabled all the time, not just when I stop navigating. What
gives?

Thank you