Re: Softimage|XSI 20th anniversary

[Bradley Gabe]

You were kidnapped and then murdered before you reached adulthood? 

> So… happy birthday, XSI.  You're not a teenager anymore:)
>  
> Sven
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Re: The Softimage mailing list

[Bradley Gabe]

This list made my career in CG possible. Without it, I never would have caught 
my first breaks into high end work. 

Recently I realized I’m down to only a couple of Tee-shirts reminding me of the 
community and career that once was. Well, that, a long list of cherished 
friends and memories. Thanks to everyone for being there for all those years.

Bye for now, and I hope I never see any of you at work. 

-Bradley 



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Re: Friday Flashback #390

[Bradley Gabe]

> 

Indeed. Feels like a whole other lifetime. 

> 
> 
> Brings back great memories!! 
> 
>> On Fri, Nov 1, 2019 at 10:44 AM Stephen Blair  
>> wrote:
>> A reel from 2002
>> I saw the blue-line guy flash by, so that segues from last week...
>> 
>> https://u9432639.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=lIXdN6W56FnEjHCwrBXqOq0HQNpV0huvAGw1zu6Xp8eVQuk2cNZiNFjx2k-2FfTNchsK-2B2S4d-2FxHLMwWaSBR0IeRVan29e491QiNB1dOhKiKwNUOpH26ts1BAQ54zwatvVZg4pIHpQbOxKev9J80t3D-2B9iASJXdzPhS-2F85WCt2uu0AUAgYmNkzjMlvQs90fcjS8Mrzr5LqJHg1yBKiHA3HSl6ppk39bx-2Bmb4X9aLdBSVH35u1kJLymSwYs2726N4N0Uav9sFsaxB-2BtplnRN913qyrkoapnyzB3A7gK6XiRKjC5PEZR5XPqll6SpxoAqWu1bMaxyfkNI-2FzYzgyo7NE66mUmN1DpibrqiMOV-2B3zbaUqJLg1-2FkpNvokVvjPa-2F4P-2ByB3d4vL-2FV-2F-2BJcDVrmIVgehQEGIh9BDl7BDjJkvRLlpbo-3D_a6oQc7tnfcb0GKvoO27fPkrQ0ATQyF1SDBXJOg7-2FbuSlXAc4jkwfwovDQBA9B-2F-2FdbqIQ9L-2F74VbRlcBEulo3kOXB3MRQ-2Fh4pJ-2BBb96JamCpaaBHYywLsZcNmpRH1wZ2CcpRRiKsGxnsTPGCuyQBa5K048aETKmv8sMQoVcMSAf5MkIWUBvQtZ71v5BHwIWNwZKDizOe7T6TKUsCjbWCR3jK2tM4Rni36qzLumTu-2FgPg-3D
>>   
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Re: Friday Flashback #389

[Bradley Gabe]

Yeah but he also worked on Son of the Mask, so they kind of cancel each other 
out. :-p


> On Oct 25, 2019, at 16:25, Steven Caron  wrote:
> 
> 
> and David Shirk goes on to win an Oscar for Gravity as Animation Director
> 
>> On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 12:55 PM Stephen Blair  
>> wrote:
>> https://u9432639.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=lIXdN6W56FnEjHCwrBXqOq0HQNpV0huvAGw1zu6Xp8eVQuk2cNZiNFjx2k-2FfTNchE18B7lYLnvRU16qf6Hf-2B5lsiKYYVqw5nYPWbCUQXONeLcylkJ4gqYBw6ns9s8MTtnM7T5svDelkgV-2FB6chC-2B6NGSp-2B8bd5RiB2sOBYSzBNg59U3iCpczKlhkagP7dO2mbI5TKxLplHU0j6G9EVyfem2lcVVCwijYa7ePmtAAPdYRIlULIFSmycrkDRQXVnS7Jt6Oui5eEOGQsSeHnpRCsfxfn8Gt8uxcXbke1eAGVo2-2F9DpaFiGGEMnB5KWRm3So-2BAtY454wWaYCQYPdOb8KXB900-2FuR5RoMBHU-2BiXgJbWAhbIyKnEDpC2uCgdJ8j7VG_a6oQc7tnfcb0GKvoO27fPkrQ0ATQyF1SDBXJOg7-2FbuTSpU-2FKTo-2F0DZKMlQVtI1whmDiu5o-2FLh2X3WMOdK4oA8-2BnPuzyse9S1Jip46W6HUI0YJWgRkehMsECTpKwyzH6DfeGb0uzTQ2XO79aBghKneRzUdhRN-2BLajQSecS0SjLozg07UbV1ZoYYjH0T8-2BanorMSs3C-2B882SiLCuK1n01lDHtImvArbHS-2BAZMUr6pwgEs-3D
>>  
>> 
>> Blue Line Guy!
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Re: Any Dinosaurs Still Lurking?

[Bradley Gabe]

Yeah, was just getting to the point with ICE where I felt I could creatively 
solve most production problems.

It was really amazing for the final tweak phases of a project, where clients 
would pixel f@$k with simulations. I was converting my particle sims into 
geometry in order to tweak sim paths using deformers and envelopes, precise 
control without losing that simulation feel. I miss that creative satisfaction.


> On May 12, 2018, at 11:00 AM, Alan Fregtman  wrote:
> 
> I read less and less but like Francois, I lurk over the subject lines from 
> time to time. :)
> 
> How's everyone doing? I for one stopped rigging in Softimage and decided to 
> focus full-time on Python pipeline work where I jump around in Maya, Nuke and 
> sometimes Houdini.
> 
> I still miss ICE dearly.
> 

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Any Dinosaurs Still Lurking?

[Bradley Gabe]

Just curious? 

Now that I’m a resident in San Antonio, I was reminiscing about old SIGGRAPHs 
on the Riverwalk, and came to the realization that the Softimage mailing lists, 
for me at least, were my Facebook before there was official social media. 

San Antonio still owes me a camera! 
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Bradley Gabe]

I find it a humorous coincidence that people are coming to the conclusion that 
Houdini is not Softimage or Maya, and you eventually have to come around to 
thinking the Houdini way in order to unlock its full potential. 

Didn’t we have the exact same issue with Maya people trying to use XSI with 
Maya thinking? Setting up rigs and hierarchies in a Maya way, using a 
Maya-linear-production workflow, all highly inefficient. And then they didn’t 
like XSI because it wasn’t very good at being Maya. :-)

It’s a big reason I dreaded the idea of switching apps. I assumed Maya was 
going to really bad at being XSI for me. Still wish I had time to pick up 
Houdini at some point. 

-B
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Spring Cleaning Fun

[Bradley Gabe]

Winchester, Supernova, Ariane, Aprilia, Sidecar, Felix:
6149 messages. ~300 MB of space in my google drive.
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Re: ICE instance and travel

[Bradley Gabe]

You could always scale them down and pose constrain them a few units behind the 
camera :)


> On May 23, 2017, at 1:49 PM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> That too. But it depends on which version he's running. It's been a looong 
> time since I last rendered an instance in ICE. I recall that option did not 
> work with all rendering engines, at least in prior versions I used. 
> 
>> Isn't there a visibilty flag "Hide Instance Master" or similar in the 
>> visibility properties?
>> 
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Re: ICE instance and travel

[Bradley Gabe]

That too. But it depends on which version he's running. It's been a looong time 
since I last rendered an instance in ICE. I recall that option did not work 
with all rendering engines, at least in prior versions I used. 

> Isn't there a visibilty flag "Hide Instance Master" or similar in the 
> visibility properties?
> 
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Re: ICE instance and travel

[Bradley Gabe]

That sounds familiar. You can always just translate the source geometry out of 
frame. As long as the centers remain the same, it won't affect your instances.

> On May 23, 2017, at 1:14 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
> Brad,
>  
> Thanks!  I got the sim working by taking the primitive generation tree, and 
> copies node, out of the sim, and added a Set Instance Geometry to the point 
> cloud. Its now working fairly well with one exception. While its creating the 
> geometry instances, animating them, and scaling them as I want, I can’t seem 
> to hide the source geometry without also hiding the instances in the point 
> cloud.
>  
> Joey
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Bradley Gabe
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 2:09 PM
> To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
> <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: ICE instance and travel
>  
> In a pinch, when you can't get an ICE sim to work the way you want, try using 
> 2 clouds.
>  
> The first cloud generates the particles, which you can delete (or not!) any 
> way that works without halting the emission. The second cloud can be a 
> chached instance or sourced from the first. Trim the particles by distance on 
> the second cloud. Render the second cloud.
> 
> -Bradley
>  
> Bradley Gabe, DO
> UTHSCSA Anesthesiology 
> 
> On May 23, 2017, at 12:59 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
>  
> Patrick,
>  
> That worked mostly as I would have hoped, Thanks! …except the same problem 
> exists as before in the Create Copies node. Once it reaches a “greater than 
> target distance” value, geometry emission ends.
>  
> Maybe I can find the problem in the node. Else it looks like I’ll have to 
> construct the whole thing from ground up.
>  
> Thanks!
>  
> Joey
>  
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of patrick 
> nethercoat
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12:56 PM
> To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
> <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: ICE instance and travel
>  
> OK, rather than hack it with age you'd be better off doing it the 'simple' 
> way, ie you want to delete based on distance.
> Here's one way, compare the two distances and kill if greater.
>  
> On 23 May 2017 at 17:38, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> Patrick,
>  
> Not quite.  I’ve got scaling working in a way that I can manage. But not 
> particle termination.
>  
> I’ve got a null emitting particles. The particles are traveling linearly 
> towards a second target null. The target can be moved at will. I would like 
> to make the particles terminate (per particle) when they reach or exceed the 
> distance from emitter null to the target null.  But have been unable to get 
> that working.
>  
> For that matter I’ve been unable to get basic per particle termination to 
> work correctly. I have been  able to delete particles by adding “Set Particle 
> Age Limit” and “Delete Particle at Age Limit” to the Ice Tree execute ports, 
> but this has limited results.  After specified age limit it just stops 
> emitting geometry copies.  Particles terminate correctly in time where 
> expected, say after 3 seconds for example, and particles continue being 
> generated at the emitter after 3 seconds, but not the geometry generated via 
> "Create Copies from Polygon Mesh". The geometry emission simply terminates 
> after 3 seconds and make no more copies on the newly emitted particles. It 
> would seem this is a deficit within the "Create Copies from Polygon Mesh" 
> node. The presumption is I’m going to have a similar problem once I figure 
> out how to terminate at distance from emitter.
>  
> BTW, adding the age limit nodes to Execute on the emitter has no affect.
>  
> Joey
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of patrick 
> nethercoat
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12:23 PM
> 
> To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
> <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: ICE instance and travel
>  
> Sounds like you're almost there. Are you happy with how to scale and kill the 
> particles?
>  
> On 23 May 2017 at 16:08, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.pon

Re: ICE instance and travel

[Bradley Gabe]

In a pinch, when you can't get an ICE sim to work the way you want, try using 2 
clouds.

The first cloud generates the particles, which you can delete (or not!) any way 
that works without halting the emission. The second cloud can be a chached 
instance or sourced from the first. Trim the particles by distance on the 
second cloud. Render the second cloud.

-Bradley

Bradley Gabe, DO
UTHSCSA Anesthesiology 

> On May 23, 2017, at 12:59 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
>  
> Patrick,
>  
> That worked mostly as I would have hoped, Thanks! …except the same problem 
> exists as before in the Create Copies node. Once it reaches a “greater than 
> target distance” value, geometry emission ends.
>  
> Maybe I can find the problem in the node. Else it looks like I’ll have to 
> construct the whole thing from ground up.
>  
> Thanks!
>  
> Joey
>  
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of patrick 
> nethercoat
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12:56 PM
> To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
> <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: ICE instance and travel
>  
> OK, rather than hack it with age you'd be better off doing it the 'simple' 
> way, ie you want to delete based on distance.
> Here's one way, compare the two distances and kill if greater.
>  
> On 23 May 2017 at 17:38, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> Patrick,
>  
> Not quite.  I’ve got scaling working in a way that I can manage. But not 
> particle termination.
>  
> I’ve got a null emitting particles. The particles are traveling linearly 
> towards a second target null. The target can be moved at will. I would like 
> to make the particles terminate (per particle) when they reach or exceed the 
> distance from emitter null to the target null.  But have been unable to get 
> that working.
>  
> For that matter I’ve been unable to get basic per particle termination to 
> work correctly. I have been able to delete particles by adding “Set Particle 
> Age Limit” and “Delete Particle at Age Limit” to the Ice Tree execute ports, 
> but this has limited results.  After specified age limit it just stops 
> emitting geometry copies.  Particles terminate correctly in time where 
> expected, say after 3 seconds for example, and particles continue being 
> generated at the emitter after 3 seconds, but not the geometry generated via 
> "Create Copies from Polygon Mesh". The geometry emission simply terminates 
> after 3 seconds and make no more copies on the newly emitted particles. It 
> would seem this is a deficit within the "Create Copies from Polygon Mesh" 
> node. The presumption is I’m going to have a similar problem once I figure 
> out how to terminate at distance from emitter.
>  
> BTW, adding the age limit nodes to Execute on the emitter has no affect.
>  
> Joey
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of patrick 
> nethercoat
> Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12:23 PM
> 
> To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
> <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: ICE instance and travel
>  
> Sounds like you're almost there. Are you happy with how to scale and kill the 
> particles?
>  
> On 23 May 2017 at 16:08, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES II] 
> <j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> Patrick,
>  
> I need linear emission intervals. The particles need to be spaced evenly. 
> Turns out, apparently, that you have to hack the “Emit from Null” compound to 
> make it do that by forcing it to emit on frame intervals instead of emitting 
> randomly as designed by default. At least that’s one way to do it.
>  
> Now I need to set particles to terminate a set distance from the emitting 
> null and have the particle scale interpolate along that same distance using 
> two defined particle scale values from start and end and everything is 
> golden... I think J
>  
> --
> Joey Ponthieux
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES II)
> Science Systems and Applications Inc. (SSAI)
> NASA Langley Research Center
> __
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>  
>  
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of patrick 
> nethercoat
> Sent: Tuesda

Re: ICE - generating particles at lowest points on geometry

[Bradley Gabe]

Sounds like a fun challenge. I recall a similar situation and was able to 
resolve it by having each vertex find neighbor points by edge or vertex, and 
selecting the lowest point in the group. Once you have that point set, you can 
use that to generate a second cloud from the source geometry. 
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Re: Opinion gathering

[Bradley Gabe]

Any chance you could post a direct link to this screencast? 

> On Feb 19, 2017, at 9:07 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
> 
> Have a look at the screencast they did.. you will see why the excitement.
> 
> Interesting times ahead.
> jb
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Re: houdini 16

[Bradley Gabe]

That new feature list might be long and impressive in scope and function. But 
you have to ask yourself, did they bother to add a ViewCube? 

> Holy !
> 
> The H16 release is looking awesome!
> 
> So much new stuff, and I really like the new nodal look and workflow. And 
> radial menus for modeling and such :-)
> Also very curious about the new rigging 
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Re: Softimage mailing 2016 year in review

[Bradley Gabe]

My goal was to not post anything on the list this year.
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Re: Last xsi reel

[Bradley Gabe]

Nice looking work! Thanks for the farewell gift and have a great time at
ILM.

On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 3:52 AM,  wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
>
>
> I made a new reel the other day and thought it would be fun to share with
> the list as I realized that I’ve used XSI in almost every movie I worked on
> at MPC the last 2 years. The only exception is King Arthur. As I’ve moved
> over to ILM and going full Houdini now I guess it’s also my goodbye to Soft
> reel :’( Anyways, hope you enjoy!
>
>
>
> https://vimeo.com/195101441
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Mikael
>
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Re: Friday Flashback #277

[Bradley Gabe]

Did we ever find out who was behind the hoodie?

On Sat, Sep 3, 2016 at 11:10 AM, Stephen Blair 
wrote:

> Softimage XSI6 mr hoodie brochure
>
> http://xsisupport.com/2016/09/02/friday-flashback-277
>
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Re: testing list

[Bradley Gabe]

Can you guys please keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep.


> On Sep 2, 2016, at 3:59 PM, Francois Lord  wrote:
> 
> No no no. Look at his lack of capital letters. This is a clear sign of 
> someone being afraid. ;)
> (sorry, it's friday)
> 
>> On 2016-09-02 16:51, Sven Constable wrote:
>> I think he just wanted to test his new mail adress for the list. And 
>> it
>> worked :)
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of 
>> Francois Lord
>> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2016 10:23 PM
>> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>> Subject: Re: testing list
>> 
>> This is is getting so quiet that people are afraid it's being shut 
>> down.
>> 
>>> On 2016-09-02 14:09, L Rousseau wrote:
>>> testing list
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Re: Reminiscing

[Bradley Gabe]

Hi Dave!
Of course I'm still following the list. You can take the TD out of CG but
you can't take CG out of the TD.

I'm glad to hear Houdini is tickling the creative juices in a satisfying
fashion. I was starting to worry with the fading of Soft and ICE that daily
production work was going to end up being a total grind for everyone. But
I've also got some new ideas for future projects that will require the kind
of creative problem solving we used to enjoy, and need a sense of where
folks will be hanging out in the upcoming years.



On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 11:11 AM, David Barosin  wrote:

> Brad!   Glad you're still checking the list.  Houdini is feeling fun. In
> many respects it's way more than I've had before in Soft.
>
> The option to use code (vex) or ice like nodes (vops) interchangeably
> makes handling arrays and other loops/flow control much easier.  Also the
> presence of volume/vdb objects and a robust dynamics framework is a huge
> bonus.   The list goes on but overall I'm getting that feeling ICE gave
> us and then some.
>
>
>
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Reminiscing

[Bradley Gabe]

Hi list! We haven't chatted in ages, and I wanted to see who I could dig up
out of the caves with a little reminiscence about the good old days.

I found this thread
 from the
Friday Flashback archives and it reminded me of a time when an XSI TD had
amazing power for creative problem solving at his fingertips. Even the
drudge work of shot tech support had, for a time, become fun again, when
you could cook up something clever through sheer experimentation (and a
spoonful of stubbornness).

Having been out of the loop long enough now, just curious where everyone
has gone to find that same kind of satisfaction? What goodies has the
industry offered to empower the user?



-B
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Re: Autodesk acquires Solid Angle

[Bradley Gabe]

Just as everybody else, my comments are based on speculation synthesized
from tidbits of info gathered before, during, and since the SI acquisition.
Take that for what it's worth (Sorry if I am taking the thread too far off
topic).

Why did they buy SI? As with every other acquisition decision, it boils
down to the whims of a very small handful of executives, each with his own
plans and motivations. You could have one exec who loved SI because of past
associations, and another who loathed SI because of a history of nasty
competition. Both could agree to acquire SI because each could achieve a
goal by having it under their corporate control. You might have even had an
exec at Soft who would be willing to sacrifice the whole thing if it meant
he could get a foothold into a different company. It doesn't matter if
their end goals for SI were in opposition, only that it got acquired.

There's a simple explanation for why the acquisition didn't make sense to
the user base or many of the employees, it's because it actually didn't
make sense. It was never really about any of us, we're all just downstream
effects. Keeping that in mind, once the acquisition was made, there were a
handful of simple requirements:

1) Tell the employees whatever they need to hear, as long as we can keep
the good ones... or not, who cares. They don't have many choices to go
elsewhere anyways.
2) Tell the user base whatever they need to hear, as long as we can keep
the good ones... or not, who cares. They don't have many choices to go
elsewhere anyways.
3) Do the minimum necessary to not get in trouble for breaking anti trust
laws.

These 3 requirements were followed and met, especially number 3, and that's
that. Mission accomplished.


PS - Tinfoil makes you sweat if you wear the hat long enough.
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Re: Growth in ICE

[Bradley Gabe]

Do not fret my dear John, the Softimage Fairy is here to bring happiness
and joy, and make your magical dreams come true.

Haha, just kidding. There is no Sotimage Fairy.

April Fools!


On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 7:32 PM, John Clausing  wrote:

> Id like to point out that I have this EXACT challenge right now in Maya
> and it stinks
>
> I wish I were still on Softimage
>
> Harrumph
>
> :(
> \
>
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Re: ICE Internal Cache

[Bradley Gabe]

Any reason you don't want to save to an external file? I used to create
point clouds just to store specific data sets to then use to drive another
simulation. For example, creating a volumetric cloud of vectors you could
visualize to drive another simulation.

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Jeremie Passerin 
wrote:

> Hey guys,
>
> I'm not sure if there is many people left on that list to answer, but I
> thought I'll give it a shot.
>
> I was wondering if there is a way with ICE to cache point position per
> frame internaly without saving to file.
> I'm thinking maybe I could build an array of point position, and then read
> from that... not sure how to do that though.
>
> Any idea ?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeremie
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
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Re: Goodbyes (was this is the end...)

[Bradley Gabe]

All end things must come to a good

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 2, 2016, at 1:04 PM, Scott Lange  wrote:
> 
> Amen to that Adam!
>  
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Adam Sale
> Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2016 1:39 PM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: RE: Goodbyes (was this is the end...)
>  
> We've had a pretty good run. For me, I remember starting on the original si3d 
> list with many of you original si adopters. There were so many heavyweights 
> on the list, i drank in all of the information being shared for months before 
> i felt knowledgeable enough to post something intelligent. That was back when 
> Beckman hosted the si archives.  Then there was the infamous discussion list 
> in the days where Porl and Kim led the Fnar'ing, Christine posted her 
> cartoons, and Ed was the cheesemeister. Many of you on this list have been 
> some of my best mentors, advisors and friends, and have felt like a part of 
> my extended family for nearly 20 years. Like I said to start this post, it's 
> been a pretty good run.

Re: Goodbyes (was this is the end...)

[Bradley Gabe]

I appreciate the sentiment folks, you've already thanked me enough over the
years. :-)

For the first time, I am concerned that the list might disappear once and
for all, and possibly without warning. At the moment, this has been my only
contact with the old user base. I'm afraid if the list goes, I won't be
able to keep up as I am being sucked into an entirely different,
all-consuming vortex.

Goodbyes (was this is the end...)

[Bradley Gabe]

In the event the list suddenly disappears with all this EOL talk, I thought
I'd offer a well deserved and long overdue thanks to everyone in the
community for everything they've done over the years. It was the original
si3d list that provided me the opportunity I needed for my very first break
into high end all those years ago. And it's been the XSI community and this
list that helped put a roof over my head, feed my family, and keep me
functionally sane since then.

Best wishes to everyone in their future ventures.

-Bradley

Re: this is the end......

[Bradley Gabe]

<♫>Bye bye Soft.
Bye bye friendliness.
Hello plugin mess.
I'm thinkin' I'm a goin' to cry-y.
Goodbye my Soft good bye-y.

-Music by Everly Brothers. Lyrics by Softimage users.

Re: this is the end......

[Bradley Gabe]

The Maya cake is a lie.

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 12:25 PM, Eric Turman  wrote:

> Bradley,
>
> You're parody of the Everly Brothers "Bye Bye Love" inspired a quickly
> slapped together a parody by another artist that you like.
>
> http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/p/portal/still_alive.html
>
> Picture the Autodesk Borg Choir singing to the tune of Jonathan Coulton's
> "Still Alive" from Portal:
>
> <♫>
> This was a triumph!
>
> Soft is murdered:
>
> Huge success!
>
> It's hard to overstate
> our satisfaction.
>
> Autodesk Maya:
> We subjugate
> because we can
> For the good of all of us.
> Except the ones who use(d) Soft.
>
> But there's no sense crying
> every time Maya'll crash.
> You just keep on sighing
> 'til you run out of cash.
> And the clients get pissed
> as the deadlines are missed
> because Maya had to
> stay alive.
>
> We have your best interest...
> We're being so sincere right now.
> Look around you everyone
> is using Maya.
>
> We tore Soft to pieces.
> And threw every piece into a fire.
> As they burned we're glad because
> you get to use Maya now!
>
> Now, these subscriptions
> make a mountain of cash.
> And we don't really care.
> How much Maya will crash!
> So we're GLaD Soft's no more!
> Think of all the pain in store!
> for the Softies who are
> still alive.
>
> You'd better subscribe now...
> your software does not belong to you...
> Just try to use it and you
>
> will be sorry.
> We have the lawyers
> Be sure to comply or pay the price!
>
> We can see your misery!
> That's so enjoyably nice!
>
> We need new features so
> we'll acquire new tools!
> We'll pass them off as
>
> ours and sell it to you fools.
>
> Works not supposed to be fun.
> So use Maya and be done.
> Now that Maya's the one
> that's alive.
> And believe us Maya's
> still alive.
> Cornered the market so it's
> still alive.
> Got away with it and it's
> still alive.
> While Soft dies Maya will be
> still alive.
> With subscriptions it will be
> still alive
>
> Still alive.
>
> Still alive.
> <♫>
>
> --
>
>
>
>
> -=T=-
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Appreciate the info Matt, but I was actually kidding :-)


On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Matt Lind  wrote:

> The Softimage SIGGRAPH dinner already happened this year.  SIGGRAPH 2016
> will be in Anaheim, California July 24-28, 2016.
>
> Barring significant developments, I'm tentatively planning the next dinner
> being the 15th and final dinner.
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Hi Maurice-

Problem still not resolved. I will send you my contact information off
list. Thank you for following up on this.


On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 8:49 AM, Maurice Patel <maurice.pa...@autodesk.com>
wrote:

> Sorry about the problems. Did you resolve this issue Bradley?
> Is there a contact email I can pass on to our EDU team to escalate?
> Thanks
> Maurice
>
> Maurice Patel
> Tél:  514 954-7134
> Cell: 514 242-6549
>
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Bradley Gabe
> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:15 PM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
> Hiya folks! Long time no see.
>
> I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the
> Autodesk website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller
> app without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
> happens.
>
> Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?
>
> -Bradley
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Ha! Up and Running. Hello old friend!

The list continues to work its magic for me in the same fashion as always.
As soon as help is offered and escalated, the problem gets resolved.

Thanks Joey, Maurice, Adam, and others.

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Simple solution. I gave up attempting to install on that computer and tried
on another one and it worked as intended. Same OS on both systems, just
must be something wonky about one of them.

So if anyone else experiences issues with downloading from Autodesk, my
advice is, make sure you aren't using my desktop system.

I'll be back with advanced user questions such as: How do I make a geodesic
sphere with NURBs, and where is the Softimage SIGGRAPH dinner this year?



On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Maurice Patel <maurice.pa...@autodesk.com>
wrote:

> Ah, c’est la vie – glad it all got resolved ☺
> Thanks Bradley
>
> Maurice Patel
> Tél:  514 954-7134
> Cell: 514 242-6549
>
> From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Bradley Gabe
> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 12:56 PM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
> Ha! Up and Running. Hello old friend!
>
> The list continues to work its magic for me in the same fashion as always.
> As soon as help is offered and escalated, the problem gets resolved.
>
> Thanks Joey, Maurice, Adam, and others.
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

I'm wondering if there is a link I can use to directly download the
Entertainment suite, without relying on this software middleman app?

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:36 PM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yuppers.
> The problem seems to be with their installer
> app: 
> Autodesk_ECSU_2016_English_Japanese_Win_64bit_wi_en-us_Setup_webinstall.exe
> I've tried running as Admin from different locations. Simply stated,
> nothing happens upong attempting to run this puppy.
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
> j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>> Have you tried turning the firewall off temporarily?
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Joey Ponthieux
>>
>> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>>
>> MYMIC Technical Services
>>
>> NASA Langley Research Center
>>
>> __
>>
>> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>>
>> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
>> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:27 PM
>> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>>
>>
>>
>> Currently on night shifts.
>>
>> I'm attempting to produce some animations to help teach some medical
>> concepts during the day. But so far no luck with installation. :)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Dan Yargici <danyarg...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Don't you have patients to attend to or something? ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 12:14 AM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hiya folks! Long time no see.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the
>> Autodesk website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller
>> app without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
>> happens.
>>
>>
>>
>> Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?
>>
>>
>>
>> -Bradley
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Both. Same result.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:

> Did you download it with Explorer or Firefox?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joey Ponthieux
>
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>
> MYMIC Technical Services
>
> NASA Langley Research Center
>
> __
>
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:36 PM
>
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
>
>
> Yuppers.
>
> The problem seems to be with their installer
> app: 
> Autodesk_ECSU_2016_English_Japanese_Win_64bit_wi_en-us_Setup_webinstall.exe
>
> I've tried running as Admin from different locations. Simply stated,
> nothing happens upong attempting to run this puppy.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
> j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> Have you tried turning the firewall off temporarily?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joey Ponthieux
>
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>
> MYMIC Technical Services
>
> NASA Langley Research Center
>
> __
>
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:27 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
>
>
> Currently on night shifts.
>
> I'm attempting to produce some animations to help teach some medical
> concepts during the day. But so far no luck with installation. :)
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Dan Yargici <danyarg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Don't you have patients to attend to or something? ;)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 12:14 AM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hiya folks! Long time no see.
>
>
>
> I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the
> Autodesk website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller
> app without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
> happens.
>
>
>
> Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?
>
>
>
> -Bradley
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Currently on night shifts.
I'm attempting to produce some animations to help teach some medical
concepts during the day. But so far no luck with installation. :)

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Dan Yargici <danyarg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't you have patients to attend to or something? ;)
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 12:14 AM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hiya folks! Long time no see.
>>
>> I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the
>> Autodesk website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller
>> app without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
>> happens.
>>
>> Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?
>>
>> -Bradley
>>
>
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Yes, see 2 emails ago :)

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:45 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:

> Did you try executing it via “Run as administrator”
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joey Ponthieux
>
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>
> MYMIC Technical Services
>
> NASA Langley Research Center
>
> __
>
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:42 PM
>
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
>
>
> Both. Same result.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
> j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> Did you download it with Explorer or Firefox?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joey Ponthieux
>
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>
> MYMIC Technical Services
>
> NASA Langley Research Center
>
> __
>
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:36 PM
>
>
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
>
>
> Yuppers.
>
> The problem seems to be with their installer
> app: 
> Autodesk_ECSU_2016_English_Japanese_Win_64bit_wi_en-us_Setup_webinstall.exe
>
> I've tried running as Admin from different locations. Simply stated,
> nothing happens upong attempting to run this puppy.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
> j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> Have you tried turning the firewall off temporarily?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joey Ponthieux
>
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>
> MYMIC Technical Services
>
> NASA Langley Research Center
>
> __
>
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:27 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
>
>
> Currently on night shifts.
>
> I'm attempting to produce some animations to help teach some medical
> concepts during the day. But so far no luck with installation. :)
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Dan Yargici <danyarg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Don't you have patients to attend to or something? ;)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 12:14 AM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hiya folks! Long time no see.
>
>
>
> I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the
> Autodesk website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller
> app without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
> happens.
>
>
>
> Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?
>
>
>
> -Bradley
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Hiya folks! Long time no see.

I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the Autodesk
website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller app
without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
happens.

Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?

-Bradley

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Yuppers.
The problem seems to be with their installer
app: Autodesk_ECSU_2016_English_Japanese_Win_64bit_wi_en-us_Setup_webinstall.exe
I've tried running as Admin from different locations. Simply stated,
nothing happens upong attempting to run this puppy.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] <
j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote:

> Have you tried turning the firewall off temporarily?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Joey Ponthieux
>
> LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
>
> MYMIC Technical Services
>
> NASA Langley Research Center
>
> __
>
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
>
> represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Bradley Gabe
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2015 5:27 PM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite
>
>
>
> Currently on night shifts.
>
> I'm attempting to produce some animations to help teach some medical
> concepts during the day. But so far no luck with installation. :)
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Dan Yargici <danyarg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Don't you have patients to attend to or something? ;)
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 12:14 AM, Bradley Gabe <witha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hiya folks! Long time no see.
>
>
>
> I'm attempting to download and install the creation suite from the
> Autodesk website from the education center. It downloads the 330KB insaller
> app without a problem, however when I try to run that app, nothing at all
> happens.
>
>
>
> Has anyone else hit the same hurdle and figured out where the block is?
>
>
>
> -Bradley
>
>
>
>
>

Re: Downloading Entertainment Creation Suite

[Bradley Gabe]

Adam, any hints on how to find that route? Keep in mind I'm not going
through a standard ADSK account, but rather an educational account.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 4:48 PM, Adam Sale <adamfs...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Brad, there is an option to do a direct browser download vs the
> manager route. I had issues with the installer app as well. Direct was
> fine.
>
> Cheers man!
>
> Adam
>
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 2:49 PM, Christoph Muetze <c...@glarestudios.de>
> wrote:
>
>> On 09/29/2015 11:37 PM, Bradley Gabe wrote:> I'm wondering if there is a
>> link I can use to directly download the
>> > Entertainment suite, without relying on this software middleman app?
>>
>> ...try downloading it from a Linux machine or use a more obscure browser
>> under Windows. When the site thinks that you won't be able to use the
>> downloader (aka you don't use Windows) then it offers you an http direct
>> download.
>>
>> Cheers!
>> Chris
>>
>
>

Re: Smooth operator on curves

[Bradley Gabe]

No need to ask!

> On Sep 28, 2015, at 7:45 PM, Greg Punchatz  wrote:
> 
> Did you sing Sade while applying the Smooth Operator? I know I still do;)
> 
>> On Monday, September 28, 2015, Eric Turman  wrote:
>> Even though this is so simple and many of you may know that Soft can do 
>> this, until this afternoon, I had a reason to try this...I needed to smooth 
>> out a curve that I trace the points and midpoints of a poly surface from. My 
>> first Softimage instinct was to try a smooth operator on the curve. True to 
>> form Softimage handled it without any issues and the result was beautiful. I 
>> didn't have to look for a smooth curves vs. smooth polygons or any other 
>> nonsensical term like curve-blast or turbo-spliner.  
>> I'm very grateful that I still get to use Soft every day.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> -=Eric
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -=T=-

Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

[Bradley Gabe]

Another thing I *loved* about GATOR was the ability to apply it as a live
operator. As with so many other things in Soft, you could use it creatively
as a tool in ways the designers probably never imagined.

For example, using real time GATOR to apply an envelope from a very low
dense mesh to a full resolution mesh: Having the rig in ROM poses in one
view to see the deformation result, as you adjust the vertex points on the
low res mesh in rest pose in another view. The fact that you could add
additional vertex points to the low res mesh as needed to tune the envelope
result was icing on the cake.


On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Eric Turman i.anima...@gmail.com wrote:

 GATOR is so useful, it has saved so many productions for me; including
 ones that went supercritical because of Maya, I just imported into Soft and
 all the attribute issues went away. Even last year when I had to do several
 freelance Maya rigs, I brought it into Soft when It was time to point
 weight and avoided the headaches associated with Maya.

Re: GATOR - A feature in Softimage since 2008

[Bradley Gabe]

I can't claim credit for that idea coming from SI, only that GATOR made it
possible. I believe Houdini likely had an attribute transfer solution long
before XSI (if anyone would care to verify).

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 4:44 PM, Pierre Schiller 
activemotionpictu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thank you Bradley, for that acquintance. I thought Blender guys were the
 ones who ideally found that method exploit, I´ve seen them in a lot of
 their rigs
 (low cage deformer aided by weights from bones, to drive more complex
 bodies/facials)... I´m glad that came from softimage.
 Not surprisingly all SI people on Japan is migrating to Blender

Re: Is purchasing a new softimage license impossible?

[Bradley Gabe]

I can say with certainty that Softimage is far more user friendly and
elegant as an animation solution than Robbins Pathological Basis of
Disease. Switch at your own peril, for rest assured production is going to
grind to a screeching halt.

Re: How do you get distance from output camera via a script

[Bradley Gabe]

Here's the pseudo code

-Create 3 vector3 objects
-Set the first two to the global transforms of the first 2 scene objects
-Set the third vector3 to the subtraction of the first 2 vector objects
-Return the length of the third vector3 object

Sent from my iPhone

 On May 4, 2015, at 1:57 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote:
 
 Hey all we are trying to figure out how to get an objects distance from the 
 camera vis a script.
 
 I am not doing the coding but I thought I could help Dave find an answer 
 here.He is neck deep in another script an and  he was struggling fining it 
 via the documentation. 
 
 I thought maybe one of you nice people might be able to point us in the right 
 direction.
 
 Thanks
 Greg
 
 

Re: Maya thinks they're clever....and that's the problem

[Bradley Gabe]

[image: Inline image 1]

Re: Maya thinks they're clever....and that's the problem

[Bradley Gabe]

Sorry John, you didn't hear. I fixed Ebola a while ago. However, Autodesk 
bought out the technology and has discontinued it in favor of only supporting 
their Hanta virus cure. 

No worries, if you do contract Ebola, you can just use the Hanta treatment. 
Granted, it doesn't effectively treat Ebola, but a virus is a virus. 

Sent from my iPhone

 On Feb 18, 2015, at 2:01 PM, john clausing jclausin...@yahoo.com wrote:
 
 
 i feel absolutely comfortable blaming Brad.not just for the cool names, 
 but for virtually everything.
 dangit Brad.why haven't you fixed Ebola yet
 
 sheeesh
 On Wednesday, February 18, 2015 2:54 PM, Ed Harriss ed.harr...@sas.com 
 wrote:
 
 
 You know all those “cool” names?
 Well, it’s Brad’s fault. (Isn’t it always?)
  
 Long live Outliner Cheese and Directed Acyclic Monkeys!
  
  
 Ed
  
 
 

Re: Maya thinks they're clever....and that's the problem

[Bradley Gabe]

One vote for hypercheese and shadermonkey

You know, for the next iteration.

Re: more maya......

[Bradley Gabe]

In all fairness, it's a script in Soft as well. They just happened to
integrate it into the interface.

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 9:10 AM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com
wrote:

 always nice to read about maya like this... it reminds me why I started to
 hate it in first place and why it will NEVER replace as SI as main
 workhorse...

 script it... ;)

 On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com
 wrote:

 It should...

 I use this script for rigging, matching the center's T and R to match a
 locator to a group.

 It is querying the world position and rotation of the second object and
 applying those values to the first selected object.

 But to be honest, I have not tried it modifying the object's pivot.







 ---
 Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.

 On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 8:24 AM, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Thanks Emilio, but that doesn't match the objects by their centers right?

 If you offset the center and then try to match?

 On 2 December 2014 at 14:15, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote:

 Or...  Write a script.

 Python Tab
 -
 import maya.cmds as cmds

 selected = cmds.ls (selection=True)

 objTrans =selected[0]
 objTarget = selected[1]

 trans = cmds.xform (objTarget, q=True, t=True, ws=True)
 rotation = cmds.xform (objTarget, q=True, ro=True, ws=True)
 cmds.xform (objTrans, t=trans, ro=rotation)
 ---

 Select first the object to transform.
 Select second the target object.

 run the script or add it as a button.



 ---
 Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.

 On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 5:15 AM, mikael.petter...@gmail.com wrote:

  You can select two objects and then tab through the values in the
 channel box and they will match up

 /Mikael

 *Från:* Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com
 *Skickat:* tisdag den 2 december 2014 10:30
 *Till:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

 Can somebody please tell what is the best way of matching transforms
 in Maya?

 I've been using Align Objects, but it doesn't match two objects based
 on their pivot like in xsi.

 Any ideas?

 C

Re: SoftImage Artists take on Maya @ Escape Studios

[Bradley Gabe]

Aw.. don't make the thread self aware. It was just getting good! I still
have popcorn left. :-(

I might not be contributing anymore, but the rest of you are still keeping
things interesting.

Re: softimage interaction

[Bradley Gabe]

Oh great, now you've done it!

Sent from my iPhone

 On Apr 25, 2014, at 1:15 PM, todd peleg toddape...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 
 if they dont fix this.. they should consider shutting down the developement 
 of softimage.. (just a suggestion)
 
 todd

Re: softimage interaction

[Bradley Gabe]

Stop doing that?

 brad.. i have a pain when i move my arm side to side...any suggestions?
 

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

[Bradley Gabe]

That's where his head is at the moment.


 The interview is also scary for how much (especially if you listen to the
 entire interview) he wants all Autodesk apps on the cloud.
 ALL OF THEM.

Re: What use is ICE really?

[Bradley Gabe]

ICE driving custom deforms and shapes over Face Robot
http://vimeo.com/23593380

3 artists. 3 weeks.

Re: What use is ICE really?

[Bradley Gabe]

And a hundred other bizarre little experiments, unexpected projects, and
clever hacks including:


   - Rubik's cube solver
   - Automated insect walk cycle http://vimeo.com/28059403
   - Flocking behavior http://vimeo.com/5295530
   - Motion analysis for muscle firing
   - Real time performance capture interpolation
   - Stop motion animation filter
   - Theoretical biology experiments http://vimeo.com/6863958
   - Bio-macromolecular modeling http://vimeo.com/10764085
   - Logic-based constraint behavior
   - Envelope volume retention
   - Logic-based animation mixer switching http://vimeo.com/6870765
   - MRI data interpolation
   - Custom match moving rig
   - UV mapping operators http://vimeo.com/8848143
   - image to volume model interpolation
   - image meta data parser (using pixel color values to precisely control
   texture distribution onto instances)


In summary, ICE is what made technical CG work *fun* again.



On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Bradley Gabe witha...@gmail.com wrote:

 ICE driving custom deforms and shapes over Face Robot
 http://vimeo.com/23593380

 3 artists. 3 weeks.

Re: I'm still really PO'd and it's not getting better

[Bradley Gabe]

http://tinypic.com/r/29ajat/8


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Paul Griswold 
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote:

 I am really beginning to think Kim Aldis had the right idea.
  The perfect word that describes how I feel is mukatsuku.  It's Japanese
 and roughly translates to feeling sick, annoyed, offended, and generally
 unhappy with the situation.

 Maybe I'll take the next 2 years to learn how to build iOS apps.
  FlappyDesk, AutoFlappy.

 -Paul

Re: Top List of ICE Nodes That Cover 80% of What You Do With The Toolset

[Bradley Gabe]

This is what concerns me about the future for where Autodesk takes their DCC 
flagships. Bullet-point thinking. 

It's not any specific list of ICE nodes that make it so powerful and useful, 
rather it's how well it plays within the data structures of the rest of the 
application. 

Everyone who ever looked at ICE from the outside, without ever going into the 
daily battle that is production, simply saw it as a particle system (and maybe 
tipped their hat to it's clever ability to multiprocesses). And despite the SI 
community's repeated insistence ICE was far more important than that, a 
particle system is precisely how it was marketed by Autodesk, providing 
continuing evidence that Autodesk didn't know what they actually had, didn't 
want to listen to the people who were actually using it... or didn't care.

In real estate, they say the most important things are location, location, 
location. In CG production, the most important things are workarounds, 
workarounds, workarounds. ICE has provided SI users with a highly potent, 
splendidly integrated, reasonably artist friendly, visual node based toolkit 
for discovering and developing production workarounds, without having to resort 
to coding for every little thing. Particle effects are merely a byproduct of 
the system. 

It was through interacting with ICE that I developed a much more profound 
understanding of CG data structures, an intuitive sense of how the linear 
algebra drives transforms, of how I could influence operators to do the things 
I could only imagine in times past. Every day in production is a day of 
experiment and discovery using ICE. Do you have any idea how empowering that 
feels after years of waiting for technical help from developers that never 
arrived?

Furthermore, after years of tech experimenting and workarounds with ICE, my 
ability to develop non-ICE tools for animation, deformation, etc, had increased 
drastically. Tools that used to require a week for me to work out the math, I 
could develop in less than a day, because ICE had both provided me with enough 
practice to greatly enhance my thinking, but also because I could use it as a 
prototype laboratory to quickly hash out more difficult concepts, prior to 
sitting down to write out the code.

If you're wondering why people are concerned about life without XSI, these are 
some pretty major reasons. You're going to have to convince us the future of 
node-based work in Maya/Max isn't a bullet point list of nodes for creating 
particle or fluid sim effects. Rather, that it's a fully developed, operator 
development kit, from which particles, fluids, simulations, and all kinds of 
production workarounds, workarounds, workarounds are possible!

-Bradley


Sent from my iPhone

 On Mar 15, 2014, at 12:00 PM, Andy Jones andy.jo...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Chris Vienneau 
 chris.vienn...@autodesk.com wrote:
 Do you guys think there is a top list of nodes in ICE and compounds you all 
 use that cover 80% of what you do with the toolset?
 
 Nope

Re: Idea- Just keep Mental Ray and FBX support - Softimage free w/Maya or Max or any Suite.

[Bradley Gabe]

There is somewhat of a bright side folks, let's be realistic. Just about
every single hard core XSI user I'd known who fully committed to switching
over to Maya without looking back has gone on to do bigger and better
things in the industry. They work at places like Weta, ILM, Dreamworks,
Disney, heck a guy some of us used to work with every day back in the early
XSI era just won an Oscar for best VFX! Just drink the cool aid and go with
the flow, and better days await for you too. The last thing you want is for
Donald Sutherland to pick you out of a crowd, point at you, open his mouth
and shriek (it sucks, it happened to me back when I was at ILM).

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!... and spiders. Those little
bastards are evil!

Re: Wise up

[Bradley Gabe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTv1Dmu5CYct=0m33s


On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 8:30 PM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

  I read all these threads and the general feeling I get is: people are
 accepting what's happening... But didn't we accept too much since 2008?

 AD acquisition, AD not promoting Softimage, AD kicking Softimage's
 original developers: for all these slaps, we grumbled then we accepted. Now
 AD kills Softimage: we grumble then we accept! We're even helping AD to
 improve Maya!

 The last request to AD from our community is to keep Softimage half alive
 with some small fixes from time to time. I have a question for those who
 requested it: if AD grants you that, and if Softimage becomes a stagnant
 living dead app, will you be happy? Will you thank AD for that?

 Now AD says with some workflow ideas from Softimage, the future of Maya is
 bright (click). Do you buy it? Can they do it? A true nonlinear workflow? A
 modern GUI where everything is drag and droppable? A render region? An
 explorer so complete? A true animation mixer?

 If Ad asks you to leave your young beautiful wife, and choose your fat
 ugly mother in law instead, would you accept?

 Why not keeping Softimage's development instead! It already has a solid
 ground for improvements. When V7 came out and ICE was making a lot of buzz,
 who in this community would have thought our software of choice (and us)
 would head for this situation? It's like XSI was an orphan child, adopted
 by some cold, silent parents, who do not understand his talent or even his
 culture. They see no use for him so they kill him.

 Enough! Screw the fifth stage of grief! Acceptance? What AD is doing is
 NOT acceptable. Everyone should go back to stage 2: RAGE. I'd just like to
 see more fighting spirit here. Something should be possible to stop this
 madness and to bring XSI back to the time it was dazzling everyone. The
 open letters and Pooby's project are great initiatives. These days I'm
 contacting all my friends to ask them to sign the petition. Perhaps I'm
 unrealistic, but I can't let XSI die without a fight.

 David

Re: Re[2]: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

[Bradley Gabe]

 Since the day Autodesk bought Softimage, it's been one cruel joke.  There
 has literally never been a single champion of Softimage at a
 decision-making level, right?  It's been the red-headed step-child since
 the moment of the acquisition.


I'm not sure this statement is entirely true. The senior VP of ME at the
time of the purchase was Marc Petite, originally from Softimage and one of
the driving forces behind the early development of XSI. When he stepped
down not long ago, I believe he was replaced by Marc Stevens, the former
president of Softimage at the time of the acquisition.

Re: Re[2]: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

[Bradley Gabe]

Not really. Which is why my top 5 list for Alastair would have been
something like:

-Chinny
-Halfdan
-Ronald
-Schoennagel
-Jen
-etc...


On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Paul Griswold 
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote:

 I suppose I should have phrased that There has literally never been a
 single public champion of Softimage at a decision-making level.

 Was there ever a SIGGRAPH, usergroup meeting, or anything of the sort
 where anyone with any sort of authority at Autodesk called for more
 exposure, more marketing, more anything for Softimage?

Re: YOUR TOP 5

[Bradley Gabe]

Would have been nice if someone collected these kinds of lists, and made
sure proper transitional implementation not only existed, but was also
production proven, you know, *before* announcing EOL.  :-)

Re: Luxology Modo 50% off for this mailing list

[Bradley Gabe]

I'm just happy to see my name on this list again in a positive light, even
though it has nothing to do with me.




On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:30 PM, Tim Crowson
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.comwrote:

  That's really generous of Brad, and frankly reflects the artist-centric
 and artist-friendly attitude I've experienced first-hand when dealing with
 them or the Foundry in general. Modo is not there yet as a full package,
 and primarily lacks in raw performance and reliability. But I think they
 know what they need to do. Mad props and more power to The Foundry.

 -Tim


 On 3/4/2014 9:15 PM, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

 Hi all,
 If you can't be bothered to read some text, the important bit is in bold a
 few paragraphs down.

  Now that the worst kept secret EVER has seen the sunlight, while
 everybody is still shell shocked, I think it's worth posting this.

  I'd like to say I'm surprised, or emotionally drained, but I'm actually
 barely upset. Writing's been on the wall for entirely too long.

  Deciding to not use Maya just because it's an AD product, at least for
 me, is like cutting one's own nose to spite the face; then in my domain
 (character work) Maya is too significant a player to just outright ignore
 it out of principle, not to mention I've been using it professionally or
 personally since v1.
 That said maybe some of you work in a different domain, and for you Modo,
 or Houdini, or C4D are a viable option.
 Coming from there, and more on topic, I have little faith in all these
 petitions, rage posts and the such, so I thought I'd start a different line
 of efforts to help a community I've been part of for
 Idon'twanttothinkhowlongitsscary.

  More on topic, if I had to find issue with this announcement and all it
 entails it's how badly it was managed and conceived.
 Not only it's an incredibly ponderous decision with inevitable gravity, it
 was also announced with barely any time to spare between its intended date
 and some hard dates on its effects.
 Of everything I heard and read insofar it's not so much the killing of
 Soft I find unacceptable (I guess I was well resigned in those regards, not
 that it doesn't sadden me enormously), as much as what picture it paints of
 AD customer management when they do such a thing, and proceed to aggravate
 the issue with nebulous information and an unacceptably short window of
 time for the user base to make some rather consequential decisions.

  But are the competitors any better? Any more accessible and transparent
 in their communication and dealings?

  Well, I was having an exchange in private with Brad Peebler, founder of
 Luxology, and I put to him whether the Foundry/Luxology would have the
 flexibility and agility to do something about short term.
 Turns out they do.
 In a few hours they set up everything for a *50% discount on Modo*purchases. 
 No strings attached, just because I jokingly challenged him to.
  *Go to the online store and use the coupon raffofkahn for half price
 check-out.*

  I'm not a Modo user, nor have the time or inclination right now to
 become one. I'm not going to suddenly wish AD any ill or stop using their
 products, though they sure did their damnest to make me even more guarded
 when dealing with their PR and promises.
 I did really enjoy dealing with the Foundry in the past though, and I have
 now to extend that respect to its Luxology arm. At the very least they are
 willing to act transparently and unconditionally on matters all the way
 from the top of the product chain.

  Cheers,
 Raff

  P.S.
 The actual coupon's text was Brad's idea, not mine! I imagine he read my
 signature and thought I was a Trekkie or something like that.

  P.P.S.
 I'm not getting anything out of this. I'm not a modo user, I'm not getting
 freebies, it has nothing to do with my employer, what the hell, it barely
 has anything to do with me outside the last few hours and this e-mail
 itself. I simply thought it was a nice and significant gesture on Brad's
 side and decided to help him reach out on account of his personality and
 display of good will.

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


 --

Re: new upgrade policy

[Bradley Gabe]

Remember when Fox canceled Futurama? Family Guy?

Re: new upgrade policy

[Bradley Gabe]

It's very important the si community remain calm, rational, and content
during these days of transition. You must understand by now that @utode$k
feeds off our misery, and the last thing we want is to empower them more
with public displays of negativity.


On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 5:38 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote:

  Yup 20 years + for us I am sick over this I feel like someone
 killed my wife, and is telling me to trade her in for a new one.  I like
 the one I have just fine , thank you very much!!

  And the wife AD is trying to pass off on me is old, crusty, naggy and has
 cobwebs in all the wrong places!!!


  --
 *Greg Punchatz*
  *Sr. Creative Director*
 Janimation
 214.823.7760
 www.janimation.com

Re: Survey - how would you do this?

[Bradley Gabe]

This should be a separate thread, but it's related:

I discovered a trick long ago on how to drive kinematics with ICE and have
it be quite fast, easily pushing 1000 nulls in real time. You build a
single polygon mesh with a separate square for each particle, driving each
square from the particle's SRTs with a simple ICE op. Then you create a
cluster on each square and constrain scene objects to the clusters.

I had a script that set the whole thing up, so you could select a group of
scene objects, then pick a particle cloud, and it would constrain the scene
objects in the order you selected them. This was a necessary workaround
back in the old days when Arnold wasn't working with instances, but the
tool came in handy for all kinds of situations to drive scene object
kinematics based on particle sims.

When they gave us ICE kinematics later on, the cluster constraint trick
still performed much faster and was more stable so I kept using it.

This same technique, BTW, allows you to use deformations to control SRT
movement of scene objects. Once your objects are constrained to geometry,
you can apply envelopes, lattices, or whatever other creative setups to
animate their motion.

Re: Survey - how would you do this?

[Bradley Gabe]

In less than the amount of time you've spent on this thread, you could have 
written a simple script to bake out ICE particle SRT's, which would not only 
help in this situation, but a million and one others. :-)

Sent from my iPhone

 On Feb 12, 2014, at 12:35 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 
 We'd have to add support for ICE in our exporter and pipeline management 
 tools.  We don't have resources to do that at present.
 
 If the artist doesn't clean up after himself responsibly, it creates a lot of 
 problems.
 
 
 Matt
 
 
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric 
 Rousseau
 Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:21 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?
 
 On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 10:30 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 The solution is 100% art driven in this case and cannot rely on game 
 engine logic or engineering resources.  If it could, there wouldn't be 
 a challenge ;-)
 
 Cannot use ICE, but you can use expressions, constraints, or animation mixer 
 to set up and plot out to explicit controls later if you prefer.
 
 A junior or staff level artist must be able to setup and complete the task 
 unsupervised in 30 minutes or less.  Must also avoid creating any bugs such 
 as leaving temporary data in the scene or methods that require such tactics. 
  Bugs that make their way into the game engine are very expensive to find, 
 fix, and QA.  Therefore, great emphasis should be placed on technique and 
 working cleanly.
 
 Sorry, I missed a bit. Why couldn't you plot animation by things driven by 
 ICE?  Don't you have to do that for expression, anim mixer, etc?  I mean you 
 don't have that in the engine either, right?
 
 

Re: Survey - how would you do this?

[Bradley Gabe]

Yup, if you were one of the NASA engineers back in Houston during the Apollo 13 
mission, the astronauts would have all died. :p

ICE not stable and mature? You're kidding, right? 

Some things are worth figuring out how to fit a round hose over a square 
filter. ICE is one of those things.




Sent from my iPhone

 On Feb 12, 2014, at 5:01 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 
 Part of it is circumstance, as in we only have so many resources.  For 
 example, our art department is 100+, but I'm the only one in the department 
 who writes code and I'm currently tasked with significantly higher priority 
 issues helping out an under staffed engineering department than writing 
 one-offs for every artist who needs a button.
 
 The other part is pipeline management of a large scale software development 
 effort.  We have a feature film sized team working to build a high profile 
 AAA title.  With an engine and tools under constant evolution, and life 
 expectancy of 15+ years, you must choose methods of content creation which 
 can withstand changes to the software, such as Softimage, as well as changes 
 to the game itself.  An asset created today must expect to live for 10+ years 
 without any further maintenance.  If given the choice between creating an 
 asteroid belt using constraints vs. ICE, we'll probably opt for constraints 
 because we know it's a fairly stable and mature system, which cannot be said 
 for ICE.  We've been bitten many times already such as when we created a 
 number of simulations back in XSI 5 using the Softimage particle system only 
 for the particle system to be ripped out and replaced with ICE.  We can no 
 longer open those assets in Softimage.  Same happened again with updates to 
 the realtime shader APIs.  So now we must either live with their current 
 state of dysfunction, or rebuild from scratch.  On projects of this 
 magnitude, risk assessment has a very high priority and taken extremely 
 seriously because one bad move can literally sink the project if the ripple 
 effect is large enough.  While we do take measures to abstract data from 
 commercial tools, we only have so much programming power in house to do so.  
 
 The point is we cannot subscribe to workflows which are prone to human error. 
  Creating temporary data and expecting the artist to clean up after himself 
 has proven to not be reliable as assets are referenced by other assets all 
 the time.  If crap is left around, then anybody referencing that asset also 
 inherits the crap which results in bugs in game.  In film/video you can sweep 
 things under the carpet if they aren't perfect as long as the problem doesn't 
  show up on camera.  We don't have that luxury.  What you make has to be 
 functional and optimal for a live game environment, conservative on 
 resources, and not make any assumptions how it will be used.  Function has 
 higher priority than looking pretty.  
 
 There's a lot more to it, but I think you get the gist of it.
 
 Matt
 
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Ponthieux, 
 Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]
 Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 10:59 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: RE: Survey - how would you do this?
 
 So cheese and monkeys aside. After 25 years as a 3D animator I've never 
 worked in games. So from a serious perspective I simply  don't understand. 
 It's not clear to me why you aren't able to use ICE or scripts and freeze 
 those construction connections sending only the raw assets over without  ICE 
 or scripting. What is it about this pipeline which makes that difficult?
 
 --
 Joey Ponthieux
 LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES) Mymic Technical 
 Services NASA Langley Research Center 
 __
 Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent 
 the opinions of NASA or any other party.
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
 Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 1:35 PM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: RE: Survey - how would you do this?
 
 We'd have to add support for ICE in our exporter and pipeline management 
 tools.  We don't have resources to do that at present.
 
 If the artist doesn't clean up after himself responsibly, it creates a lot of 
 problems.
 
 
 Matt
 
 
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric 
 Rousseau
 Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:21 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?
 
 On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 10:30 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 The solution is 100% art driven in this case and cannot rely on game 
 engine logic or 

Re: Survey - how would you do this?

[Bradley Gabe]

Considering that the typical distance from one asteroid to the next is many 
thousands of kilometers,  you really shouldn't have any issues with collisions 
if you scale them properly. 

At your scale of 40 SI units for the asteroid belt, each asteroid would be well 
sub-pixel in diameter anyway, so I would create a torus to represent the belt, 
make it only very slightly opaque and call it a day. 


Sent from my iPhone

 On Feb 11, 2014, at 1:23 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 
 An artist came to my desk yesterday asking how to do what I felt was a simple 
 task, but after getting 80% through it I ran into a speed bump realizing it 
 needed custom scripting or other advanced tools to fully resolve to 
 satisfaction.  I had to give him a procedure that was ‘good enough’.  This 
 problem has multiple solutions, but I am curious how others would solve it:
  
 The problem:
  
 Artist must create an asteroid belt around a planet.  The asteroids are 
 likely 2D sprites which must face the camera and tumble as they orbit, but 
 could be 3D objects as well.  Asteroids must vary in size, shape, and 
 animation speed (linear as well as rotational).  Asteroids cannot collide 
 with anything.  Movement is generally slow – like a screen saver for your 
 computer desktop.  Asteroid positions are jittered within the belt.
  
 The question:
  
 Dispersing objects into a ring is fairly straightforward through a number of 
 techniques, but how do you apply the random jitter to the object positions?
  
 The rules:
  
 -  Cannot use ICE
 -  Cannot use custom scripts, custom operators, or shaders.
 -  Must only use tools out of the box that a junior or staff level 
 artist would know how to use.
 -  Must be able to create the asteroid belt, from scratch to 
 completion, in less than 30 minutes – and be iteration friendly to react to 
 art director feedback.
 -  Ideally, the belt could be made a child of the planet in 
 encompasses so it can be reoriented with respect to changes in the planet’s 
 size/shape/tilt/orbit.
 -  Final output must be able to exist with full integrity on its own 
 in a vacuum.  Cannot not have dependencies on custom code, external assets, 
 or special case logic.
 -  Asteroid belt fits within the default grid as seen in the scene 
 camera.  Think torus with diameter 40 SI units, and cross section of roughly 
 3 SI Units diameter
  
  
 Ready…..GO!
  
  
  
  
 Matt

Re: Survey - how would you do this?

[Bradley Gabe]

Can you use ICE to plot out a layout, and then convert it over to explicit 
controls? Or are you trying to design a system that can randomize, in game, on 
the fly?


Sent from my iPad

 On Feb 11, 2014, at 1:49 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 
 F*ck.  Fat finger.
 
 The rest:
 
 We have tight restrictions for making MMORPG style games.  One of them being 
 we have to think simple as there's no way to fully predict how an asset will 
 be used once it's made available in the game.  Designers and scripters will 
 pull whatever they can get their hands on and use them for whatever purpose 
 they can think of.  Kind of the everything looks like a nail when you have a 
 hammer problem.
 
 Matt
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Matt Lind 
 Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:47 AM
 To: 'Eric Thivierge'; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: RE: Survey - how would you do this?
 
 You wouldn't last long in games with that attitude.
 
 
 Matt
 
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Eric Thivierge [mailto:ethivie...@hybride.com]
 Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:46 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Cc: Matt Lind
 Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?
 
 With those restrictions, get a super fast animator to animate them by hand.
 
 Eric T.
 
 On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 2:23:31 PM, Matt Lind wrote:
 An artist came to my desk yesterday asking how to do what I felt was a 
 simple task, but after getting 80% through it I ran into a speed bump 
 realizing it needed custom scripting or other advanced tools to fully 
 resolve to satisfaction.  I had to give him a procedure that was ‘good 
 enough’.  This problem has multiple solutions, but I am curious how 
 others would solve it:
 
 The problem:
 
 Artist must create an asteroid belt around a planet.  The asteroids 
 are likely 2D sprites which must face the camera and tumble as they 
 orbit, but could be 3D objects as well.  Asteroids must vary in size, 
 shape, and animation speed (linear as well as rotational).  Asteroids 
 cannot collide with anything.  Movement is generally slow – like a 
 screen saver for your computer desktop.  Asteroid positions are 
 jittered within the belt.
 
 The question:
 
 Dispersing objects into a ring is fairly straightforward through a 
 number of techniques, but how do you apply the random jitter to the 
 object positions?
 
 The rules:
 
 -Cannot use ICE
 
 -Cannot use custom scripts, custom operators, or shaders.
 
 -Must only use tools out of the box that a junior or staff level 
 artist would know how to use.
 
 -Must be able to create the asteroid belt, from scratch to completion, 
 in less than 30 minutes – and be iteration friendly to react to art 
 director feedback.
 
 -Ideally, the belt could be made a child of the planet in encompasses 
 so it can be reoriented with respect to changes in the planet’s 
 size/shape/tilt/orbit.
 
 -Final output must be able to exist with full integrity on its own in 
 a vacuum.  Cannot not have dependencies on custom code, external 
 assets, or special case logic.
 
 -Asteroid belt fits within the default grid as seen in the scene 
 camera.  Think torus with diameter 40 SI units, and cross section of 
 roughly 3 SI Units diameter
 
 Ready…..GO!
 
 Matt
 
 

Re: OT: Setting up Proxy Params in Maya?

[Bradley Gabe]

You're thinking about this the wrong way. The correct way to approach it
is, if Maya doesn't have it, you don't need it. :-p



On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Michal Doniec doni...@gmail.com wrote:

 No such thing as proxy parameters in Maya out of the box, AFAIK.


 On 17 January 2014 16:02, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com wrote:

 Hey all,

 Sorry for the Maya question but it's semi-related to Softimage. I'm
 working on setting up a rig in Maya that clones one I have built in
 Softimage and am wondering if Maya has the Proxy Parameter type
 functionality of having a master parameter (attribute in Maya) which you
 make a shortcut to on other objects.

 Haven't found anything online so far.

 Any help is appreciated.

 Thanks,
 Eric T.




 --
 --
 Michal
 http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec

Re: rigging in xsi vs maya

[Bradley Gabe]

Aren't you the guy who made the 3D Cat in the Hat animation I saw on the
ride at Universal Studios?
I also remember some training tutorial videos and a UV mapping tool. ;-)

I'm not sure, but as a casual outside observer this entire thread seems
like a trolling job. Nice to see Luc-Eric is still playing the role
of agent provocateur.


On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 5:52 PM, David Gallagher 
davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com wrote:

  On 1/8/2014 4:42 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:

 how many years ago was the BlueSky rigging experience and how much was it?
 I remember seeing you as a Softimage fan since very early XSI - perhaps a
 Softimage 3D user before that as well?   I might be confusing you with
 another user.

  The topology updates in Softimage is its best and most unique feature,
 along with render passes (property propagation).  I think no other app will
 ever have this.  There are architecture overhead and performance
 issue associated with that,  though.  can't talk about animation without
 talking about performance, and referencing.


 Oh, I hope you're wrong and whatever product comes out of the marriage of
 Maya/Softimage/Max has that!

 Yes, I worked on all the Blue Sky movies from Ice Age 1. I rigged for a
 few films, then animated, then oversaw the rigs from the animation side.

 Yes, I used Softimage 3D as well.




 Le mercredi 8 janvier 2014, David Gallagher a écrit :


 I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now
 (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known Malcolm rig for free.

 There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of
 rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but
 I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are
 to this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of
 working or aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is
 profound.

 -At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model
 stack to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting,
 you can freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape,
 retaining almost every bit of work you've done.
 YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY.
 This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of
 losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to
 make a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work.
 And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator you're
 way out of a jam.

 -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly,
 instead of on a separate blendshape object.
 Ith

 -There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go
 to Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points.
 In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and
 scripts and HOPE that it works. If the scenario is simple enough, it might.
 Several people here tried to help a student make a single corrective
 blendshape on an elbow -- and we're all experienced Maya riggers. After
 hours of attempting, we threw up our hands. There was something in that
 object's history that was making the blendshape plug-in fail. The answer is
 what it often is: just start over.
 -EDITING corrective blendshapes. In Maya, heaven help you if you want to
 edit that blendshape later. Start the process again and make a new one. In
 Softimage, drag a few points and you're done in seconds.

 -For facial work, being able to make face shapes in conjunction with the
 mixer, working directly on the main geo. To see other shapes muted, soloed
 as you're working. This allows you to craft shapes that work for different
 scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape
 combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions
 combine to make the range of expressive results.

 -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better,
 and more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works.
 Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter
 rigs, because fewer nodes and calculations are needed.
 I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to
 Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned.
 Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for
 no reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since
 1999.)

 -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let
 you add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.)

 -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest
 point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing
 and it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far
 prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes.

 -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can
 change the point sizes. 

Re: positivity

[Bradley Gabe]

Insects squished and smeared on a rock.
No undo functionality, but the hardware never failed.
Software was buggy, however.


On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 8:44 PM, Daniel Brassard dbrassar...@gmail.comwrote:

 Fortran on a Dell PDP-1124 circa 1974

 Build my first computer based on the motorola 6500 chipset, Heathkit
 keyboard, four color display screen circa 1977. Burned a hole on my wooden
 desk on the first try! What a glory!

  \

Re: Autodesk´s Sales model

[Bradley Gabe]

The least you guys could do is issue forth a correction. One way would be
to color correct (darken) and composite the Maya logo into the interface.
If that proves too difficult, you could always have the client go back and
redo the work in Maya. ;-)


On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 5:33 PM, Maurice Patel
maurice.pa...@autodesk.comwrote:

 You are right, but experts are not infallible either. I have been in the
 industry since the early 90s first as a trainer then as a product designer
 and now in Marketing and I still make mistakes :(. We actually do have
 teams of experts in Marketing but we also have interns and we empower the
 latter because we find it helps us see who is going to make a great future
 employee versus who is not. If you don't let your staff risk failure how
 can they really succeed? It is amusing though and someone is going to be a
 little embarrassed here.

 Maurice Patel
 Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134recipients are thus advised that the content
 of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may
 contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not
 necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand,
 Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are
 subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the
 contrary.

Re: unsubscribe

[Bradley Gabe]

Sad day. :(


Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 1, 2013, at 10:15 AM, Guillaume Laforge glafo...@hybride.com wrote:

 
 
 
 
 
 

Re: Softimage 2015 User Survey

[Bradley Gabe]

Thanks Ivan!

I had to say something, because I was finding it ironic that when one of
the Singapore devs joined the thread, it had come to a stop. :-)

Re: [OT] Another one bites the dust...DS is EOL.

[Bradley Gabe]

In the commercial production world, surely there must be some influence
from the client side on these turnkey systems, since they interact directly
with the comp artist in the suite. Thus, it isn't necessarily about how
expensive or good the software is or even how proficient the artist is, but
the conventions of what the agency reps are used to. They like the big
fancy suite with the big fancy platter of pastries, and the big fancy
turnkey box, and the look and feel of the Flame/Inferno interface they've
been watching for years.

This naturally doesn't apply to film, where there is rarely live
interaction at this stage. So the comp artist is free to go off and work in
Nuke/AE/Fusion or whatever and only interact during review sessions.



On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 10:46 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote:

 I don't believe DS is doomed because of being attached to the windows
 platform.   In Mexico, when it started being a Softimage product, several
 were sold.  I bought one.  It was a better software than Inferno IMHO, and
 a lot of bucks below.  To have an Inferno it not only meant the silicon
 mainframe as it was kind of a NASA computer to launch the Apollo XIII.  The
 whole suite configuration to have an Inferno suite was around $1,000,000.
 While mounting a DS suite was around $150,000.

 If Avid had treated the DS with the respect it deserved instead of
 something coming out from a stock exchange between Avid and Microsoft, the
 outcome would be quite a different story.

 I am still using the DS for on-line and I still love it above now AD
 pirotechnics.

 Now that Avid move it away from being a turnkey system which would only
 work with Avid hardware and it's selling for 10 grand compared to a Smoke
 solution of $120,000 for the real thing, let's see what happens.

 Comping work is now done 95% on side platforms like Nuke, Fusion, After
 Effects, etc.  Than in the old mighty Inferno, Flame, etc.

 I believe that now the DS solution has more life to go than AD
 pyrotechnics.  As it integrates better from the editing to finishing
 pipeline and delivery pipeline.

 Cheers.


 2013/8/6 Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com

 doomed from the start by its deep attachment to the Windows platform.

 On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 4:51 AM, Fabrice Altman fabr...@studioaka.co.uk
 wrote:
  I think Luc-Eric did ‘a bit of work’ on that as well.


 http://provideocoalition.com/ssimmons/story/it-looks-like-avid-is-finally-going-lay-ds-to-rest




 --

Re: Softimage Future (again (Siggraph 2014 reincarnation)

[Bradley Gabe]

 I'm willing to concede that point solely because he was charitable with the 
 resulting sum. Next time you won't get away so easily and I might even employ 
 a Chewbacca defence 
 
That does NOT MAKE SENSE!
/headexplode

Re: Softimage Future (again (Siggraph 2014 reincarnation)

[Bradley Gabe]

Classic wookiee mistake!

On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 8:13 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.comwrote:

 Let the wookie win...


  Eric Thivierge
 ===
 Character TD / RnD
 Hybride Technologies

 On 01/08/2013 8:24 AM, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:


 I'm willing to concede that point solely because he was charitable with
 the resulting sum. Next time you won't get away so easily and I might even
 employ a Chewbacca defence (which Eric will act out as Chewbacca, the
 differences are unnoticeable of you don't frame the feet)

Re: Programmatically Close a Torn off Menu

[Bradley Gabe]

Hi Tony-

I remember looking into that issue and coming up empty handed. I don't think 
the SDK provides any handles for menu windows, or at least it didn't in the 
versions we were using.

-B

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 8, 2013, at 3:08 PM, Tony Barbieri great...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello!
 
 I am working on a project that is dynamically rebuilding menus with different 
 entries.  The menu building is all functioning correctly...unless a torn off 
 menu exists.  The non-torn off menu is updated correctly, but the torn off 
 menu becomes orphaned because the old callbacks no longer exist in memory.
 
 Ideally (and I know this is a long shot) we would rebuild the torn off menu.  
 If that is not possible then I would just like to close any torn off menus to 
 limit confusion as to why pressing a menu item no longer does anything.
 
 Are either of these solutions currently possible?
 
 Thanks much!
 
 -- 
 -tony

Re: Keyable vs. Animatable

[Bradley Gabe]

Keyable is a parameter tag that was intended to replace marking sets.
If I recall, there are a handful of workflow features that utilize it, such
as determining which parameters appear in the keyframe panel by default.
There is also a filter query that returns a collection of all keyable
parameters from an input collection of sceneobjects.



On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:01 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

 What is the technical difference between a parameter flagged as siKeyable
 vs. siAnimatable?  I’m interpreting it to mean Keyable only determines if
 an FCurve can be set on the parameter whereas Animatable defines whether a
 parameter can receive any kind of animation data.

 ** **

 This sound correct?

 ** **

 ** **

 Matt

 ** **

 

Re: velocity

[Bradley Gabe]

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] 
j.ponthi...@nasa.gov wrote:

 I’d like to set an object on a path using velocity, or something similar
 to velocity at least, as the means of propagation along the path. 

 ** **

 The idea is to animate a bunch of different objects, while on different
 paths of random lengths, so they all appear they are going the same speed
 regardless the path length. 

 ** **

 I know that I can use velocity as a factor on particles, but these need to
 be models animated on paths.

 ** **

 Is this possible?


Yes.


 **

 Thanks

 ** **

 --

 Joey Ponthieux

 LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)

 Mymic Technical Services

 NASA Langley Research Center

 __

 Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not 

 represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

 ** **

Re: Softimage promo

[Bradley Gabe]

  No problem. As we all know, emails can be easily misunderstood. =)

 **


What exactly did you mean by that comment, Ed?  :-Z

Re: Softimage Jedi Training

[Bradley Gabe]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. So it seems like the consensus is to do a
live class with a handful of people and record the event, then edit the
results into a video package for everyone else. Anyone who's been to one of
my live events could vouch for the notion that I tend to keep things pretty
well structured and moving along, even when we stop and discuss process or
get alternative techniques.

My only concern would then be finding participants for the live class, when
everyone might just want to wait for the videos later. :-)

-Bradley

Re: Softimage Jedi Training

[Bradley Gabe]

I was thinking of several sessions stretched out over time, and also
multiple sessions per day with different participants. People would join
the session that best fit their schedule.

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 1:07 PM, Byron Nash byronn...@gmail.com wrote:

 What kind of length and frequency are you thinking? Is this one long class
 or several sessions stretched out weekly? I'm sure that will play into the
 availability of everyone.


 On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 2:02 PM, Bradley Gabe witha...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for the feedback everyone. So it seems like the consensus is to do
 a live class with a handful of people and record the event, then edit the
 results into a video package for everyone else. Anyone who's been to one of
 my live events could vouch for the notion that I tend to keep things pretty
 well structured and moving along, even when we stop and discuss process or
 get alternative techniques.

 My only concern would then be finding participants for the live class,
 when everyone might just want to wait for the videos later. :-)

 -Bradley

Re: Softimage Jedi Training

[Bradley Gabe]

We already did that, Jeff!
Don't you remember anything?
Don't you remember my handkerchief that smelled like chloroform?

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 1:40 PM, Jeffrey Dates jda...@kungfukoi.com wrote:

 I was hoping you'd come to my apartment, and lecture me from the couch.

Softimage Jedi Training

[Bradley Gabe]

Hi Softimage Users!

I have only a few more months before I'm off to grad school full time and
thought it might be mutually beneficial for our community to come up with
some sort of Softimage Jedi training regimen in order to impart some
wisdom, while at the same time helping me stash away some funds to pay for
cappuccinos when I have to pull all-nighters  for my exams.

Something I was thinking about, (in an effort not to overlap any of
Raffaele's excellent training work) rather than creating a bunch of videos,
was to set up a class using GoToMeeting where we can distribute scene data
and solve problems interactively. This would allow real time questions and
feedback, but more importantly,  provide insight into the problem solving
process, and how decisions are made along the way, which is something the
video course format doesn't provide. For all students, I would provide an
extensive package of custom tools to add to the problem solving arsenal.

What I'm curious to learn is, what areas of technical animation in
Softimage would users be most interested in learning? For example:

   - Basic rigging (fundamentals)
   - Advanced rigging (secondary and tertiary animation control)
   - Designing custom deformers using ICE (facial animation, volume
   retention, etc)
   - Adding secondary effects under short deadline (flesh jiggle, springs,
   muscle effects)
   - Using scripting for problem solving
   - Developing custom tools using the Softimage UI
   - Developing custom tools using PySide UI
   - Understanding ICE (fundamentals)
   - Other

-Bradley

Re: Softimage Jedi Training

[Bradley Gabe]

Also, anyone who I might have mentored or who has worked with me in the
past, please by all means feel free to add more items to the list which you
think would be valuable.



 2013/3/28 Bradley Gabe witha...@gmail.com

 Hi Softimage Users!

 I have only a few more months before I'm off to grad school full time and
 thought it might be mutually beneficial for our community to come up with
 some sort of Softimage Jedi training regimen in order to impart some
 wisdom, while at the same time helping me stash away some funds to pay for
 cappuccinos when I have to pull all-nighters  for my exams.

 Something I was thinking about, (in an effort not to overlap any of
 Raffaele's excellent training work) rather than creating a bunch of videos,
 was to set up a class using GoToMeeting where we can distribute scene data
 and solve problems interactively. This would allow real time questions and
 feedback, but more importantly,  provide insight into the problem solving
 process, and how decisions are made along the way, which is something the
 video course format doesn't provide. For all students, I would provide an
 extensive package of custom tools to add to the problem solving arsenal.

 What I'm curious to learn is, what areas of technical animation in
 Softimage would users be most interested in learning? For example:

- Basic rigging (fundamentals)
- Advanced rigging (secondary and tertiary animation control)
- Designing custom deformers using ICE (facial animation, volume
retention, etc)
- Adding secondary effects under short deadline (flesh jiggle,
springs, muscle effects)
- Using scripting for problem solving
- Developing custom tools using the Softimage UI
- Developing custom tools using PySide UI
- Understanding ICE (fundamentals)
- Other

 -Bradley




 --
 ...superpositiviii...qualunque cosa accada!...

Re: Video codecs no longer working for Viewport Capture...

[Bradley Gabe]

Keep in mind that when prepping a Quicktime, Softimage actually writes a
small header to the intended capture file before you actually do the
capture. Not sure if Windows video codecs do the same, but wouldn't be
surprised.

If for some odd reason the file path you set is invalid (check to see how
your tokens resolve!) or if it goes to a directory that lacks write
permissions, this can be an issue.

In your case, it's probably not this issue, but just thought I'd put this
out there. :-)

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Matt Morris matt...@gmail.com wrote:

 Well either a restart or renaming the save file to a new name normally
 solves it for me, but it does pop up way to often...



 On 5 March 2013 16:39, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com wrote:

  I get the error no matter where I'm outputting the file. Local or
 Network.
 -Tim


 On 3/5/2013 10:25 AM, Matt Morris wrote:

 I've had problems with this when its trying to output to a network drive.
 It didn't give me any issues outputting locally.



 On 5 March 2013 16:20, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.comwrote:

  Just a month ago I was able to export viewport captures as QuickTime
 files. Now, when I click on the 'Codec' button, if either QuickTime or AVI
 is selected as the format, I get the following error:

 *'Could not create the file and initialize the render - verify the path'
 *

 I'm not sure what path it's talking about. This happens in both 2012 SAP
 and 2013...

 --



 *Tim Crowson
 **Lead CG Artist*

 *Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
 *2525 Lebanon Pike, Building C. Nashville, TN 37214
 *Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
 tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com

 *Confidentiality Notice: This email, including attachments, is
 confidential and should not be used by anyone who is not the original
 intended recipient(s). If you have received this e-mail in error please
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  --
 www.matinai.com


 --






 --
 www.matinai.com

Re: Orientation and vectors, foundations

[Bradley Gabe]

In intro physics, the concept of vectors are always taught using position
since the x,y,z coordinate space results in arrows that show you the
relative values in a format that is intuitive. Thus it would follow, for
position, velocity, acceleration, vector math is more readily grasped,
since it's easier to conceptualize.

But then they move into rotations and lose most of the class, because they
forgot to mention that vectors aren't *always* representing something you
can easily visualize in a one-to-one fashion.

In CG, we have another example of vectors we use all the time but where the
values aren't easily associated with a spatial position: RGB colors. Three
values contained in a single vector (4 for RGBA), but unless you've got a
nice color volume that shows you what the values mean, the association
between an arrow floating in space and a resulting color is rather
disconnected.

Meanwhile, you could represent that color using other vectors:
hue/brightness/saturation, CMYK, or hue/saturation/value, etc. Notice how
CMYK has 4-dimensions, while the others have 3? Yet they all ultimately
generate a color output. Also notice how changing the values of one of the
dimensions in RGB color interpolates the resulting color differently from
changing one of the values in HSV, yet both can result in the same range of
colors?

And so it goes with rotations. Different heuristics to represent the same
result. Euler uses 3-dimensions, whereas angle/axis and quaternion use 4.
Each one results in a different interpolation from changing one of the
values, and each one is useful in different circumstances. Yet none of them
(save maybe angle/axis) is easily visualized with an arrow in space.

-Bradley

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Andy Moorer andymoo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi all,

 As I was working today I realized that despite doing operations on ice
 orientations regularly I don't have a firm grasp on what they really *
 are*. Orientation relative to what? And what form is this orientation in?

 Trying to phrase it differently...

 How is a particle's orientation different from a 3x3 matrix describing
 the difference in rotation between it's local coordinate space and the
 global frame of reference? Both are clearly descriptions of the same thing.

 I know this is kind of an abstract subject, and (being tired at the
 moment) my question may not even be clear, but being self-taught and
 lacking adequate formal math education I'd be very interested in your
 answers and any discussion in general on how you all visualize rotations
 and orientation,

 For some people I talk to about rotations (I'm the life of any party) it
 seems to be all about manipulating vectors, others seem more comfortable
 thinking about rotations as transformations between reference frames... and
 I see a similar wide range of how people go about some of this stuff when
 looking into various compounds.

Re: Orientation and vectors, foundations

[Bradley Gabe]

Based on what you just wrote here, it's clearer what you want to do with
this knowledge, and believe it or not, there's a simple answer.

Remember that an orientation vector gives you an offset from origin so you
can create an x-axis (1,0,0) y-axis (0,1,0) and z-axis vector (0,0,1), and
then set their visualization colors to red, green, blue.

Use 3 [Rotate Vector] nodes and whatever orientation input and you will be
able to visualize the orientation's resulting offset from origin. This is
literally converting your rotation to position reference vectors.

Of course, setting your rotation visualization to axis gives you the same
kind of visual info, but this way, at least the concept of how the
orientation is affecting position vectors gets illustrated.


Now something TD's might be initially confused with is direction to
rotation in ICE. When using a direction constraint for rigging, it's the
x-axis that points at the target, and the y-axis that's used to establish
the up-vector. With ICE, remember that particle systems often use sprites,
which we want to face the camera... so direction to rotation uses the
y-axis for point at, and the x (or z) axis to resolve the up vector.


On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 5:13 PM, Andy Moorer andymoo...@gmail.com wrote:


 *ah I see where your going with this Andy, so how can I get a particles
 rotation into a current direction of rotation vector?   say its spinning or
 'tumbling' how to get the vector to rotate with it. I was thinking an 'up
 vector' but particles dont have them*


 Yeah kinda, but more generally. I had a situation where I had an array of
 vectors which I was using to represent a direction, and had occasion to
 pull out a rotate vector node, and around that point I got irritated that
 there were rotations and orientations which are being treated as
 separate-but-interchangeable types and this made me realize that I clearly
 wasn't following someone's logic.

 But it's also stuff I've been wrapping my head around for some time. I
 remember once when I was fortunate enough to be working with Brad on a job
 he spent some time helping me out with visualizing matrices and warned me
 it would take about a year to get a feel for them. He was right, and having
 been told that I kept plugging away, comforted to know visualizing this
 sort of thing generally isn't intrinsic, but practiced.

 This is kind of a superset of that - I get it now with using matrices to
 swap around frames of reference and it's been a huge benefit and opened up
 a lot of fun things.

 But there are a lot of loose ends to getting a complete picture where I
 can translate in my mind what I'm doing into the several ways one can go
 about doing the same operations... As Grahame puts it the different
 formats, or as in Brads answer the different heuristics.

 As a in-the-trenches TD it's easy to maintain a it just works way of
 thinking without seeing a bigger picture (because you're busy!) and I
 realized that it's very easy to fall into this with rotations in ICE,
 because we have pretty good tools for getting things done practically in a
 series of defined workflows. And next thing you know, you're reaching for a
 node and realizing you've lost sight of what you're really doing under the
 hood. :P

 Your example is a good one, though, if I get what you're saying... an easy
 and common sense way to think would be that you could take a get particle
 orientation node and want to translate that orientation into a vector
 which you could then rotate with a rotate vector node and expect that to
 give you a local rotation.

 Which, of course, doesn't work - and if you look for some kind of convert
 orientation to vector you're going to come up empty, and for good reason.
 But it's not so silly to think that it *might* work that way, and I
 remember a time when I could have fallen into this kind of trap.

 But the reason *why* this seemingly simple operation doesn't make sense
 gets difficult to express, at least for me. I'm not at a point where, if an
 artist asked me to help them (having gone down this path) I could teach
 them how to look at it.

 And I figure if I can't teach something, I probably don't understand it
 well enough. :P

Re: Industry Solidarity.

[Bradley Gabe]

Except Disney has opened and shut down CG studios numerous times and
displaced hundreds of people, and Dreamworks recently had their own huge
round of layoffs.

IP situation is different and may be better than service only, but it isn't
the answer.


On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

 One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that you want to work for a
 company that sees themselves as the artist, not the artisan.

 ** **

 Lucas, Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, Blizzard, NCSoft, EA, all own their I.P.
 and market to the consumer.  If the consumer likes their product, they stay
 around to live another day and another project.  Kind of like a home owner
 who has equity in property.

 ** **

 R+H, Digital Doman, ILM, Orphanage, and countless game developers are 
 3rdparties serving the likes of the above as artisans for hire.  When times
 are lean, they have nothing to fall back on and are vulnerable to bidding
 wars.  They are essentially renters of property, they have no equity.

 ** **

 ** **

 I would love to see better working conditions, more opportunity for
 employment, job stability, and so on, but majority of the industry isn’t
 modeled for that.  To sit here and propose taxes and issue other small
 scale edicts is only treating the symptoms.  Treating symptoms will not get
 you anywhere.

 **

Re: Industry Solidarity...

[Bradley Gabe]

Operation Ponyboy!

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 4:38 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote:

 Stay green until this problem is fixed! Do not relent!

 
 Eric Thivierge
 http://www.ethivierge.com


 On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 4:17 PM, Bradley Gabe witha...@gmail.com wrote:

 ...is a beautiful thing.

 My Facebook has turned completely green!
 Thanks everyone for participating.

 -Bradley

Re: Industry Solidarity...

[Bradley Gabe]

Incidentally, as an attention-seeking tactic, it's actually working very
well.

I had been posting various messages about the state of the industry with
pretty much no interest generated. But for some reason, a number of non
industry folks are asking what's up with the green?

Effective Messaging: Don't try to tell the masses, have the masses come and
ask you.


On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote:

 Don't forget to post information about the issues to raise awareness to
 your friends who aren't in the industry.

 
 Eric Thivierge
 http://www.ethivierge.com


 On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 4:54 PM, Marc-Andre Carbonneau 
 marc-andre.carbonn...@ubisoft.com wrote:

 The 51st.

 ** **

 *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven Caron
 *Sent:* 25 février 2013 16:49
 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 *Subject:* Re: Industry Solidarity...

 ** **

 wait which shade of green? ;)

 ** **

 On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 1:38 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 Stay green until this problem is fixed! Do not relent!

Re: Difference between power and acceleration ?

[Bradley Gabe]

agent provocateur!

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote:

 this was the email you were so proud about? *head shake*


 On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Sam Cuttriss tea...@gmail.com wrote:

 its a cold day at work,
 and softimage is not responding, so i figured i would ask the question
 everyone has secretly been thinking.



 _sam

Re: Difference between a force and a velocity ?

[Bradley Gabe]

In the past 2 years, I attended college courses in Physics 101 and 201 at
UT Dallas, as well as a Princeton Review course for the MCAT's which
include heavy study in basic physics, especially about the definitions of
fundamental units and concepts.

As it turns out, Matt is correct in that the example of displacement
returning to origin will result in an average velocity of 0. Both my
physics professor as well as the Princeton Review instructor took special
care to mention this specific example more than once because it is a common
trick question on the MCATs.

HOWEVER, and this is important. It is absolutely NOT the first and only
example provided to explain the difference between velocity and speed. Nor
did it come up during the first lecture about velocity. It was brought up
long after we had repeatedly reviewed the concept, in an attempt to trip us
up in order to demonstrate the exception.

Defining velocity and then using zero displacement to explain it is similar
to introducing the letter 'p' and using the word 'pneumonia' as your very
first example. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the
lexicographers and wordsmiths?

-B

Re: Difference between a force and a velocity ?

[Bradley Gabe]

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to
old ladies.

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:32 PM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote:

 NI! NI! NI! NINININ


 On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 7:17 PM, Simon Anderson 
 simonbenandersonl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Bring me a shrubbery


 On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Andy Moorer andymoo...@gmail.comwrote:

 African or European?

 Hey, Alan started the Monty python references, that made the question
 mandatory.

 On Feb 14, 2013, at 6:24 PM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote:

 laden or un-laden?

 On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 5:55 PM, Ahmidou Lyazidi 
 ahmidou@gmail.comwrote:

 Schrödinger parrots ?
 Ahmidou Lyazidi
 Director | TD | CG artist
 http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos


 2013/2/15 Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.com:
  Is the parrot sitting on a leopard?
 
  
  Eric Thivierge
  http://www.ethivierge.com
 
 
  On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Raffaele Fragapane
  raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:
 
  Is it in a forest? And is anybody watching?
 
 
  On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 9:22 AM, Alan Fregtman 
 alan.fregt...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  If a parrot's velocity is [0,0,0], is it dead?
 
  :p
 
 
 
  On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Andy Moorer andymoo...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
  This is one of the most intelligently absurd threads I've ever
 followed.
  :)
 
 
 
 
 
  --
  Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it!
 Ship it
  and let them flee like the dogs they are!
 
 





 --
 ---
 Simon Ben Anderson
 blog: http://vinyldevelopment.wordpress.com/

Re: Rigging resources

[Bradley Gabe]

Funny, I had the opposite experience not long ago when I convinced a Maya
rigger who was transitioning into Soft that he could build his hierarchy
branches based on whatever made the most sense as opposed to building them
around all or nothing visibility or branch selection. He found it quite
liberating.


On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 1:48 AM, Chris Gardner chrisg.dot@gmail.comwrote:


 i had an otherwise very chilled and genteel friend of mine nearly hurl a
 chair through the wall because she couldn't understand why soft didn't
 *just work like maya*. scary, yet amusing.

 an open mind is essential if you're transitioning software packages...

 cheers,
 chrisg

 On 21 January 2013 17:30, Sandy Sutherland 
 sandy.sutherl...@triggerfish.co.za wrote:

 BUT it is likely to be a different method and if they get stuck in the 'I
 would do it THIS way in Maya' rut, then they start to blame and hate the
 Software

Re: Last day at Animal Logic

[Bradley Gabe]

Tim  Eric... awesome thread!

On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Tim Crowson tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com
 wrote:

 So what's next for you, Eric?
 -Tim C.


 On 12/21/2012 3:19 PM, Eric Thivierge wrote:


 It was my last day yesterday at Animal Logic. I have to say that anyone
 that wants to work with top notch people using softimage and go on an
 adventure should look into heading down under for a bit.

 I was there for a year and three months and had a hell of a great time.
 Heading home today.

 Raf and the gang were great to work with and learn from.

 Just wanted to let everyone know what a great place it was to work and
 encourage anyone who may have the opportunity to head down there.

 Now, got to see a man about a 14 hour flight back to the states. :)

 Happy holidays everyone!


 --
 Signature

Re: Reordering vertex ids when moving between apps.

[Bradley Gabe]

If the reordering is consistent, it's possible to create a vertex map and
use ICE to reinterpret the shapes.

On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 12:56 AM, Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com wrote:

 Cages would seem to be one way to go about it,
 if I went with ICE, perhaps I could do a closest location query between
 the two and get the point ID on the target mesh closest to the source point
 ID, and then write that to a variable, and use that to set the point
 positions?


 On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Adam Sale adamfs...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hey guys.
 We have a condition here where we move data between mudbox, maya and
 soft, and on the return trip into Soft, index reordering affects shape
 loading.

 In one of our scenes, we've encountered an issue where shapes will no
 longer transfer onto two of the objects correctly, the vertex ids have been
 reordered. The result is just an exploding mass of points/.

 For most of the objects, we haven't had issue, we've frozen transforms,
 no history in stack, but in this case, have any of you experienced
 re-ordering between these three apps in particular?

 How would you transfer shapes between objects of equivalent topology,
 but with differently indexed vertices?


 Cheers
 Adam