Re: Eric MOOTZOID Mootz is nominated for a 3D World CG Award!
Go Eric! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 7:53 AM, Arman Sernaz arma...@gmail.com wrote: Congratulations Eric! On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 3:03 AM, Eric Mootz e...@mootzoid.com wrote: Gee, I don't know what to say. Wow, just wow. I surely did not see this coming and am very honoured by this nomination by 3D World magazine. Thanks y'all! -- www.lhvfx.com
Re: Sort Controller - Open Source Release!
Copy and paste from the first mail Hello Softimage List, I'm pleased to announce the release of one of my favorite tools we have at Psyop- the Sort Controller! The premise is simple: using a simple 'partition = group' markup language, you write rules for procedurally sorting your passes. Groups are used as something like metadata tagging, and the sort controller sorts your partitions with it. By adding a layer of proceduralism to passes and partitions, the Sort Controller puts Softimage passes another five years ahead of... well.. never mind! A simple example to show how this works: Sort Code: Background_Objects_Partitions = * characters = sg_characters set = sg_set Result: The first line puts everything into background objects to start clean. All objects in group(s) named sg_characters are sorted into the characters partition. All objects in group(s) named sg_set are sorted into the set partition. So if geometry is added to your characters, or more characters were added, or you're using the same passes in a different shot with different characters, your passes can be kept up to date by keeping the sort groups in the assets up to date. Overall though, it's very simple to use and none of our lighters has had any problems picking it up. The Sort Controller allows a lot of different workflows and these can be as simple or complicated as they need to be, and it's not an all or nothing proposition. It works on jobs of all sizes and has served us well for many years. Full Documentation: https://github.com/Psyop/sort-controller/wiki Repo: https://github.com/Psyop/sort-controller Happy sorting! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Daniel Jahnel xsi-l...@gmx.de wrote: Somehow I didnt get the initial email of this thread, email provider been acting up... can someone provide a link to this for me please? Cheers...Daniel
Re: Sort Controller - Open Source Release!
Full Documentation: https://github.com/Psyop/sort-controller/wiki Repo: https://github.com/Psyop/sort-controller .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Christian Lattuada christian.lattu...@gmail.com wrote: Copy and paste from the first mail Hello Softimage List, I'm pleased to announce the release of one of my favorite tools we have at Psyop- the Sort Controller! The premise is simple: using a simple 'partition = group' markup language, you write rules for procedurally sorting your passes. Groups are used as something like metadata tagging, and the sort controller sorts your partitions with it. By adding a layer of proceduralism to passes and partitions, the Sort Controller puts Softimage passes another five years ahead of... well.. never mind! A simple example to show how this works: Sort Code: Background_Objects_Partitions = * characters = sg_characters set = sg_set Result: The first line puts everything into background objects to start clean. All objects in group(s) named sg_characters are sorted into the characters partition. All objects in group(s) named sg_set are sorted into the set partition. So if geometry is added to your characters, or more characters were added, or you're using the same passes in a different shot with different characters, your passes can be kept up to date by keeping the sort groups in the assets up to date. Overall though, it's very simple to use and none of our lighters has had any problems picking it up. The Sort Controller allows a lot of different workflows and these can be as simple or complicated as they need to be, and it's not an all or nothing proposition. It works on jobs of all sizes and has served us well for many years. Full Documentation: https://github.com/Psyop/sort-controller/wiki Repo: https://github.com/Psyop/sort-controller Happy sorting! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 2:01 PM, Daniel Jahnel xsi-l...@gmx.de wrote: Somehow I didnt get the initial email of this thread, email provider been acting up... can someone provide a link to this for me please? Cheers...Daniel
Re: Another Lego-iser
Hahahhaha! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 2:40 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: AD should sell SI to Lego. Le 04/04/2014 14:34, Simon Reeves a écrit : cheers guys! Simon Reeves London, UK *si...@simonreeves.com si...@simonreeves.com* *www.simonreeves.com http://www.simonreeves.com* *www.analogstudio.co.uk http://www.analogstudio.co.uk* On 4 April 2014 13:31, Alok Gandhi alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com wrote: Awesome! --
Re: Another Lego-iser
Lego mindstorms with ICE! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Actually, just get the idea to this guy: Jørgen_Vig_Knudstorphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B8rgen_Vig_Knudstorp He can probably just buy Autodesk, then tell Carl to revive Soft... ;-) On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 8:40 AM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: AD should sell SI to Lego. That. Is. A. BRILLIANT. Idea. A consumer-facing company with MUCH deeper pockets than Autodesk, and a hit movie that used the software... Please someone get this idea to Carl Bass. Imagine if every Lego kit came with a download code for Softimage!
Re: SI and Houdini
Cheers mate! Have a beer, we owe you. .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 11:40 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: :-))) In the meantime check the new HDA guides https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y0ti6tyf7o3435u/thsQH1Kf2o Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 3 Apr 2014, at 13:01, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote: we have to contribute! ;) On 2014-04-02 17:08, Jordi Bares wrote: I will buy her some nice present once it is finished.
Re: Center mode (was RE: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5)
Great Olivier, Softimage flow! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 1:49 PM, olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.frwrote: That's amazing how poor seems to be maya when I read you guys. Fortunatly, I should never have to use it. I'm edititing very fast some subd hard surface here, the pivot is dancing in every diretion, snaping where it has to, aligning on the fly with whatever i ask at the speed of light though, I must say, I'm a little sleepy.. Ah, my looping techno music comes to the end, and the modeling is done. Le 03/04/2014 01:00, Raffaele Fragapane a écrit : Harder than that, the equivalent would be to select all components, move and rotate them numerically, then figure out the reciprocal transform of what you just did and apply it to the object's transform. Center mode is also not equivalent or obsoleted by neutral poses, nor it's equated by Maya's pivot control. It's sorely missed by many in Maya. On top of that, Maya snapping facilities, particularly when it comes to rotations, are wonky and often don't work at all. The modelling toolset, several interaction modes with the pivot, and many other things don't support snapping, and most certainly don't support matching transforms. Adding insult to injury, matching or resetting transforms in Maya is highly deficient out of the box, as it will often work on the whole hierarchy regardless of what you intended to do. Lastly, center mode worked seamlessly with all manipulation tools, you could switch to center mode and have child compensation on and snap/match to another object. This offers unequalled control over geometry handling in relation to its center. In Maya I've always found pivots superior to neutral pose for a long list of reasons, at least functionally, though the manipulation itself is weak (again, Maya is generally weak and fragmented in dealing with rotations). Maya's handling of reciprocating transforms between transform proper and geometry though leaves A LOT to be desired, and a page or two from XSI's book should be taken. On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 2:25 AM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: Is that always true in your scenarios? Moving center in Softimage is like moving all the points of the geometry. (What brent calls transforming the geometry) Knowing that it does that, wouldn't the simplest work-around for your specific scenario in Maya be to select all points and move/rotate them. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: March 28, 2014
Thank you Jordi. I'm still using softimage but I think houdini it's the only sensible solution to move to. Sidefx seems to be smart and careful about the industry and the userbase. They do, and always did, FX software, not marketing for CAD or office people (no offence) like autodesk does. Only one concern, with softimage I always felt my job like playing, moving to houdini I think I have to grow up a little, to be a more serious guy. :DD Maybe it's time for me to be an adult. Cheers. .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: below On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote: Very well said Jordi. Thank you for posting this to the list. A sad day indeed. I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing, I found that the worst thing has happened: Acceptance. I know the feeling... feels really bad. I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I always knew from the moment the announcement was made). It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once it has already hit you in the gut and passed you by. I love Softimage. But now she is gone. Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC. Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells. Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward. Also looking closely at Fabric. One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and all. Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in London I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman because the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be efficiently handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box... and it is free. :-) What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are working inside of Houdini (as opposed to being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have really loved the speed of Redshift. I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini. Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines, there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold which is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold integration a run for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an obvious choice in my opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long and the guys from Solid Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects people Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that can write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines of any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of the HDK. With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that you are free to do whatever you want. and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer. http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html enjoy jb Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini? Thanks again, Perry On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote: http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/ Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote: Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine. On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote: Touché :) On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote: https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1 -- Perry Harovas Animation and Visual Effects http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/ -25 Years Experience -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)
Re: March 28, 2014
I am. Long live Softimage. .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Paul p...@bustykelp.com wrote: It's still does if you're fortunate enough to use it. On 28 Mar 2014, at 19:31, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: To Softimage ! it enabled the artist for the sake of the artist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZXwJcc1u-I On 28 March 2014 18:38, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: I thought is was indeed a thing that needed posting... I wear my heart on my sleeve as well.. Thanks -- *Greg Punchatz* *Sr. Creative Director* Janimation 214.823.7760 www.janimation.com
Re: I'm still really PO'd and it's not getting better
I just wrote at Solidangle asking their plans ( if there are ) for the SitoA development. I'll post the answer asa they send it. .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:09 PM, Francois Lord flordli...@gmail.com wrote: Then I have a simple solution for you. Stick with Softimage for the time being. We stuck with Shake for 6 years after it was killed on Windows before something better came up. There was Digital Fusion, but we didn't feel it was better so we didn't switch. 6 long years without a single new feature or bug fix. But Shake rocked, and we loved it. Now we have Nuke, and we love it even better. You have been sticking with Softimage for the last 2 years and you can't say development was rocket fast. The only thing that will force me out of Softimage is the day Solid Angle will stop releasing Arnold for it. Then I will use another solution for shading-rendering only. In the mean time, I will slowly look for alternatives, including Maya. When I say slowly, I mean in the down times, which are not so frequent these days. On 20-Mar-14 12:55, Paul Griswold wrote: I had some time away from the office today and while I was driving down the highway I started thinking about the situation and I'm no less pissed off today than I was when they made the announcement. I've been watching as many Modo and Houdini intro videos, tutorials, etc., that I can find and what I've discovered is, neither of them can replace Softimage today. If you're a TD, then Houdini is probably a great way to go, but I'm another one of those people who don't like to script and want to keep things simple. Everything in Houdini seems to involve writing at least a little script here and there. Modo on the other hand looks very simple and straightforward, but it's lacking a LOT of power. I noticed in some demos on things like instancing, the viewport REALLY slowed down. It doesn't look like it's ready for prime-time when it comes to dense scenes. The way everything you do is frozen is crazy these days. I can't believe if you extrude along a curve the geometry doesn't stay stuck to the curve. Until Modo makes some major moves, I just think it's a step up from Lightwave. I'm leaving Maya out of the picture because in all honesty, Autodesk is totally delusional if they think Maya will be a good fit for small shops working on tight deadlines. Maybe in 5-8 years Maya will finally hit its stride, but I'm assuming by then the entire ME division will have been shut down in favor of just licensing patents technology. (seriously - mark my words - I am confident the entire ME division will be shut down) I started thinking about most of the jobs I've done over the past few years, and I can honestly say I don't think I could do 90-95% of them in either Houdini or Modo as easily as in Softimage - if at all. So where I stand now is - totally screwed. I either have to put faith in The Foundry that they'll bring Modo up to Softimage's level in the next 2 years or I have to spend the next 2 years really digging in to Houdini to get myself up to speed again. In either case, I don't see a positive outcome. I'm not young and I have a family. I can't work all day, then spend the evenings learning new software. This BS about artists not putting all their eggs in one basket just is a slap in my face. I put my faith in Autodesk when they said the future of Sofitmage is bright! When I was told over and over again I was being a conspiracy nut when I said Autodesk was intentionally trying to destroy Softimage. Well, look where we are now. Murdering Softimage without having ANYTHING remotely close to replace it is like peeing on my face and telling me it's liquid sunshine! Maybe Autodesk is right. Maybe the all-in-one approach of Softimage is dead. Maybe I'm out of touch with how the world of animation VFX works these days. In any event. I'm a very unhappy paying Autodesk customer. I do not feel like my money has gone to anything I paid for. -Paul
Re: A confession
+ .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 3:08 PM, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.comwrote: Maya = WorkDrip Softimage = WorkFlow On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Gaël Honorez g...@nozon.com wrote: We are using maya here for a dozen of years, but we are still trying to run away from it on every occasion possible. Today, we read the what's new page for maya 2015. Maya 2015 addresses at least 30 workflow obstacles identified as high priority by customers. That sentence make us laugh during all launch break. I don't know what customers you asked, but I can tell you 30 workflow problems in the color picker alone. I just hope you forgot a 0 somewhere. On 19/03/2014 14:25, Graham Bell wrote: I'm not being disingenuous at all, only that this is a common problem when people jump from one software to another. I've seen this many times from users where they start in another package and try to do the exact same workflow, only to then become frustrated. You can't jump to something else and expect it to work in the same way, you simply can't. It's a recipe for disaster. And it's all too easy to label something as being bad. I'm not saying that Maya's workflow is superior either. There are things I like and hate about Maya, but you could also say the same about Softimage and any software package to be fair. I think it was Luc-Eric who said in a previous post that apps have their set of compromises, which we essentially accept. Chris has mention on work starting to improve Maya's UI and I welcome that. And if there some Softimage goodness in there, then I welcome that too. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Alastair Hearsum Sent: 19 March 2014 12:45 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: A confession Graham I think its disingenuous to ascribe the difficulties people have in doing things in Maya only to the workflow being different. It was simple example I gave and I would have hoped that it would have highlighted the Maya workflow as being, dare I say, bad. I hope you don't mind the analogy here but the first step to an alcoholics recovery is admitting the problem. Marc Stevens went as far as he could in the webinar in conceding that there may be qualitative differences in the Maya/Softimage interface workflow scenario and that it is something that you are looking at So yes, different, but lets not shy away from calling a spade a spade. Alastair Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.ukhttp://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. On 19/03/2014 11:31, Graham Bell wrote: I've use both Maya and Softimage (XSI) for years, and the problem (imo) that many will make is that they're two different applications. You simply can't go into one and expect it to work in the same way to something else. This is no different to when jumping to Modo, Houdini, or Max. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage- boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@ listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Martin Yara Sent: 19 March 2014 11:19 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc. autodesk.com Subject: Re: A confession You shouldn't rely too much on the outliners, they are nowhere near what SI Explorer is. But if you must, and want to open multiple outliners ala Softimage, you can do it with something like this: // MEL //- window -t Outliner -wh 200 500; frameLayout -labelVisible false; string $panel = `outlinerPanel`; showWindow; //- Yeah, you have to script a lot in Maya. Even for stupid things like this. Knowing basic scripting in SI is very useful, but in Maya, not knowing basic scripting may be critical. Martin On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 6:51 PM, Ivan Vasiljevic klebed...@gmail.com mailto:klebed...@gmail.commailto:klebed
Re: Softimage webinar - Q/A - finally uploaded
In Paul we trust!! :))) .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 8:35 PM, Bk p...@bustykelp.com wrote: I'd love for AD to agree to a First get an expert to do it in Softimage and get an expert do it in Maya comparitive workflow video series. It would be most entertaining. Especially when you start bringing ice into the equation. Ive had some experience of this before. One notable occasion went Me in ice -30 mins.. 2 guys in Maya- a week and a half, but to be fair, they would usually achieve things in under a week. On 19 Mar 2014, at 19:22, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote: I asked directly to Maurice to do some videos to compare the workflow of a single task using Softimage and Maya, similar to what Emilio Hernandez did for the Dorrito technique I really hope that they'll do that because right now I want to know how the workflow will change By the way, on the area blog there's no Softimage 2015 announcement... Jesus...even with all those request and question they just don't care about Softimage, not even a single line...except the farewell from Mark Schnnoegel 2014-03-19 19:55 GMT+01:00 Paulo César Duarte paulocdua...@gmail.com: What I don't understand is how they want me to make the transition to a software that doesn't have the tools that I used before? Such as ICE mainly, in Max or Maya 2015 I won't have my workflow again, so there is no transition. I will continue using Softimage as long as I can, and complement with Houdini, Modo or Blender when necessary... because these softwares are those that more listen to your users, and that is the future for me. 2014-03-19 14:23 GMT-03:00 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com: So I head onto: http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/softimage , right? and I skipped intro (in a 1 hour lenght video, skipping intro is going straight to the middle, after all the verbose). So what they´re doing? Talking about maya in a softimage video. Quitted. Closed the tab on browser. Go on with my life. Now I´m pissed, because at the last announcement there wasn´t even a word of consideration for 15 years career on softimage. Not even an apology for taking away the the one thing that supports families and pays bills... *David Rivera* *3D Compositor/Animator* LinkedIN http://ec.linkedin.com/in/3dcinetv Behance https://www.behance.net/3dcinetv VFX Reel https://vimeo.com/70551635 -- www.pauloduarte.ws
Re: Softimage transition webinar is starting in 10 minutes
N, not again! .:. Christian Lattuada tel +39 3331277475 ... On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 5:38 PM, Jon Hunt jonathan.m.h...@gmail.com wrote: Stopped working 18 minutes in RUBBISH! On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Andy Jones andy.jo...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe they turned off the Softimage webinar right in the middle of us watching it in order to free up some bandwidth for a Maya webinar? On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Dan Pejril d...@upbeatunique.com wrote: Great job Autodesk! You can't even get a webinar to work properly and we are supposed to believe you can fix Maya by gutting Softimage Useless so far! On 3/17/2014 12:18 PM, Ognjen Vukovic wrote: Thanks autodesk, i just put my foot through a 500 $ dell monitor. On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 5:12 PM, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.comwrote: Smooth streaming here...they look a bit scared though SPOLIER: Softimage go open source will never happen 2014-03-17 17:08 GMT+01:00 Rob Chapman tekano@gmail.com: it stutters - have to keep clicking on it for playback. hopefully this will be recorded right? On 17 March 2014 16:05, Marc-Andre Carbonneau marc-andre.carbonn...@ubisoft.com wrote: It's actually not working for me. L anyone got it to work? *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of * sku...@gmail.com *Sent:* 17 mars 2014 11:59 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Softimage transition webinar is starting in 10 minutes Thank you for the link Marc. I'm finally in the acceptance stage of grief and am resigning myself to using Maya, learning Houdini and continuing to use Softimage as is. I hope they show of some of the upcoming Maya Humanization plans (not just shove ICE into maya). Again, best of luck to all Softimage users out there, but this just fucking sucks... And though this hurts me, best of luck to Autodesk as well too. -- Dan Pejril Upbeat Unique Entertainmentwww.UpbeatUnique.com
Re: [Pool] Any interest for a grease pencil tool?
I'm int too. .:. Christian Lattuada On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 11:33 AM, Matt Morris matt...@gmail.com wrote: Fantastic news, looking forward to it! I'd definitely contribute to a kickstarter if you set one up. On 14 March 2014 10:13, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote: Yes, the first drop is almost there, there was some change in the design (going to modern OpenGL and shaders) That implied a full rewrite. Also I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but I was thinking about setting up a Kickstater with some goals to add functionalities like custom timeline with direct key manipulations (as there is no API to use the provided one) and wacom tablet support, etc... Cheers. --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2014-03-14 11:03 GMT+01:00 Matt Morris matt...@gmail.com: Hey Ahmidou, given the recent news, are you still planning on releasing this? I'm definitely still interested in purchasing :) Cheers, Matt On 28 January 2014 05:15, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.comwrote: dont forget me :) ill buy several as well On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 6:53 PM, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote: I'm on it :) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2014/1/21 Matt Morris matt...@gmail.com bump! Would love to hear if you're getting anywhere with this, definitely got a few seats ready to purchase here :) On 10 December 2013 02:57, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.com wrote: yay! On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 10:56 AM, David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com wrote: YES!! Awesome news!! On Thursday, December 5, 2013 6:23 PM, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote: Hey everyone, Sorry for the (very) late reply! I've been extended on the project I was working on and didn't found the time to polish things, but the prototype is still there and functional, The good news is I'm finishing next week for good, and will have a few weeks off to finish this thing. I'll keep you informed as soon as I'll be on this project again. Cheers --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/12/3 David Rivera activemotionpictu...@yahoo.com YES!! Grease pencil, PLEASE Totally useful for the 2D artist to motion the 3D model! On Monday, December 2, 2013 5:05 AM, javier gonzalez javi09warr...@gmail.com wrote: Any news? 2013/12/2 Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com +1 On 2 December 2013 09:13, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.com wrote: still interested in this btw :) On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.com wrote: hows the grease pencil plugin lookin? The animators here are eagerly looking forward to it On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 8:30 PM, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.com wrote: awesome ahmidou :) keep us posted. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote: Hi Enrique, I'm working on it on my spare time, all the interactive manipulation is working, and I'm currently on the window resizing part. the next steps are: - a custom display host to display when not manipulating - some way to move the keys, there are differant way to do that, it's not fixed yet, but I was thinking using the animation mixer or a pyQt view, or even the netview. it's probably going to be released sometime in august :) Cheers. --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/6/28 Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.com After reading a recent thread about 3rd party plugins, it reminded me. Totally still willing to buy this plugin for our 25+ animators, if you are developing it. -Enrique On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Enrique Caballero enriquecaball...@gmail.com wrote: Hey Ahmidou, I will ask the animators for their feedback and forward you the results. That sounds pretty awesome already :) On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 7:36 PM, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com wrote: i just gota say this is pretty heart warming to see, i think I'll buy one on principal even if I'm not necessarily an animator these days, i can use it to mark stuff out on models :) On 19 April 2013 09:50, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.comwrote: Hi Enrique, good to know :) Do you have any special special expectation on it? currently I'm planning those features: 2D paint and erase screen space onion skin scene persistance ability to move frames on the timeline I'll eventually add those
Re: More XSI Monkey business by The Mill
+ MONKEY BUSINESS!! .:. Christian Lattuada On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dkwrote: While we are talking about why we want to keep using XSI, here goes another very good reason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQo0Qtr5iU8 Morten
Re: More XSI Monkey business by The Mill
If TheMill, Passion, Jellyfish, Psyop, don't want answer publicly to autodesk decision, then let their works speak for them. Come on, spread them around! .:. Christian Lattuada On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 5:39 PM, Michal Doniec doni...@gmail.com wrote: +1 On 14 March 2014 15:29, Chris Johnson chr...@topixfx.com wrote: I doubt The Mill cares all that much. The artists might. Considering it's The Mill and they have the RD infrastructure to make Softimage and ICE do what they need toothey could probably work for a long time with the current version as is. What is Autodesk going to bring to the table in the next 2 releases that the Mill couldn't easily create themselves. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 11:22 AM, adrian wyer adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com wrote: +1 this; -- *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of * p...@bustykelp.com *Sent:* 14 March 2014 15:03 *To:* Morten Bartholdy; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: More XSI Monkey business by The Mill I wonder what the Mill think of all this debacle? Its so utterly ridiculous discontinuing Softimage. Its the best solution for designing complex character deformation bar none in my opinion. Surely Autodesk aren't stupid enough to not be able to see that they have a diamond here? 'Selling it as a particle system' my arse! I don't think they even know what they have. Paul *From:* Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dk *Sent:* Friday, March 14, 2014 2:33 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* More XSI Monkey business by The Mill While we are talking about why we want to keep using XSI, here goes another very good reason: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQo0Qtr5iU8 Morten -- -- Michal http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec
Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer
Only adding some thoughts at the complaining. What sadden me is also the loss of something valuable as a piece of art in human culture. Like loosing pieces of literature, or paintings. Software is immaterial, is the product of creative thinking and you perceive it mostly using it with your mind; like reading or watching a painting or a movie start something emotionally strong and creative inside of you, pushing and helping you create with what you are skilled most ( with your brain, hands,...). Softimage helped me to think and ACT, exit from depression I went into 15 years ago. It's because of that I think we have to protect what is valuable achievement of human culture. And most with software, because when you unplug the computer it's lost forever. I repeat myself from anonther post, I don't want be the marketing target of a corporation anymore. I want to be able to access to what I think is suitable to me to live better. Sorry, just sharing some thinking. Autodesk reconsider at least the proposal and not end XSI. CHris .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:37 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Hello Jason. Even though my emotions play an important role in my job, when it comes to work I am a lean, clean polished machine, and Maya is not as lean, as clean, and polished as Softimage, nor I have found another DCC tool. Honestly IMHO if you are taking something out of the market is because you have a better option to offer. Sorry to sound like: The future is bright... click but Autodesk is not bringing us a better offer. If I was the only guy around here with this feeling, maybe I will be wrong, and will start considering that I am just a blind stubborn mind ;). --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-13 3:10 GMT-06:00 Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com: Hi Emilio .. to be (able to be more) fair, you have to put (practice putting) your own emotions aside ;) On 03/13/14 4:38, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Hello again Maurice. I am sorry to say that killing Softimage is the worst decision ever made by Autodesk, as Autodesk does not have a true alternative for a better software than Softimage. Maybe Maya is stronger than Softimage in other aspects, but the ones that we care as artists/users Maya is not. People like me and others that since Autodesk acquired Softimage gave Maya a chance to prove it is a better tool. Unfortunatley Maya failed. People that all his life used Maya and never care to give Softimage a real try, because they thought it was not worth it, will never know what they have been missing. So for them it is easy to stick to an intrincate workflow as they are used to. To be honest with you, after carefully analyzing the reasons Autodesk is telling us of why they decided to terminate Softimage, none of then makes sense at full. If I were to end a product line that recently started to be more recognized and sucessfull, it is only because I have a better product to offer. And that is not the case here. Again, sorry to say so, but Maya or MAX in anyway are better products than Softimage. Until now you only have some experiments going down the line. Without something real to offer us. That is why most of the people are looking for even some combo options from other manufacturers. Again, I will say reconsider this strategic decision Keep fixing the bugs, and open the SDK. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-13 2:20 GMT-06:00 Tim Leydecker bauero...@gmx.de: Comparing Maya and Softimage jobs/projects I worked on for the last 10-15 yrs, I would come to the conclusion that I worked on many almost vanilla install Softimage projects while the Maya projects involved a significantly higher amount of using scripted extensions and plug-in functionality. That may boil down to the Softimage projects I was involved in being more from the commercials side of jobs while the Maya projects where often incorporating bigger teams or bigger promises made in advance. Currently, I惴 on a Maya centric project, myself doing all the modeling in Softimage, creating assets and handing them off into the Maya pipeline. The reason I惴 modeling in Softimage today is the 3D Love Tour and the home access to XSI Foundation this gave me back then. I will miss modeling in Softimage (2014sp2). Maya is not on par with Softimage in terms of fluidly modeling in my opinion. A co-worker is biased heavily towards C4D and I惴 impressed with it愀 potential. Personally, I haven愒 decided where to lean to but am grateful for the heads-up and license conversion options offered by Autodesk. As a freelancer, I have learned not to expect being treated as part of the family, moving on is part of the job and am transfering this to the choice of my tools. I惻l see
Re: YOUR TOP 5
- UI and interaction at a whole - Operators, construction stack - Passes, partitions - Modeling tools - ICE .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Matt Morris matt...@gmail.com wrote: Passes, partitions and overrides. - simplicity of setup and amount of control per pass. ICE - not just for particles, use it for mesh deformations, strands, texture work, all sorts. GATOR - for a character rigger this has been a godsend. Non-linear workflow - the ability to go back and remodel a character, after its been enveloped, UVed, shape animated is huge. UI. Simple and powerful, with lots of artistically orientated tools. On 13 March 2014 09:54, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote: Hello It seems as if I may have some contact with Autodesk shortly! I want to be armed with some points. What I'd like is your top 5 features that make Softimage great that we'd miss if we migrated to something else. Please don't give me more than 5 and please don't go on too long describing them (It takes a while to read all the posts). Thanks Alastair -- Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. -- www.matinai.com
Re: A germ of an idea.
I'd have liked to do a more abstract but visually strong short ( tim Borgmann style) showing the potentiality of XSI, and trying to show some the modelling, workflow, ICE and other aspects in a surreal way, but Paul idea is a better understandable more direct way to speak. I'll stay with it. .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 12:35 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote: Well, I'm happy with it, but I don't want to be a dictator. It seems to have got a pretty positive response so unless I get complaints we'll go with it as a base -Original Message- From: Leendert A. Hartog Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 11:22 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: A germ of an idea. Hi Paul, In your possibly last act of coordinating this, I'd - if I were you - lock down your story idea as the way forward, in that a discussion how the story will ultimately play out stays on the table, but new story ideas needn't be discussed anymore... Greetz Leendert -- Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com
Re: Open letter to Autodesk
Great! Let's spread more! .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 5:28 PM, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote: Amazing! Thanks for sticking your neck out for this! On 13 March 2014 16:20, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote: Folks This letter precipitated a little bit of publicity http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/rip-softimage-reaction-autodesks-decision-kill-3d-software-31410967 Alastair Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system. On 10/03/2014 10:20, Alastair Hearsum wrote: Folks Dan Y and other folks, I hope this comes across as firm but reasonable. I will post it on other appropriate sites. Any ideas on that front? * An open letter to Autodesk. Dear Autodesk My name is Alastair Hearsum. I'm a founding partner, director and head of 3d at Glassworks. If you haven't heard of us, we are a small to midsized company which has been creating VFX and animation for TV commercials for markets around the world, for the past 20 years. We have branches in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona. We create innovative and multi award winning work and we use Softimage. Your announcement that you are retiring Softimage has left us saddened, disappointed and not a little angry. The anger for two reasons; that you have shot the racehorse of the 3d software world in the head in its prime but also that you didn't consult with us about this assassination or discuss any of your plans for the future with us. We have no idea what the future from you holds. We are big and longstanding users of other Autodesk products as well as Softimage. The puzzling thing is, technologically speaking, there was no writing on the wall as there was with Henry and Flame, for example, or these days with Flame and Nuke. We have been punching above our weight, in London, for the past 20 years competing well with the much larger organisations of MPC, Framestore and The Mill. One of the reasons we have been able to do that, apart from the deep talent of our crew is, I believe, because of the software that we chose. I'm nearly 150 years old now but I still sit at the computer making pictures for TV commercials to the same arduous schedule that I always have. So I know what I'm talking about. For a period a few years back we had a 50/50 split of Maya and Softimage. We chose to go 100% Softimage. Its better for the work that we do and the sector we are in. Its no coincidence that all the finalists in the recent British Animation Awards (tv commercials) did their work in Softimage. Similarly, both silver and gold award winners in the 3d animation category at this year's British Television Advertising Craft awards were Softimage companies. You may well go on to list major work that's been done in Maya. Sure there has, and great work too. But Maya is used as a shell in the major film effect companies. It is heavily customised and unrecognisable as the product you ship. We have our proprietary software and tailored workflow as well, but Softimage remains pretty much untouched. It is lean, efficient, and the ICE environment is innovative and empowering. So you've done it. What's next? Like I said we have had vague information about what the future holds. We hear rumours about bi-frost and that's about it. From what I understand from various sources there are no plans to replicate the efficient workflow and full ice functionality that made us so productive. You have offered free transitionary licenses of Maya with the threat of having to discontinue using Softimage in 2 years time. The final thought is not just about what software is best for our future but also about what sort of software supply company we want to get into bed with. The attributes that come top of my list: listening to customers, acting on their recommendations, speedy development, innovation. Now does that sound like you? Alastair Hearsum Glassworks.* -- Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image
Re: YOUR TOP 5
Model Animate Render Hair ICE Yeah, I think that's all. .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 9:02 PM, Francois Lord flordli...@gmail.com wrote: 1- ICE 2- Pass system 3- Operator Stack 4- Models (namespace) and RefModels 5- Various transform modes (local, global, ref, proportional, plane, etc.) On 13-Mar-14 05:54, Alastair Hearsum wrote: Hello It seems as if I may have some contact with Autodesk shortly! I want to be armed with some points. What I'd like is your top 5 features that make Softimage great that we'd miss if we migrated to something else. Please don't give me more than 5 and please don't go on too long describing them (It takes a while to read all the posts). Thanks Alastair -- Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system.
Re: A germ of an idea.
In my opinion is important the concept of The plug pulled out. maybe some short visuals that go black, like a television switched off, one after another. As if big worlds of imagination are shut down. .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 9:57 PM, Steven Caron car...@gmail.com wrote: i read, 'kicking', 'ad', and 'nuts'. guy in a hoody, walking down street smiling, guy in a blue/green plaid button up t-shirt, runs at him... kicks him in the nuts and runs away. On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Paul p...@bustykelp.com wrote: The best way of actually kicking ad I. The nuts isn't the film itself. It's making a mass appeal in the film enough to get the media interested.
Re: A germ of an idea.
I vote for stunning visuals, with no plot at all. Agree with Paul that film has to speak for itself. .:. Christian Lattuada On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:19 PM, Thomas Volkmann li...@thomasvolkmann.comwrote: +111!1! On 03/13/2014 09:53 PM, Paul wrote: The best way of actually kicking ad I. The nuts isn't the film itself. It's making a mass appeal in the film enough to get the media interested. The film will go viral if it's visually spectacular and can be identified with in more general rage against the machine terms, not a very specific gripe between users and a software supplier.
Re: A germ of an idea.
Sounds good to me. I can model backgroud asset since I'm not a td or technical guy. I'll joining the list as weel. .:. Christian Lattuada On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 12:06 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote: Well, my suggestion for the brief is that it should 1 - demonstrate powerfully that there is a lot of people around the world using this tool and care about it enough to do this film for free 1a - Show that we are prepared to make a stand and not take this lying down 2 - Show off the wide variety of things that can be achieved with SI pretty much out of the box and it be impressive to watch. 3- Treat Autodesk fairly.. Ie. make as many people as we can look at what kind of company they actually are. 4 - do the above by making this entertaining and unique 5 - Be uplifting and celebrate creativity and the human spirit This is my revised pitch from last night.. The reason I came at this idea is that it can easily be split into chunks and the diversity of styles play to its strength. I think it would be good to make a visual metaphor of the situation. I've been thinking that we would need to do something that could be attacked modularly and allows a huge variety in styles coming together. What we also have in our favour is that we come from different parts of the world and all do different styles of work. So my idea is. cgi on live action plates..filmed on dslr by different folk around the globe. It's based on the wizard of oz. We start with one character, leaving a studio and start to walk, then we cut to another studio with another totally different character style, walking or moving. This repeats. It doesn't have to be characters only, we could have a dust cloud, or an ICE strand tangle. The more variety of cgi oddities the better. We then cut to more of them moving through different landmarks around the globe. ( assuming between us we know someone who lives nearby enough to film them) There could be Godzilla stomping through New York, an ice tangle going under the Eiffel tower. they are all going somewhere. It could be as epic as we can make it. There Could be a car chase, Whatever, as long as they are moving somewhere with purpose. *it looks like they are gathering for War.* Some characters could board a massive spaceship which takes off. Others could get on a huge ocean liner.They are all making their way somewhere. It culminates as a huge bizarre crowd of CGI 'things' gather at the door of a big imposing building. A small character at the front knocks We cut to text along the lines of Please save us or simply.. 'Save Softimage' I know it sounds epic, but that's kind of the point and if we had say 40 people doing a little bit each and maybe reused old personal assets, it might be achievable. I could dig Greg Mutt out and probably do a Godzilla shot in a few days. *From:* olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr *Sent:* Wednesday, March 12, 2014 10:26 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: A germ of an idea. What is the subject or story that the 40s'' cgi piece tells ? Le 12/03/2014 11:10, p...@bustykelp.com a écrit : I think the documentary idea should be put to a different thread, as its really worth doing, but I feel that having multiple ideas in one thread will just serve to confuse all of them. It would be good to show both as one piece if they both get made. The CGI piece could work as a 40 second introduction to the other. So far, on the CGI idea, we potentially have these artists interested 1 Paul SmithGeneralist, ICE skills and character / mocap and animation 2 Artur Wozniak3D Generalist, non-character animation, rendering, some nuke, VFX 3 Perry Harovas I am a generalist, but have good modeling skills and lighting/rendering skills. I am also a Nuke user, and could help composite. 4 Francisco Criadogeneralist , can also do compositing. 5 Paul Griswold 6 Eugene Flormatageneralist, I'd prefer to animate something though. I never get to do that enough at work. 7 Emilio Hernandez 3D generalist, character-modeling, rigging. mid ICE level. Comp, editing and VFX here ready for battle. 8 Jason S Generalist/comp/matte paintings 9 Christian Lattuada 10 Rob Chapman ICE FX artist/TD, Softimage user for EIGHTEEN YEARS 11 Sebastian SterlingIm a Modeller, prefer characters but Multi-purpose. 12 Dan Pejril I am a generalist in Softimage with ICE skills, animation and rendering (recently I have been using 3delight and Redshift).I have a background in character animation and medical animation. 13 David Saber 14 Greg Punchatz I would be happy to edit it all together into a cohesive piece . Put music to it etc 15 Gustave Eggert Boehs generalist, leaning towards ice/fx stuff, can composite in nuke 16 Rares
Re: A germ of an idea.
I like it, and Greg is a welcome one to start with. .:. Christian Lattuada On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 4:37 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote: Wow so that's 41 people so far!! I never imagined this would happen. Its also rather intimidating. I certainly can't lead this on my own, so who would like to help coordinate it? I'd also like to nail the basis for the idea down soon or we'll be all over the place. This is my idea, cleaned up a bit, with suggestions from Doeke Wartena who aptly likened it to Forest Gump's running sequence. I thought Greg would be a good start, as he still has a lot of followers on you-tube and is kind of known. I had a big response from the VFX industry when I made it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o9Fod9KigU We start with Greg Mutt (see above) doing a video blog about Soft being killed.. He suddenly jumps up and says You know what? Screw this!! and stomps off screen. We cut to him walking down a street with purpose. Then we cut to various other CGI characters or entities, leaving buildings, walking, running. making their way somewhere. The shots get bigger as more and more CGI things join the walking groups. Its starts getting Epic. Godzilla Stomps through times Square as a bunch of Lego-like characters run beneath him etc We see Greg again, riding on a Trex, past Mount Rushmore, as helicopters fly past . George Washington's stone face says 'Go for it Greg!' Tokyo and a bunch of Manga characters strut down the neon streets looking mean and others looking Cute join them. Paris and a bunch of Monsters stick out their thumbs to hitch a ride. a massive spaceship descends. etc ( increasingly epic ideas along these lines are up for grabs.) Eventually an awesome throng of CGI characters, and entities gather at the HQ of Autodesk.. (this could be CGI and Stylised. Black and Imposing) They are carrying banners, such as 'make Softimage not war'. They stop.. Greg hesitates, from behind him, a character walks to the door. It is a little cute Manga girl . she presses the buzzer a reply comes. 'Hello, this is Autodesk. Press 1 if you want information on Maya. Press 2 if you want information on Max, press...' (this bit needs more thought) She leans in and whispers 'Please don't kill us' SAVE SOFTIMAGE slams onto screen I don't want to force anyone to do this idea, but if the general consensus is that its a decent start then its worth building on I think. I think the good thing about it is that its a simple premise, yet allows for great creative freedom. *From:* Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com *Sent:* Wednesday, March 12, 2014 2:28 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: A germ of an idea. I do have a nice team of people here covering all sort of tasks but unfortunately too bussy for the next couple months to take on anything else on side... But if you need some rendering with Redshift i can help out, got couple licences and couple nice GPU render ready comps so can at least free your comps to keep making something great :) On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Matthew Graves mattg1...@gmail.comwrote: Hi I like this idea Paul. There seems to be a lot of people already in but I will throw my hat it to. I can do ICE Fx and Problem solving and other such cool stuff. (also thanks Paul for the invaluable tutorial videos) Matt On 12 March 2014 14:01, Ed Manning etmth...@gmail.com wrote: Good idea, Paul. I'm up for contributing, schedule permitting! VFX supervision, middleweight ICE FX-y stuff, and shading/lighting/rendering, especially if you'd like to see some stuff done in Redshift. http://www.linkedin.com/in/etmthree/ has a lot of links to recent (and older) work. Anyone know a producer who'd like to herd this bunch of cats?
Re: just my 2 cents [Re:] Open letter to Autodesk
Count on me. .:. Christian Lattuada On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 7:58 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Hey fellows I will take Tim's letter as a template for the freelancers and small studios 2-5 people. Sounds reasonable? Of course if Tim agrees. Cheers! --- Emilio Hernández VFX 3D animation. 2014-03-11 12:03 GMT-06:00 Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.com: So true, so true. I'd like to eco how amazing softimage is for individual freelancers and small shops, especially since it's been backed by the talented td and programmers here and online. I'll add that softimage will continue to be my tool of choice for years to come. This makes it easier for me at least as I'm often creating assets that can be ported to maya or elsewhere or contracted on a start to render job. On 3/11/2014 11:21 AM, Tim Borgmann wrote: Hi, unfortunately my english is not good enough to express my feelings and thoughts about all this in a good and polite way and I think some mails like the open letter from Alastair or the mails from Greg, Peter, Jean, Sly, Daniel and so on express them much better than I could do. I'm just an artist, a simple freelancer, so my opinion will not be from interest for AD I'm sure. But nonetheless here are just some additional thoughts from my side: The main thing that surprises me about the decision from AD right now is that they make this step (stopping SI) even before they can offer any kind of alternative. A personal view from the artist point of view: A lot of my work is based on ICE and at the moment I'm simply not able to see a real alternative. Will I take a look at Houdini? Sure. Will I take a look at Modo? Sure. Blender? Sure. ... I will take a look at a lot of software within the next months, maybe years, to hopefully find something that will fit again like SI did until now. ICE gives me the ability to create things I would not be able to do before. I'm not a TD, I'm not able to write my own tools, I'm just a plain artist and so what ICE was a pure revolution for me and still is a joy to work with. As some of you maybe know I did some advertising material for the launch of XSI 7. Although I didn't use ICE for these images because of the fact that I didn't know ICE at all at this time I very quickly realised the enormous power of it. Today I would do it with ICE for sure and it would be much faster and more flexible and so I would have much more time to work on the design and content and would also get more sleep during production. As an artist you spend a lot of time in finding and learning the tools which maybe fit best to you or better said to your work. At a certain point you than hopefully reach a level with the tools where you can care more about design or creativity than about technical issues. But it's maybe a very long and hard way to get there and if you are there, if you can work with a tool without too much thinking about technical issues (some will be there always and you never stop learning for sure) you are very happy about this (at least I am). You are happy that you can focus on the creative side of the work and not only on solving technical problems. For sure you can learn a lot of things in another software rather fast since the concepts are similar, but to get at a point where you are really familar with a tool, where you really have a good feeling about what you can do and what you better avoid is a long way. Moving a spotlight around is one thing but finding the reason why your are getting unexpected results for example is often a complete different story. Who knows, maybe I will find a new tool which even fits better, maybe not, but just at the moment I feel like downgraded from a senior to a junior artist within some days. And what's even more important I'm afraid that I have to spend my time again on just solving technical issues instead on creating images. I simply feel like an artist who get told that there will be no canvas, brushes, oil colours any more soon and that I have to take a ball pen and some finger colours instead to do the work I did before. But that's just my personal point of view and it's for sure not from interest for AD. A more profesional view from the freelancer point of view and maybe a thought worth for AD: In my opinion the reason why SI does so well in particular in the advertising area is simply because it provides a solid toolset out of the box but even more important: it's flexible and fast. And that is was working in the advertising area is about. Flexibility and speed. You have a lot of different tasks, changes, corrections whatever to solve in sometimes extremly short timeframes. Often there is simply no time and also no budget for a big TD team which provides you the basic tools you need to do the work. It has to be right out of the box. And this is what AD does
Re: A germ of an idea.
I'm a generalist too. But let's talk tomorrow. I look forward to see how many will join. .:. Christian Lattuada On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 1:06 AM, Jason S jasonsta...@gmail.com wrote: a *gem* of an idea ^_^ On 03/11/14 20:00, Francisco Criado wrote: someone with a good dslr should have to be recording its screen with this email now, for later making of on how and when this started ;) On Tuesday, March 11, 2014, Bk p...@bustykelp.com wrote: Wow I thought you'll all just label me a naive fool. Thanks for the positive responses! Ok, This isn't the best start, but how do I open a new thread? I've not done that before. On 11 Mar 2014, at 23:50, Christian Lattuada christian.lattu...@gmail.com wrote: YES, Paul, let's do it. Open a new thread. .:. Christian Lattuada On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 12:24 AM, Bk p...@bustykelp.com wrote: Hi I'm Paul Smith, If you don't know me, I'm an ICE enthusiast, having made around 150 or so tutorials on Vimeo. I also did the Greg Mutt blue hippy cats avatar review thing that went viral a few years ago. Now, this may seem like a hopelessly naive plan to many if not all of of you. However, I was thinking that what strength we do have as a group is the ability to make amazing imagery. I'm just wondering whether we could together, pull off a 1 min or so, film that expresses how we feel, done in a beautiful way that would be hard to ignore. I am pretty confident that between the lot of us, we could do something that would both highlight our cause, show AD what Softimage can do, and in the very least, embarrass them at killing it, and be a great tribute to Softimage and it's community. I know it would be hard to coordinate and agree on but I think it's doable. I certainly would be willing to put in some time. Any thoughts? Paul
Re: Open letter to Autodesk
THIS IS IT! This speaks for me too! .:. Christian Lattuada On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Sofronis Efstathiou sefstath...@bournemouth.ac.uk wrote: Great stuff Sofronis Efstathiou Postgraduate Framework Leader and BFX Competition and Festival Director Computer Animation Academic Group *National Centre for Computer Animation* *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Alastair Hearsum *Sent:* 10 March 2014 10:20 *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Open letter to Autodesk Folks Dan Y and other folks, I hope this comes across as firm but reasonable. I will post it on other appropriate sites. Any ideas on that front? An open letter to Autodesk. Dear Autodesk My name is Alastair Hearsum. I'm a founding partner, director and head of 3d at Glassworks. If you haven't heard of us, we are a small to midsized company which has been creating VFX and animation for TV commercials for markets around the world, for the past 20 years. We have branches in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona. We create innovative and multi award winning work and we use Softimage. Your announcement that you are retiring Softimage has left us saddened, disappointed and not a little angry. The anger for two reasons; that you have shot the racehorse of the 3d software world in the head in its prime but also that you didn't consult with us about this assassination or discuss any of your plans for the future with us. We have no idea what the future from you holds. We are big and longstanding users of other Autodesk products as well as Softimage. The puzzling thing is, technologically speaking, there was no writing on the wall as there was with Henry and Flame, for example, or these days with Flame and Nuke. We have been punching above our weight, in London, for the past 20 years competing well with the much larger organisations of MPC, Framestore and The Mill. One of the reasons we have been able to do that, apart from the deep talent of our crew is, I believe, because of the software that we chose. I'm nearly 150 years old now but I still sit at the computer making pictures for TV commercials to the same arduous schedule that I always have. So I know what I'm talking about. For a period a few years back we had a 50/50 split of Maya and Softimage. We chose to go 100% Softimage. Its better for the work that we do and the sector we are in. Its no coincidence that all the finalists in the recent British Animation Awards (tv commercials) did their work in Softimage. Similarly, both silver and gold award winners in the 3d animation category at this year's British Television Advertising Craft awards were Softimage companies. You may well go on to list major work that's been done in Maya. Sure there has, and great work too. But Maya is used as a shell in the major film effect companies. It is heavily customised and unrecognisable as the product you ship. We have our proprietary software and tailored workflow as well, but Softimage remains pretty much untouched. It is lean, efficient, and the ICE environment is innovative and empowering. So you've done it. What's next? Like I said we have had vague information about what the future holds. We hear rumours about bi-frost and that's about it. From what I understand from various sources there are no plans to replicate the efficient workflow and full ice functionality that made us so productive. You have offered free transitionary licenses of Maya with the threat of having to discontinue using Softimage in 2 years time. The final thought is not just about what software is best for our future but also about what sort of software supply company we want to get into bed with. The attributes that come top of my list: listening to customers, acting on their recommendations, speedy development, innovation. Now does that sound like you? Alastair Hearsum Glassworks. -- Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d [image: GLASSWORKS] 33/34 Great Pulteney Street London W1F 9NP +44 (0)20 7434 1182 glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/ Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk (Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 86729) Please consider the environment before you print this email. DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received
