Re: Playmobil Dragons Trailer

[David Gallagher]

Great work!
Dave G

On 2/1/2013 4:01 AM, Ivan wrote:



Hi Philipp

Thanks for sharing. Looks great!

Ivan

On 1 Feb, 2013, at 4:24 PM, philipp seis > wrote:



Hello !

Here is our new contribution against boring childhoods ;).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTDQUaP4FBU

It's made in Softimage and Arnold.

all the best, philipp

Re: Last day

[David Gallagher]

http://www.animationmagazine.net/features/zambezia-becomes-south-africas-top-grossing-film/

Will this help reboot Triggerfish?

"The animated feature /Adventures in Zambezia/ has grossed an estimated 
$18 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing South African film 
over the past 30 years.


Triggerfish Animation's highly successful film was recently sold to 
French distributor Metropolitan Films, which signed up for both 
/Adventures in Zambezia/ and Triggerfish's next feature, /Khumba/. Among 
the other final territories to be licensed on /Zambezia/ were Spain, 
which went to Big Pictures, and Hungary, which was acquired by ADS 
Services."




On 2/28/2013 5:27 AM, Sandy Sutherland wrote:
Yep - bar the partners - unfortunately, so some very talented people 
on the loose!


__
Sandy Sutherland  | 
Technical Supervisor

 




*From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Szabolcs Matefy 
[szabol...@crytek.com]

*Sent:* 28 February 2013 11:46
*To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
*Subject:* RE: Last day

Oh no, entire staff?

*From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Sandy 
Sutherland

*Sent:* Thursday, February 28, 2013 10:06 AM
*To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
*Subject:* Last day

Hi All,

Just letting you all know today is d-day for us at Triggerfish - end 
of day today the entire staff has been set loose.


I will be in London as from 5th March - so would absolutley love to 
meet up with fellow softies when there, maybe have a beer or two and 
plot the downfall of the 'dark side', or something like that..


I will still be on this list and will check mail when in the UK so 
please do all let me know if you would like to say hello!


Hoping for bigger and better things - and all the TF boys on this 
list, it has been a real pleasure finding such talent still in SA that 
could create two features way way way above the financial level they 
should have been, that have done so well and still will - Khumba just 
rocks, wish we could show more online!


Cheers

S.

__
Sandy Sutherland  | 
Technical Supervisor

Triggerfish?

[David Gallagher]

Triggerfish is still going? After the news related by Sandy Sutherland, 
I was happy to hear this:


http://www.animationmagazine.net/features/buscemi-noni-rose-join-khumbas-voice-cast/

Re: Triggerfish?

[David Gallagher]

Yes, no apology necessary and I really hope they (and you) succeed. 
Khumba looked like a great step up -- wonderful work that should be 
commended and successful.



On 4/25/2013 10:45 AM, Leonard Koch wrote:

I understood that very clearly Sandy.
I don't think you need to apologize, but it's of course always kind to 
do so.
Can you tell those on the list who don't know you as well what your 
expertise are?

That way we will know better what work to toss in your direction.


On Thu, Apr 25, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Sandy Sutherland 
mailto:sandy.mailli...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Dave - yes Triggerfish is still going, sorry I did not mean to
make it appear not, it is just that after Khumba they did not have
budget to keep us on.  Right now it is ticking over with the
partners there, they are trying to get things going for a not so
diffucult future.  Raising funds to do each movie a movie at a
time, is a nightmare and I think they are planning to avoid that
method in the future!

However, it is not known when things might get sorted out, and as
someone with family responsibilities I am still very much looking
for opportunities.

Once again sorry for the confusion, Triggerfish did not close
down, but had to scale down after Khumba.

S.


On 2013/04/25 4:16 PM, David Gallagher wrote:


Triggerfish is still going? After the news related by Sandy
Sutherland, I was happy to hear this:


http://www.animationmagazine.net/features/buscemi-noni-rose-join-khumbas-voice-cast/

Re: Triggerfish?

[David Gallagher]

On 4/25/2013 4:16 PM, Andy Moorer wrote:
There are some seriously skilled softimage talents who were at 
triggerfish, if there are any producers lurking the list this 
downsizing has resulted in a number of at-large artists of a caliber 
and experience level which would ordinarily be very difficult to find 
at all..


It's frustrating seeing studios in LA and NyC desperate for 
experienced softimage talent but unable to hire outside of the states 
because of visa issues. Time to grumble at my congressional rep 
(that's sure to fix it, right?)


Which L.A./N.Y. Softimage studios are hiring?

Camera match to User View

[David Gallagher]

I seem to remember using a script that creates a camera and matches it 
to the User View, but I can't find it now.


Sound familiar to anyone?

Re: Camera match to User View

[David Gallagher]

Wow, thanks!


On 5/10/2013 7:38 PM, Vincent Ullmann wrote:

Just cant sleep. ;-)
Here you Go...

Select your "real"-Camera
Run script
Choose ViewPort you want to Match (A,B,C,D)

Am 11.05.2013 01:25, schrieb Lp3dsoft:
Rings a bell, I remember it as one of a set of camera tools that 
Chinny did


On 11 May 2013, at 00:08, David Gallagher 
 wrote:


I seem to remember using a script that creates a camera and matches 
it to the User View, but I can't find it now.


Sound familiar to anyone?

Re: rigging in xsi vs maya

[David Gallagher]

HAHAHAHAHA!

What a farce.


On 1/6/2014 1:46 PM, Alan Fregtman wrote:


For flexibility and workflow, Maya wins the blendshape *point* by 
quite a distance.


I call shenanigans. lol -- Last time I tried to make a corrective 
shape in Maya *while in the same pose* using what's in the box, I 
wanted to shoot myself in the foot.




On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Mirko Jankovic 
mailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com>> wrote:


*The time that Maya saves with its rigging technology and superior
workflow, outweighs the additional cost.*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
I saw this a long ago and not then not now it makes any sense at all..


On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Steven Caron mailto:car...@gmail.com>> wrote:

i have only skimmed this but he has arbitrary decisions when
to give one app a 'point' and when to 'dock a point'.

he docks a point because he doesn't like the floating property
pages then adds a point later because he likes it (two
explorers to drag and drop).

@luc-eric, please please don't tell me anyone at autodesk is
taking this serious?

s


On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Steven Caron
mailto:car...@gmail.com>> wrote:

oh my god, get ready for every 'point' being argued.


On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau
mailto:luceri...@gmail.com>> wrote:

what do you guys think about this blog post:

http://mayavxsi.blogspot.com/2011/09/rigging-m-22-x-15.html

Re: rigging in xsi vs maya

[David Gallagher]

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.


-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. These mean I can visualize and work with the 
shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya.


-LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there 
are pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party.


-The "smooth preview" Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more 
stable in Softimage.


-Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I 
would still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage.


-You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its 
children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting 
will get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a 
mixture of heirarchy parts.


All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not 
jump through hoops all day.

As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive.



On 1/8/2014 2:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote:
To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the 
years but I never experienced anything like that.
When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into 
occasionally was when painting weights, and then undoing that 
operation, which in rare cases does what you describe, but I think 
they fixed that in version 2013 or 2014. I never locked the skin 
weights, workflow wise I always found that highly disruptive.



I was quite shocked to learn from rig

Re: rigging in xsi vs maya

[David Gallagher]

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. These mean I can visualize and work
with the shape, not get visually stuck on the tech clutter like in
Maya

Re: rigging in xsi vs maya

[David Gallagher]

On 1/8/2014 5:12 PM, Bradley Gabe wrote:
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.


Ha! Yes.






On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 5:52 PM, David Gallagher 
mailto: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

Re: rigging in xsi vs maya

[David Gallagher]

Great! I love Norman.


On 1/9/2014 8:29 PM, Max Evgrafov wrote:

Hi guys. Now I adapt the Norman's rig for XSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUTkJcWPv8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nUTCBbQaYM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZajrQCVbLU


2014/1/10 Cesar Saez mailto:cesa...@gmail.com>>

We worked out the default weighting for Justin using the lowpoly
'slices' of the mesh (we needed them anyway) and a bit of smoothing.
Simple stuff, but with 2 clicks (a simple script) we were able to
get a quite decent base to work on.




--
Евграфов Максим.(Summatr)
https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos
---
Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)

Relax deformer equivalent?

[David Gallagher]

I'm putting a relax deformer on a characters upper arm/shoulder 
connection to make it smoother.


I'm looking for a similar deformer in Maya, but not finding a good one.

polyAverageVertex1 I suppose?
http://www.mediafire.com/view/32xn8diu6u77cju/relaxDeformer.png#

Re: OT: Setting up Proxy Params in Maya?

[David Gallagher]

Yes, it does!

As clunky as it is, I put SetDrivenKeys and such on a separate shadow 
controller, then pipe them in to the blendshapes, etc, so if the 
deforming object has to be replaced, I don't lose all the complex 
relationships I made.


A rigging advantage of Softimage I forgot to list!
Dave G


On 1/17/2014 9:35 AM, Eric Thivierge wrote:
Well it's dumb not to have this functionality. If I delete 1 
controller that has the parameters on it that drive expressions, 
positions, other data; it removes all those connections and has to be 
rebuilt.


On Friday, January 17, 2014 11:27:30 AM, Bradley Gabe wrote:

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 mailto: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 mailto: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: Envelopes, Weights, Deformers and setting them up.

[David Gallagher]

Nice workflow you have there!

On 1/20/2014 4:06 PM, pedro santos wrote:
This was the solution I came up with. Still refining it to have more 
options per null but already using it in production.


Cheers

https://vimeo.com/84025815


On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 10:15 PM, Manny Papamanos 
mailto:manny.papama...@autodesk.com>> 
wrote:


Perhaps deform by volume?
This doesn't deal with weight though but can be flexible since you
can interactively mod the radius on the volume deformers.


Manny Papamanos
Product Support Specialist
Americas Frontline Technical Support


From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com

[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
] On Behalf Of
pedro santos
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 4:45 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Envelopes, Weights, Deformers and setting them up.

Hi
We use Species here for ease and speed. So the head and jaw have
their deformers, and the facial expressions are done through
Shapes on a FaceRig panel. For some time now the animator wants
some additional Facial controls so he isn't restricted by the
range of the shapes. And he wants something that does not turn
into a cumbersome task given the revisions/iterations over an
asset. I'm fairly new to Softimage and these were the approaches I
went about:


Doritos
I had it setup, just one thing that is dragging the process;
Envelopes are generated by distance but there's always
normalization. So if I want them to just have a straight spherical
falloff into black I can't. Or even to falloff into another dummy
null weight, I can't. So I had to paint, around the ears, on the
top of the head and sides, neck, etc. I was trying to minimize
paitings so iterations on a model's rig can be faster.
I could put an inplicit per Derformer set on Bounding Volume >
Limit. But it's an abrupt cut off.


Deform by Spine
Creates the falloff I want from the curve. I like the "drawn"
deformations it does on mouth and eyes. I do an operator per
curve, since the combined weights of several curves seems wonky.
The downside seems to be that I can't transfer them with GATOR.
How would you come about to transfer Deform by Spine between
objects to save time?


General Concerns.
I come from Lightwave and Envelopes to me seem to be like a box of
weights that are usually normalized. I see that deformers like
Cage, Spine also generate such box of weights, but they don't seem
to be handled as envelopes.
How flexible and manipulated can be weights and the underlying
connections of Softimage between the mesh object, the weight, the
control null and the deforming operator?? Seems to me that such
weights don't exist without the deformers.


This

Image
illustrates what I'me trying to do.

Cheers
probiner




--
[img]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s202/animatics/avatar_1.gif[/img]

Re: The Lego Movie: Behind the Scenes and How They Made the Movie

[David Gallagher]

  
  

  Great work. Excited about this! My children were sure this was a
  stop-motion movie. (heh)
  
  On 1/27/2014 8:13 AM, Alan Fregtman wrote:


  Nice!! Great work, animals. :)


  
  

On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 7:56 AM,
  Sofronis Efstathiou 
  wrote:
  

  
With loads of Softimage goodness!
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N9jr0FqYMk
 
Really looking forward to this,
  Will done Animal Logic!
 
Sofronis
Efstathiou
 
  Postgraduate
Framework Leader and BFX Competition and Festival
Director

  Computer
Animation Academic Group
National
  Centre for Computer Animation

Email: sefstath...@bournemouth.ac.uk
 
Tel:
+44 (0) 1202
  965805
 
Profile:
  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/sofronisefstathiou

Student Work: 
http://www.youtube.com/NCCA3DAnimation
  
http://www.youtube.com/NCCADigitalFX
  
http://www.youtube.com/NCCAAnimation
 
  
 
 

 
Awarded for
world-class computer animation teaching 
with wide
scientific and creative applications
 
  
   
  

   
  

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  subsidiary companies via email.

  
  -- 
  This message has been scanned for viruses and
  
  dangerous content by
  MailScanner,
  and is
  
  believed to be clean.

  


  


  

Re: Whiskytree, Elysium breakdown

[David Gallagher]

Impressive!

Promoted on our Fb: https://www.facebook.com/AnimSchool

On 2/4/2014 11:46 AM, Steven Caron wrote:

Here is a breakdown of Whiskytree's Elysium work...

https://vimeo.com/85581391

Steven

AnimSchool Picker for Softimage

[David Gallagher]

Hey all!

We are soon releasing our AnimSchool Picker plugin for Softimage. We 
offer this free to the public.

http://www.animschool.com/pickerInfo.aspx

If anyone would like to test it, please email me:
da...@animschool.com

Thanks!
Dave G

Re: new upgrade policy

[David Gallagher]

I can't find the webpage, but remember just before Autodesk bought 
Softimage, Softimage won several tech/software awards from the 
community. So much promise! Does anyone remember that more specifically?



On 2/28/2014 12:49 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
Well if at some point it happens that another company is interested in 
buying Sofitmage from ADSK. I belive they will have a very good 
handicap to make this adjustments.


And I believe we will all be patient with them while they change the 
old stuff.


Some things can be address right away if in that acquisition de devs 
go with them.  Fix some bugs, minor adjustments, etc.


While they at the same time start to polish and update the core.

So really buying Softimage is not that bad.   As it is right now it is 
rocking hard and strong.


Cheers!




2014-02-28 13:22 GMT-06:00 Matt Lind >:


I don't think that is an option as AD isn't going to give up
source code which holds many patents. If they did, I would tend to
think the asking price would be too steep.

But let's pretend AD offers the source code and the price is
affordable -- is Softimage really worth the price of acquiring as
a business venture?  Based on all the pieces of information I've
gathered about the product over the years, it sounds like it would
take a few years just to get familiar with the code and be
comfortable enough to do any significant work.

While one could inherit a nice system like ICE, animation mixer,
render pass system, and so on.  To put new features into it would
likely require a lot of study of existing code for ripple effect
of adding new features or implementing significant changes.  The
application as a whole is still tremendously useful and a great
general purpose 3D environment, but it's design is from the 1990's
and showing its age in some areas.  The user interface is still
single threaded, the playback engine isn't the speediest and
doesn't loop nicely, and the real time shaders aren't real time.
Some of the things we would want to implement in Softimage if we
had the source code would be things that I don't think the
architecture supports -- ability to put modeling operators outside
the modeling marker or pin them into specific slots of the
construction history to enforce order of evaluation, for example.

On a personal level, having been around the product for so long I
would be extremely interested in looking and tinkering with the
source code, and perhaps fix/modify stuff that always drove me
nuts.  It would at least explain why certain things are the way
they are.  I always thought it be a nice gesture if at Siggraph
you'd get swag in the form of a capsule on a keychain that
contained all the source code to discontinued product(s). 
Granted, this will not likely ever happen due to patents, trade

secrets, and other business interests, but would be good for
customer morale and developing interest in 3D animation.  I wonder
if anybody would gain anything (business-wise) from obtaining the
Softimage|3D code today considering its successor is also on its
way out to pasture?  It would be more useful swag than T-shirts or
CD cases.

As for my employer, I cannot speak on their behalf.

Matt

>Hey Matt --

>

>Out of genuine curiosity -- can your employers not get a source
code license out of AD?  IIR, deals like that were

>not unknown among the larger studios -- or was that all
pre-acquisition?

>

>Ed

Re: Softimage interaction n Maya?

[David Gallagher]

  
  

  FYI, if you click here twice, and highlight a channel, you can use
  it a little more like Softimage. You middle drag to change that
  channel.
  
  
  On 3/4/2014 1:52 PM, Christian Gotzinger wrote:


  Indeed. I hate the idea of having to click on
transform gizmos. It's so much less convenient, and slower too.
  
  

On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:36 PM, Andreas
  Bystrom 
  wrote:
  

  getting properly used to alt+qwer instead of s+xcv
only takes a couple of weeks really, but if they are
going to add anything in the way of navigation to maya
it should be the ability to SRT using the mousebuttons
like in xsi, left, middle and right mouse button for
XYZ... having to find and click the maya transform gizmo
in the viewport is a shit workflow.


  


  

  
  On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 9:27
AM, Alexander Akbarov 
wrote:

  Obviously not http://clip2net.com/s/6WRRyY
  
  

2014-03-04 22:23
  GMT+02:00 Matt Lowery :
  

Is there a
  Softimage interaction mode in Maya? (like
  the Maya interaction mode in Soft) If not,
  Autodesk needs to sort that out for those
  of us who are going to have to switch.
  
  m@

  


  

  
  
  
  

  
  -- 
  Andreas Byström
  Weta Digital

  


  


  

Re: Softimage interaction n Maya?

[David Gallagher]

  
  

  Hello! No, it is ready and works great. We just have to post it on
  the site and roll it out.
  
  I can send it to you (and anyone else here interested).
  
  
  
  On 3/4/2014 2:56 PM, Siew Yi Liang wrote:


  
  Dear Mr. Gallagher:
  
  A bit off-topic, but I would like to ask since I haven't heard
  anything and I don't have friends at AnimSchool...with this
  news, does this mean your abxPicker project for XSI is on
  hold/cancelled? =( I was looking forward to having a much
  easier way to creating synoptics in XSI...

Yours sincerely,
Siew Yi Liang
On 3/4/2014 1:51 PM, David Gallagher wrote:
  
  


  FYI, if you click here twice, and highlight a channel, you can
  use it a little more like Softimage. You middle drag to change
  that channel.
  
  
  On 3/4/2014 1:52 PM, Christian Gotzinger wrote:


  Indeed. I hate the idea of having to click on
transform gizmos. It's so much less convenient, and slower
too.
  
  

On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:36 PM,
  Andreas Bystrom <andreas.byst...@gmail.com>
  wrote:
  

  getting properly used to alt+qwer instead of
s+xcv only takes a couple of weeks really, but if
they are going to add anything in the way of
navigation to maya it should be the ability to SRT
using the mousebuttons like in xsi, left, middle and
right mouse button for XYZ... having to find and
click the maya transform gizmo in the viewport is a
shit workflow.


  


  

  
  On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at
9:27 AM, Alexander Akbarov <wat...@gmail.com>
wrote:

  Obviously not http://clip2net.com/s/6WRRyY
  
  

2014-03-04 22:23
  GMT+02:00 Matt Lowery <ma...@glassworks.co.uk>:
   
Is there a
  Softimage interaction mode in Maya?
  (like the Maya interaction mode in
  Soft) If not, Autodesk needs to sort
  that out for those of us who are going
  to have to switch.
  
  m@

  


  

  
  
  
  

  
  -- 
  Andreas
Byström
  Weta Digital

  


  


  
  


  

AnimSchool Picker

[David Gallagher]

Some good news on this bad news day...

AnimSchool releases today our AnimSchool Picker for Softimage! Free to 
download:

http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx

Nearly identical in function to the Maya one shown in the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTUe1YbPAPk

Available for Windows. If anyone would like to help get it compiled on 
Linux, please contact me.

Thanks!
Dave G

animators at Animal Logic?

[David Gallagher]

Hi! We'd like to interview an animator on LEGO movie. I don't have 
connections there. Does anyone know one to start the search?


Thanks!
Dave G
www.animschool.com

Re: Article in La Presse, Montreal Newspaper about Softimage's retirement

[David Gallagher]

"Softimage would have turned 30 in 2016, he said. It's the end of an era 
for many people. Softimage community is very united and very passionate 
and it makes a lot of noise in it. "


Also includes the decision. "The damage has been done by AVID. Autodesk 
has continued for six years, but has never been able to reverse the 
sales curve. "


A lot of noise. We can't figure why.

Despite their mighty efforts, they were never able to turn the sales around.



On 3/6/2014 12:08 PM, Marc-Andre Carbonneau wrote:


You can read what Marc Petit and Pierre Raymond(Hybride founder) think 
of Autodesk's move.


Google Translate :

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechno.lapresse.ca%2Fnouvelles%2Flogiciels%2F201403%2F06%2F01-4745102-derniere-version-de-softimage-la-fin-dune-epoque.php

Original french article :

http://techno.lapresse.ca/nouvelles/logiciels/201403/06/01-4745102-derniere-version-de-softimage-la-fin-dune-epoque.php

Re: Maya feature request from Softimage users

[David Gallagher]

Sadly true. And it causes endless problems with clusters and materials.

However, if you use other renderers (not Maya renderer) you don't have 
to subdivide polys/smooth though. You just use the smooth "preview" (3 
button) for viewport purposes.


There are so many things that are absurdly substandard  compared with 
Softimage.


Their subD modeling was bizarre. You had to convert the object to it. 
Then if you wanted to change topology, you had to convert back. It was 
crazy, so no one really used it (They did a few times at Blue Sky) . So 
it sounds like they dropped it.


On 3/8/2014 2:17 PM, Greg Punchatz wrote:
"And, one of most important thing is, there is no *Subdivision* 
modeling in Maya. There used to be, but it's gone. They normally use 
*Smooth* to render... how ridiculous software is that..."


I have heard some crap about maya that blows my mind but I am 
pretty sure you are missing something.. otherwise there would be Maya 
users jumping off bridges everywherethey already cant edit in 
multi mode "why would I do that?? I would just write a script to do 
it" said the maya user...sigh"

Re: The one question I have not seen asked: Autodesk, what's your price?

[David Gallagher]

Does anyone have a guesstimate of how many Softimage users there are? 4000?


On 3/8/2014 8:47 PM, Daniel G wrote:

Everyone has a price.

Can we all agree that if somebody offered Autodesk $100 million, they 
would sell Softimage in a heartbeat? Their shareholders would demand it.


Okay. So somewhere between zero and $100 million is the real, magic 
number. We have only to get somebody at Autodesk to put it in writing 
-- or somehow appeal to the shareholders directly.


The network of people and studios who are very upset about this is 
already significant, and they have the collective ability to put 
together and disseminate perhaps the most polished crowdfunding 
campaign the world has ever seen.


Keep in mind that not only would existing customers contribute, but 
also many champions of open source and lovers of computer graphics 
would help to expose SI's source code to the light of day -- the kind 
of money you couldn't get ahold of by trying to raise money the 
conventional way, for a conventional company.


For those who've already given up: at some point we (as a culture, as 
a species) have to move beyond raw, unthinking capitalism. Far from an 
isolated casualty, this is yet another example where humans 
reflexively decide they have no power in the face of an impersonal 
corporation.


It is simply not right for a company to take possession of something 
loved by so many only to bury it in the ground, for no other reason 
than PROFIT. It's all "just" bits on a hard drive, and there's no 
reason it can't be out in the wild helping people to create beautiful 
things. The fact that so many are just rolling over and giving up, as 
if this is perfectly acceptable behavior for a company in the year 
2014, is the real tragedy here.


And for anybody who maintains that Autodesk would never part with SI 
due to patents -- Google has already set a precedent for this: 
https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/pledge/ . Autodesk could 
similarly pledge not to enforce its Softimage-related patents so long 
as nobody tries to re-commercialize anything deriving from the source 
code. Win-win.


*Autodesk, what is your price?*

Re: Export rigs from Softimage to Maya

[David Gallagher]

I've done a lot of exporting. I use slightly earlier versions of Maya 
and Softimage for maximum animator compatibility, so maybe this is 
easier with later versions of Softimage/Maya. It takes me DAYS to 
transfer everything perfectly for our AnimSchool rigs. And it sort of 
works -- for the important parts. The envelope and shapes. They come 
over exactly matching. But you have to do it in bits and pieces. Don't 
expect the control rig to carry over effortlessly. You have to recreate 
IK chains.


Jack Kao has done some of this too for AnimSchool and might have better 
workflows.


I purposely use things in Softimage I know I can transfer/recreate 
easily in Maya.


My workflow is to use .xsi for the heirarchy. You'll need to recreate 
the control rig using those parts.


For the envelope, sometimes it only works by isolating the envelope and 
exporting JUST the object and the deformers ONLY in a flattened 
heirarchy. I'm not sure why that is. Select the envelope/s, then select 
all the deformers (Select Deformer from Envelope). Unparent all those. 
Group them all under a new transform group. So they are all flattened.

Export that via .xsi
CrossWalk>Export to Maya.
Use .xsi 5.0 binary. Everyting else seems to crash.
Import into a fresh Maya scene.
Save the weights using Comet's Save Weights.
Get a list of the deformers
Open up your main Maya rig file and import the weights.

For the shapes, the .xsi will include shapes, but I delete them because 
they are not connected to objects.
So I use this tool for exporting all the shapes as separate objects. 
(attached)
Turn off/down your undo before using this tool. It will eat all the 
memory otherwise.
Select the shapes in the explorer you want to export, then 
Shape>CopySelectedShapeKeyInNewModel
It creates a ton of objects. Export them to Maya and make them all 
blendshapes to the object.


Once everything is up and working in Maya, I can make edits in 
Softimage, and just export positions for matching or new shapes/envelope 
weights.


I use a script for making the maya scene (all selected objects) match 
all the positions from the exported Softimage heirarchy (via fbx or .xsi):

(in worldspace)

string $selected[]=`ls -sl`;

for($x=0; $xI use some scripts for listing all the constraints and expressions in 
Softimage. Then I reformat them to be like mel commands.

I think Eric Thivierge wrote those for me. Thanks Eric!




On 3/11/2014 4:57 AM, Nicolas Esposito wrote:

Hi guys,

Since I'm not a Maya user I would like to ask you a couple of things 
regarding exporting a rigged character from Softimage to Maya.


I'm using Species and there is already a video on how to export the 
rig to Maya, but, even using Gear rig or a custom one, it is possible 
to export the shadow rig as well?


My few attempts on send a rig to Maya, or send a rig from Maya to 
Softimage resolved always into Softimage crashing ( 2013 x64 no SP ), 
so I was force to delete everything on the rig, except just the 
skeletal rig and the meshes, without any shadow rig/controllers


So, anyone succesfully ported a rig from Softimage to Maya, or if in 
Maya, in order to have the shadow rig, you just have to built it from 
scratch, or use one of Maya tools in order to generate the shadow rig 
( similar to Softimage? )


Cheers

Nicolas



function XSILoadPlugin( in_reg )
{
in_reg.Author = "hpayer";
in_reg.Name = "CopyShapeKeyPlugin";
in_reg.Email = "";
in_reg.URL = "";
in_reg.Major = 1;
in_reg.Minor = 0;

in_reg.RegisterCommand("CopyShapeKey","CopyShapeKey");

in_reg.RegisterMenu(siMenuTbAnimateDeformShapeID,"CopyShapeKey_Menu",false,false);
//RegistrationInsertionPoint - do not remove this line

return true;
}

function XSIUnloadPlugin( in_reg )
{
var strPluginName;
strPluginName = in_reg.Name;
Application.LogMessage(strPluginName + " has been unloaded.");
return true;
}

function CopyShapeKey_Init( ctxt )
{
var oCmd;
oCmd = ctxt.Source;
oCmd.Description = "";
oCmd.ReturnValue = true;

return true;
}

function CopyShapeKey_Execute(  )
{
logmessage(selection.count);

if(selection.count!=0){
for (i = 0; i

Re: does anyone benefit at all from Softimage being killed?

[David Gallagher]

Well, it was a "difficult" decision, we're assured by Autodesk.

Not as difficult as it is for us.

On 3/11/2014 1:16 PM, Ed Manning wrote:

Serious question.

Autodesk has gone on at some length about serving their M&E customers 
better, not dispersing their resources on multiple applications, etc. 
 We have now heard, especially here on the Softimage list, but also in 
other forums, from several companies and scores of individual users 
who are unhappy about this, and who feel that their work and their 
income will suffer as a result.  Many of us have had private 
conversations with people who are unhappy about it, some of whom speak 
with the weight (if not the official voice) of sizable studios behind 
them. Many of those studios are mostly built around Maya pipelines, 
but use Softimage as well.


So far as I can tell, not ONE Autodesk customer, /even those who 
primarily use Maya and already use Houdini/, believes that they will 
not be hurt by this. I haven't heard anyone say, "thank God -- at last 
I can save a fortune by not deploying Softimage." For any shop that 
does transition from Softimage, the very best-case possible scenario 
is simply that costs stay about the same -- after all, they will have 
just as many, if not more seats to provision.  But no one seems to 
even think the best-case scenario is plausible.


Every single company that uses Softimage, uses it for some good 
reason. After all, since it's not the "market leader," there HAS to be 
some special advantage to using it, otherwise we wouldn't go to the 
extra trouble of using it, integrating it, and staffing projects for 
it (and that last one can be a LOT of extra trouble).  Whether you 
believe that reason is workflow efficiency, ICE, flexibility, the 
in-built compositor, Arnold integration,or the available talent in 
your area (most likely a combination of the above), if you have been 
using Softimage, you have generally had to make a conscious choice to 
do so.


That choice is sometimes invisible to outsiders in the case of 
Soft-only or Soft-centric shops, but it is obvious in the case of 
large Maya-centric shops that nevertheless adopt Softimage for some 
projects.  So, given all that extra effort and inconvenience 
(#sarcasm), where are the people who are relieved that it's over?


It seems, there aren't any.

I would be very interested to read official statements from any 
Autodesk customers who feel that they will benefit from this decision. 
 Yes, in the long run, many will, since they will transition to 
Houdini, Modo, or some yet-to-be tool, but I'm talking about anyone 
who thinks that they will make more money, or have an easier time of 
the next 2 years.


In fact, I would be interested in reading anything from anyone /at 
Autodesk/ explaining how this decision benefits ANY of Autodesk's 
customers.  Does it help Maya-only shops because now they have a 
more-level playing field? Does it help multi-app shops because now 
they'll be single-app shops using the best-in-breed? Certainly can't 
both be true.  And if either one of those statements is true, then 
there will be some Autodesk customers with even more questions than we 
have now.


As far as I can tell, even Maya-only customers do not feel that, say, 
the move of the dev team to Maya, does anything beyond slightly 
improve what has been an unacceptable stagnation in Maya development.


So if there is anyone reading this far who can make a positive case 
for killing Softimage, please do so.


And if you can't, and you're in a position of any responsibility at an 
Autodesk customer company that feels it's been negatively impacted in 
any way, please consider having your company make a calm, rational, 
public or private statement to Autodesk detailing that negative impact.


Thanks

Ed Manning

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

[David Gallagher]

You wrote all that on your phone?  :)

On 3/15/2014 1:31 PM, Bradley Gabe wrote:
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 > wrote:


On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Chris Vienneau 
mailto: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

unity animation export

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Is anyone here familiar with Unity? I'm trying to export a rig and an 
animation to unity.
I've made a rig with all the bind joints in a separate heirarchy, all 
parent constrained to the rig parts. I exported that and it seems ok.


Then I tried to plot the animations, Plot>All Transformations like this.

It created a 2.5 MB file so it may have the info but I don't think it's 
importing it correctly. Instead of a single animation file, it is 
getting a list of objects -possibly. Dragging it onto the character 
doesn't seem to be working like the few tutorials I've done.


Any help welcome.
Thanks,
Dave G
--
Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: New iMac Pro? Yay or Nay?

[David Gallagher Softimage]

How do you see prices on those?


On 6/7/2017 6:15 AM, Andreas Böinghoff wrote:

For new machines we're going for supermicro.

https://www.supermicro.nl/products/system/4U/7048/SYS-7048GR-TR.cfm

We always had HP Z800-840 - Since we were doing more and more jobs on 
redshift his workstations are the best machines we ever had.


A

On 07/06/2017 14:02, Rob Wuijster wrote:


I agree, although some of my friends who are into 2D design and a tad 
of AfterEffects will probably running to the store as soon as they 
can get their hands on it ;-)


Rob

\/-\/\/
On 7-6-2017 13:45, Jonathan Moore wrote:
Now more than ever I think of OS X and Apple hardware as the luxury 
end of the consumer PC market. There’s so much about OS X that I 
prefer to Windows but I’m also aware that I’m paying an extreme 
premium for the experience.


However, It’s been a long time since I’ve considered Apple hardware 
to be an optimal choice for creative professionals per se, never 
mind 3d professionals. The iMac Pro is a lustful piece of consumer 
electronics for sure but it would be a exceptionally odd choice for 
a 3d professional.


On 7 Jun 2017, at 12:17, Christopher Crouzet 
> wrote:


Something to consider beyond the hardware is the software.

During the years that I've been using MacOS, Apple often shined at 
only supporting outdated OpenGL versions in their OS, or poorly 
implementing it. To make things worse, they decided to go their own 
way with their Metal API without providing any support for Vulkan 
(unless I missed something). I don't think many developers are 
willing to write their software using the Metal API to boost 
rendering performances when the 3D market is fairly small on Mac.


Surely it's a bit cocky from them to be boasting their graphics 
marketing when they seem to be hated by graphics developers.



On 7 June 2017 at 17:37, Rob Wuijster > wrote:


One of the first reviews, and it's not really a glowing one:


https://www.slashgear.com/imac-pro-still-doesnt-give-the-one-thing-pros-want-06487652/



Rob

\/-\/\/

On 6-6-2017 21:50, Angus Davidson wrote:

Unfortunately Apple has defined pro market to mean , FCP X and
a little bit of after effects. Its the only reason I can think
of for some of the dumb decisions made in the last two years.
Up to and including today.

At least dell gives decent EDU discounts. Going to make the
move from apple far less painful for us

--
ICT Project Manager
Digital Arts
Wits School of the Arts
angus.david...@wits.ac.za 
011 717 4683










*From:* Stanley Mpofu
*Sent:* 31 May 2017 03:14 PM
*To:* Collen Rasalanavho; Angus Davidson; Brian Maistry;
Shunmuga Pillay; Andrew Sam; Tumishi Madihlaba; Donald
Dandawa; Bekir Genc; Arinavho Tshifularo; Simon Mofokeng;
Charl Roberts; Mark Allen; James Mokoka; Ernest Maluleke;
Shereen Jacobs
*Subject:* Wits ICT Strategy.pptx

Colleagues

As discussed this morning, Please note the attached strategic
direction as well intended service catalogue that will talk to
the SLAs between ICT and the University. Please respond with
comments and more ideas around what I have proposed for Wits
going forward.



Many thanks


Dr Mpofu Mgobansimbi SB

*Chief Information Officer (Wits)*

+27117171662

+27733779947

stanley.mp...@wits.ac.za 

"Lions Don’t Worry About The Opinion Of Sheep"


*PA*

Celesse-Ann Brandt-Jacobs

Tel  : +2711 717 1602

Email  : celesse.brandt-jac...@wits.ac.za






*From:* Marc-Andre Carbonneau
[marc-andre.carbonn...@ubisoft.com
]
*Sent:* 06 June 2017 09:38 PM
*To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list

*Subject:* RE: New iMac Pro? Yay or Nay?

Heheheh thanks everyone. I’m not so much using powerful pcs
anymore but was interested in getting the low down on these
“new” contenders.

MAC


*From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com

[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
] *On Behalf
Of *Jonathan Moore
*Sent:* June-06-17 3:36 PM
*To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List.
https://groups.google .
com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 

redshift rendering help

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Hello! I'm looking for a really good redshift Softimage lighter to help 
with something I'm trying to materialize/render. Remote! Maybe a day or 
less of work.

Reply to me if you're interested.
Thanks!
Dave Gallagher
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Maya plug-in developers

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Hello!
Some of you might know about our free AnimSchool Picker plug-in enjoyed 
by thousands of Maya users and many studios. We also have a Softimage 
version!


Anyone here interested in this? Or know where I could post it on a 
similar Maya list?


http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx 


http://www.animschool.com/PickerInfo.aspx

 We are looking for a programmer to help compile the plug-in for the 
different versions and platforms (PC, Mac, multiple versions of Linux). 
There is usually quite a bit of troubleshooting and setup issues to 
overcome for each version of Maya.


part-time/contract work
If you are interested, please email j...@animschool.com
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Re: Maya plug-in developers

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Thanks!

On 9/6/2017 7:12 AM, Alan Fregtman wrote:

Hey David,

I think you might have better luck with the "Python Inside Maya" list 
here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?#!forum/python_inside_maya 
<https://groups.google.com/forum/?#%21forum/python_inside_maya>


I know it has "Python" in the name but C++ developers exist among the 
crowd as well.


If that fails you can also try the "Highend3D Maya" list:
https://groups.google.com/forum/?#!forum/maya_he3d 
<https://groups.google.com/forum/?#%21forum/maya_he3d>

(It's probably the most popular Maya-focused general mailing list.)

Cheers,
   -- Alan


On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 5:53 PM David Gallagher Softimage 
mailto:davegsoftimagel...@gmail.com>> 
wrote:



Hello!
Some of you might know about our free AnimSchool Picker plug-in
enjoyed by thousands of Maya users and many studios. We also have
a Softimage version!

Anyone here interested in this? Or know where I could post it on a
similar Maya list?

http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx
<http://www.animschool.com/PickerInfo.aspx>
http://www.animschool.com/PickerInfo.aspx

 We are looking for a programmer to help compile the plug-in for
the different versions and platforms (PC, Mac, multiple versions
of Linux). There is usually quite a bit of troubleshooting and
setup issues to overcome for each version of Maya.

part-time/contract work
If you are interested, please email j...@animschool.com
<mailto:j...@animschool.com>
--
Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to
softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.



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Re: Softimage - not going away...

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Great work!

Big high-five for using Softimage still. I do too!
Curious though, how do you handle new employees? Do you only bring in 
people who know Softimage already? I'm just imagining a new employee 
learning your pipeline with EOL software and how they handle that.


On 10/24/2017 7:16 AM, Jean-Louis wrote:

Hi list,

Softimage still alive and well over here at Digital Golem: 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.digitalgolem.com_portfolio_range-2Drover-2Dfireflies_&d=DwIC-g&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=_-4bGgzUpCFbHoQUmrjzVsFQovWtbGnW19exoPS8oXk&s=QHCpv6DOvgONJ2wkF6zM_lEPp3wd461Nj2jkQ0e7u-Q&e= 



Cheers,
JL


Jean-Louis Billard
-
*Digital Golem*
BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563
jean-lo...@digitalgolem.com 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.digitalgolem.com_&d=DwIC-g&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=_-4bGgzUpCFbHoQUmrjzVsFQovWtbGnW19exoPS8oXk&s=TAzGDPL27l9KD9wbQKZsi-hH_tIYaw9rprlf01xV25Y&e= 


53 Rue Gustave Huberti
1030 Brussels
-



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selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Hello!
Autodesk wouldn't issue me a license for Softimage 2014 on my new 
computer so I'm forced to use Softimage 2015 on it now.
Unfortunately now I don't seem to be able to select objects inside of 
polygon models. It always selects the outermost object which is the 
geometry. In previous versions I would turn the camera to xray which 
would then allow me to select nulls and objects inside/behind the geo.

I'm looking for some option that would restore this workflow but so far 
no luck.

Ideas?
Thanks,
Dave G
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Re: selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on

[David Gallagher Softimage]

The environment variable worked. Thanks so much for telling me about that!
Dave G

On 4/18/2018 10:30 AM, Andres Stephens wrote:


You need to set a variable in the bat file.
They disabled this to optimize the viewport responsiveness.
A UI workaround: If you hold don’t CTRL while clicking, or SHIFT, or 
ALT, I think this alternates the selections under mouse. I don’t recall.


Here is the variable:

*File Location*
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2015\Application\bin\setenv.bat

*Append: *

:Fix selection block

set XSI_DISABLE_NEW_PICK=1

-Draise


*From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 on behalf of Softimage 


*Sent:* Wednesday, April 18, 2018 11:27:49 AM
*To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist&d=DwID-g&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=ylHB8rNe15DIPLQ1vHL5ce9nhD2CjYTLji15PWn_njU&s=uiZF5dn6iO1BjyuumiP8eRe6hJomwq9rAEYQ53X5hnA&e=

*Subject:* Re: selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on
Make the outer object unselectable?
Is that enough for what you want?
Cheers
Lawrence

> On 18 Apr 2018, at 17:21, David Gallagher Softimage 
 wrote:

>
>
> Hello!
> Autodesk wouldn't issue me a license for Softimage 2014 on my new
> computer so I'm forced to use Softimage 2015 on it now.
> Unfortunately now I don't seem to be able to select objects inside of
> polygon models. It always selects the outermost object which is the
> geometry. In previous versions I would turn the camera to xray which
> would then allow me to select nulls and objects inside/behind the geo.
>
> I'm looking for some option that would restore this workflow but so far
> no luck.
>
> Ideas?
> Thanks,
> Dave G
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softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with "unsubscribe" in the 
subject, and reply to confirm.


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Re: selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Yes, that's what I was doing as a workaround, thanks.

On 4/18/2018 10:27 AM, Softimage wrote:
> Make the outer object unselectable?
> Is that enough for what you want?
> Cheers
> Lawrence
>
>> On 18 Apr 2018, at 17:21, David Gallagher Softimage 
>>  wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hello!
>> Autodesk wouldn't issue me a license for Softimage 2014 on my new
>> computer so I'm forced to use Softimage 2015 on it now.
>> Unfortunately now I don't seem to be able to select objects inside of
>> polygon models. It always selects the outermost object which is the
>> geometry. In previous versions I would turn the camera to xray which
>> would then allow me to select nulls and objects inside/behind the geo.
>>
>> I'm looking for some option that would restore this workflow but so far
>> no luck.
>>
>> Ideas?
>> Thanks,
>> Dave G
>> --
>> 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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> 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: selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on

[David Gallagher Softimage]

Right - good thought and that's better than nothing. But now my usual 
workflow is restored after setting that environment variable.



On 4/18/2018 10:35 AM, Andi Farhall wrote:


or just use the null selection filter...



...
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<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.linkedin.com_pub_andi-2Dfarhall_b_496_b21&d=DwMF-g&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=h2qJKTx3ETiXNjwnOPrw5gODoh9ZvOoVK3BJEz3MaRI&s=c0_87GXNv9-3tceqLDG85AWiRIVTEU_XNHltTH6MmfU&e=>



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*From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 on behalf of Andres Stephens 


*Sent:* 18 April 2018 16:30:59
*To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist&d=DwID-g&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=8LqYSnIBN9_o68en7quYJGjneT6orJtUh7utJmcaeB4&s=-g8gUukXOmGp-ig6NJFAYr1h-e3GzUXZ55tkaH7N6_Y&e=

*Subject:* RE: selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on

You need to set a variable in the bat file.
They disabled this to optimize the viewport responsiveness.
A UI workaround: If you hold don’t CTRL while clicking, or SHIFT, or 
ALT, I think this alternates the selections under mouse. I don’t recall.


Here is the variable:

*File Location*
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2015\Application\bin\setenv.bat

*Append: *

:Fix selection block

set XSI_DISABLE_NEW_PICK=1

-Draise


*From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 on behalf of Softimage 


*Sent:* Wednesday, April 18, 2018 11:27:49 AM
*To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist&d=DwID-g&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=8LqYSnIBN9_o68en7quYJGjneT6orJtUh7utJmcaeB4&s=-g8gUukXOmGp-ig6NJFAYr1h-e3GzUXZ55tkaH7N6_Y&e=

*Subject:* Re: selecting nulls inside of geometry when xray is on
Make the o