RE: Any Dinosaurs Still Lurking?

[Marc Brinkley]

Still reading every now and then. Career changes lead me away from getting 
hands on software these days. Unless you count Excel as vital software for 
visual development.

Only feels like yesterday when Kim scolded me on the brand new XSI mailing 
list. And even prior on the old Softimage 3D mailing list too.

I do miss slapping on a pair of headphones and just modeling all day.



From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 On Behalf Of Anthony Rossano
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 8:42 AM
To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIGaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=tudPQYbmC_Ysbs9uLepxC5y9dnET9T27T3Hr4RpAAWs=dagDckVGdLRi6lkqp7xdRB_pjE7JWBJQuHPRORwDRtc=
 
Subject: Re: Any Dinosaurs Still Lurking?

I still watch the thread once in a while.  We had some good times virtually and 
a lot of us had good times in person.  Working at Omation in San Clemente was a 
blast!
- anthor

On May 12, 2018, at 9:00 AM, Alan Fregtman 
> wrote:
I read less and less but like Francois, I lurk over the subject lines from time 
to time. :)

How's everyone doing? I for one stopped rigging in Softimage and decided to 
focus full-time on Python pipeline work where I jump around in Maya, Nuke and 
sometimes Houdini.

I still miss ICE dearly.

On Sat, May 12, 2018, 7:40 AM Andi Farhall 
> wrote:




I still lurk...

but then i still use soft every day 

A>

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 
>
 on behalf of Francois Lord >
Sent: 12 May 2018 01:52:59
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Any Dinosaurs Still Lurking?


I must admit I lurk less and less. I look at the emails subjects from time to 
time. This one called me. ;)

On 2018-05-11 01:53 PM, Bill Hinkson wrote:
I still lurk.

On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:05 PM, patrick nethercoat 
> wrote:
My hands are not yet cold and dead.

On 11 May 2018 at 18:01, Sandy Sutherland 
> wrote:
Yep still around as one of them 'from before'

S.

On 11 May 2018 at 17:23, Bradley Gabe 
> wrote:

Just curious?

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

San Antonio still owes me a camera! -- 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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Brandt Animation

RE: Modeling Options

[Marc Brinkley]

Blender is obviously an option, but I think the modelling UX in Modo is worth 
the price of entry alone.

On 15 February 2018 at 16:23, Morten Bartholdy 
<x...@colorshopvfx.dk<mailto:x...@colorshopvfx.dk>> wrote:
Marc, are you by any chance trying to install on a Win10 machine?

I had the exact same problem and some googling provided a solution:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/softimage-forum/softimage-2015-error-1603-on-windows-10/td-p/6993199

Quote:

Re: Softimage 2015 - error 1603 on Windows 10
Options
04-05-2017 02:20 PM in reply to: brissef2
OK I found the solution.

I had to uninstall the MS Visual C++ redist. 2012, both x86 and x64 versions, 
that were prevously installed on my machine.

That apparently was the cause of the problem, since the setup process kept 
rolling back the Softimage installation without those two installed before it.

Mysteries of Windows...

Now there's another problem: the software doesn't support text scaling, so with 
my 21:9 high res monitor the fonts and the icons are too small to read!

End Quote"

This actually worked on my end, so you can give it a go.

If everything fails, I would go with Blender if I were you.


Good luck!

Best Morten


> Den 14. februar 2018 klokken 19:01 skrev Marc Brinkley 
> <marc.brink...@microsoft.com<mailto:marc.brink...@microsoft.com>>:
>
>
> Hey List
>
> So what are people modeling in these days? I am trying to get Soft up and 
> running again so I can do some basic modelling and what not. Mostly for 
> myself. But installation is not going so well. The usual 1603 error that I am 
> trying to diagnose without much luck. Even the ex-si support blog has not be 
> able to clue me in.
>
> But it got me wondering what people are using for modelling software these 
> days in case I cant get Soft running again (which I have to admit is going 
> happen some day).
>
> I would prefer a non-ADSK product for obvious bias. I have never been able to 
> get comfortable in Maya for modeling. It feels like modeling with mittens on.
>
> Thoughts?
> --
> 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: Modeling Options

[Marc Brinkley]

the setup process kept 
> rolling back the Softimage installation without those two installed before it.
> 
> Mysteries of Windows...
> 
> Now there's another problem: the software doesn't support text scaling, so 
> with my 21:9 high res monitor the fonts and the icons are too small to read!
> 
> End Quote"
> 
> This actually worked on my end, so you can give it a go.
> 
> If everything fails, I would go with Blender if I were you.
> 
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> Best Morten
> 
> 
> > Den 14. februar 2018 klokken 19:01 skrev Marc Brinkley 
> > <marc.brink...@microsoft.com>:
> > 
> > 
> > Hey List
> > 
> > So what are people modeling in these days? I am trying to get Soft up and 
> > running again so I can do some basic modelling and what not. Mostly for 
> > myself. But installation is not going so well. The usual 1603 error that I 
> > am trying to diagnose without much luck. Even the ex-si support blog has 
> > not be able to clue me in.
> > 
> > But it got me wondering what people are using for modelling software these 
> > days in case I cant get Soft running again (which I have to admit is going 
> > happen some day).
> > 
> > I would prefer a non-ADSK product for obvious bias. I have never been able 
> > to get comfortable in Maya for modeling. It feels like modeling with 
> > mittens on.
> > 
> > Thoughts?
> > --
> > 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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Modeling Options

[Marc Brinkley]

Hey List

So what are people modeling in these days? I am trying to get Soft up and 
running again so I can do some basic modelling and what not. Mostly for myself. 
But installation is not going so well. The usual 1603 error that I am trying to 
diagnose without much luck. Even the ex-si support blog has not be able to clue 
me in.

But it got me wondering what people are using for modelling software these days 
in case I cant get Soft running again (which I have to admit is going happen 
some day).

I would prefer a non-ADSK product for obvious bias. I have never been able to 
get comfortable in Maya for modeling. It feels like modeling with mittens on.

Thoughts?
--
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To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Small fonts mode

[Marc Brinkley]

Hey everyone

Recently got a set of 4k monitors for my Win10 PC. I tried to fire up Soft 
today and was greeted with the Small Fonts error.

Is there a fix for this? I would hate to constantly change my display 
resolution to get Soft to run again.

Not to mention its stuff like this that starts to make it harder and harder to 
use Soft...though I guess that's point...isn't ADSK.

Helps?

Thanks!


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

[Marc Brinkley]

I remember getting my first public smack down from Kim on the list. Felt like a 
badge of honor as I sheepishly sat at my desk.

-Marc Brinkley

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of lr...@nyu.edu
Sent: Friday, February 5, 2016 11:39 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Goodbyes (was this is the end...)

I'll add my name to the list of quiet folks as well - though I rarely travel 
into NYC anymore for freelance.  Still using my old copy of XSI but have also 
been adding Houdini & Cinema 4D to the skill set.  If I only knew them as well 
as XSI.. Still I'm grateful for all the expert advice I've received here over 
the years & the meet ups I was able to attend.  Sad to see this go... Best of 
luck to everyone.

- Leigh

Leigh Rondano
Medical & Science Visualization


On Feb 4, 2016, at 8:16 PM, Andre De Angelis 
<andre.deange...@gmail.com<mailto:andre.deange...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Me too, even though I left the industry 4 years ago.  I still love the app and 
the community.

I guess I'm still in denial that it's all coming to an end.  I might well be 
the last person to unsubscribe to the list.

On 5 Feb 2016, at 11:41 AM, Martin Contel 
<martin3d...@gmail.com<mailto:martin3d...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I'm one of those still lurking around... :)

--
Martin Contel
CG Supervisor
Square Enix (Visual Works Division)

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 9:12 AM, Jason S 
<jasonsta...@gmail.com<mailto:jasonsta...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I think everyone here can get an impression of the active members, and there is 
also good portion of readers that only lurk the background.

The foremost google groups page itself shows between 10 and 150 thread views, 
perhaps I'm missing something, but surprisingly just about the same amount of 
views as the CGTalk Maya forum for example, and that doesn't count people 
viewing though email.

hum..


On 02/04/16 14:32, Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:
There is about 950 members, but unfortunately that includes tons of
people with invalid email addresses. I don't know how to extract the
active members, and there are also people that I know are subscribed
but don't read.

On 4 February 2016 at 14:15, Stephen Blair 
<stephenrbl...@gmail.com<mailto:stephenrbl...@gmail.com>> wrote:
1314 according to
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!aboutgroup/xsi_list

On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 1:43 PM, Leendert A. Hartog 
<hirazib...@live.nl<mailto:hirazib...@live.nl>>
wrote:
@Luc-Eric - Out of curiosity: can you tell me how many people are
subscribed to this mailing list currently?

Greetz
Leendert
AKA Hirazi Blue
Softimage hobbyist, admin at si-community.com<http://si-community.com> & 
xsiforum.de<http://xsiforum.de>

SI 2015 Install Error 1603

[Marc Brinkley]

Hey everyone

I am getting the dreaded 1603 error when I am installing SI 2015.

I think I have tracked it down to this.

CustomAction SIRunonceRunReg returned actual error code 1603 (note this may not 
be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox)

Any ideas on how I get past this?

TIA
-M

RE: Lets Hope Autodesk Buys the Foundry!

[Marc Brinkley]

I could see ADSK buying Foundry for Nuke\Mari\Katana. ADSK doesn’t have similar 
toolsets and that would be reason enough to shore up their tool chain.

That would be the final pieces to their monopoly.

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Raffaele Fragapane
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 3:05 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Lets Hope Autodesk Buys the Foundry!

It's owned by an investment group. They sell in a particular hurry ESPECIALLY 
when something is going well. You sell at peak value shortly after a round of 
re-valuing purchases and hype, when cash value is high for returns, and 
earnings prospects are high to entice buyers.

As for who'll be buying, I'd be surprised if it was AD, but can't rule it out, 
a media group or an unexpected games-side player or something like that seems 
more likely though.

Or maybe DS will decide to piss in AD's cornflakes buying it, but I doubt they 
are willing to shell out 200-250M pounds for such an unfamiliar patents package 
and software they have no cross-sales potential or sales network to merge and 
reduce in.

On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 8:31 PM, David Saber 
davidsa...@sfr.frmailto:davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
Why is it sold? I thought Modo was going well... ?


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

It was always about the people

[Marc Brinkley]

Hello folks (sorry for the long read)

Been reading and thinking about this all week.

What I realized was that as great a piece of software that is Softimage, it has 
always been about the people. I have been connected to this software for close 
to 19 years in some way. First time was on an SGI Indy just after the MS 
purchase and all the way to today. A few side trips to Max and Maya along the 
way. But even with all the great things I made with this software, when people 
asked me why I stuck with it for so long the simple answer was the people.

Not too long after XSI shipped, we were starting to use it on a new game when 
Gareth Morgan came calling. He sat down with us and asked what can they do 
better for us. What do you need and how can we make things better for you. I 
can assure you, no one from Alias or Autodesk ever asked us.

We were a small developer back in the day but the fact that someone at SI would 
want to talk with us made all the difference in the world. Alias finally came 
to visit us, only after we were acquired by EA and got established as EA 
Chicago. Alias was told to visit us. The Alias sales guy even said to me had 
they known we existed they would have visited us sooner. He then asked what 
product we used on our last game...which was pretty successful (NBA Street). I 
told him Softimage. He laughed and said it probably wasn't a very good game. 
That was my introduction to companies outside of Softimage. Autodesk wasn't 
much better in their attitude.

It was always clear that Softimage cared deeply about its customers and 
connected in a personal way. A way that always made me feel that they were 
there as a partner helping me solve problems. Whether it was flying to Montreal 
to meet with the dev team. Visits from Gareth. Phone calls to Manny to help us 
out. Passionate discussions on the beta list with Chinny. Christine Charette 
manning the beta list and licenses. Jen Goldfinch of course. Poor Simon Inwood 
and David that put up with me during our custom builds on the dead and buried 
Marvel project. Siggraph meetings and beers until late in the night...Boston! 
Erik and his wall of toys. Olivier and everyone at Special Projects. Countless 
others that were there along with us fighting the fight. Luc-Eric, Dominic, 
Martin, St Blair, Alexandre, Robert, Brent, Marc-Andre...so many others I cant 
recall them all.

The day we got shut down in Chicago I reached out to Marc Stevens directly to 
let him know we were getting closed. He asked how he could help. I told him I 
have a lot of artists that need to make demo reels. He offered up 6 months of 
SI so that my artists could get their reels done and help them find a new job. 
That was close to 20-30 people. During my job hunting trip to EA Montreal, I 
stopped by the Saint-Laurent office and went out for drinks with my Softimage 
friends. Even Gareth, long gone from Softimage came out as well. Late that 
evening with Jen and Gareth, still knowing that here were people that still 
cared. This from a software company.

And there was the mailing list. To my first smack down by Kim (still stings!) 
to today, this list has been an integral part of my career. A wealth of passion 
and knowledge, this list has always been something that I have been thankful 
for. The people here have been just as helpful and passionate as the people 
making the software.

After the acquisition...well we know now. But through all of it. The people 
were the reasons I stayed. My career has me on a new path and while I am still 
in CG and games I have not been hands on in the last 5 years. But it was and 
has always been the community of people that defined Softimage. From the people 
who make it to those that use it.


If there was one wish I have, it's that somehow, some way, this community 
carries on.


Hope to see everyone on the other side my friends.

Cheers
-marc

RE: Survey - how would you do this?

[Marc Brinkley]

We instance like crazy in games. Keeps the memory foot print down (just like 
rendering) however we still need to battle draw calls. One game I worked on had 
memory super low and we were doing great but our draw calls went through the 
roof and our frames per second went way way down. So we had to balance our 
memory and draw calls delicately to ensure we weren't over memory but were 
maintaining a consistent 30 frames per second.

God help those that run at 60 fps like Call of Duty. That's a tough business. 
That's why profiling tools are critical (like PIX on Windows).

___
Marc Brinkley
343 Industries
Microsoft Studios
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 12:37 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?

I meant that Matt was going to say that you can't instance stuff as one 
additional restriction...
On 2/11/2014 3:28 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
Well not $10 bucks but a sample scene will say yes.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49626349/Asteroids.scn

[http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg]

2014-02-11 14:19 GMT-06:00 Tim Leydecker 
bauero...@gmx.demailto:bauero...@gmx.de:
Do it by hand.

Create null in center of Planet.

Call it Parent_Mom.

Create Volume Previz Torus Helper.

Create Asteroid in Origin.

Create Null.

Name Null Asteroid_P001.

Parent Asteroid to Asteroid_P001.

Animate Asteroid Rotation (its tumbling) in Origin.

Snap Asteroid_P001 to Torus.

Parent Asteroid_P001 to Parent_Mom.

Duplicate Asteroid_P001, resulting in Asteroid_P002.

Snap Asteroid_P002 to Torus.

Create Null, call it Parent_Spin.

Parent Parent_Mom to Parent_Spin.

Animate Rotation (Y) of Parent_Spin.

Create Null, name it Parent_Dad.

Name Planet Forever21Planet, parent Forever21 and Parent_Spin to Parent_Dad.

Duplicate Asteroid_P002 as often as you need and snap to Torus.

Duplicate Parent_Spin, rename Parent_Spin_faster. Adjust Animation to spin 
faster.

Delete any Asteroids you don´t like, offset animations where neccessary or 
desired.

Rinse, repeat.

Play.











On 11.02.2014 20:23, Matt Lind wrote:
The question:

but how do you apply the random jitter to the object positions?

RE: Survey - how would you do this?

[Marc Brinkley]

Just to tack on...

Coming from UE3 and Unity, I can safely say that building engine dependent 
tools\editors into a DCC is decidedly not the way to go. If you can avoid it at 
all costs, I would highly recommend that.

It's a slippery slope. You realize that most of the infrastructure you want is 
already in a DCC so it makes sense to use that as a base...months and years 
later you realize that was not a good decision. :) And now...

My mantra over the last several years has been...the DCC is just that, it 
creates digital content. Everything else is done in engine\editor. Materials, 
post FX, physics, VFX, Fluids, lighting, animation sequencing, cameras, terrain 
generation, scene assembly and so on should only ever be done in your engine 
and editor.

And I got there from having tried to build the DCC into our editors. Both with 
Soft and with Maya. Both were the wrong choice.


My team of nearly 50+ environment artists live a daily struggle because we made 
that choice.

___
Marc Brinkley
343 Industries
Microsoft Studios
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:16 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Survey - how would you do this?

I cannot reveal what our plans are, but I can say what we need is an 
environment that has an open and deep SDK to allow us to build tools on our 
terms, and not on the application's terms, so we can make our own 
infrastructure without having to re-invent the wheel and reduce risk from 
pipeline changes/regressions from commercial software.  Allows us to define our 
own primitives, data structures, and treats those data structures as first 
class citizens in the API.  Not have licensing which ties the content creation 
product into our released product, and is very cost effective for very large 
teams working across multiple sites.  Can be set up quickly and easily and is a 
light install, and not require engineers to make usable or explain to artists.  
In concept, Fabric engine most closely fits that paradigm, but it needs to 
mature before we can give it a serious look.  I would not be surprised if we 
develop our own tools a la Pixar or the other mainstays of the industry.  The 
trend in this space is to build your creation tools into your engine so you can 
take advantage of real time feedback from iteration (a la Valve).  Since we 
built our own engine from scratch, we have full control to implement such 
features on our terms.

Max, Maya, and Softimage don't cater to the MMORPG space very well.  You can 
use the products, as many have obviously demonstrated over the years, but it's 
very much shaving the corners of the square peg to fit it into the round hole.  
This has been a classic problem in games for a long time as the commercial 
software largely cater to film/video and assume games is a simpler version of 
that paradigm.   In the early days of games that was a band-aid that worked, 
but games have evolved a lot since then making the current 3D software not so 
relevant anymore.  The difference with an MMORPG is the game has larger scope, 
compared to a console or mobile game, and therefore must pull back on nifty art 
features and think more big picture of the gameplay as network bandwidth is an 
issue, and there is a very wide variety of hardware out there that must be 
accounted for - unlike a console where a particular platform is known in 
advance and likely not to change (much).  Majority of our anticipated customers 
still use older hardware running Windows XP, for example.  We have to make 
content which caters to that lowest denomination.  As tools move forward to 
accommodate those working on feats like Elysium, they tend to forget and leave 
behind those who still need that micro-architecture edit capability like us 
where pixels are still pushed one by one.

There is a reason why many games don't have interesting artwork - the tools get 
in the way.


Matt




-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 2:26 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:
 To work around many of the issues, artists migrated to other software 
 such as Modo, Z-brush, and so on, further fracturing our pipeline 
 where work takes place, and reducing our needs to write tools in Softimage 
 for art manipulation where ICE can be a meaningful contributor.
[...]
 The bottom line is ICE is not tailored to our needs and is of very limited 
 use/benefit.
[...]
 Our primary needs are data translation (import/export), database 
 communications, texture unfolding

RE: Survey - how would you do this?

[Marc Brinkley]

 but I¹d squeeze everything I could from a DCC before pushing my data through 
 the pipe


We are trying to do that now...you wouldn't believe the pain and suffering we 
are going through.

Oh how I long for the days of UE3. Create model and UVs, Rig and Animate, 
export to FBX...done. Then you do the hard work in your editor and engine on 
target. Of course I wouldn't dare create an MMO in UE3. Wouldn't even come 
close to scaling up.

Most of the tools we ever needed was for asset naming, checkin and export. That 
was it. 99% of it was vanilla Soft or Maya.

___
Marc Brinkley
343 Industries
Microsoft Studios
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Graham Bell
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 4:12 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?


Matt makes some valid points and to me shows some of the (even these days) 
major differences between games and film/tv pipelines.

It¹s not that ICE isn¹t capable of doing amazing things, there¹s plenty example 
of that, but that when it comes to creating games assets and pipelines, its 
perhaps not best suited to some of the requirements. It¹s not much good 
creating custom ICE nodes and compounds, but they can in effect be useless, 
unless you can reflect the tool/tech in the game engine and/or get the 
exported. Sure you can bake as many have mentioned, but that doesn¹t always 
apply in all cases. Also it creates more data that has got to be loaded in game 
and memory, and as Marc says games is so often about balancing budget to get 
things running.
Even when you have assets built to spec, you can still end up cutting back 
anywhere you can, to get the framerate. 30 fps was realistic, 60 was very often 
a dream.

Game devs are renown for building lots of proprietary tools and technology, 
some of which is justifiable, others times they¹re reinventing the wheel. But I 
think some of that is changing. Whereas in the past games would literally write 
everything, more are now buying off the shelf with middleware for some things, 
and focusing their resources on the right things. It¹s simply not always 
realistic and financially viable to write everything bespoke.

I used to be a firm believer of having a DCC as a game editor, as I¹d seen too 
many show off programmers thinking they could write their own Max/Maya and 
while I have seen some good editors, most have been poor. But I think Marc¹s 
points are very valid, I wouldn¹t take that approach now. I still think in the 
right context the DCC could work, but it depends a lot on the pipeline and the 
type of game being made. The game engine is always going to be the best place 
to view assets, as its the end result, but I¹d squeeze everything I could from 
a DCC before pushing my data through the pipe.


 

I thought Matt challenge was great and very typical of the type of thing you 
see now in mobile/casual gaming. Simple data, simple process, get it down and 
get it out.





On 13/02/2014 23:48, Marc Brinkley marc.brink...@microsoft.com wrote:

Just to tack on...

Coming from UE3 and Unity, I can safely say that building engine 
dependent tools\editors into a DCC is decidedly not the way to go. If 
you can avoid it at all costs, I would highly recommend that.

It's a slippery slope. You realize that most of the infrastructure you 
want is already in a DCC so it makes sense to use that as a 
base...months and years later you realize that was not a good decision. :) And 
now...

My mantra over the last several years has been...the DCC is just that, 
it creates digital content. Everything else is done in engine\editor.
Materials, post FX, physics, VFX, Fluids, lighting, animation 
sequencing, cameras, terrain generation, scene assembly and so on 
should only ever be done in your engine and editor.

And I got there from having tried to build the DCC into our editors. 
Both with Soft and with Maya. Both were the wrong choice.


My team of nearly 50+ environment artists live a daily struggle because 
we made that choice.

___
___
_
Marc Brinkley
343 Industries
Microsoft Studios
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 3:16 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Survey - how would you do this?

I cannot reveal what our plans are, but I can say what we need is an 
environment that has an open and deep SDK to allow us to build tools on 
our terms, and not on the application's terms, so we can make our own 
infrastructure without having to re-invent the wheel and reduce risk 
from pipeline changes/regressions from commercial

RE: Survey - how would you do this?

[Marc Brinkley]

Don't get me wrong...its not like I am very excited to use it either. I knew 
coming here my days of hands on SI work was over. But honestly, my career over 
the last 8 years has veered away from hands on content creation so I really 
don't use any DCC these days...however my team does use Maya as the main tool 
exactly because it is so customizable. Along with Modo and a handful of SI 
users too!

But, just because Maya is so customizable doesn't mean that it makes life 
easier. From my point of view, this place built their entire workflow and 
toolset on Maya and we are paying a deep cost because of that in time, money 
and sanity. Most people don't see it that way. But having used other DCCs and 
other engines this pain was completely self-inflicted.

The burn rate on building out Maya tools and the overhead we are paying to just 
support and bug fix our own tools is crazy. I would have rather spent that 
money on other tools, workflows and even building our own editor. Then at least 
we would have had all the control in the world.

This is why doing it all in the DCC doesn't make sense to me.

To Graham's point, yes I have seen one too many devs with eyes bigger than 
their stomach think they can build the next great engine and editor. Not too 
many places can actually afford to do that or even do it right. Though I have 
been lucky to work at places that can or at least be smart enough to just buy a 
license of UE3\4.

Meh 2 cents to the pile.

Back to my excel and powerpoint.

:)

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steven Caron
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 6:01 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this?

sarcasm aside, i am not surprised people use maya for game dev.. i know very 
well how customizable it is, and envy it plenty. its just not... exciting to me.

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Guillaume Laforge 
guillaume.laforge...@gmail.commailto:guillaume.laforge...@gmail.com wrote:
Don't forget to print the threads/coupons Steven !

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 8:37 PM, Steven Caron 
car...@gmail.commailto:car...@gmail.com wrote:
ya, i get that feeling too ;)

its magical

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 5:32 PM, Guillaume Laforge 
guillaume.laforge...@gmail.commailto:guillaume.laforge...@gmail.com wrote:
I've got the feeling that someone is trying to sell us some Autodesk products 
here.
Can I have a special discount if I print this thread and bring it to my 
reseller ?

PC2\MDD\MC format Question

[Marc Brinkley]

Hey gang

Does PC2\MDD\MC formats support the creation of new points\verts in the 
animation?

I have this animated Boolean that I want to cache out. I know that I can use 
Alembic since it supports that but the tool I am using in Unity supports 
PC2\MDD\MC formats

TIA

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

ICE: Deform Geo by Image

[Marc Brinkley]

Hey guys

Trying to find a tut or a compound some where that allows me to push or deform 
some geo using an image.

But my Bing skills are failing me.

Anyone know of a tut or compound that does this?

TIA

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: ICE: Deform Geo by Image

[Marc Brinkley]

Awesome guys! Thanks a ton!

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sandy Sutherland
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2013 12:27 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: ICE: Deform Geo by Image

Apply image as Texture Map - then setup an ICE tree on your mesh.

ICE tree as attached pic -

S.

On 2013/06/28 8:48 PM, Marc Brinkley wrote:
Hey guys

Trying to find a tut or a compound some where that allows me to push or deform 
some geo using an image.

But my Bing skills are failing me.

Anyone know of a tut or compound that does this?

TIA

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev

[Marc Brinkley]

Yeah don't get me wrong. Its not like coding is the easiest thing ever. Just 
like art it is a skill that you need to perfect, master and work hard at and 
even then it still could be a stretch for people if their brain just isn't 
wired for it. When I was in art school, one of the requirements was to do some 
graphics programming...in Turbo Pascal of all things. My classmate took to it 
instantly and is coding today on HALO of all things. It might as well been 
ancient Greek to me.

But Raf is spot on. It's the portability of coding that can better insulate you 
from the churn in the CG industry. This kind of art is just harder to be 
portable.

I remember a long time ago saying that I didn't want to be 40 and still an 
environment artist. Well, I am 40...I am not an environment artist but I am not 
as far along in my career as I would like.

:)

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Raffaele Fragapane
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 8:25 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev

To no-one in particular:

Software development, thinking cooly, is ALWAYS going to be a safer choice in 
terms of future proofing your arse than most content work, and a good chunk of 
the artistic work.
It simply gives you a much broader range of skills and a much higher level of 
portability of efforts the more you do it at almost any level.
If you've worked in an RnD department in a film shop for years, or did work on 
a game engine, chances are in a pinch you can move to mobile development in no 
time if needed, or web development, with just some minor language adjustments.
It doesn't mean anybody can do it though. Not that's beyond people's 
intelligence, but because not everybody has the aptitude or interest, or is 
willing to put up with the relatively steep entry fee, much like not everybody 
is up for the gruelling years it takes before being able to do half decent 
concept design
It's a mistake to think this is purely related to development work. It's just 
development work tends to cater to a certain type of individual more frequently 
than most other roles (but you'll also find plenty fossilized one-trick-pony 
developers that didn't survive some bubble or other bursting).

A big problem with our industry is that it's always encouraged too many and too 
much in the middle ground of button pushing and hacking together culture, and 
now large amounts of people find themselves with skills and mentalities that 
have absolutely zero portability whatsoever, because they focused on tools and 
procedure, and never on fundamentals and concepts.
The way out of that is encouraging a healthy and curious approach to 
disciplines, whichever they are, that has little to do with one's previous 
employment, and a lot more to do with what you learned, how and why.
When all you do is pull levers and push buttons in some exotic software, with 
little knowledge of cause and reason, you shouldn't be surprised when you find 
out they'll replace you with a monkey the moment they invent a machine with 
less and better levers. Just make sure you learn more than pulling levers and 
pushing buttons and you'll be a lot more likely to have a plan B, and possibly 
a healthier outlook on employment in general.
If you're pointing a kid in some direction in his life at the present and 
uncertain times, don't start showering him in horror stories about the field 
(because you can dredge up many of those in practically ANY line of 
intellectual work), just make sure he doesn't become a monkey.

RE: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev

[Marc Brinkley]

Tim certainly has some good thoughts. Let me throw a penny onto the pile.

Best piece of advice I would give these days...don't be a CG artist. I 
know...given this list...but I have been in games for 16+ years in the art 
field and the single most important role in a studio is a software developer 
and then maybe creative. I hear it all the time, its easier to outsource the 
art than it is to outsource the development and its mostly true. Talking with 
recruiter friends of mine, its pretty scary out there for art. You have tons of 
seasoned top notch guys getting laid off and these for profit schools (Full 
Sail, DigiPen, AI, and the like) turning out brand new artists at high volume 
and no one can get a steady job. You need to have serious art chops. I really 
don't see this getting better.

Even if you are not in games, a software developer for the most part will be in 
demand. I as noted to a friend recently, there really isn't much of a plan B 
for a character artist\animator\rigger\lighter. Heck, I don't know a single 
artist that has retired from the CG industry. But there are a ton more 
options for a decent dev. I know of a number of really good game devs that just 
left all together and have completely different careers. One friend was a lead 
graphics dev and after the last layoff he went to Nokia working on NavTeq 
stuff. Happily employed and taking care of his family.

My Plan B is to grow parsnips.

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Tim Thorburn
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 5:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev

As others have said, he should decide what about games he really wants to do 
first.  I'd suggest you point him to some free/open source tools - Blender, 
Unity3D, etc.  These programs will often have a vast amount of tutorials or 
user forums available to assist in the learning curve.  Have him start with 
those and see what he can come up with - no, he won't be making Final Fantasy 
his first try, but he might at least get a basic matching game working first.

If that makes his brain melt, maybe get him to try some game editors, or join a 
modding community.  Games like Torchlight II, The WItcher 2, etc are under $20 
I believe and come with the same tools the game makers used to build the 
levels.  After he builds a few, and assuming his brain hasn't melted, have him 
put a few of his levels out for the larger community to play with and critique. 
 If the critique makes him roll up into a ball sobbing, this is a good sign he 
should re-think his career options.

After a month or so of trying each he's come up with absolutely nothing, again, 
time to re-think his career options.  Don't expect a fully working game in this 
time, unless its purely been copied from a tutorial; but it will at least open 
his eyes to see how much work is really involved, and how little glamor there 
is.

I too would caution against a too narrowly focused school.  I've had friends 
attend Full Sail, and while almost all raved about how amazing the program was, 
it seems that most studios would bring them on board as an unpaid intern to 
complete one small aspect of a game and then move on to the next years batch.  
If he likes coding, suggest a computer science program where his skills can be 
used for any number of tasks, not just games.  If it's the art work he likes, 
then I'm sure you can offer him a variety of suggestions on where to go next.

If there are any game studios in your area, it might be an idea for him to 
contact one and see if he can arrange a tour or speak with someone there.  It 
was definitely an eye opener for me while attending University in Toronto to be 
able to go see two completely different animation studios.  The first we saw 
looked like the animation studio on every single behind the scenes DVD you've 
ever seen; the second had about 30ppl crammed into a tiny attic apartment 
converted to studio complete with render farms to make it 40 degrees inside in 
the dead of winter.

Today he also has the option to self publish any games he creates.  For a 
one-time fee of $25 he can begin selling Android games almost immediately, or 
for $99/yr he can sell games on iOS (though be prepared for many, many 
arbitrary rejections from Apple).  I'm not sure how things are on the Xbox side 
of the world, but Sony has been making a number of pushes to get Indie game 
developers on PSN.  Nintendo and Sony have both made commitments to bring Unity 
support to their consoles - can't say for sure, but I imagine Microsoft would 
have something similar as well.

Again, none of this will make him rich or have typical 8hr days, unless he's 
incredibly talented and incredibly lucky.  As long as he

VS2012 and 3D Production

[Marc Brinkley]

I know I am not supposed to evangelize other products here but I just ran 
across this and had to share it.

And I also know that Windows is the enemy and MS is evil blah blah blah...

Visual Studio 2012 has recently added a bunch of graphics tool. Including the 
ability to open FBX files, view them in 3D and play back animations...and it 
even has a node based shader designer to author and debug HLSL shaders.

My TAD and I stumbled across this when we accidentally opened an FBX file in 
Visual Studio 2012...and after some digging found a whole bunch of cool stuff.

I would imagine that its mostly game devs\TADs that are going to like this stuff



* Add, edit, and compile HLSL shaders more easily.

You can use syntax coloring, indenting, and outlining when you are coding HLSL 
shaders, and MSBuild automatically supports the Microsoft HLSL Compiler 
(fxc.exe).

* View and modify image assets more efficiently.

You can use the Image Editor to create, inspect, and modify bitmap and 
compressed image formats (DDS, TGA, TIFF, PNG, JPG, GIF), and the editor 
supports transparency and mipmaps. For more information, see Image 
Editorhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh315744.aspx.

* Work with 3-D models.

You can use the Model Editor to inspect standard 3-D model formats (OBJ, 
COLLADA, and Autodesk FBX). You can also use the built-in 3-D primitive 
generation and materials to create placeholder art for 3-D games and apps, 
thereby improving artist-developer workflow. For more information, see Model 
Editorhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh315734.aspx.

* Create advanced pixel shaders.

You can use the Shader Designer, which is a graph-based shader creation tool 
that provides a live preview of the effect, to create advanced pixel shaders 
and export them as HLSL code that you can use in apps that are based on 
DirectX. For more information, see Shader 
Designerhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh315733.aspx.

Also there is this video on Channel 9 showing some of these features off.

http://channel9.msdn.com/(A(DIZWlv8LzQEkOTQ0NWI2ZTUtM2ZlYS00Yjg1LTg4NzMtNzJhZjA1MmUwZmMxAmqfHykWJRBKmZh75HL0--PjXeY1))/posts/Visual-Studio-3D-StarterKit

Right around 12:30 mark you can see the shader designer in action.

Fun stuff.

Cheers!


___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: VS2012 and 3D Production

[Marc Brinkley]

I dont know. Obviously we are running win8 here, but I would guess this works 
to Win7 too.

We use Team Foundation server here for version control and its really great 
having all our fbx files in TFS and now we can preview and edit FBX and sharers 
right in the Version control tool...same tool you do you code dev in.

Slick. And now with Python support in VS too. Nice set up.

Sent from my car while driving

From: Eric Turman
Sent: 3/27/2013 12:37 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: VS2012 and 3D Production

Nice, I like how when you zoom in, it transitions into a 3D view. This is only 
for Windows 8 then?


On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Marc Brinkley 
marc.brink...@microsoft.commailto:marc.brink...@microsoft.com wrote:
I know I am not supposed to evangelize other products here but I just ran 
across this and had to share it.

And I also know that Windows is the enemy and MS is evil blah blah blah…

Visual Studio 2012 has recently added a bunch of graphics tool. Including the 
ability to open FBX files, view them in 3D and play back animations…and it even 
has a node based shader designer to author and debug HLSL shaders.

My TAD and I stumbled across this when we accidentally opened an FBX file in 
Visual Studio 2012…and after some digging found a whole bunch of cool stuff.

I would imagine that its mostly game devs\TADs that are going to like this stuff



• Add, edit, and compile HLSL shaders more easily.

You can use syntax coloring, indenting, and outlining when you are coding HLSL 
shaders, and MSBuild automatically supports the Microsoft HLSL Compiler 
(fxc.exe).

• View and modify image assets more efficiently.

You can use the Image Editor to create, inspect, and modify bitmap and 
compressed image formats (DDS, TGA, TIFF, PNG, JPG, GIF), and the editor 
supports transparency and mipmaps. For more information, see Image 
Editorhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh315744.aspx.

• Work with 3-D models.

You can use the Model Editor to inspect standard 3-D model formats (OBJ, 
COLLADA, and Autodesk FBX). You can also use the built-in 3-D primitive 
generation and materials to create placeholder art for 3-D games and apps, 
thereby improving artist-developer workflow. For more information, see Model 
Editorhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh315734.aspx.

• Create advanced pixel shaders.

You can use the Shader Designer, which is a graph-based shader creation tool 
that provides a live preview of the effect, to create advanced pixel shaders 
and export them as HLSL code that you can use in apps that are based on 
DirectX. For more information, see Shader 
Designerhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh315733.aspx.

Also there is this video on Channel 9 showing some of these features off.

http://channel9.msdn.com/(A(DIZWlv8LzQEkOTQ0NWI2ZTUtM2ZlYS00Yjg1LTg4NzMtNzJhZjA1MmUwZmMxAmqfHykWJRBKmZh75HL0--PjXeY1))/posts/Visual-Studio-3D-StarterKit

Right around 12:30 mark you can see the shader designer in action.

Fun stuff.

Cheers!


___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.comhttp://microsoft.com




--




-=T=-

RE: Storyboard software

[Marc Brinkley]

There is Toon Boom one as well

https://www.toonboom.com/storyboard



___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leoung O'Young
Sent: Friday, March 22, 2013 9:10 AM
To: Thomas Volkmann; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Storyboard software

Thanks guys,

I will check them out.

Leoung

On 3/22/2013 3:53 AM, Thomas Volkmann wrote:
I found this once, but never tried it: https://www.celtx.com/desktop.html

/Thomas
Matt Morris matt...@gmail.commailto:matt...@gmail.com hat am 21. März 2013 
um 23:38 geschrieben:

not sure that handles actual boarding, mostly screenwriting tools. I'd prob go 
with toonboom storyboard, only used a trial but its decent. there is redboard, 
but the price is eye-watering.


On 21 March 2013 23:27, Scott Lange 
sc...@turbulenceffects.commailto:sc...@turbulenceffects.com wrote:
I haven't used this much but take a look.

http://www.adobe.com/products/story-family.html?kw=psdid=JRSJCskwcid=AL!30http://www.adobe.com/products/story-family.html?kw=psdid=JRSJCskwcid=AL%2130
85!3!21295289722!b!!g!adobe%20storyef_id=UUuJGwAAAcJFJl2u:20130321222635:s



-Original Message-
From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
 On Behalf Of Leoung O'Young
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 5:09 PM
To: xsi
Subject: Storyboard software

Can anyone recommend a good storyboard software?
One important feature we would like to have is the ability in frames and
other frames will automatic re-order themselves.

Thanks,
Leoung



--
www.matinai.comhttp://www.matinai.com

Uninstall Deployment

[Marc Brinkley]

Hey all

I typically install SI through the deployment method. Makes installing a 
breeze...

But is there a way to uninstall the deployment?

Looking for a nice command line way of doing it.

TIA!

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: Uninstall Deployment

[Marc Brinkley]

Yeah actual install. I create a deployment that people install locally. Not a 
network install.

I will get that a try!

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Blair
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 12:59 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Uninstall Deployment

Isn't a deployment just a bunch of files on a network share?

Or do you mean the actual Softimage installation on the workstations? (if so, 
Setup\uninstall.bat)

On 21/01/2013 3:49 PM, Marc Brinkley wrote:
Hey all

I typically install SI through the deployment method. Makes installing a 
breeze...

But is there a way to uninstall the deployment?

Looking for a nice command line way of doing it.

TIA!

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: everybody's favorite question...

[Marc Brinkley]

I have a Surface RT and the hardware is pretty slick. Looking forward to 
getting a Surface Pro at work.

If anyone has questions on the Surface let me know.

Sent from my car while driving

From: Rob Wuijster
Sent: 1/12/2013 1:00 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: everybody's favorite question...

Talking tablets, what about one of these new W8 tablets, like the MS Surface 
Pro, Linovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 or the Asus VivoTab?
Additional bonus on these tablets is a full digitizer/pen setup...
These are running full W8, so less walled garden than a Apple iPad. Due to 
specs only light 3D work I guess, but nifty little machines.


Rob

\/-\/\/

On 12-1-2013 7:40, James De Colling wrote:
the razer looks interesting, but the poor screen res is a shame, i'd want 
something with pen support as well.

HP Elitebook Revolve is something that has me interested. 1920x1080ips option, 
pen support, i7, 12gb ram

probably only intel hd4000 graphics, but thats probably plenty for a laptop if 
your not gaming and just doing light-medium 3d

james,


On Saturday, January 12, 2013, Andy Moorer wrote:
They are intended for gaming but both the razer 'blade' and 'edge' have me 
interested. I'm pretty pro-tablet these days since my iPad goes just about 
everywhere with me, the idea of a tablet that could conceivably act as a 
ultra-portable workstation is pretty appealing.

I've found that anything much bigger than a tablet ends up fine for on-site 
gigs when I'm back in a hotel room but doesn't make it out and about with me to 
places I'd like to actually get some work done, like airplane seats, coffee 
shops etc. So even a less-powerful tablet which could have decent performance 
and reliability makes me hopeful. I'd be interested if anyone more 
hardware-centric than me thinks the specs on the razer tablet are sufficient 
for meaningful work (if only that screen was stereo...)

The true laptop of theirs, well it's cool looking, check out that nifty LCD. :D 
But a MacBook might be a wiser choice?

http://www.razerzone.com/

Love the portability of my iPad but sick of living in Apple's walled garden, 
hoping we're close to the point where tablets are becoming more than really 
cool multimedia toys. Cheers - AM

On Jan 11, 2013, at 10:15 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote:

…What computer should I get? (for home).
I have always used workstations and have already done the research for another 
purchase.  However, it’s been nearly 8 years since my last investment and my 
trusty Dell Precision workstation is starting to fail :(.  I am considering 
going mobile this time.  I’m asking for people’s experience with laptops as I 
have never used a laptop for 3D work before and have mostly heard bad things in 
the area of reliability and lack of selection.  I don’t need top of the line, 
but I am interested in something durable that won’t break the bank and performs 
at least as well as a mid-grade workstation.  Besides 3D, I’ll be doing a lot 
of coding, photography (editing), and some video with my DSLR.  So color 
accuracy and IO would be important features.  I would tend to think an SSD hard 
drive, multi-core CPU (4+), USB 3.0, a decent Nvidia Quadro card would be a 
good baseline.  Anything else people recommend in a laptop?  Or to avoid?

Please reply offline.

Thanks,

Matt


No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.comhttp://www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.2890 / Virus Database: 2638/6025 - Release Date: 01/11/13

RE: Maya 2013 dotXSI Plugin

[Marc Brinkley]

I have no idea if it does. Clearly I was missing the path var. So I have no 
idea if that gets called.

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Blair
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 1:47 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Maya 2013 dotXSI Plugin

Yes, but the deployment tool must run the Crosswalk installer in the end, no?

On 13/12/2012 4:13 PM, Marc Brinkley wrote:
Hmm. I install only with the Deployment tool and not use the standalone 
installer.



___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Blair
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 12:46 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Maya 2013 dotXSI Plugin

Nope, it's the installer that [should] set the environment.



On 13/12/2012 3:29 PM, Marc Brinkley wrote:
Its missing.

Is that something where running runonce would fix stuff like that?

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Blair
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 12:19 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Maya 2013 dotXSI Plugin

Is the Softimage Common Files location in your PATH?

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Softimage

If it isn't, that will cause the error you are getting.


On 13/12/2012 2:59 PM, Marc Brinkley wrote:
Hey everyone

I have installed the 2013 Crosswalk plugin for all my ADSK apps that I have.

When I enter into the Maya 2013sp1 plugin manager to turn on the 
dotXSISceneConverter.mll I get this error

// Error: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program 
Files/Autodesk/Maya2013/bin/plug-ins/dotXSISceneConverter.mll
The specified module could not be found.
//
// Error: The specified module could not be found.
//
// Error: The specified module could not be found.
(dotXSISceneConverter) //



The .mll file is in the proper plugin folder.

Not sure what I am missing. Anyone else run into this?

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
[Fun]ction Studio
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: Asset viewer / manager

[Marc Brinkley]

To be clear, I have not put RS into production. The one time I was getting 
ready to put it into production we got shut down so I wasn't able to follow 
through on it. My current place doesn't require such a system but I still 
follow it in case I should ever need it. It is actively developed and has lots 
of deployments out there. Their Google Group is pretty active with lots of good 
traffic. Many people report having hundreds of thousands of assets in the 
system and working well.

They have a similar model to Tactic. Open Source the software and then charge 
for custom deployment or custom features.

They have done a good job keeping it active adding many features that are 
useful. I think it's a good system and worth trying out.

Cheers!

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
I got my Mojo working
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Marc-Andre 
Carbonneau
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 11:33 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Asset viewer / manager

Hey Marc,
Thanks this is pretty interesting. There are some really ugly solutions out 
there and you have to pay for them but this one is free, open-source, beautiful 
and you're telling me it's working well for you. ;)
We'll evaluate it.
Thanks again for the help.
MAC

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Marc Brinkley
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 2:05 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: Asset viewer / manager

With a little fiddling with you can get ResourceSpace ingesting 3D assets with 
a Thumbnail preview. RS is something I have been looking at for a long time. 
Even just for textures it would be a welcome addition

http://www.resourcespace.org/



___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
I got my Mojo working
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: 
softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]mailto:[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com]
 On Behalf Of Helge Mathee
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 11:52 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Asset viewer / manager

Sorry for the shameless plug. Here's a tutorial on how to build one with Fabric 
Engine. Feel free to participate the beta!

https://vimeo.com/48067381

On 9/4/2012 18:45, Marc-Andre Carbonneau wrote:
Hi,
We're looking into archiving and building a library of assets we have.

By assets I mean:
3D assets(.obj, .FBX, .abc, .emdl...) and
2D assets(reference images, textures, concept art...)

How are you guys organizing all this in your studio?
Do you use a system that's both a viewer and a repository or you're using 
regular windows folders along with a viewer?

Thanks for any advice, info you can give me.
MAC

Ping Again

[Marc Brinkley]

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
I got my Mojo working
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

RE: Ping Again

[Marc Brinkley]

Woohoo!!

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
I got my Mojo working
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Marc Brinkley
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 2:33 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Ping Again



___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
I got my Mojo working
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

Re: This list is not working on my gmail account...

[Marc Brinkley]

Definitely missing stuff.

I sent a post about AFX cameras to Softimage and it is in the Archive on
Google Groups but has never made it to my new gmail account.

And I have also been banned for some reason or other. Not sure if
that is the ListProc doing that or MS spam filters blocking it.

Either way, something be busted.



On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 8:34 AM, Grahame Fuller grahame.ful...@autodesk.com
 wrote:

 Was that the description of the bug fixes in LK Lighting 1.5.1? If so I
 can confirm that I received it.

 gray

 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leonard Koch
 Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 07:28 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: This list is not working on my gmail account...

 Yeah and the archieve is missing posts too. I made one the day before
 yesterday and it hasn't shown up.
 I also only get emails sporadically.

 On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 1:04 PM, patrick nethercoat 
 patr...@brandtanim.co.ukmailto:patr...@brandtanim.co.uk wrote:
 Comparing my gmail inbox with the archive I can confirm there's definitely
 stuff missing.

 curious.


 On 23 May 2012 12:00, Chris Marshall chrismarshal...@gmail.commailto:
 chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:
 we're on Gmail and I don't think there are any problems.

 On 23 May 2012 10:15, Florian Eberle f...@pixable.demailto:f...@pixable.de
 wrote:
 yeah i got that warning as well couple a weeks ago, and rather sporadic
 email delivery
 lots of threads starting right in the middle with a 'Re:' and the like


 --
 Flo Eberle
 Lead Modeling Artist/
 Technical Director
 On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Rob Wuijster r...@casema.nlmailto:
 r...@casema.nl wrote:
 same here some weeks ago, but I did get a warning email about my account
 being locked for spamming..
 did people get that one too?

 no gmail here, regular email account.

 something weird is going on here ;-)


 Rob

 \/-\/\/

 On 23-5-2012 10:03, Daniel Jahnel wrote:
 Definately something funny going on here with the list...A few weeks back
 I had the same problem with loads of emails never reaching my account, only
 a few stray answers here and there but never the beginning of a thread...


 On 23/05/2012 00:11, Eric Turman wrote:

 I have gmail as well.and I am receiving them just fine...weird.
 On May 22, 2012 5:04 PM, Jens Lindgren jens.lindgren@gmail.com
 mailto:jens.lindgren@gmail.com wrote:
 
  I think I get all the mails here on my gmail if it helps to know.
 
  /Jens
 
  On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 10:37 PM, Jack Kao jack@grapecity.com
 mailto:jack@grapecity.com wrote:
 
  Yeah I see you, but I also have been noticing a lack of emails
 delivered from the list as of late. When compared with the mail list
 archive, there have indeed been a few topics that never came through...
 Wonder what is going on?
 
 
  On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 1:44 AM, olivier jeannel 
 olivier.jean...@noos.frmailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr wrote:
 
  We don't accept Maya people ;)
 
  Le 22/05/2012 16:40, Guillaume Laforge a écrit :
 
  ... so I'm testing...
 
 
 
 
 
 
  --
  Jens Lindgren
  --
  Lead Technical Director
  Magoo 3D Studios
 

 No virus found in this message.
 Checked by AVG - www.avg.comhttp://www.avg.com
 Version: 2012.0.2176 / Virus Database: 2425/5016 - Release Date: 05/22/12

Test

[Marc Brinkley]

My work email is not receiving email any more so I set up a gmail instead
since I suspect that MS is now blocking that email like last time.

Is this thing on?

Re: This list is not working on my gmail account...

[Marc Brinkley]

I have the reverse problem. Work email does not receive emails from the
list but my new Gmail set up does.

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 11:06 AM, Guillaume Laforge 
guillaume.lafo...@autodesk.com wrote:

 Shut up Oliver, no one noticed it yet !

 More seriously, I can see all the emails from my AD account but not from
 my gmail one. Strange...

 
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [
 softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of olivier jeannel [
 olivier.jean...@noos.fr]
 Sent: May 22, 2012 9:44 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: This list is not working on my gmail account...

 We don't accept Maya people ;)

 Le 22/05/2012 16:40, Guillaume Laforge a écrit :
 ... so I'm testing...

RE: Anyone uses Ultimapper in production

[Marc Brinkley]

I have some guys here using it...what are you looking for and I can go ask 
around.

___
Marc Brinkley
GO GO GO
Microsoft Studios
I got my Mojo working
marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Szabolcs Matefy
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 3:18 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Anyone uses Ultimapper in production

Hey guys,

Is there anybody using Ultimapper in production? It'd be nice to share 
experiences...
___
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