subject:"March 28, 2014"


A question for Houdini users:
My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to 
animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In 
this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?

David

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Angus Davidson

Houdini is not what I would call a great character modeller just yet. Most
people who seem to be planning to put Houdini as the main part of the
pipeline are looking at something Like Modo / Zbrush for the modelling

Kind regards

Angus


On 2014/03/31, 11:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

A question for Houdini users:
My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to
animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In
this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
David

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enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus 
advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the 
University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which 
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Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Mirko Jankovic

Zbrush + retopo is basically part of a lot of workflows.
Also modeling seems to be least app dependent part of production.

Fun start with rigging and animation.
How's that?


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Angus Davidson
angus.david...@wits.ac.zawrote:

 Houdini is not what I would call a great character modeller just yet. Most
 people who seem to be planning to put Houdini as the main part of the
 pipeline are looking at something Like Modo / Zbrush for the modelling

 Kind regards

 Angus


 On 2014/03/31, 11:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 A question for Houdini users:
 My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to
 animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In
 this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
 David

 table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0
 style=width:100%;
 tr
 td align=left style=text-align:justify;font face=arial,sans-serif
 size=1 color=#99span style=font-size:11px;This communication
 is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have
 received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and
 destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this
 communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised
 signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the
 University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message
 may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal
 views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and
 opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All
 agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South
 African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.
 /span/font/td
 /tr
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Re: March 28, 2014

Well, there are two ways to approach modelling nowadays

- Traditional route - You model in XSI/Maya/Max/Modo by means of moving 
vertices, edges, etc… tons of work to build something relatively simple and any 
director comment may have major implications on topology so not very good idea 
although everybody seems to use it.

- Modern route - You model in Zbursh without caring at all about topology, the 
client signs the character in a few poses, may be even photoshop it quickly to 
give a professional presentation and better look. Then retopo on something like 
Topogun and uv with UV layout and texturing in Mari.


Trust me on this and try the modern route, you will never look back .

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 10:20, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 A question for Houdini users:
 My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to 
 animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In this 
 perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
 David

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Jon Swindells

Rigging in Houdini is phenomenal.



getting an animator to work in Houdini is another thing entirely.



while it's perfectly possible to make a decent ui for your animators,
they will still be

hamstrung by the viewport speed and painful interaction/fcurve tools.



expect hissy fits and dummy spitting..




--
Jon Swindells
jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm





On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 12:36 PM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:

Zbrush + retopo is basically part of a lot of workflows.
Also modeling seems to be least app dependent part of production.

Fun start with rigging and animation.
How's that?



On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Angus Davidson
[1]angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote:

Houdini is not what I would call a great character modeller just yet.
Most

people who seem to be planning to put Houdini as the main part of the

pipeline are looking at something Like Modo / Zbrush for the modelling



Kind regards



Angus





On 2014/03/31, 11:20 AM, David Saber [2]davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

A question for Houdini users:
My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging
to
animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In
this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
David

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communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the
original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication
without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories
are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and
recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be
legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views
and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and
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References

1. mailto:angus.david...@wits.ac.za
2. mailto:davidsa...@sfr.fr

Re: March 28, 2014

Agree 100%

It is the animation toolset that is not there yet although IMHO it is quite 
simple to fix… let's see   ;-)

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 10:44, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm wrote:

 Rigging in Houdini is phenomenal.
  
 getting an animator to work in Houdini is another thing entirely.
  
 while it's perfectly possible to make a decent ui for your animators, they 
 will still be 
 hamstrung by the viewport speed and painful interaction/fcurve tools.
  
 expect hissy fits and dummy spitting..
  
  
 -- 
 Jon Swindells
 jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm
  
  
  
 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 12:36 PM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:
 Zbrush + retopo is basically part of a lot of workflows. 
 Also modeling seems to be least app dependent part of production.
  
 Fun start with rigging and animation.
 How's that?
  
  
 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za 
 wrote:
  
 Houdini is not what I would call a great character modeller just yet. Most
 people who seem to be planning to put Houdini as the main part of the
 pipeline are looking at something Like Modo / Zbrush for the modelling
  
 Kind regards
  
 Angus
  
  
  
 On 2014/03/31, 11:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
  
 A question for Houdini users:
 My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to
 animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In
 this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
 David
  
 table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 
 style=width:100%;
 tr
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 size=1 color=#99span style=font-size:11px;This communication is 
 intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received 
 this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the 
 original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without 
 the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent 
 to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus 
 advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the 
 University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, 
 which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the 
 Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and 
 outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in 
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 /tr
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Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Mirko Jankovic

Yea modern modeling route makes a lot more sense really so who hasn't try
it. do it, like yesterday :)
As for animation yea slow view port is HUGE stop for animation really.
One thing is displaying bunch of meshes and details, (display subdiv,
displacements, fur)
Another thing is actualy procesing rig and weights that is on CPU and not
having much on GPU so two parts of sme problem to deal with.


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 Agree 100%

 It is the animation toolset that is not there yet although IMHO it is
 quite simple to fix... let's see   ;-)

 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 31 Mar 2014, at 10:44, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm wrote:

 Rigging in Houdini is phenomenal.

 getting an animator to work in Houdini is another thing entirely.

 while it's perfectly possible to make a decent ui for your animators, they
 will still be
 hamstrung by the viewport speed and painful interaction/fcurve tools.

 expect hissy fits and dummy spitting..


 --
  Jon Swindells
  jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm



 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 12:36 PM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:

 Zbrush + retopo is basically part of a lot of workflows.
 Also modeling seems to be least app dependent part of production.

 Fun start with rigging and animation.
 How's that?


 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Angus Davidson 
 angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote:


 Houdini is not what I would call a great character modeller just yet. Most
  people who seem to be planning to put Houdini as the main part of the
  pipeline are looking at something Like Modo / Zbrush for the modelling

  Kind regards

  Angus



  On 2014/03/31, 11:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

  A question for Houdini users:
  My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to
  animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In
  this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
  David

  table width=100% border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0
 style=width:100%;
  tr
  td align=left style=text-align:justify;font
 face=arial,sans-serif size=1 color=#99span
 style=font-size:11px;This communication is intended for the addressee
 only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error,
 please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not
 copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the
 University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into
 agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that
 the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University
 and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are
 not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the
 Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and
 outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in
 writing to the contrary. /span/font/td
  /tr
  /table

Re: March 28, 2014


Hello Jordi
Thanks for the interesting post. I'm enthusiastic for the modern route.
However, I've watched these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjBCkLwfomI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBhsqozxH4
Doesn't it look like a double modelling? The first in Zbrush , a 
sculpting-like modeling. Then in Topogun, you're back to traditional 
modelling (moving vertices etc).

?
David

On 2014-03-31 11:44, Jordi Bares wrote:

- Traditional route - You model in XSI/Maya/Max/Modo by means of moving 
vertices, edges, etc… tons of work to build something relatively simple and any 
director comment may have major implications on topology so not very good idea 
although everybody seems to use it.

- Modern route - You model in Zbursh without caring at all about topology, the 
client signs the character in a few poses, may be even photoshop it quickly to 
give a professional presentation and better look. Then retopo on something like 
Topogun and uv with UV layout and texturing in Mari.

Re: March 28, 2014

Tantalizing posts :) You said there were plans for a better modeling 
toolset, can we expect similar plans for the animation toolset and the 
character interaction speed???


On 2014-03-31 11:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
It is the animation toolset that is not there yet although IMHO it is 
quite simple to fix… let's see   ;-)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread paul


Hi David,

Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is that 
you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to worry 
about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already there; 
So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe that 
form.
Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and far 
less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.


Paul

-Original Message- 
From: David Saber

Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 11:05 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

Hello Jordi
Thanks for the interesting post. I'm enthusiastic for the modern route.
However, I've watched these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjBCkLwfomI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBhsqozxH4
Doesn't it look like a double modelling? The first in Zbrush , a
sculpting-like modeling. Then in Topogun, you're back to traditional
modelling (moving vertices etc).
?
David

On 2014-03-31 11:44, Jordi Bares wrote:
- Traditional route - You model in XSI/Maya/Max/Modo by means of moving 
vertices, edges, etc… tons of work to build something relatively simple 
and any director comment may have major implications on topology so not 
very good idea although everybody seems to use it.


- Modern route - You model in Zbursh without caring at all about topology, 
the client signs the character in a few poses, may be even photoshop it 
quickly to give a professional presentation and better look. Then retopo 
on something like Topogun and uv with UV layout and texturing in Mari.

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Jon Swindells

It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
great unwashed :)

j/k

Paul pretty much nailed it

-- 
  Jon Swindells
  jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
 Hi David,
 
 Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
 that 
 you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
 Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
 worry 
 about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
 The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
 there; 
 So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
 that 
 form.
 Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
 far 
 less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.
 
 Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Oscar Juarez

Even if it takes longer as a general process, the review iterations are
much better and you end up with a better model. And you free your modeler
from the topology but be careful, the guy doing the re topo should know
what he/she is doing :D


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Jon Swindells
jon_swinde...@fastmail.fmwrote:

 It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
 great unwashed :)

 j/k

 Paul pretty much nailed it

 --
   Jon Swindells
   jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm

 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
  Hi David,
 
  Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
  that
  you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
  Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
  worry
  about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
  The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
  there;
  So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
  that
  form.
  Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
  far
  less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.
 
  Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Adam Seeley


But for the smaller production line, say 1 person,  without any lesser mortals 
to abuse, doesn't Zremesher help you avoid the initial tedium.

http://pixologic.com/zbrush/features/ZBrush4R6/

It yet but looks hugely useful..


 Adam.
_

http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamseeleyuk
https://vimeo.com/adamseeley





 From: Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 11:32
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014
 


Even if it takes longer as a general process, the review iterations are much 
better and you end up with a better model. And you free your modeler from the 
topology but be careful, the guy doing the re topo should know what he/she is 
doing :D



On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm 
wrote:

It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
great unwashed :)

j/k

Paul pretty much nailed it

--
  Jon Swindells
  jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
 Hi David,

 Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
 that
 you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
 Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
 worry
 about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
 The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
 there;
 So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
 that
 form.
 Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
 far
 less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.

 Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Adam Seeley

It... yet... but..??

I mean...  It looks hugely useful.


A.
_
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamseeleyuk
https://vimeo.com/adamseeley





 From: Adam Seeley adam_see...@yahoo.com
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 11:52
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014
 



But for the smaller production line, say 1 person,  without any lesser mortals 
to abuse, doesn't Zremesher help you avoid the initial tedium.

http://pixologic.com/zbrush/features/ZBrush4R6/

It yet but looks hugely useful..



 Adam.
_

http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamseeleyuk
https://vimeo.com/adamseeley






 From: Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 11:32
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014
 


Even if it takes longer as a general process, the review iterations are much 
better and you end up with a better model. And you free your modeler from the 
topology but be careful, the guy doing the re topo should know what he/she is 
doing :D



On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm 
wrote:

It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
great unwashed :)

j/k

Paul pretty much nailed it

--
  Jon Swindells
  jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
 Hi David,

 Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
 that
 you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
 Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
 worry
 about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
 The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
 there;
 So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
 that
 form.
 Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
 far
 less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.

 Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

I have to admit to not having tried again in at least two and half years,
but I haven't seen any related release notes related to rigging since then,
so bear with me if this is not recent or still actual information, but in
what way is rigging in Houdini phenomenal?
It's a major pain in the arse, generally slow both performance wise and to
actually produce the rigs, and it has absolutely zero adequate facilities
for a lot of stuff such as shape manipulation, and while VOPs are great,
when it comes to deformations they don't even scratch the surface of what
ICE can do.
And while it's true assets are phenomenal, the sheer scope of investment to
wrap a character up to give it to an animator is staggering, it takes
forever to truly and properly armor  up a rig and expose only the right
context in the right way.

As for modelling, I agree I'd rather model in ZB and retopo in topogun or
3DCoat, but shape modelling at a certain level and almost any shape
modelling for character FX is still often best done inside the anim/rigging
app in the whole low to middle end of quality, and frankly only Soft had
anything right in those regards. Maya might or might not kind of almost be
alright for the pointpushing side of things now with 2015, but the shape
management itself tends to be so bad that if you use it more than an hour a
day you get AIDS.

So, can someone illuminate me on why Houdini gets recommended for rigging?
(other than procedural or FX heavy animation, in which case I won't
disagree)

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

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Martin Yara

Since I work in games I don't always have the pleasure to sculpt and I have
to use the traditional approach.

I'm now sculpting in a new project, after a few years of not using ZB, and
I'm not sure how obsolete may be my procedure so I would like to ask some
questions.

- Normal maps.
What should I use to bake them? I remember that ZBrush didn't give me good
results years ago, have this changed?
xNormal was a better alternative to SI and Maya since it was pretty fast
and good results. I'm still using it.

- Retopo
I've heard good things about ZB and 3D Coat retopo tools but haven't use
them.  I've never used Topogun either but I've heard that that was the
standard a few years ago. Is still topogun the best tool for this?

- General Workflow
I do a base model in SI, somewhat detailed, specially hard surface that I
find easier to do in SI.
Simple Weight for pose and test.
crease in Maya if necessary because goZ doesn't support SI creasing.
goZ and sculpt
I don't retopo from scratch, I use the base model and tweak it over a
mid-high mesh that I've imported from ZB into SI. Shrink  Wrap works good
enough.
Create UVs.
Bake Normals in xNormal
CrazyBump for texture base and Photoshop. I haven't tried Mari yet (we
don't have Mari)

Would retopo be a faster approach? I've never sculpted from scratch.
This is what is working for me, but is there something that you would
recommend to change?

Thanks

Martin








On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 7:30 PM, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fmwrote:

 It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
 great unwashed :)

 j/k

 Paul pretty much nailed it

 --
   Jon Swindells
   jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm

 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
  Hi David,
 
  Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
  that
  you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
  Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
  worry
  about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
  The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
  there;
  So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
  that
  form.
  Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
  far
  less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.
 
  Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

3Dcoat has a great set of tools for retopo, ZBrush not really if you want
precise control, it's clunky at best. The retopo it has IS brilliant, but
for sculpting purposes (redistributing detail, especially now that
reprojecting is solid).

I love Topogun, but it's kind of dead software. It's dirt cheap, so you can
always pick it up, license it to a usb network card (so you get a dongle,
it relies on mac address), and bleed it dry while it lasts, it's a pleasure
to use, but don't expect updates.

Maya 2015 might actually be kind-of-OKish for retopo with the work done to
integrate NEX more and to be able to have GPU caches as live (snappable
surfaces in maya). XSI is still better than OK but if the source to retopo
is extremely HR it will choke, so you might need to produce interim meshes
(say, decimated) to retopo before reprojecting if you use it.
Live snappng through wrapping isn't fast enough over a multi-mill polymesh.


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:04 PM, Martin Yara furik...@gmail.com wrote:


 - Retopo
 I've heard good things about ZB and 3D Coat retopo tools but haven't use
 them.  I've never used Topogun either but I've heard that that was the
 standard a few years ago. Is still topogun the best tool for this?

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread paul

I’ve tried a few retopology tools, and my personal preference is simply doing 
it in XSI.  I’m not saying its the best, but factoring in my ‘muscle memory’ 
and general familiarity , I can work pretty much as fast as I can make 
decisions. 
(but yes, as Raff says, you’ll want to decimate the mesh to work with as it 
gets slow on really High Poly meshes and/or cut up the mesh into chunks to work 
with ,such as head, hands etc and not try it all in one go)



From: Raffaele Fragapane 
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 12:09 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

3Dcoat has a great set of tools for retopo, ZBrush not really if you want 
precise control, it's clunky at best. The retopo it has IS brilliant, but for 
sculpting purposes (redistributing detail, especially now that reprojecting is 
solid). 

I love Topogun, but it's kind of dead software. It's dirt cheap, so you can 
always pick it up, license it to a usb network card (so you get a dongle, it 
relies on mac address), and bleed it dry while it lasts, it's a pleasure to 
use, but don't expect updates.

Maya 2015 might actually be kind-of-OKish for retopo with the work done to 
integrate NEX more and to be able to have GPU caches as live (snappable 
surfaces in maya). XSI is still better than OK but if the source to retopo is 
extremely HR it will choke, so you might need to produce interim meshes (say, 
decimated) to retopo before reprojecting if you use it.
Live snappng through wrapping isn't fast enough over a multi-mill polymesh.




On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:04 PM, Martin Yara furik...@gmail.com wrote:


  - Retopo
  I've heard good things about ZB and 3D Coat retopo tools but haven't use 
them.  I've never used Topogun either but I've heard that that was the standard 
a few years ago. Is still topogun the best tool for this?

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Angus Davidson

Hopefully there are going to be good things coming down the Line. Having a look 
at Presto via that twitch link shows things like this are possible

From: Mirko Jankovic 
mirkoj.anima...@gmail.commailto:mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com
Reply-To: 
softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Date: Monday 31 March 2014 at 11:52 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

Yea modern modeling route makes a lot more sense really so who hasn't try it. 
do it, like yesterday :)
As for animation yea slow view port is HUGE stop for animation really.
One thing is displaying bunch of meshes and details, (display subdiv, 
displacements, fur)
Another thing is actualy procesing rig and weights that is on CPU and not 
having much on GPU so two parts of sme problem to deal with.

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Jordi Bares 
jordiba...@gmail.commailto:jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
Agree 100%

It is the animation toolset that is not there yet although IMHO it is quite 
simple to fix… let's see   ;-)

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.commailto:jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 10:44, Jon Swindells 
jon_swinde...@fastmail.fmmailto:jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm wrote:

Rigging in Houdini is phenomenal.

getting an animator to work in Houdini is another thing entirely.

while it's perfectly possible to make a decent ui for your animators, they will 
still be
hamstrung by the viewport speed and painful interaction/fcurve tools.

expect hissy fits and dummy spitting..

--
Jon Swindells
jon_swinde...@fastmail.fmmailto:jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 12:36 PM, Mirko Jankovic wrote:
Zbrush + retopo is basically part of a lot of workflows.
Also modeling seems to be least app dependent part of production.

Fun start with rigging and animation.
How's that?

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Angus Davidson 
angus.david...@wits.ac.zamailto:angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote:

Houdini is not what I would call a great character modeller just yet. Most
people who seem to be planning to put Houdini as the main part of the
pipeline are looking at something Like Modo / Zbrush for the modelling

Kind regards

Angus

On 2014/03/31, 11:20 AM, David Saber 
davidsa...@sfr.frmailto:davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

A question for Houdini users:
My main concern is characters. From modeling to texturing to rigging to
animating, that's what I'm most interested in when I use a 3D app. In
this perspective, is Houdini the right way to go?
David

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University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which 
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communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original 
message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the 
permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to 
enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus 
advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the 
University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which 
are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the 
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and 
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RE: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Chris Vienneau

Give Maya 2015 retopo a try when it comes out as we have a lot of the beta 
users who use Topogun very happy with the performance given these meshes can be 
10s of millions of polys. The maquette workflow of using Zbrush/3D coat/Mudbox 
(had to throw it in but Zbrush is still #1) is pretty standard for hero 
characters or concepts. The same goes for photogrammetry as you can get great 
results with tools like agisoft or our service (recap.autodesk.com) but the 
topology is awful. The final thing we are seeing in previz is the use of 
standins from places like turbosquid or sketchup files from concept. The key is 
that all of these workflows help sell the concept quicker and allows for quick 
changes up stream. Most concept artists we have talked this year have already 
switched to this 2.5 D workflow of DCC + Photoshop.



Every one of the tools above has an automatic retopo feature that does not work 
in all cases so we see users try it in Zbrush and Mudbox and plugins before 
going the route of manually recreating the topology.



cv/






From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Raffaele Fragapane 
[raffsxsil...@googlemail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 7:09 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

3Dcoat has a great set of tools for retopo, ZBrush not really if you want 
precise control, it's clunky at best. The retopo it has IS brilliant, but for 
sculpting purposes (redistributing detail, especially now that reprojecting is 
solid).

I love Topogun, but it's kind of dead software. It's dirt cheap, so you can 
always pick it up, license it to a usb network card (so you get a dongle, it 
relies on mac address), and bleed it dry while it lasts, it's a pleasure to 
use, but don't expect updates.

Maya 2015 might actually be kind-of-OKish for retopo with the work done to 
integrate NEX more and to be able to have GPU caches as live (snappable 
surfaces in maya). XSI is still better than OK but if the source to retopo is 
extremely HR it will choke, so you might need to produce interim meshes (say, 
decimated) to retopo before reprojecting if you use it.
Live snappng through wrapping isn't fast enough over a multi-mill polymesh.


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:04 PM, Martin Yara 
furik...@gmail.commailto:furik...@gmail.com wrote:

- Retopo
I've heard good things about ZB and 3D Coat retopo tools but haven't use them.  
I've never used Topogun either but I've heard that that was the standard a few 
years ago. Is still topogun the best tool for this?

attachment: winmail.dat

Re: March 28, 2014

At first I though the same but there are a couple of factors that are too good 
to be missed

- You model without distractions, quick sketching and lead to fast client 
approval and that is always good

- Second, when you work your retopo you are actually putting your vertices in 
the right places, meaning your volume is very close to the final displacement 
which means your animators and rigs will work much much better.

Now the thing is that on a normal route you would model your mesh, then you 
sculpt it, then you apply your displacements but the volumes are not very good 
as the sculptor when bananas… well… it is a very good idea to reverse it.


And if you look around how modern pipelines work you will see people in film 
specially use Maya, but only for the rigging and animation, *everything  else* 
is done somewhere else

- Zbrush (as described)
- topogun
- Uv lyaout
- Mari
- 3D Equalizer for tracking and base model reconstruction

-- maya for rigging and animation --

- Cloth is shifting from Maya to Marvelous Designer and if you see it working 
you will know why
- All FX go into boudin
- Lighting tends to be done using specialised tools or deferred to compositing 
(nuke of course)
- All rendering go via Arnold, PRMan or similar.


So the reality today for big film work is that it is a very very fragmented 
toolset.



In advertising things are moving towards that too although it is tricky given 
the little time we normally have.

hope it helps 

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 11:05, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Hello Jordi
 Thanks for the interesting post. I'm enthusiastic for the modern route.
 However, I've watched these videos:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjBCkLwfomI
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBhsqozxH4
 Doesn't it look like a double modelling? The first in Zbrush , a 
 sculpting-like modeling. Then in Topogun, you're back to traditional 
 modelling (moving vertices etc).
 ?
 David
 
 On 2014-03-31 11:44, Jordi Bares wrote:
 - Traditional route - You model in XSI/Maya/Max/Modo by means of moving 
 vertices, edges, etc… tons of work to build something relatively simple and 
 any director comment may have major implications on topology so not very 
 good idea although everybody seems to use it.
 
 - Modern route - You model in Zbursh without caring at all about topology, 
 the client signs the character in a few poses, may be even photoshop it 
 quickly to give a professional presentation and better look. Then retopo on 
 something like Topogun and uv with UV layout and texturing in Mari.

RE: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Szabolcs Matefy

I start with a sculpt, usually using Species base mesh and/or Dynamesh. During 
the process, I used to retopo several times using ZRemesher. Depending on the 
final texture size, ZBrush part is 1 day to 2 weeks. When the ZB model is done, 
I use Decimation master to make a “lightweight” model to work with in XSI or 
Topogun (or both). Retopo takes no more than a day or two. Having the finished 
sculpt, I have a clear understanding what feature need to be modelled, and what 
is enough normalmapped. Also, I have spent a good amount of time thinking only 
on the design, without caring of topology, and other technical caveats. When 
Retopo is done, unfold, and UVLayout is my BFF (another one day usually). When 
the low res mesh is prepared, it’s time for baking. I created an XNromal 
connection between Softimage and xNormal, so I can work on everything in XSI, 
send it to xNormal, and use the baked textures. I make the cage in XSI also. 
Baking is a day, or so. Then comes the texturing part. My fastest character was 
done in 2 days with this technique. I start ALWAYS with the sculpt.



From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of p...@bustykelp.com
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 1:26 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

I’ve tried a few retopology tools, and my personal preference is simply doing 
it in XSI.  I’m not saying its the best, but factoring in my ‘muscle memory’ 
and general familiarity , I can work pretty much as fast as I can make 
decisions.
(but yes, as Raff says, you’ll want to decimate the mesh to work with as it 
gets slow on really High Poly meshes and/or cut up the mesh into chunks to work 
with ,such as head, hands etc and not try it all in one go)



From: Raffaele Fragapanemailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 12:09 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

3Dcoat has a great set of tools for retopo, ZBrush not really if you want 
precise control, it's clunky at best. The retopo it has IS brilliant, but for 
sculpting purposes (redistributing detail, especially now that reprojecting is 
solid).

I love Topogun, but it's kind of dead software. It's dirt cheap, so you can 
always pick it up, license it to a usb network card (so you get a dongle, it 
relies on mac address), and bleed it dry while it lasts, it's a pleasure to 
use, but don't expect updates.

Maya 2015 might actually be kind-of-OKish for retopo with the work done to 
integrate NEX more and to be able to have GPU caches as live (snappable 
surfaces in maya). XSI is still better than OK but if the source to retopo is 
extremely HR it will choke, so you might need to produce interim meshes (say, 
decimated) to retopo before reprojecting if you use it.
Live snappng through wrapping isn't fast enough over a multi-mill polymesh.

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:04 PM, Martin Yara 
furik...@gmail.commailto:furik...@gmail.com wrote:

- Retopo
I've heard good things about ZB and 3D Coat retopo tools but haven't use them.  
I've never used Topogun either but I've heard that that was the standard a few 
years ago. Is still topogun the best tool for this?

Re: March 28, 2014

I am sure things are going to move very fast


Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 11:18, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Tantalizing posts :) You said there were plans for a better modeling toolset, 
 can we expect similar plans for the animation toolset and the character 
 interaction speed???
 
 On 2014-03-31 11:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
 It is the animation toolset that is not there yet although IMHO it is quite 
 simple to fix… let's see   ;-)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Jon Swindells

bear in mind, i wasn't really comparing Houdini to ICE, regardless -



things that account for the 'phenomena' in my view:

the sheer scalability and iterative workflow that you can get with vops
and a little bit of inline cpp

really did impress me, assets and otls seem solid and much improved
since last i used houdini in anger (v9)

the python integration feels complete and mind numbingly simple to
learn,

internal organization of large networks seems to be handled well



At the moment, i'd agree that ice is vastly better for deformation in
terms of speed, still too early for me to tell if it's better

in scope yet.



i put the potential clunkiness of houdini rigs down to the vp speed.
all the rigs i've done in the past week or so have all

cooked within acceptable limits yet handled like mollasses.







--
Jon Swindells
jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm





On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 02:04 PM, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

I have to admit to not having tried again in at least two and half
years, but I haven't seen any related release notes related to rigging
since then, so bear with me if this is not recent or still actual
information, but in what way is rigging in Houdini phenomenal?
It's a major pain in the arse, generally slow both performance wise and
to actually produce the rigs, and it has absolutely zero adequate
facilities for a lot of stuff such as shape manipulation, and while
VOPs are great, when it comes to deformations they don't even scratch
the surface of what ICE can do.
And while it's true assets are phenomenal, the sheer scope of
investment to wrap a character up to give it to an animator is
staggering, it takes forever to truly and properly armor  up a rig and
expose only the right context in the right way.

As for modelling, I agree I'd rather model in ZB and retopo in topogun
or 3DCoat, but shape modelling at a certain level and almost any shape
modelling for character FX is still often best done inside the
anim/rigging app in the whole low to middle end of quality, and frankly
only Soft had anything right in those regards. Maya might or might not
kind of almost be alright for the pointpushing side of things now with
2015, but the shape management itself tends to be so bad that if you
use it more than an hour a day you get AIDS.

So, can someone illuminate me on why Houdini gets recommended for
rigging? (other than procedural or FX heavy animation, in which case I
won't disagree)

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

Re: March 28, 2014

A rigger is perfect for this because it is fundamental for great deformations 
so I am always inclined to give the retopo to them… after all you can do the 
retopo in a day.

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 11:32, Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com wrote:

 Even if it takes longer as a general process, the review iterations are much 
 better and you end up with a better model. And you free your modeler from the 
 topology but be careful, the guy doing the re topo should know what he/she is 
 doing :D
 
 
 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm 
 wrote:
 It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
 great unwashed :)
 
 j/k
 
 Paul pretty much nailed it
 
 --
   Jon Swindells
   jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm
 
 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
  Hi David,
 
  Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
  that
  you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
  Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
  worry
  about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
  The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
  there;
  So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
  that
  form.
  Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
  far
  less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.
 
  Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

Well, this is something Zbrush guys are fully aware and you can see they are 
going for retopology as part of their workflow and also UV preparations so we 
may find ourselves they take care of these.

That would be great

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 31 Mar 2014, at 11:52, Adam Seeley adam_see...@yahoo.com wrote:

 
 But for the smaller production line, say 1 person,  without any lesser 
 mortals to abuse, doesn't Zremesher help you avoid the initial tedium.
 
 http://pixologic.com/zbrush/features/ZBrush4R6/
 
 It yet but looks hugely useful..
 
  Adam.
 _
 
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamseeleyuk
 https://vimeo.com/adamseeley
 
 
 From: Oscar Juarez tridi.animei...@gmail.com
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
 Sent: Monday, 31 March 2014, 11:32
 Subject: Re: March 28, 2014
 
 Even if it takes longer as a general process, the review iterations are much 
 better and you end up with a better model. And you free your modeler from the 
 topology but be careful, the guy doing the re topo should know what he/she is 
 doing :D
 
 
 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Jon Swindells jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm 
 wrote:
 It's also a task that can be shunted off onto lesser mortals and the
 great unwashed :)
 
 j/k
 
 Paul pretty much nailed it
 
 --
   Jon Swindells
   jon_swinde...@fastmail.fm
 
 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014, at 01:23 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
  Hi David,
 
  Although you might see it as modelling twice, Whats really happening is
  that
  you are splitting up the artistic from the technical decision making.
  Firstly you can just concentrate on what looks good without having to
  worry
  about the topology. This makes this stage a lot more fun.
  The second stage is made a lot easier, as you have the form already
  there;
  So it is much clearer where the topology loops need to go to describe
  that
  form.
  Overall, doing these 2 procedures is still faster in my experience, and
  far
  less tedious more satisfying than doing it the 'traditional' way.
 
  Paul

Re: March 28, 2014

Ultimately I can do the same things in all three packages, in Maya in
example I don't even try to find workarounds, whenever I bump into one of
the innumerable gaps I just write my way out of it with a node, which
incidentally is also why I'm taking a looking to splice and looking forward
to their CUDA implementation instead of using my own in c++.
Text is tremendously expressive, if expensive in terms of learning curve,
which is also a cookie point for vex really.

The problem comes when you have deadlines and you simply want to experiment
without redoing at the end of the process. For that Soft was simply the
perfect storm.
ICE limitation of having a strict I/O domain and the sequential stack with
entry points, the clarity and abundance of atomic nodes, and a generally
cohesive experience remain unbeaten.

In Soft when you hit a wall you often hit it hard, but those are few and
far between, and in between you could really fly. Same goes for clusters,
properties, drag'n'drop and how Soft presents and links those larger
aggregates, they simply work 99% of the time.
Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their learning
curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while with Soft
we had people who never used it literally flying around within a month.

As a creature TD Houdini simply doesn't get you on the zone quickly enough,
if ever. It's brilliant for a number of things, infinitely powerful, has
best of breed solvers, but it gets in the way constantly. It's patently
obvious they rarely, almost never in fact, had to address teams like the
ones I run as user base.

Performance in general is also pretty abysmal (was, might be better know)
and optimisation is opaque and lacking in immediately useful tools and
diagnostics.
Again, as of two and half years ago. Might be different now and I wouldn't
know, but nothing I've read or seen suggests so.
On 31 Mar 2014 23:18, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 Slow performance depends on many things like having nested assets, and
 yes, you won't find an interface to manage your blend shapes but what you
 can do with your rig imho is truly phenomenal.

 Regarding the deformations ICE versus VOPs I would love to know more about
 it, what do you feel you can do in ICE you can't in Houdini?

 Assuming you are doing with the off-the-self toolkit and without any
 proprietary pipeline tools to speed up rigging building a proper asset
 interface, protect it from the user and all that takes time but do you feel
 is much longer than any other package?

 jb

 On 31 Mar 2014, at 12:04, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com
 wrote:

 I have to admit to not having tried again in at least two and half years,
 but I haven't seen any related release notes related to rigging since then,
 so bear with me if this is not recent or still actual information, but in
 what way is rigging in Houdini phenomenal?
 It's a major pain in the arse, generally slow both performance wise and to
 actually produce the rigs, and it has absolutely zero adequate facilities
 for a lot of stuff such as shape manipulation, and while VOPs are great,
 when it comes to deformations they don't even scratch the surface of what
 ICE can do.
 And while it's true assets are phenomenal, the sheer scope of investment
 to wrap a character up to give it to an animator is staggering, it takes
 forever to truly and properly armor  up a rig and expose only the right
 context in the right way.

Re: March 28, 2014

Swiped together on the phone while having a smoke, guess the autocorrects,
or swap things around as appropriate to make the mail funnier ;)
On 31 Mar 2014 23:44, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com
wrote:

 Ultimately I can do the same things in all three packages, in Maya in
 example I don't even try to find workarounds, whenever I bump into one of
 the innumerable gaps I just write my way out of it with a node, which
 incidentally is also why I'm taking a looking to splice and looking forward
 to their CUDA implementation instead of using my own in c++.
 Text is tremendously expressive, if expensive in terms of learning curve,
 which is also a cookie point for vex really.

 The problem comes when you have deadlines and you simply want to
 experiment without redoing at the end of the process. For that Soft was
 simply the perfect storm.
 ICE limitation of having a strict I/O domain and the sequential stack with
 entry points, the clarity and abundance of atomic nodes, and a generally
 cohesive experience remain unbeaten.

 In Soft when you hit a wall you often hit it hard, but those are few and
 far between, and in between you could really fly. Same goes for clusters,
 properties, drag'n'drop and how Soft presents and links those larger
 aggregates, they simply work 99% of the time.
 Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their learning
 curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while with Soft
 we had people who never used it literally flying around within a month.

 As a creature TD Houdini simply doesn't get you on the zone quickly
 enough, if ever. It's brilliant for a number of things, infinitely
 powerful, has best of breed solvers, but it gets in the way constantly.
 It's patently obvious they rarely, almost never in fact, had to address
 teams like the ones I run as user base.

 Performance in general is also pretty abysmal (was, might be better know)
 and optimisation is opaque and lacking in immediately useful tools and
 diagnostics.
 Again, as of two and half years ago. Might be different now and I wouldn't
 know, but nothing I've read or seen suggests so.
 On 31 Mar 2014 23:18, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 Slow performance depends on many things like having nested assets, and
 yes, you won't find an interface to manage your blend shapes but what you
 can do with your rig imho is truly phenomenal.

 Regarding the deformations ICE versus VOPs I would love to know more
 about it, what do you feel you can do in ICE you can't in Houdini?

 Assuming you are doing with the off-the-self toolkit and without any
 proprietary pipeline tools to speed up rigging building a proper asset
 interface, protect it from the user and all that takes time but do you feel
 is much longer than any other package?

 jb

 On 31 Mar 2014, at 12:04, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com
 wrote:

 I have to admit to not having tried again in at least two and half years,
 but I haven't seen any related release notes related to rigging since then,
 so bear with me if this is not recent or still actual information, but in
 what way is rigging in Houdini phenomenal?
 It's a major pain in the arse, generally slow both performance wise and
 to actually produce the rigs, and it has absolutely zero adequate
 facilities for a lot of stuff such as shape manipulation, and while VOPs
 are great, when it comes to deformations they don't even scratch the
 surface of what ICE can do.
  And while it's true assets are phenomenal, the sheer scope of investment
 to wrap a character up to give it to an animator is staggering, it takes
 forever to truly and properly armor  up a rig and expose only the right
 context in the right way.

Can we split this thread regarding animation? I'm really interested in
doing characters in Houdini as we've yet to touch that aside from a few
CHOPs-driven doves. But upon evaluation, we believe that it is not that
abysmal platform that everyone makes it out to be.

Thanks Jordi for all the wonderful insight.

-Lu

On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 6:21 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

On 31 Mar 2014, at 13:44, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com
wrote:

Ultimately I can do the same things in all three packages, in Maya in
example I don't even try to find workarounds, whenever I bump into one of
the innumerable gaps I just write my way out of it with a node, which
incidentally is also why I'm taking a looking to splice and looking forward
to their CUDA implementation instead of using my own in c++.
Text is tremendously expressive, if expensive in terms of learning curve,
which is also a cookie point for vex really.

The problem comes when you have deadlines and you simply want to
experiment without redoing at the end of the process. For that Soft was
simply the perfect storm.
ICE limitation of having a strict I/O domain and the sequential stack with
entry points, the clarity and abundance of atomic nodes, and a generally
cohesive experience remain unbeaten.In Soft when you hit a wall you often
hit it hard, but those are few and far between, and in between you could
really fly. Same goes for clusters, properties, drag'n'drop and how Soft
presents and links those larger aggregates, they simply work 99% of the
time.

Very true, they really hit the right spot and there is no match yet...

Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their learning
curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while with Soft
we had people who never used it literally flying around within a month.

In my experience is quite a different problem...

- with Maya you hit a wall and that is it, either you program C++ and are
good at it or forget it...
- with Softimage you sometimes (Rerely) hit a wall, but when you do, again
there is no way out other than programming it yourself in C++
- with Houdini is like going on the internet, is so vast you get
distracted and unless you are very focused you can be enjoying yourself
without getting anywhere but you rarely will have to program C++ unless you
are refining something for pure performance.

As a creature TD Houdini simply doesn't get you on the zone quickly
enough, if ever. It's brilliant for a number of things, infinitely
powerful, has best of breed solvers, but it gets in the way constantly.

My feeling is that it is too granular for many tasks and you have to be
disciplined or you can be wondering around...

It's patently obvious they rarely, almost never in fact, had to address
teams like the ones I run as user base.

Could you develop further?

Performance in general is also pretty abysmal (was, might be better know)
and optimisation is opaque and lacking in immediately useful tools and
diagnostics.

in version 12.5 and then in 13 there were some major improvements as they
embarked in a huge task to make the nodes fully multi-threaded (still in
progress) and there have been a major effort to integrate python really
well (to me feels like the best integration so far)

Also they started to integrate OpenCL

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini13.0/news/13/opencl

a good example is Pyro

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=2123

Again, as of two and half years ago. Might be different now and I wouldn't
know, but nothing I've read or seen suggests so.

Have a go a this fast rig and let me know what do you think

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31169sid=9a764f3fbadfb00725638e42897932cf

I have been doing a fair amount of rigging lately and I managed to put 170
characters on a heavily choreographed scene and it was much better than
before so although is not my dream scenario it is perfectly usable and I
can do quite a few really amazing things with the rig and assets.

hope it helps.

On 31 Mar 2014 23:18, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

Slow performance depends on many things like having nested assets, and
yes, you won't find an interface to manage your blend shapes but what you
can do with your rig imho is truly phenomenal.

Regarding the deformations ICE versus VOPs I would love to know more
about it, what do you feel you can do in ICE you can't in Houdini?

Assuming you are doing with the off-the-self toolkit and without any
proprietary pipeline tools to speed up rigging building a proper asset
interface, protect it from the user and all that takes time but do you feel
is much longer than any other package?

On 31 Mar 2014, at 12:04, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com
wrote:

I have to admit to not having tried again in at least two and half years,
but I haven't

Re: March 28, 2014


OK Raf, so what are the options left? What would you do?
David

On 2014-03-31 14:44, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:
Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their 
learning curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, 
while with Soft we had people who never used it literally flying 
around within a month.

Re: March 28, 2014

Sadly, I have to accept that experience isn't coming back any time soon, if
ever.

Currently Maya is the one that involves the least problems with animators,
and it has OK rigging facilities and is expansible enough to cover what
gaps are left.
If you want any agility using it you pretty much have to put a ton of dev
work into it front-loaded, or cope with a few plugins and pray they don't
get discontinued (because unlike Soft every major version they will need to
be recompiled).

Performance is on the high end of single threading, but abysmal on the
multi-threaded side of things. Nodes are actually quite easy to write, and
usually not unpleasant, but again a major pain in the arse to thread out
properly, which makes Splice an almost necessary companion for it in my
eyes.

So currently the only option is more or less to move to Maya if you can't
afford proprietary (tons of it), and clench your teeth in hope H-Maya won't
fondle camel balls, and rely on Fabric for performance and hope they
deliver on atomic primitives in place of Autodesk some time soon.

That's, obviously enough, a personal take on it. It's not even AL's take on
it, don't think what I think or say has any reflection on what my employer
does, please :)

The scope, quality, quantity and type of work one does can swing that in
any direction. Given I work (and therefore am interested in maintaining or
evolving expertise) on either feature animation movies or creature work for
live action ones large teams of animators and the ability to scale staff
promptly are staples, and my choices are restricted, someone else might be
in a better situation, someone else in a worse one.
Soft was the perfect storm for the work I do.



On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 8:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 OK Raf, so what are the options left? What would you do?
 David


 On 2014-03-31 14:44, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

 Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their learning
 curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while with Soft
 we had people who never used it literally flying around within a month.




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

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-31 Thread Mirko Jankovic

Actually I disagree with Sadly, I have to accept that experience isn't
coming back any time soon, if ever.
I;m more towards that experience haven;t left anywhere at all
Softimage is till here and there to stay until there is something better.
Guys, it won;t stop working, noone is gonna uninstall it from your drive
and it work same way as it worked yesterday.
I really don't get that immediate feeling of loss. It is huge loss for time
to come but not right now.
If factory that made your hammer you have at home stopped working and
making new ones, no one is gonna take your hammer, and the rest of
tools.
Diversify, learn new tools see what is out there that is always good thing.
But use what works for you right now :)


On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:47 PM, Raffaele Fragapane 
raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Sadly, I have to accept that experience isn't coming back any time soon,
 if ever.

 Currently Maya is the one that involves the least problems with animators,
 and it has OK rigging facilities and is expansible enough to cover what
 gaps are left.
 If you want any agility using it you pretty much have to put a ton of dev
 work into it front-loaded, or cope with a few plugins and pray they don't
 get discontinued (because unlike Soft every major version they will need to
 be recompiled).

 Performance is on the high end of single threading, but abysmal on the
 multi-threaded side of things. Nodes are actually quite easy to write, and
 usually not unpleasant, but again a major pain in the arse to thread out
 properly, which makes Splice an almost necessary companion for it in my
 eyes.

 So currently the only option is more or less to move to Maya if you can't
 afford proprietary (tons of it), and clench your teeth in hope H-Maya won't
 fondle camel balls, and rely on Fabric for performance and hope they
 deliver on atomic primitives in place of Autodesk some time soon.

 That's, obviously enough, a personal take on it. It's not even AL's take
 on it, don't think what I think or say has any reflection on what my
 employer does, please :)

 The scope, quality, quantity and type of work one does can swing that in
 any direction. Given I work (and therefore am interested in maintaining or
 evolving expertise) on either feature animation movies or creature work for
 live action ones large teams of animators and the ability to scale staff
 promptly are staples, and my choices are restricted, someone else might be
 in a better situation, someone else in a worse one.
 Soft was the perfect storm for the work I do.



 On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 8:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 OK Raf, so what are the options left? What would you do?
 David


 On 2014-03-31 14:44, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

 Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their
 learning curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while
 with Soft we had people who never used it literally flying around within a
 month.




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

Re: March 28, 2014

As I said, mine is my personal take on it.
For you it might be an option to keep investing time and efforts in a
software for which new seats can't be bought any longer, for me it's not an
option.

Out of respect for those working around me, and for the people I have to
provide for, it's important to me that what I have can keep generating
income for me.

Being a Softimage Rockstar, given my preferred field and role of
employment, has absolutely zero value.

If you provide content to other parties and you can work with whatever
tools, great for you. I provide expertise, services, development, and a
number of other things, all of which rely heavily on my efforts being
marketable in relation to the platforms I use, or can develop with and for.
Softimage has left the map last month for those that have necessities and
methods of operation similar to mine, and no amount of sentimentalism or
bloody minded stubbornness will change that.

We all have different priorities, I don't pretend I can understand yours,
and even less have any interest in dictating them, but please don't assume
my statement is uninformed or defeatist.



On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 4:14 PM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comwrote:

 Actually I disagree with Sadly, I have to accept that experience isn't
 coming back any time soon, if ever.
 I;m more towards that experience haven;t left anywhere at all
 Softimage is till here and there to stay until there is something better.
 Guys, it won;t stop working, noone is gonna uninstall it from your drive
 and it work same way as it worked yesterday.
 I really don't get that immediate feeling of loss. It is huge loss for
 time to come but not right now.
 If factory that made your hammer you have at home stopped working and
 making new ones, no one is gonna take your hammer, and the rest of
 tools.
 Diversify, learn new tools see what is out there that is always good
 thing. But use what works for you right now :)


 On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 11:47 PM, Raffaele Fragapane 
 raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote:

 Sadly, I have to accept that experience isn't coming back any time soon,
 if ever.

 Currently Maya is the one that involves the least problems with
 animators, and it has OK rigging facilities and is expansible enough to
 cover what gaps are left.
 If you want any agility using it you pretty much have to put a ton of dev
 work into it front-loaded, or cope with a few plugins and pray they don't
 get discontinued (because unlike Soft every major version they will need to
 be recompiled).

 Performance is on the high end of single threading, but abysmal on the
 multi-threaded side of things. Nodes are actually quite easy to write, and
 usually not unpleasant, but again a major pain in the arse to thread out
 properly, which makes Splice an almost necessary companion for it in my
 eyes.

 So currently the only option is more or less to move to Maya if you can't
 afford proprietary (tons of it), and clench your teeth in hope H-Maya won't
 fondle camel balls, and rely on Fabric for performance and hope they
 deliver on atomic primitives in place of Autodesk some time soon.

 That's, obviously enough, a personal take on it. It's not even AL's take
 on it, don't think what I think or say has any reflection on what my
 employer does, please :)

 The scope, quality, quantity and type of work one does can swing that in
 any direction. Given I work (and therefore am interested in maintaining or
 evolving expertise) on either feature animation movies or creature work for
 live action ones large teams of animators and the ability to scale staff
 promptly are staples, and my choices are restricted, someone else might be
 in a better situation, someone else in a worse one.
 Soft was the perfect storm for the work I do.



 On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 8:20 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 OK Raf, so what are the options left? What would you do?
 David


 On 2014-03-31 14:44, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

 Maya and Houdini simply don't provide that experience, and their
 learning curve to reach that level of fluidity is measured in years, while
 with Soft we had people who never used it literally flying around within a
 month.




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





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

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-30 Thread Tenshi S.

+1
Good words there.


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 6:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/

 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine.


 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Touché :)

 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:

 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-30 Thread Jordi Bares

Thanks Perry, my only intention is to help to transition those artists and 
specially the ICE wizards to transition like I already have done, to Houdini.

Let's see where the journey takes us.

:-)

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:51, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Great, thanks for all the info Jordi.
 You are amazing with how you have been helping everyone with SI - Houdini 
 stuff here and on the SE Forum.
 
 Thanks so much. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to you!
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 below
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Very well said Jordi. 
 Thank you for posting this to the list.
 
 A sad day indeed.
 
 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about 
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:
 
 Acceptance.
 
 I know the feeling… feels really bad.
 
 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I 
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once it 
 has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.
 
 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.
 
 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.
 
 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.
 Also looking closely at Fabric.
 
 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and 
 all.
 
 Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in London 
 I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman because 
 the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be efficiently 
 handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box… and it is free.
 
 :-)
 
 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are 
 working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have 
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.
 
 Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines, 
 there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold which 
 is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold integration a run 
 for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an obvious choice in my 
 opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long and the guys from Solid 
 Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects people
 
 Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that can 
 write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines of 
 any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of the 
 HDK.
 
 With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the 
 performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that you 
 are free to do whatever you want.
 
 and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.
 
 http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html
 
 enjoy
 jb
 
 
 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?
 
 Thanks again,
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine. 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
 Touché :)
 
 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:
 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1
 
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects
 
 http://www.TheAfterImage.com
 
 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects
 
 http://www.TheAfterImage.com
 
 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-30 Thread Jordi Bares

You would be surprised about the being an adult factor in the Houdini camp.. 
just pop by one of the Houdini User Groups and you will see lots of kids having 
fun (lots of grey hair sometimes but still kids having fun)

;)

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 29 Mar 2014, at 20:25, Christian Lattuada christian.lattu...@gmail.com 
wrote:

 Thank you Jordi.
 I'm still using softimage but I think houdini it's the only sensible solution 
 to move to.
 Sidefx seems to be smart and careful about the industry and the userbase.
 They do, and always did, FX software, not marketing for CAD or office people 
 (no offence) like autodesk does.
 Only one concern, with softimage I always felt my job like playing, moving to 
 houdini I think I have to grow up a little, to be a more serious guy. :DD
 Maybe it's time for me to be an adult.
 Cheers.
 
 
 .:.
 Christian Lattuada
 
 tel +39 3331277475
 ...
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 below
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Very well said Jordi. 
 Thank you for posting this to the list.
 
 A sad day indeed.
 
 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about 
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:
 
 Acceptance.
 
 I know the feeling… feels really bad.
 
 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I 
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once it 
 has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.
 
 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.
 
 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.
 
 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.
 Also looking closely at Fabric.
 
 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and 
 all.
 
 Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in London 
 I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman because 
 the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be efficiently 
 handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box… and it is free.
 
 :-)
 
 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are 
 working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have 
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.
 
 Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines, 
 there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold which 
 is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold integration a run 
 for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an obvious choice in my 
 opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long and the guys from Solid 
 Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects people
 
 Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that can 
 write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines of 
 any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of the 
 HDK.
 
 With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the 
 performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that you 
 are free to do whatever you want.
 
 and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.
 
 http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html
 
 enjoy
 jb
 
 
 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?
 
 Thanks again,
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine. 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
 Touché :)
 
 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:
 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1
 
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects
 
 http://www.TheAfterImage.com
 
 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-30 Thread Jordi Bares

My pleasure, seems like it is an interesting moment!!! lots to learn for sure!

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 29 Mar 2014, at 22:54, Bk p...@bustykelp.com wrote:

 Yes thanks from me too Jordi. It's so generous to help in the way you are. 
 I'm keen to delve into Houdini, and it's great to be doing it with familiar 
 faces around. ( well familiar names anyway)
 
 I've been learning Fabric KL part time and been pretty encouraged by my 
 progress so far, although I suspect Houdini could be a walk in the park in 
 comparison ( for me, being a novice coder)
 
 Ironically, I can't help but think that us SI/ICE people are poised to be in 
 a great position moving forward  , what with Houdini, probably improving its 
 animation workflow and tools, Fabric going (adding) the visual programming 
 route soon?, and bifrost there also becoming ICE like possibly?  And of 
 course, ICE itself still working as good as ever. Seems like actually there 
 will be lots of options even if there is no SI replacement. 
 
 I am excited about adding Houdini and Fabric to my toolset. It really does 
 feel like progression rather than a backwards step.
 I want to learn more Modo too. (Mainly for Mesh fusion), but also because, I 
 think it's healthy to have more non AD apps being around and doing well. Its 
 a good thing for everyone.
 After years of minimal (displacement making)usage, I've also recently become 
 a big Zbrush fan and have realised far more of its potential and thus can't 
 wait for v5.
 Im starting to feel this monumental EOL kick up the arse could turn out ok in 
 the end for us if we keep moving forward. (although I'm still angry about it )
 
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:51, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Great, thanks for all the info Jordi.
 You are amazing with how you have been helping everyone with SI - Houdini 
 stuff here and on the SE Forum.
 
 Thanks so much. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to you!
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 below
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Very well said Jordi. 
 Thank you for posting this to the list.
 
 A sad day indeed.
 
 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about 
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:
 
 Acceptance.
 
 I know the feeling… feels really bad.
 
 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I 
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once 
 it has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.
 
 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.
 
 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.
 
 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.
 Also looking closely at Fabric.
 
 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and 
 all.
 
 Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in London 
 I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman because 
 the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be efficiently 
 handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box… and it is free.
 
 :-)
 
 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are 
 working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have 
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.
 
 Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines, 
 there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold 
 which is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold 
 integration a run for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an 
 obvious choice in my opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long and 
 the guys from Solid Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects people
 
 Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that can 
 write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines of 
 any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of the 
 HDK.
 
 With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the 
 performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that you 
 are free to do whatever you want.
 
 and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.
 
 http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html
 
 enjoy
 jb
 
 
 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?
 
 Thanks again,
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S.

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Tenshi S.

Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine.


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Touché :)

 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:

 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Leendert A. Hartog


I think noise is somewhat relative to what you actually want to achieve.
Looking at the level of participation for 3dwillneverbethesame.com
and the clear statements coming from Autodesk as to what most 
definitively isn't possible

I doubt any amount of noise will help any ATM.
Noise by itself isn't enough, there needs to be a plan behind it.
And even then...

Greetz
Leendert
AKA Hirazi Blue

Tenshi S. schreef op 29-3-2014 12:24:

Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine.

--
Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Jordi Bares

http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine. 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
 Touché :)
 
 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:
 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Leendert A. Hartog


Convincing statement!

Greetz
Leendert

--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Perry Harovas

Very well said Jordi.
Thank you for posting this to the list.

A sad day indeed.

I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about
Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
I found that the worst thing has happened:

Acceptance.

I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I
always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once
it has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.

I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.

Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.

Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.
Also looking closely at Fabric.

One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and
all.
What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are
working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have
really loved the speed of Redshift.
I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.

Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?

Thanks again,

Perry





On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/

 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine.


 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Touché :)

 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:

 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1






-- 





Perry Harovas
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

-25 Years Experience
-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Jordi Bares

below

On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Very well said Jordi. 
 Thank you for posting this to the list.
 
 A sad day indeed.
 
 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about 
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:
 
 Acceptance.

I know the feeling… feels really bad.

 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I 
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once it 
 has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.
 
 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.
 
 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.
 
 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.
 Also looking closely at Fabric.
 
 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and 
 all.

Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in London I 
shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman because the 
amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be efficiently 
handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box… and it is free.

:-)

 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are working 
 inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have 
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.

Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines, there 
are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold which is 
exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold integration a run for 
their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an obvious choice in my 
opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long and the guys from Solid 
Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects people

Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that can 
write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines of any 
kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of the HDK.

With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the 
performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that you 
are free to do whatever you want.

and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html

enjoy
jb

 
 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?
 
 Thanks again,
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine. 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
 Touché :)
 
 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:
 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1
 
 
 
 
 
 -- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects
 
 http://www.TheAfterImage.com
 
 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Perry Harovas

Great, thanks for all the info Jordi.
You are amazing with how you have been helping everyone with SI - Houdini
stuff here and on the SE Forum.

Thanks so much. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to you!

Perry




On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 below

 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Very well said Jordi.
 Thank you for posting this to the list.

 A sad day indeed.

 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:

 Acceptance.


 I know the feeling... feels really bad.

 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once
 it has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.

 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.

 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.

 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.

 Also looking closely at Fabric.

 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX
 and all.


 Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in
 London I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman
 because the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be
 efficiently handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box... and
 it is free.

 :-)

 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are
 working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.


 Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines,
 there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold
 which is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold
 integration a run for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an
 obvious choice in my opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long
 and the guys from Solid Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects
 people

 Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that
 can write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines
 of any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of
 the HDK.

 With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the
 performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that
 you are free to do whatever you want.

 and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.

 http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html

 enjoy
 jb


 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?

 Thanks again,

 Perry





 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/

  Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine.


 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Touché :)

 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:

 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1






 --





 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects

 http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)





-- 





Perry Harovas
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

-25 Years Experience
-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Christian Lattuada

Thank you Jordi.
I'm still using softimage but I think houdini it's the only sensible
solution to move to.
Sidefx seems to be smart and careful about the industry and the userbase.
They do, and always did, FX software, not marketing for CAD or office
people (no offence) like autodesk does.
Only one concern, with softimage I always felt my job like playing, moving
to houdini I think I have to grow up a little, to be a more serious guy. :DD
Maybe it's time for me to be an adult.
Cheers.


.:.
Christian Lattuada

tel +39 3331277475
...


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 below

 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Very well said Jordi.
 Thank you for posting this to the list.

 A sad day indeed.

 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:

 Acceptance.


 I know the feeling... feels really bad.

 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once
 it has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.

 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.

 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.

 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.

 Also looking closely at Fabric.

 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX
 and all.


 Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in
 London I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman
 because the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be
 efficiently handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box... and
 it is free.

 :-)

 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are
 working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.


 Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines,
 there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold
 which is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold
 integration a run for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an
 obvious choice in my opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long
 and the guys from Solid Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects
 people

 Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that
 can write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines
 of any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of
 the HDK.

 With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the
 performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that
 you are free to do whatever you want.

 and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.

 http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html

 enjoy
 jb


 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?

 Thanks again,

 Perry





 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/

  Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine.


 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Touché :)

 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph Muetze wrote:

 https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1






 --





 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects

 http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Meng-Yang Lu

Once upon a time, there used to be these Maya guys that never knew what
they were missing out because they never stepped out of their comfort zone.
 Don't repeat their mistake from your perspective.  I would say keep
Softimage in your arsenal, but also give Sesi and Houdini a fair shake.
 You don't have to grow up or not have fun using Houdini.  Your first shot
might be a little annoying getting everything set up, but shot 2 through
infinity doing variations of the same thing will be an absolute joy.

We're using Mantra to great success.  Hard surface, liquids, smoke, it does
it all.  I know you guys are saying Arnold, Arnold, Arnold, and I use
Arnold all the time in Maya/XSI, but Mantra is every bit as competitive and
more feature rich if you give it a shot.

We JUST finished this 15 second spot.  All Houdini except for the matchmove
the Maya guys had to do.  The compression takes a bit of the beauty away
but I hope it gets my point across.  Houdini is an absolute workhorse.
 Watch in 1080 plz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3vh3ILt6slist=PLYHB_K45JmFp_YbpngWB2x9Wxmr1cxVzd

-Lu


On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Christian Lattuada 
christian.lattu...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thank you Jordi.
 I'm still using softimage but I think houdini it's the only sensible
 solution to move to.
 Sidefx seems to be smart and careful about the industry and the userbase.
 They do, and always did, FX software, not marketing for CAD or office
 people (no offence) like autodesk does.
 Only one concern, with softimage I always felt my job like playing, moving
 to houdini I think I have to grow up a little, to be a more serious guy. :DD
 Maybe it's time for me to be an adult.
 Cheers.

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Bk

Yes thanks from me too Jordi. It's so generous to help in the way you are. I'm 
keen to delve into Houdini, and it's great to be doing it with familiar faces 
around. ( well familiar names anyway)

I've been learning Fabric KL part time and been pretty encouraged by my 
progress so far, although I suspect Houdini could be a walk in the park in 
comparison ( for me, being a novice coder)

Ironically, I can't help but think that us SI/ICE people are poised to be in a 
great position moving forward  , what with Houdini, probably improving its 
animation workflow and tools, Fabric going (adding) the visual programming 
route soon?, and bifrost there also becoming ICE like possibly?  And of course, 
ICE itself still working as good as ever. Seems like actually there will be 
lots of options even if there is no SI replacement. 

I am excited about adding Houdini and Fabric to my toolset. It really does feel 
like progression rather than a backwards step.
I want to learn more Modo too. (Mainly for Mesh fusion), but also because, I 
think it's healthy to have more non AD apps being around and doing well. Its a 
good thing for everyone.
After years of minimal (displacement making)usage, I've also recently become a 
big Zbrush fan and have realised far more of its potential and thus can't wait 
for v5.
Im starting to feel this monumental EOL kick up the arse could turn out ok in 
the end for us if we keep moving forward. (although I'm still angry about it )


On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:51, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:

 Great, thanks for all the info Jordi.
 You are amazing with how you have been helping everyone with SI - Houdini 
 stuff here and on the SE Forum.
 
 Thanks so much. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to you!
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 below
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 18:21, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Very well said Jordi. 
 Thank you for posting this to the list.
 
 A sad day indeed.
 
 I have been sick for days (a real nasty cold, not just being sad about 
 Softimage), and now that I am finally resurfacing,
 I found that the worst thing has happened:
 
 Acceptance.
 
 I know the feeling… feels really bad.
 
 I am now just resigned to having to learn a new package (which of course I 
 always knew from the moment the announcement was made).
 It is just a different thing when reality is approaching, than it is once it 
 has already hit you in the gut and passed you by.
 
 I love Softimage. But now she is gone.
 Sure I can still use it, but the way forward MUST include a new DCC.
 
 Time to get cracking on firing up these 46 year old brain cells.
 
 Houdini and Modo seems to be the way forward.
 Also looking closely at Fabric.
 
 One question regarding Houdini... Mantra seems quite powerful, with VEX and 
 all.
 
 Mantra is extremely powerful, just a fact, a major film post house in London 
 I shall not name is using Mantra at the moment instead of Renderman because 
 the amount of geometry they are dealing with in Houdini can't be efficiently 
 handled by Renderman but it can by Mantra out of the box… and it is free.
 
 :-)
 
 What Houdini seems to lack, though, are any plugin renderers that are 
 working inside of Houdini (as opposed to
 being a stand alone that you export to). Is that correct? Lately I have 
 really loved the speed of Redshift.
 I really hope those guys move towards getting Redshift inside Houdini.
 
 Well, the good news is that Houdini supports a number of render engines, 
 there are very good integrations done and some on their way like Arnold which 
 is exceptionally well crafted and gives Maya and XSI arnold integration a run 
 for their money so if you have Arnold licenses it is an obvious choice in my 
 opinion. Still in beta but I assume won't take long and the guys from Solid 
 Angle are exceptionally nice like the Side Effects people
 
 Regarding Redshift I hope they do port it, but if you have someone that can 
 write scripts Houdin has a framework to export scenes to render engines of 
 any kind, Scripted Output of Houdini Objects aka SOHO which is part of the 
 HDK.
 
 With this you can build your own exporter fairly easily and although the 
 performance is not the same as a purely compiled plugin the fact is that you 
 are free to do whatever you want.
 
 and the HDK is also free so imho it is a no brainer.
 
 http://www.sidefx.com/docs/hdk13.0/_h_d_k__s_o_h_o.html
 
 enjoy
 jb
 
 
 Anyone know of any embedded renderers inside Houdini?
 
 Thanks again,
 
 Perry
 
 
 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 http://www.jordibares.com/2014_03_28/farewell-softimage/
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 29 Mar 2014, at 11:24, Tenshi S. tenshu...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Indeed, we need noise, in every cg online magazine. 
 
 
 On Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 12:45 AM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:
 Touché :)
 
 On 2014-03-28 19:12, Christoph

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-29 Thread Jason S





On 03/29/14 18:54, Bk wrote:
  
  
  Ironically, I can't help but think that us SI/ICE
people are poised to be in a great position moving forward  , what with
Houdini, probably improving its animation workflow and tools, Fabric
going (adding) the visual programming route soon?, and bifrost there
also becoming ICE like possibly?  And of course, ICE itself still
working as good as ever. Seems like actually there will be lots of
options even if there is no SI replacement. 



Yes. And also just to point-out here, concerning post 2016 continuity
(on subscription)
despite the glyph showing all paths leading to "Maya/Max *Only*"
after 2016 in the (updated) release announcement, 
On several occasions (on SI-Community) has it been made clear ;
".. you get to keep your license of Softimage forever, even
on subscription."

Thanks


  

  
  
   Post
subject: Re: RETIREMENT QA   
  BenR wrote:
  
  oz42
wrote:
  I'm
really confused about this.
  
I
am deeply saddened that Autodesk have canned Softimage. However I want
to keep on using it, long after 2016. I accept that I will probably
have to start learning Maya or Max in the meantime but I definitely
still want to keep on using Softimage, even if it's eventually
unsupported.
  
Maurice
suggest that in order to keep on using Softimage after 2016 we should
stop our subscription before the deadline. The problem is, I am a
freelancer and so only have one license. If I side-grade to Maya how do
I stop the Softimage subsciption in order to keep using it after 2016
but keep renewing the new Maya subscription??
  
Surely
the better option is to just let us keep on using Softimage after 2016
regardless of the new subscription we're on. It doesn't sound too
impossible to achieve.
  
  
I
came here to say almost exactly the same thing. I am also a freelancer
with one license. If a client comes to me and says "Remember that
project we worked on for 3 months in 2013? Well we need you to make
some changes and add a couple of new animations." Obviously I have to
be able to access the scenes from that project. So my understanding is
that when I move to a transitional license for both Softimage and Maya,
that license will cover both applications for the first 2 years, and
only Maya if subscription is maintained after that. So given my need to
access old Softimage assets, I will have to discontinue subscription
and keep Softimage 2015 and the latest Maya I receive. Then if I want
to continue with Maya I will have to get a new license for $3k. Maurice
Patel said on the list that the reason for this was Autodesk's "revenue
accounting guidelines". Now, I Am Not An Accountant. And I know that
accountants can be strict and demanding. But it seems to me that
Autodesk could find a way around this. If they wanted to.
  
  
  

  



  

  luceric
  
  

  

 Post
subject: Re: RETIREMENT
QA
Posted: 22 Mar 2014, 15:43 

  

  
  


  
  

  


  
  


  

  
  
  Joined: 21 Jun 2009, 18:08
  Posts: 784
  
  

  

The
discussion
above is now wrong, you get to keep your license of
Softimage forever, even on subscription. If recommended doing something
like lock the topic to not confuse other people

March 28, 2014

As of March 28, 2014, customers will no longer be able to purchase new 
standalone licenses.

In a commercial sense the product would seem to be absolutely dead now.
A moment of silence would seem to be appropriate...

Greetz
Leendert -- Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

RE: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Matt Lind

I think many moments is what lead to this situation.  What we need is noise.


Matt




-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leendert A. Hartog
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 11:06 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: March 28, 2014

As of March 28, 2014, customers will no longer be able to purchase new 
standalone licenses.
In a commercial sense the product would seem to be absolutely dead now.
A moment of silence would seem to be appropriate...

Greetz
Leendert -- Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue - 
Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014


True, but to me this is just sinking in: you cannot buy it anymore!
For a commercial product that's quite a momentous occasion.
Talk of EOL is something different, this is more or less tangible (???)
(as in we are absolutely the last SI-generation).

But I admit, I am a bit sentimental that way...

Greetz
Leendert

--
Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Christoph Muetze


https://twitter.com/chris_muetze/status/440923956242309120/photo/1

;(

On 28/03/14 19:06, Leendert A. Hartog wrote:
As of March 28, 2014, customers will no longer be able to purchase 
new standalone licenses.

In a commercial sense the product would seem to be absolutely dead now.
A moment of silence would seem to be appropriate...

Greetz
Leendert -- Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

RE: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Matt Lind

The day isn't over yet.

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leendert A. Hartog
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 11:14 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: March 28, 2014

True, but to me this is just sinking in: you cannot buy it anymore!
For a commercial product that's quite a momentous occasion.
Talk of EOL is something different, this is more or less tangible (???) (as in 
we are absolutely the last SI-generation).

But I admit, I am a bit sentimental that way...

Greetz
Leendert

--
Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014


Yet in my timezone it is... ;)

--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

RE: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Sven Constable

But not on the list, please.

sven

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Matt Lind
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 7:09 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: March 28, 2014

I think many moments is what lead to this situation.  What we need is noise.

Matt

-Original Message-
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leendert A.
Hartog
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2014 11:06 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: March 28, 2014

As of March 28, 2014, customers will no longer be able to purchase new
standalone licenses.
In a commercial sense the product would seem to be absolutely dead now.
A moment of silence would seem to be appropriate...

Greetz
Leendert -- Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist AKA Hirazi Blue -
Administrator @, NOT the owner of si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014


Interesting.
Commemorating a momentous occasion in Softimage's lifetime does not 
belong on the list.

Ah well, sorry for caring about the product then...

Greetz
Leendert

--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Greg Punchatz

I thought is was indeed a thing that needed posting... I wear my heart 
on my sleeve as well..


Thanks

*Greg Punchatz*
*Sr. Creative Director*
Janimation
214.823.7760
www.janimation.com http://www.janimation.com

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread John Richard Sanchez

Well I just got my first Maya job ( didnt take long) and it really sucked.
I was picking up a job from someone and having to make changes  and I
noticed this guy only renders in one pass. H I wonder why. Well my
production time increased due to change to a convoluted workflow. The point
is that I would normally ask if my next job I can do in Softimage but they
want to keep the files for future artists and now they cant buy a seat of
Soft so I am now FORCED to use Maya. My moment of silence came yesterday.


On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote:

  I thought is was indeed a thing that needed posting... I wear my heart
 on my sleeve as well..

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




-- 
www.johnrichardsanchez.com

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Sebastien Sterling

To Softimage ! it enabled the artist for the sake of the artist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZXwJcc1u-I




On 28 March 2014 18:38, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote:

  I thought is was indeed a thing that needed posting... I wear my heart
 on my sleeve as well..

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

Re: March 28, 2014

2014-03-28 Thread Christian Lattuada

I am.
Long live Softimage.

.:.
Christian Lattuada

tel +39 3331277475
...


On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Paul p...@bustykelp.com wrote:

 It's still does if you're fortunate enough to use it.

 On 28 Mar 2014, at 19:31, Sebastien Sterling sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com
 wrote:

 To Softimage ! it enabled the artist for the sake of the artist.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZXwJcc1u-I




 On 28 March 2014 18:38, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote:

  I thought is was indeed a thing that needed posting... I wear my heart
 on my sleeve as well..

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

Re: March 28, 2014