Re: Softimage/Maya workflow_

[Jason S]

On 03/13/15 19:24, Sven Constable wrote: Hey list, just stumbled upon this. Its' about basic transformations, keying, parenting and workflow with contraints and such. So maybe useful for a transition from soft to maya. Im not a maya expert so I don’t know if the workflow presented in the vid is unbiased. One thing I did notice is, in Maya there are a lot of confirmation dialogs, like it was in Softimage|3D… in the nineties ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n9iXhMU_VU sven Some differences are trivial, and quite a few of them, not so trivial (or not just "working differently") He mentions things like gator, but gator is but a workflow example of so many things, but still good perspective from someone that seems to knows both to *at least* a fair level. (complaining about things missing from Maya 2013) He also mentions branch selection recently discussed here, and indeed down selects your single object parent (not so bad), (which we learned should be a locator or non-surface object for it to be okay ) but doing things like duplicating (or hiding? or... ) a *single* selected parent,  duplicates (or hides, or...) the entire branch anyways.  X( For Maya Pros,  indeed access to different SubD levels while viewing final is interesting, wonder why they took it out. (or made it less accessible (?) ) Thought or wished for something like that a long time ago. But also concerning subd,  despite Maya's large object count capacity, and apart sheer raw polycount perfomance (more or less on par), that's notwithstanding also SubD performance, which all types of interaction is still several times smoother in soft, (with or without OpenSubdivs) for playback, editing, whatever. But above all, it leaves out a bunch of things concerning passes, overrides, shapes, multi ppg/explorer workflow , how the construction stack being more detailed, can only brush the surface in the differences... I also recall a lengthy Rigging pros&cons from David Gallagher. You can still do stuff in Maya, and it does have it's pros, like recently mentionned large object count. And everything may not be completely horrible, but it could just as well have had just horrible everything, crashing every 2 seconds, and 1 out of 10 things actually working, many of us would still go.. << well at least it's still developed, and its 'standard' >> Notwithstanding the amount of things that are actually pretty bad, if not *very* bad (in comparison)    _________________________________________     On 03/13/15 19:24, Sven Constable wrote:     [...] maybe useful for a transition from soft to maya. ... or maybe useful to reason with your studio manager to state the obvious, or to migrate  when it would actually be worth doing so. Or if only to not like switch from Shake to AfterEffects (despite it still having it's place), while expecting AE to someday be the same kind of thing .... ... only because it's  << still developed, and 'standard' >> ? Fetched a compilation from the "Top 5 things" thread ... contrasting with stuff like :: Maya visibility inheritance bug? Needless to say, Maya is (very) basically no Softimage. ___________________________________________________________ - Clean and Intuitive UI - You can guess where something is, and you are most often right, plus it isn't cluttered with a bunch of unnecessary icons 3 - Extremely streamlined UI: Everything works with everything, fast UI elements like the sticky keys, tweak tool, mini explorer (F3), fast snapping (CTRL) UI. Simple and powerful, with lots of artistically orientated tools. 1. UI is Intuitive - When you want to do something everything is in one place, Maya has so many places for UI elements its obscene.. shelves.. dialogs attributes across nodes .. you need 5 windows open to work on anything. - Clean yet powerful interface. You always know where you and what your scene elements are doing 3 - UI in general - UI *and interaction* as a whole 1, clean elegant interface 4. UI Design Clean UI/Workflow ________ Interface - genuinely customisable to give me the best setup for whichever task i'm doing. (Maya is technically also customizable but not as easily) Excellent and customizable interface. user-interface easy changeable 4. interface setup ____________________________________________________________ Multi Explorer/PPG concept (you can manipulate many PPGs of the same kind in Multi Mode, they can be locked or kept live, you can have multiple Explorers open showing the same dataset but with different filters, ... ) Muti views of anything to see & edit things in proportion to each-other almost simultaneously 2. UI - from the layout to things like multiple instances of the same windows, locking panels etc __________________________________ Multi ppg changes I think ability to change several objects properties simultaneously without involving any clumsy tools is very useful too. " Multiple Object select editing which you don't realise how great it is until you don't have it (max) 5. Easy change parameters for multiple objects __________________________________ 4. GUI - text-based labelling makes it straight forward to read and fast to get used to/ middle-click repeats/ multimode in PPGs/ multiple explorers etc 4. Text-based interface that is logical & easy to get up to speed with (ie. a Maya person can quickly learn & be productive with Softimage, but not the other way around). 1 - UI: clean, UNCLUTTERED, TEXT-BASED (I just hate gaudy, kitchy icons!!!!!), intuitive, consistent. Multi-PPGs, supra/sticky keys, all the small goodies (MMB etc), ... 4) text based buttons (huge plus if you suffer from certain forms of visual agnosia) 3: Interface and work flow (words, not pictures for buttons. Also multiple floating windows) 3. “Text Buttons” option. Less Icons please. Unclutered allowing me to see the results of what i'm actually doing. ____________________________________________________________ 5. UI / SRT / fields interaction   (e.g. multi PPG's, use of equations, ability to build your own UI etc.) UI especially the consistency of tools throughout the various windows,  and the "middle click" 4: middle click repeat last command 2. interface – it’s consistent, logical, text not icons, intuitive interaction, not cluttered while so many things are easily accessible __________________________________ the use of 3 mousebuttons and the onscreen info about them, the middle click to repeat command, text icons, the whole of the main command panel, the logical organisation of tools (without knowing wether or not a tool exists, you kind of know where to go look for it) what is important is that it was 'discoverable'... meaning softimage provided me with those little 'L' 'M' and 'R' hints at the bottom.   1. Artist driven nonlinear workflow - workflow - fast and intuitive, enable me to hit ever decreasing deadline. 3. unified and (fairly) non-destructive workflow (everything sort of works the same way, with the same interaction philosophy, in any order, ...) - I can’t help but feel that the Softimage interface accomodates the learning process rather than impeding it. There is a ton of plain good ideas in there, that I can’t believe this hasn’t picked up more by competition If this software had a mediocre interface, there would be much less reluctance to jump ship. - allows you to really punch above your weight in terms of results vs studio size and project time. - Hugely adaptive. - It is as close to a one stop shop as you will ever get. I can tweak a particle setup say and instantly see it rendered with the regions. 1. It is the only product on the market that allows a small/medium shop or even freelancers to produce a project end-to-end without requiring a team of people. The smallest shop can still be a competitor. - Softimage is more financial efficient than Maya because it does more and faster with less TDs,  The thing is, imho, with Softimage, any small to medium shop has more chances of surviving than it has if its using Maya, but I'm sure you already know that if you have Maya experience.   Clean UI/Workflow 5. artist / tech / pipeline friendly 3. Artist driven WorkFlow 5 - Artist driven Non-Linear Workflow 5. workflow philosophy (if there is such a thing) Non-linear approach. non-linear-workflow 1) workflow speed & efficiency 3. workflow speed 3. Intuitive non-linear workflow 1. Non linear character pipe Most people learn and use XSI faster than they do Maya. General ease of use and efficient workflow 2. Selections. The way you select things in XSI is awesome. Object based, component based, whatever. It just works. Multiple Object select editing. You know what I mean, there is no need for an deep explanation of this one. 3 - Selections The selection system in Soft is super smart and works like you would expect. Anyone who has gone through the hell of mixing object based and component based selections of Maya probably knows what I mean. Also Raycast selections, being able to 'paint' selections, rectangle raycast selections, etc... (Maya is also pure hell in this regard) One other thing I really miss in maya is the l, m, r selection for nodes branches and trees. The way that maya handles selections is truly awkward. Lmb always grabs the entire hierarchy, even if you only want to duplicate the (single) selected object and nothing else. Also Raycast selections, being able to 'paint' selections, rectangle raycast selections, etc... (Maya is also pure hell in this regard)   2 - scene interaction: almost no viewport clutter, clean snapping, perfect working pivot, perfect selection engine, ... 4- match tools. Wherever I look in maya matching orientation is a horrid relying on setting and breaking constraints to achieve what matching does in two clicks. 5- Various transform modes (local, global, ref, proportional, plane, etc.) The most convenient thing in Softimage is the Transformations options: 4. quick reference coordinate system 3- World/Local Coordinates always available 5- Constraints/Parent Compensation and Neutral Pose info __________ - Snapping that simply works as you expect. Most Maya users slide the mouse to snap to points. We just click. 2. Snapping   1. Operator Stack this one is hard to describe -- it's mostly in contrast to Maya's inability to do a lot of things that seem feasible at first glance -- I guess it's due primarily to the operator stack and ordering; essentially it's the robustness of combinations of operators and tools in Softimage. Working lately with some very talented Maya artists, there have been a LOT of conversations that start with me asking "can you do X?" and end with "no, there's no way to do that," "yes, but I'd have to start over with that built-in to the rig first," "yes, there's a script for that but I have to modify it," or "yes, but when I apply it, it breaks Y." This just happens a lot less in Soft. 4) The operator stack. An envelope can swims atop massive changes to a topology and still interpolates existing wheights nicely. Great for testing and working out shape/topology on a mesh - you´re not restricted to being stuck in the bindpose. Also helps prepping a mesh copy for painting/sculpting Non-linear workflow  -  the ability to go back and remodel a character, after its been enveloped, UVed, shape animated is huge. - Operator Stack  -  being able to rearrange functions while still having them alive saves a ton of time in the RnD stage 2 - Operator Stack:  True non-destructive workflow and the ability to rearrange operators and inputs at any time (directly related to ICE aswell). - Stack concept is probably my favorite feature that I know Maya won't have ever but I'll try not to post the same tools everybody is posting: 3. construction modes & linear workflow   (going back without breaking stuff, or having to start over) 2) Non-destructive adaption of modeling work across shapes weights etc. (when a client wants a change....man this has been a lifesaver in Soft all these years) Construction Modes (using right now: have a 'deform by curve' in 2ndmodeling stack. Modifiyng and using lattices in the first. One viewport showing result and one only current mode) 2) ICE is obvious, but one of the main reasons it's so handy is because of... The Stack - how easy it is to order and reorder, remove individual operators etc. Operator Stack - the ability to go back in modeling stack and fix stuff in the 11th hour before rendering 2. It has a good and efficient construction stack which works!!! (Maya's is just a joke or non existent) - unified and (fairly) non-destructive workflow (everything sort of works the same way, with the same interaction philosophy, in any order, ...) Operator stack being able to reorganize and stack deformers makes rigging a lot easier, especially if you add ICE to it - Operator stack (this NOT the same as construction history!) 3) non destructive workflow: there are almost no "point of no returns" in Softimage   1- Operator Stack (Modeling, Shape Modeling Animation, Secondary Shape Modeling) operator stack, construction modes,... Construction Stack concept 1. non-destructive workflow 1. Operator Stack - Operators, construction stack operator-stack Non destructive Workflow/Operator Stack 4 - operator stack / non-linear workflow 2. Procedural workflow mindset 3. Operators (ICE, scops - dev and gen usage) 4 - operator stack / non-linear workflow operator stack, especially reordering 3. Construction history 5. Construction history Operator Stack 4. Construction History 3- Operator Stack construction history non destructive workflow (stack operator) 2. Operator Stacks/Construction Modes 2: operator stack 3. operator stack Overall Non-Destructivity -Operator Stacks   1 - Animation tool set - mixer, f-curve editor, saving/removing keys/ dope sheet, MOTOR, region, UI etc. 3. ANIMATION TOOLSET - we have alt playback framerate, a fast motion trail , proxy parameters, viewport parameters, synoptic HTML support, HLE curve editing etc. 5. Animation - Deltas, Animation Layers, the FCurve editor, all of them just dont compare in Maya. 3) Proxy Parameters (so nice for the animators not to have to hunt and peck like on Maya rigs) Linking parameters workflow : Drag and drop and otherwise easy/comprehensive _expression_/relationship setup Proxy Parameters 4 - Animation Toolset 5. non-linear character animation + weighting 3 - Animation and Rigging toolset 2 - Animation / Rigging tools 2) mixer/animation/rigging tools 5. Animation Mixer 4. Animation Mixer 3. Animation Mixer 5-Animation mixer. 2. Actions and Mixer ___________________________ 4. Good rigging tools  like Gator, ShapeManager, EnvelopeWeighting (I'm sure there are more but I'm not a rigger, I did heard many riggers saying maya's weight painting is not as good as XSI's) 2 - Rigging - nonlinear work flow, weight editor, adding and removing deformers, GATOR etc - Weight tools : Weight painting, Weight Editor and Smooth Weights that work as expected without having to lock everything, etc. Rigging - friendly weights painting and spreadsheet that works just the way they are supposed to 4. Rig and shapes workflow 3. rigging and animation (weighting, GATOR...) -Rigging tools/workflow - Weight painting tools/shape manager 1. Skinning   ___________________________ Data and attribute transfer the model system, action clips for transferring animation and poses and of course GATOR help a lot to adapt to client changes, when you are already animating shots   4. GATOR (and Ice as well) - The mesh you have been working on just got re-topologised? No problem, all the shapes and weights can be transfered in two clicks. With ice you can just do a nearest point bind and wrap the new mesh to the old one. - GATOR. And please don't compare this wonder to the Transfer Attributes of Maya. 1) GATOR (I've had Maya users nearly go into a seizure of disbelief when I've shown them GATOR in the past) 3. general purpose tools – eg. gator can serve so many different purposes Gator/Rendermap. 5) GATOR" 2. Gator 2 - GATOR, Ultimapper, Motor 4) gator -Gator - GATOR - (saved my ass on many rigging jobs) ___________________________ 3) shape manager 2- being able to do live corrective shapes on a deformed mesh shape-manager 4- Shape Manager   - ICE of course. It empowers you to create something hugely complex in a very time efficient and flexible manner without needing to be a python guru. Also has created a massive, and amazing ecosystem of ICE resources for the community to share (and they do). 5. ICE to rule it all (there are so many things you can do with ICE but I think the best is the fact ICE is great for fixing any issue quickly that can come up in your production, thus making it a perfect feature to make XSI as complete as it is) + Instancing with ICE, give each instance custom attributes that can be used in the rendertree ICE - not only for any kind of simulation, but also as a "swiss army knife" for rigging, prototyping, custom deformers, instancing/scattering/ ... 1 - ICE :  Extremely flexible system for creating all kinds of FX, deformers, etc... ICE - not only as a particle/sim tool, but as an overall allrounding toolset to create/prototype and/or manipulate 1) ICE: It's a collaborative tool, users can help each other very easily generating a vast amount of online content for softimage. Ice - a complete game changer, give me the ability to always find a solution to a client's requests. 1 - ICE: Extremely flexible system for creating all kinds of FX, deformers, etc... 4. ICE - ive only scratched the surface with it, but its been very handy ICE - for its power and versatility - ICE - (it opens up almost limitless possibilities) 1 - ICE: Extremely flexible system for creating all kinds of FX, deformers, etc... 4. Particle Strands 2. ICE (obviously) 3. ICE 1. ICE 1. ICE 4. ICE ICE + - ICE 5. ICE - ICE 3. ICE 2. ICE ICE 1 - ICE 5. ICE - ICE 2 - ICE - ICE (all of it) 3-ICE ICE ice 5 - ICE;-- ICE 4. ICE 3. ICE 1. ICE 1) ice 1- ICE Ice ICE 4. Ice 3. ICE 1: ICE 5 - ICE 2. ice   Explorer - the backbone and ridiculously powerful and clear - and that encapsulates what is great about passes/partitions/group + so much more. But I can't put it as well as Nuno:  "1. Scene Explorer which is great for scene assembly, more intuitive, cleaner and fast, also helps setting up passes faster while maya Outliner is as close as bad as 3dsMax's Object lister, both quite limited compared to XSI's" 4 - Explorer The explorer is an awesome tool for keeping track of your scenes with the ability to dig down to the operators and attributes 2. Scene explorer and organisation (operator stack, reference models...) The explorer is an awesome tool for keeping track of your scenes with the ability to dig down to the operators and attributes 4) EXPLORER: After looking at several software out there, I can say that the explorer in softimage is clean and simple. (How it should be) 3- give us something like the explorer which gives you so many ways to dig into scenes. The outliner offers NOWHERE near this functionality 4. Explorer, Explorer, Explorer, Explorer, Explorer, Explorer. 4 - Explorer: explorer +1 Explorer :) 5. Scene explorer 4. Explorer 1-Explorer 3 - Explorer; Explorer 5. Explorer-- _________________________ Rendering workflow (Passes, Partitions, etc..) - Render setup system hugely flexible, visual and powerful. Passes, partitions, overrides and the like. Makes using all other packages seem like a real ball ache. Render setups - Pass, partitions and overides make multi pass rendering very easy to do, so little wasted on having to set these things up. Passes, Partitions, Overrides,Framebuffer - an good way to organize and manipulate your render output 1. working renderpass system  (don't want to explain the mess that is in Maya) Passes, partitions and overrides.  -  simplicity of setup and amount of control per pass. 3. Easy, complete and reliable pass system ( I did Lighting in Maya's for a few years and its pass system has many flaws) RenderPass management (is miles ahead of other alternatives out there) 2) PASSES and PARTITIONS: For anyone doing lighting and rendering this is a god send. You can correct very easily a render and have huge flexibility with overrides. - Render passes/partitions... and their reliability! 3. Passes - very intuitive and easy to use. 2. Passes.. Partitions.. Render tree design Render Pass management and Overrides. Render Passes/Partitions/Overrides 1. Render Workflow – Passes, Partitions, Overrides, Etc… 2 - Rendering workflow (Passes, etc..) 1 - Render Passes Partitions 2-Render Passes/Partitions/Overrides Passes and partitions + all, everybody else mentioned pass/partition/overide - Passes/Partitions/Groups/Overrides etc 1. Passes, partitions, overrides 4 - Rendering workflow (Passes, Partitions, etc..) 1. Passes/Partitions 3 - Render passes and Partitions 1. passworkflow + renderregion - Render pass sytem 2- Pass system Render passes Partitions 1. Pases & Partitions 2 - Passes / Partitions; Render Passes 4. render passes 1) Passes/Partitions - Passes, partitions passes, partition overrides 4. Passes 2. Pass system. 1. render passes _________________________ 3) RENDER TREE: Connecting nodes to construct a shader is the most artist friendly workflow that exists at the moment. In Softimage the interface is clean and you can understand clearly how things are connected. An ex-Maya user that arrived to the studio told me once: ""I understood shaders when I started using xsi"". Shadertree (including the connection to ICE) Render Tree - flexibility for testing various shading setups Render tree (great design & flexibility for shading/lookdev) 3. Rendertree 5. Render Tree Render Tree 4-Render Tree   ______________________ render region - without this i would spend days just waiting for previews. Lookdev is a pleasure using this.thanks for all you efforts Alastair, very much appreciated. 5) render region (everytime I open up another program, and I want to render, my first instinct is drag a render region... to no avail) could probably live without it, the above stuff, not so much." 4. render region in viewport and accompanying pass system - Render Region - (most of the time I only care about a certain part of the scene) 3) The render region. The render region. The render region. 3 Render Region 2. Render Region toolset. 5. Render region 2. Render Region   _________________________ Delta referencing with internal and external aspects and the ability to choose what information is saved and multiple resolutions to share the data effortlessly across a range of rigs and geos (the ability to spit aspects of internal and external referencing is amazingly powerful as is the ability to switch between rigs and geos without losing data) 4. data management & models (also asset management) 3. Models and Reference Models 4- Models (namespace) and RefModels 2. Reference models/deltas 4. Model node _____________ 3. GROUPING SYSTEM!!!!! 2 Groups allowing overlap   _________________________ 3. Poly Modeling  - Move Tool (M key) Maya's NEX Modeling Toolkit is close enough to move components but still lacks the magnet and merge. Move an edge loop with magnet and middle click is a must in my workflow. 1. Modelling tools - (everything from snapping / m etc...hell, even the bevel tool is something I cant live without) 2) Everything that´s part of the "M" shortcut/workflow  (Sliding edges/points/faces, etc).  Adding eges, Splitting edges, Loops... - The Tweak Tool and all its bells and whistles! 1 - Modeling   (Move Point Tool, Proportional Modeling, *Stick Keys*); 5. Modeling toolset and interactivity 3 - modeling tools that simply work the way you would expect, clean and logic subdivision surfaces 1. Non destructive modeling system 2) ability to overcome most problems without scripting or plugins 5 - scripting and workgroups - Ease of scripting / making tools for even a moron like me Scripting is so straight forward in xsi - the editor is great, the help is so accessible, feedback is great, again, 10x better than when I've done some scripting in Max/Maya/Nuke object oriented SDK shared between Python and C++ (which makes it possible to "translate" tools prototyped in Python to C++ relatively easy) - the API... seriously, having a logical and consistent API that is easy to use and don't need additional efforts to do simple dev tasks won't go in the way of flexibility. I don't know of any dev who didn't complain about Maya's API. - proper and complete port of the API to Python 3. Usable Python API 1. Tool/gfxSequencer API   5- addons.. fantastic way for distributing all sorts of customizations to users in a single drag and drop.. 4) Plugins that are easily hooked into the existing GUI - Workgroups WORKGROUPS!!! workroups 1. Workgroups 4. workgroups WORKGROUPS!!! I forgot to mention WORKGROUPS!!!! Most people mentionned the big things, but all the small things can be as big as the biggest things. 5. small things... like the ability to change a texture res displayed in the viewport, per texture, on the fly....very, very handy for checking game texture size. or passing a imageclip through fxtree to get a realtime color correction on it to see what it looks like in the scene next to other models...extremely handy (that said, if rendertree could display realtime edits on clips, that would be even better...no renders please, some of us live in the games world) Stable tool introperability 3. You can save presets from anything - Want to save your weights? or save some values in a custom property? Also proxy parameters are amazing, want the same parameter on two objects in Maya? you need to make two parameters and connect them to a master. Dont know what to call this one. But I'll like that when I make a small rig or some thing with construction stacks and operators tied to other objects, when I duplicate them all for the new objects everything is tied to the correct objects. 2. The Deformers are flexible, you can envelope(skin) a mesh using any object you want, curves, nulls whatever. You can blend a weight map into a shape in one click, no node editor needed. - Friendly GUI in general. Ex, Keyboard Re-Mapping Tool, aritmetic functions in PPG boxes, multiple ppgs, easily detect double edges in the viewport, colors in UV borders to know which edges are connected in the UV Editor, etc.and a lot more ! 5) Copy&Paste UVs. Bake to another UV set. 1) Unfold op and the Regularize tool  (especially in 2014sp2, since the Regularize tool doesn´t stop at shell borders) Please ""fix-recode-whatever"" the Select parent and everything beneath it is selected as well, if we hide the single selected parent, the entire Hierarchy get Hidden...this is just INSANE and doesnt even make sense. Am I the only person using the FX Tree? It's a very big plus for us." 4 - Fx Tree integration with textures in scene;   meh, choosing 5 best is leaving too much on the table There's more, but..... ;-) There are many more than these 5, but. And yeah I know, that's more than 5... Hmmm.... only 5? 5. Everything about it completely ROCKS! much more of course there is, but patient I have to be... 5) FINAL RESULT: Is the combination of this tools that makes us enjoy the process of creating images with softimage. yeah I know, that's more than 5... 6. 7.  .... and much more …so many more, but you did say only 5.