Maybe if we got a petition of xsi centric companies or a sort of kickstarter goal we could persuade them that Softimage is worth porting too :) i know i'd drop a grand for yeti.
On 8 February 2014 15:07, Sebastien Sterling <sebastien.sterl...@gmail.com>wrote: > Having seen people use Yeti for a year in production i'd have to say its > pretty revolutionary in terms of workflow, i've seen people acclimatise to > it in a matter of weeks, the only drawback i can see is ironically, it > doesn't render using mental ray, obliging you to go for Arnold or vray > renderman... > > A year ago, i sent them an email inquiering as to the possibility of a > Softimage port in the near/far future. this was the response. > > "Thank you for the great feedback - we have investigated Yeti integration > for rendering preview which may be available in a later version but at this > time we're not planning an XSI version of the editing tools. Adding in > support for a whole new 3D application is a large task and we haven't had > enough demand for an XSI version at this stage. If at some point that > changes and it looks like a studio may commit to a large number of licenses > we could afford to do this. > > We're glad you're enjoying Yeti! > > All the best, > Colin" > > > > On 8 February 2014 13:25, Tim Leydecker <bauero...@gmx.de> wrote: > >> Thanks for this in-depth answer! >> >> Personally, I´m starting to lean towards going for the trial of Yeti, >> one reason being that I think I remember Colin Doncaster´s name from >> another maya maling list and another because of the really nice >> sample image of a bear posted by Yolandi Meiring in a similar thread here: >> >> (Thread) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/xsi_list/2erKqUcghpI >> >> (Image)https://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list/attach/ >> 994086131ca9460/bear_still.jpg?part=4&view=1 >> >> >> Another really nice one is a proof of concept of bringing (3dsMax) >> hair-farm into Softimage >> from Lee-Perry Smith, with props to Dani Garcia and Steven Caron. >> That human hairdo and it´s renderings look incredibly awesome. >> >> http://ir-ltd.net/hair-farm-hair-into-softimage/ >> >> For a Melena/Kristinka workflow using Anto Matkovic´s tools in those >> beautiful shed projects >> there´s a nice clip posted by/on Lester Banks >> >> http://lesterbanks.com/2013/05/workflow-tips-for-creating- >> and-grooming-hair-in-softimage/ >> >> -- >> >> I have only limited amounts of time I can spend on this and need to find >> something >> that has potential to be useable for testing Redshift´s hair shading >> approach when >> applicable but ideally integrates seamlessly into either >> Maya/Max/Softimage. >> >> The combination of Maya+Redshift is allready working very well and it >> seems it´ll be >> easier to successfully migrate from simple hair/fur testing to something >> actually looking >> good (using yeti). Also, yeti has a variety of licensing options I might >> find atractive >> at a later date if tempted to actually finish something beyond spare-time >> doodling. >> >> I´d prefer Softimage but if that stuff works better in Maya, it´ll be >> Maya. >> >> I suck with Max, even the fastest and most intuitive plugin can´t >> compensate that sad fact. >> >> Cheers, >> >> tim >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On 08.02.2014 12:57, Stefan Kubicek wrote: >> >>> Hi Tim, >>> >>> I've just been dealing with hair an a hamster and used the built-in >>> hair&fur of Softimage /2014SP2). >>> >>> A few tips about working with built-in hair: >>> >>> Avoid too dense meshes. It creates a guide hair for every vertex, hence >>> dense meshes make you fiddle with lots and lots of guide hair strands >>> manually, which can be >>> counter-productive and -intuitive. >>> >>> If you want to edit hair parameters on a per vertex basis (via vertex >>> colors), you need to plan ahead where exactly you want your hair to be and >>> where you want certain features >>> (transparency, density, kink & frizz) to change and over which >>> distance/area. This is especially important for areas like hand and feet, >>> as well as nose & eye lids. >>> So, before you move the mesh into skinning/rigging, you better make sure >>> your topology works not only for animation but also for the hair setup you >>> have in mind. >>> >>> Don't rely on the built-in style transfer functionality. It does mostly >>> work but has a tendency to "blur" the transferred hair style, even if your >>> source and target emitter >>> topology are the same. You need to move in again and reintroduce details >>> in the fur that got lost. >>> >>> If you want to simulate hair with collision don't use a subd mesh as the >>> emitter. The docs say that having hair emitted from a subd mesh cannot >>> collide with its own emitter, so you >>> have to duplicate the source mesh and subdivide it for real (that is, >>> create more actual polygons) and use that as the collision object. That >>> would still be acceptable, if it >>> worked, which it does not. What I found after tedious testing was that >>> any collision testing fails when your emitter is a subd mesh, independent >>> of what you have it collide with >>> (itself or another mesh), which kinda sucks and is the biggest problem I >>> ran into for which I could not find a solution. Thankfully my fur was >>> rather short and the character had a >>> lot of secondary motion, so it looks alife enough (besides some problems >>> when bending arms, which are hardly noticeable in the animation in my >>> case). From what I can tell it looks >>> like collision is always computed against a simplified collision sphere >>> representation of the collision object, no matter what you set for >>> collision accuracy and shape, deforming >>> shape, etc. It just doesn't work, at least not for me. >>> >>> Sometimes, when saving and reloading a scene some hair strands (like 1 >>> out of 1000) would suddenly stick in some random direction. I had the >>> impression that it helps to always >>> collapse the modeling stack before saving, at least it never occurred >>> again in final stages of production when the fur description was final and >>> not changed anymore. >>> >>> Next time I will surely look at Kristinka or Melena. AS for >>> simulation...I believe there was a Strand Simulation framework with self >>> collision introduced on softimage.tv some weeks >>> ago that looked promising, I haven't heard of ne1 using it for hair so >>> far, mayb someone else can comment on that? Would love to hear some ideas >>> on this as well. >>> >>> Good luck, >>> >>> Stefan >>> >>> >>> >>> > Hi guys, >>> >>>> >>>> what would be a convenient way to create,style and control hair >>>> in Softimage, with lengths up to 10-12 inches and ideally >>>> both a good collision model and dedicated styling tools? >>>> >>>> Which Softimage version would you suggest, e.g. 2014sp2? >>>> >>>> I´m a novice with hair and fur but would like to set up >>>> a manageable sample/test that ideally works with Arnold >>>> and Redshift. >>>> >>>> Is it possible to work generic or transfer results from, >>>> say Yeti into Softimage? >>>> >>>> Would you recommend actually leaning towards Maya for such >>>> a task, either going directly to Yeti or similar? >>>> >>>> I know those are fuzzy questions, I guess I´m actually looking >>>> for a biased answer regarding any of the various hair plugin options >>>> for any of the major three apps, e.g. max/maya/softimage. >>>> >>>> Sofar, I´ve found the following options: >>>> >>>> hairfarm, yeti, ornatrix, shave&haircut, maya hair, maya xgen "hair" in >>>> 2014ext >>>> and the cinema4d hair options (shadowmapped). >>>> >>>> Admittedly, that´s a lot of options and I find it difficult to bet >>>> my time-investment onto any of them since I simply know bling about >>>> pro´s or con´s. >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> >>>> >>>> tim >>>> >>> >>> >>> >