F*ck. Fat finger. The rest:
We have tight restrictions for making MMORPG style games. One of them being we have to think simple as there's no way to fully predict how an asset will be used once it's made available in the game. Designers and scripters will pull whatever they can get their hands on and use them for whatever purpose they can think of. Kind of the everything looks like a nail when you have a hammer problem. Matt -----Original Message----- From: Matt Lind Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:47 AM To: 'Eric Thivierge'; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: RE: Survey - how would you do this? You wouldn't last long in games with that attitude. Matt -----Original Message----- From: Eric Thivierge [mailto:ethivie...@hybride.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:46 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Cc: Matt Lind Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this? With those restrictions, get a super fast animator to animate them by hand. Eric T. On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 2:23:31 PM, Matt Lind wrote: > An artist came to my desk yesterday asking how to do what I felt was a > simple task, but after getting 80% through it I ran into a speed bump > realizing it needed custom scripting or other advanced tools to fully > resolve to satisfaction. I had to give him a procedure that was ‘good > enough’. This problem has multiple solutions, but I am curious how > others would solve it: > > The problem: > > Artist must create an asteroid belt around a planet. The asteroids > are likely 2D sprites which must face the camera and tumble as they > orbit, but could be 3D objects as well. Asteroids must vary in size, > shape, and animation speed (linear as well as rotational). Asteroids > cannot collide with anything. Movement is generally slow – like a > screen saver for your computer desktop. Asteroid positions are > jittered within the belt. > > The question: > > Dispersing objects into a ring is fairly straightforward through a > number of techniques, but how do you apply the random jitter to the > object positions? > > The rules: > > -Cannot use ICE > > -Cannot use custom scripts, custom operators, or shaders. > > -Must only use tools out of the box that a junior or staff level > artist would know how to use. > > -Must be able to create the asteroid belt, from scratch to completion, > in less than 30 minutes – and be iteration friendly to react to art > director feedback. > > -Ideally, the belt could be made a child of the planet in encompasses > so it can be reoriented with respect to changes in the planet’s > size/shape/tilt/orbit. > > -Final output must be able to exist with full integrity on its own in > a vacuum. Cannot not have dependencies on custom code, external > assets, or special case logic. > > -Asteroid belt fits within the default grid as seen in the scene > camera. Think torus with diameter 40 SI units, and cross section of > roughly 3 SI Units diameter > > Ready…..GO! > > Matt >
