We don't miss ICE as much as you'd think. What hurts us more is the lack of development in the fundamental tools outside of ICE such as the texture editor, modeling, data management, animation and envelope editing, and so on.
ICE allows you to create many arbitrary effects on a whim, but is also locked into the way Softimage works and not the way we need to work. ICE doesn't really address the kinds of problems we need solved, or issues that can't already be solved by other means even if they aren't as slick. ICE doesn't support the data we need supported. For example, we'd like to make some ICE modeling tools, but since ICE doesn't support custom properties and other userdata in topology operations, any time an artist makes a topology edit to an asset, the meta data would be lost creating bugs in our game next time the asset is exported. For the few areas where ICE would be useful, it either has bugs or feature limitations making it more of a liability than a help. That's why we don't use it. ICE needs more work to be a viable option for us. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sylvain Lebeau Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 8:00 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this? of course!!!.... my god... how doest it's like to be hand cuffed? no ice, no nothing!! good luck Matt!!!!! good challenge! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM<http://www.shedmtl.com/> <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM<http://www.shedmtl.com/>> [cid:image001.jpg@01CF2769.1560ABA0] VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com<mailto:s...@shedmtl.com> On Feb 11, 2014, at 10:38 PM, Matt Lind <ml...@carbinestudios.com<mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com>> wrote: This could work if normal mapping was used on the sprites, but animated texture sequences would likely be too expensive for a slow sequence like this. If the asteroids moved quickly, then it could be more doable as fewer frames would be needed. The tricky part with the sprite solution is to keep the asteroids from staring at the camera and flipping in an attention-grabbing way if the camera should travel through the asteroid belt and get close to some of the rocks. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sylvain Lebeau Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 5:17 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this? Maybe it could work as well..... I think of rendering sequences of a bunch of individual rotating asteriods with camera locked down on them, maybe 10 different ones. So you end up with small rez little videos with a rotating asteroid in the middle. And use the same technique with simple grids....but with orientation constraints to the camera? Worth to try. Only thing is lighting will be baked out in thoses sprite textures.. So hopefully your camera doesnt travel to much and keeps looking in the same light/sprite light direction relation... cool to see everyone chipping in!! sly Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM<http://www.shedmtl.com/> <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM<http://www.shedmtl.com/>> <image001.jpg> VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics mail to: s...@shedmtl.com<mailto:s...@shedmtl.com> On Feb 11, 2014, at 7:43 PM, Matt Lind <ml...@carbinestudios.com<mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com>> wrote: Good job - very impressive! Not sure collisions will be avoided, but looks very convincing. What I find interesting is every solution so far has gravitated towards the parameter randomization feature - R(start,end). I thought for sure at least one person would open the expression editor and plot out some randomized FCurves or do something in the animation mixer. I'm curious to know if everybody would choose the same solution if the asteroids had to be 2D sprites? Or if the number of polygons and keyframes were capped to specific amount of data? Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com> [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Christian Gotzinger Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2014 4:14 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> Subject: Re: Survey - how would you do this? Whoops, while cleaning up my account I managed to delete the video. The correct (and now working) link is: https://vimeo.com/86464710 On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 11:58 PM, Christian Gotzinger <cgo...@googlemail.com<mailto:cgo...@googlemail.com>> wrote: Here's my take on it (will take an hour or so before the link shows up)
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