Haha, it's actually a bit interesting to see how much people are
getting bent out of shape from my comment. You all know I'm a super
huge fan of Softimage I hope. I've been around long enough contributing
to the community enough to know that I think Softimage IS the best
software to be doing rigging. I know Animal Logic is serious, erm, I
worked there I should know. :P
I'll try to clear it up a bit...
Sorry I didn't understand it was for the pure ICE users here. For pure
ICE related stuff, I'm not sure what to tell you. Probably Houdini?
Maya's node graph isn't great by far. Not sure what the new versions
are going to bring but it is clunky.
I don't use ICE for rigging. I only use it for custom deformers and
other tools. If I need to do some of that in the future Fabric is
probably going to be the choice, but within Maya.
Softimage is my preferred software and I'm going to be using it still
within the next few years. However, during the same time I'm going to
be working in Maya (I've been in both the past 9 months) and starting
the transition over to Maya. Why switch? Well, you can't wait until
Softimage no longer runs / isn't getting bug fixes that are crucial to
getting your work done. If you're serious about working in this
business, it's my opinion that you have to be pushing your tools and
use of technology as much as you can or else you're going to stagnate
and won't be able to pull in the work. It's nice to hear everyone that
is going to continue to use and develop on Softimage once it's canned,
but there have been many instances where there is a bug that needs to
get fixed to get a project or plug-in done. If there is no one to fix
it, how are you going to finish your tool? You're not.
Animation wise, what other tool has the same level of animation editing
tools with the level of rigging tools that we have in Softimage, other
than Softimage?
My classification of serious film work was meant that you need the full
breadth of features that you find in Softimage and Maya to get the same
work done that you're doing in Softimage. Do you have those tools
currently in Modo? Houdini? I'm sorry but I can't take those apps
seriously for rigging at this moment.
I apologize for tossing in the "film" part in that statement. There are
some insane work coming out of the commercial space as well. I know
full well as I've done my fair share of freelance at some of those
studios.
Please trust me when I say I'd rather not use Maya. It's clunky, not a
lot of essential small tools out of the box, full of bugs itself, but
honestly it's the only valid app I see that anim and rigging can move
to.
Eric T.
