Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

[Jason S]

Hello Alastair Just to say, I checked-out your page, and every single peice is just truly inspiring. http://www.glassworks.co.uk/node/549 I burst into laughter at the very first singing cat/bird clip, and then yet again just as hard at the very next (mutant) cat/bird clip lol! :) To share a little story, while at softimage, then doing demo material on the almost toy-like SI3D, (using Metamesh Extreme under polymesh cages with the "UV editor" doing "interactive smoothing" :) My (or "our") first experience with Maya, was just then (*years* ago on SGI's),  when we were comparing ways of doing things, sort-of assessing what we were up against with our own coming thing. (while while striving to surpass -through innovation-) So the first impression that came to mind was, man... talk about "long lists of parameters".. it was pretty daunting to wrap our head around it, it was hard to select, move things (like components) around, shading stuff with the hypershade, with relationships of nodes to other nodes felt like being guesswork, having then only just recently experienced the render tree which was then only a prototype and also being new to us, (perhaps the programmable openness of maya escaped me, mostly having an "artist" background) But already we saw that we were like in a different universe on how to approach things and also that we were definitely on to something. After an "iffy" launch of XSI 1.0, while introducing things like passes, and non-linear or otherwise streamlined workflows, there was only nurbs-stitching to get smooth uniform surfaces.. & the constant crashing was enough to give headaches. Yet already with the 1.5 did people see what it was all about.. With the advent of Sub-d's (very fast performance subd's, with direct on surface points & allowing for speed organic modeling), is when XSI actually really picked-up as not only usable, but really like an overall "easy" solution to everyday otherwise tricky ways to getting things done quick. And since that time has there been some sort of a struggle between impression of potential, and perhaps a more down to earth everyday people approach to achieving higher level stuff, all the way leading to "Moondust". So earlyer this week, I opened-up Maya Demo (after years) to practice for an upcoming particle FX job, and it was like more or less XSI 4.0-6.0 particle functionality, but with (pages of) parameters all "listed", yet again after ~15 years. The hypershade is still there and basically the same (with a node editor on top while having to manage both) Clicking viewports to activate them, deselects whatever you had selected.. I could go on with TONS of little things off the bat, and I constantly find other comparative "things" by the hour. (after some research on each point to see if I'm just missing something, and perhaps I still am but..) The thing is, anyone submerged in & knowing only Maya (being most people working on it i suspect) could just never grasp how many subtleties were thought about when designing SI's workflow. (and therefore what it represents to it's users) Alastair, one of your clips is the Bjork android video, and I clearly remember when that came-out, being around when XSI also came-out, and I was really "aww-ed" :) And then on the words "you'll be given love..", said when giving life to a robot, I recall thinking how that really applied to what we were doing.. cause not unlike a good song, anything well thought-out in every subtlety, or "made with 'love' " can indeed qualify as having "soul" that you can "feel". And "soul" is something you couldn't buy with billions of dollars. As it has to be real for it to be, otherwise it's just not. And I think that's what made DS so "intimidating" to Avid, and XSI so "intimidating" to Autodesk, especially with the advent of ICE. So how about "Soul" as bullet-point feature request ;) And I think I will end on that, Cheers, J On 03/25/14 13:52, Alastair Hearsum wrote: Jean louis You beat me to it. I was just about to say that. Alastair Alastair Hearsum Head of 3d On 25/03/2014 17:49, Jean-Louis Billard wrote: Hi Shuting, That’s not the same thing at all I’m afraid. In Softimage *every* menu has it’s own memory of the last command accessed. So you can middle click any menu and repeat its last command (as long as there has been one used within the session) Regards, Jean-Louis Jean-Louis Billard Digital Golem BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563 UK: +44 (0) 7973 660 119 jean-lo...@digitalgolem.com http://www.digitalgolem.com/ 53 Rue Gustave Huberti 1030 Brussels