Softimage Device capture tutorial

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sirdavid32
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Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by sirdavid32 » 14 Sep 2010, 04:53

Hello SI community!
Aided by Kai-Wolter, I put together this tutorial to create a device capture
facility for softimage.
In this tutorial you will be able to "move" a little flying robot trough a flying city.
Currently I´m trying to generate a greeble city to best suit the robot´s fly trough.
Following this first tutorial, we have the second part which is to correct forward/backward movement
and left/right commands.

http://www.activemotionpictures.com/blo ... -tutorial/

Last tutorial will focus on some interactivity invoking animated clips from timeline.
Also, we would explore "jumping" or "thrusting" for our character.

Part 3 is yet to come, so If you´re interested, please C/C here.
Thanks!

David.

ps: Update January 28 - 2014: I´ll re-upload this tutorial from my current website, later... Cheers.
Last edited by sirdavid32 on 28 Jan 2015, 19:50, edited 1 time in total.

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rray
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by rray » 20 Oct 2010, 12:28

Thanks for the tutorial - I think using 1st person game physics for animation capturing will become somewhat bigger soon. Would be cool to see some Lunar Lander like physics with this. Particles may be added later xD

Reminded me also of this MIDI device capture, don't know how valid this still is today:
http://www.infobloom.se/xjobb/pc1600/
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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sirdavid32
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by sirdavid32 » 20 Oct 2010, 20:08

One midi video tutorial comming up! next week! :)

Also : a new video about usb-playstation-axis-like-pads and softimage! :)

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 04 Nov 2010, 06:58

Does anyone have a Peavey 1600 MIDI Controller? I bought mine when I first purchased XSI (4), and tried to have Michael Isner demo it for me. It looked pretty hard to setup.. So it's been laying in the back of my closet all these years. Well, after watching your vid, I decided to pull it out and see if I could get it working... Almost gave up, but then I couldn't believe I got it working - it works great!! I'm working on putting an addon together. So far I have a device preset, script to generate nulls for it, and an ice compound that puts it all to use.

-Dave

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rray
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by rray » 04 Nov 2010, 10:36

Looking forward to your tuts!

Dave that would be cool. I think I remember having heard the PC1600 device driver allows all sorts of MIDI devices to be connected, that could be interesting.

I'm probably getting a thrustmaster hotas. Quite cheap and has 5 axes of control (XY and stick rotation for the right hand, thrust and an analog slider for the left hand).

edit... just tried one, the dead zone in the middle of all controls seems to be a real problem, probably with all joysticks, smooth movement captures seem not to be possible. There don't seem to be any tools to configure this also.
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 04 Nov 2010, 13:59

I've also been working on getting Xbox 360 controllers working. One thing that I noticed that might help you with joysticks is damping down the effect.. Just having a scale of 1 causes the analog sticks to generate values (as displayed by plugging it into setdata self.fader1) between -1000 and 1000.

-Dave

PS. The secret to getting the PV1600 working was configuring it so each fader outputted on Channel 1, and then the # of the fader.. So, [1,1], [1,2].....[1,16]. You can modify that via the Edit, Arrows, and Enter button on PV1600. You can save a preset afterwards into its internal memory, so next time you power it on, it's all setup. I'll post some pictures later on....

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rray
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by rray » 04 Nov 2010, 14:41

The default scale is huge indeed, the dead zone problem however is still there also with a lower scale. What I'm concerned it makes joysticks less useful as a cheap motion capture solution.
I think I'll look if there's a dead zone free joystick, or I'll use the gas&brake pedals from my steering wheel :D

Dave, do you know if the PC1600 support 16 bit MIDI values also?
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 04 Nov 2010, 15:35

SYSEX messages? I believe so.

EDIT: SYSEX->Softimage? No options for that. Built in, that is...

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 06 Nov 2010, 05:40

I've hit a bit of a stumbling block and wonder if continuation would warrant a new thread... I was able to follow the original tutorial here and get my null "NULL_Car" to move around with my x360 joystick. (LstickY translates it in Z, LstickX translates it in X. Well, now I want to rotate it with RStickX. I really wish I understood matrices better!! A few years ago, I tried messing around with XNA Game Studio. I think this site http://www.riemers.net/eng/ExtraReading ... trical.php is good, but it's still not sinking in (and working in ICE).

One weird thing that I can't figure out is when I calculate my angle ((previous frame's direction -> dir to euler-> 3d vect to scalar->y) added to (RstickX * mult by scalar (10)) and plug that back into the global orientation, it computes the correct angle via show values.

When I plug that into an additional equation it shows angle incorrectly as 0
(my angle -> deg to rad -> cos -> x (scalar to 3d vector)
-> sin -> z (scalar to 3dvect) -> mult by scalar (LStickY) -> add prev frame's global pos -> globalpos

I think since ICE is showing that angle as 0, it's not translating along the rotated vector... ie even though I rotated it 45 degrees, pressing up on stick still moves it only in global z.

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 06 Nov 2010, 08:26

Now it seems to be working...( ..... my angle -> added to 90 scalar) -> cos -> mult by scalar -1 -> x-> ( scalar to 3d vect -> mult by scalar (lsticky) -> added to previous )
(..... my angle -> add 90 )-> sin -> z -> ( scal to 3d vect -> .........)

gonna try adding in to the end add node a copy of that but rotated and using lstickx.

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 08 Nov 2010, 18:29

I've started a new thread that deals with game code (matrices, 3d vectors, etc) - viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1060&p=7416#p7416

anclib
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by anclib » 13 May 2011, 00:30

Hi,
I have a Peavey PC1600X and I am struggling to get it to work with Soft. Are there any tutorials about setting it up?

The way I am trying is:
1)open device manager and add the Peavey pc1600 driver
2)turned on the activation
3)setup a new preset on the Peavey where the sliders are on channel 1 and numbered 1-16, chanIn=1 chanOut=1 and ,I set as function=controller mode=replace

I don't even know if Softimage is receiving any midi data from the controller, the values don't seem to change, like they do when using the mouse device driver.

Do I need to write some sort of script or expression?

Please somebody save me!

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by dwigfor » 13 May 2011, 00:48

Hi. I posted this a while ago, but I'll paste it here....

The secret to getting the PV1600 working was configuring it so each fader outputted on Channel 1, and then the # of the fader.. So, [1,1], [1,2].....[1,16]. You can modify that via the Edit, Arrows, and Enter button on PV1600. You can save a preset afterwards into its internal memory, so next time you power it on, it's all setup.

I haven't used the PV1600 in a while, but I hope this helps. The way I used it was to create 16 nulls (1 for each channel) and target that in the device setup in SI. Then I read the data from the null and used it with ICE. If you want to optimize it a bit, you can use 2 nulls and target posx, posy,posz,rotx,roty,rotz,scalex,scaley,scalez on them(9x2)

anclib
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by anclib » 13 May 2011, 16:47

Cracked it! :-bd

Thanks for your help, although it was still a struggle, it seems that if I input the target and action in DeviceManager Softimage did not make the connection, it was only when I double clicked each individual slider to reveal it's ppg, then enter the target and action in there that it would be noted. The funny thing is that on opening up the DeviceManager after I had done this, it had all updated with the newly input actions and targets.

Thanks again, now the fun can begin!

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sirdavid32
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Re: Softimage Device capture tutorial

Post by sirdavid32 » 28 Jan 2015, 14:36

Thank you guys. I originally set this thread 5 years ago.
Now we have wireless midi. I've been trying to setup listening ports through midiYoke.
I really like how you used the 1600 midi option to capture device.

Later, I'll post how far I got with wireless midi with my android phone.
But I need help on the softimage parte to listenint to the ports. I'll upload a video so we ca
All have a chance to come up with a great seetup!
Cheers.

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