Bifrost vs ICE...

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luceric
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Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by luceric » 15 Aug 2014, 01:43


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MauricioPC
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by MauricioPC » 15 Aug 2014, 04:30

It made more clear why BiFrost has the potential of being better than ICE, but at the same time ... how long from now?

They are still focusing on fluids ... then fire and smoke, then destruction and then possibly cloth, muscles, modeling, etc. Being optimistic, 3 years at least? He did said that ICE took 3+ years to get were it is and ICE never was a fluid simulation.

Another thing that got my attention ... he said customers complained that ICE was difficult. From what he showed, BiFrost will be the same, unless the artists works only on the compound level, which could be made with ICE, or I misunderstood? Softimage is way simpler to get the grips than Maya, so you may risk the same problem of clients finding it to hard.

P.S.: Saw the animation presentation and there was a screenshot of Maya with some redesign of icons and UI. Is that you luceric? I liked it.

luchifer
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by luchifer » 15 Aug 2014, 05:13

ok, I hate myself for doing this, but im impressed so far by what I've seen. I guess is time to gave Maya a second chance.

Bullit
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by Bullit » 15 Aug 2014, 05:18

Public relations work every time it seems. People don't learn.

I would wait until getting something solid instead of going for "The Future of ... is Brilliant".

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FXDude
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by FXDude » 15 Aug 2014, 09:23

MauricioPC wrote:It made more clear why BiFrost has the potential of being better than ICE, but at the same time ... how long from now?

They are still focusing on fluids ... then fire and smoke, then destruction and then possibly cloth, muscles, modeling, etc. Being optimistic, 3 years at least? He did said that ICE took 3+ years to get were it is and ICE never was a fluid simulation.

Another thing that got my attention ... he said customers complained that ICE was difficult. From what he showed, BiFrost will be the same, unless the artists works only on the compound level, which could be made with ICE, or I misunderstood? Softimage is way simpler to get the grips than Maya, so you may risk the same problem of clients finding it to hard.

P.S.: Saw the animation presentation and there was a screenshot of Maya with some redesign of icons and UI. Is that you luceric? I liked it.

Wow! I was about to say the exact same things lol! (almost to the letter)

Compounds expose few parameters from complex trees, so IF it was somehow more simple, it could hardly be much simpler than that,
and it would be in stark contrast with basically the entirety of the rest of the app.

Also for the autocompiling.. the fact that something is compiled (especially auto-compiled) , in no way does it guarentee very efficient code (usually to the contrary when automatic),
so we could say it -might- be faster, or maybe only slightly faster but who knows.

But even if final evaluation was somewhat faster,
in ICE, you can adjust and tweak stuff live during playback ... so could bifrost recompile your tree with new values 30 times (or even 1 time) per second?
For instance, here he was dragging nodes multiplying by 10 twice (preset nodes) and then ran the simulation, (compiling just a few nodes)
(although to be fair, it is very early.... even VERY-VERY EARLY..)

Speaking of when... for bifrost to be reasonably integrated in "all territories" (necessarily pretty deep.. in an arguably rather entangled software...)
as you said.. Ice took 2-3 years.. ... so.. (and all this time.. while ICE is where?(!) )

But maybe Bifrost will be something that, based on past reproductions, -might- more or less equally actually be good, or it might just as well not be very good at all.

But hearing how the community area was referenced as a 'Market' (like a google app maket), while speaking in a bit of "goodie-two-shoes" way, talking about sharing and being open and all with flowers,
(while not wanting to make promises it being a business decision) I fear that it might be somewhat more of 'a market' than 'a community', but I might be wrong.

but anyhow.. otherwise the liquids really do look amazing (and very optimized)!
Last edited by FXDude on 15 Aug 2014, 14:55, edited 1 time in total.

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by Hirazi Blue » 15 Aug 2014, 10:56

"Look ma, we've managed to reuse much of grandpa's dead body for our school project..." ;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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Mathaeus
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by Mathaeus » 15 Aug 2014, 11:47

MauricioPC wrote:They are still focusing on fluids ... then fire and smoke, then destruction and then possibly cloth, muscles, modeling, etc. Being optimistic, 3 years at least? He did said that ICE took 3+ years to get were it is and ICE never was a fluid simulation.
Yeah, and there is question, where Houdini will be in next 3 years. So, a sort of in advance lost competing of V-Ray-vs-Mental-Ray style, again. If there's anything to show, it is how the production manager philosophy, 'we bought this and cannibalized that, now our engineers are here to combine all together', can not compete against, I believe, organized development by Side FX.

That new structure, Bifrost is independent engine, auto compiling and all that, I could understand how it's pleasant for developers - but, how that works if I'll want to combine the Maya skin operator with Bifrost, one day in 2017. My wild guess, this part belongs to "well'', "hm", and similar worlds by mr. Nordenstam. They planning to replace everything, or what. Or, maybe the independent engine is only way for them to add something new to Maya, who knows.

P.S. water sims are great, but this was already with Naiad...

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owei
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by owei » 15 Aug 2014, 13:24

Well...looks nice. We will see, how long it will take to make this a stable and usable tool. With a strong focus on VFX..ICE was not only VFX..by far. So, once more, there will be no replacement for ICE in the near future...the data flow graph from Fabric looks promising..and will be available soon...and will be free ;)

cheers,
oli

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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by Bullit » 15 Aug 2014, 13:36

Yes like i said for now it is all PR. Nothing of substance.

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MauricioPC
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by MauricioPC » 15 Aug 2014, 13:53

The fluids looked good, but so did Naiad, so that I knew they would get it right. We have to wait for the rest, but I don't think it'll be so easy as they are selling. If ICE was hard, BiFrost will also be, unless they make something like MoGraph C4D, with sliders, for the artists.

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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by SamHowell » 15 Aug 2014, 16:09

It's all very nice and potentially quite powerful but I need it now, not maybe in 3 years time. I don't have the time to waste waiting to find out.

Bullit
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by Bullit » 15 Aug 2014, 17:42

That is the big mistake of killing Softimage without anything to replace it.

Everyone goes around and moves on.

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owei
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by owei » 15 Aug 2014, 18:03

Right. But don't forget "We want to deliver better tools, faster!" =))
These word from Mr. Stevens makes me lough all the time...meanwhile, others wil catch up and we all will go anywhere else...instead of throwing money at the big fat ugly A.

luceric
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by luceric » 15 Aug 2014, 19:36

Filling up the hole that will be left by Softimage is just one perspective. Softimage is still around and those licenses are going to be working and producing content, no matter what the date on the calendar says. Apparently, most seats do not use ICE, they are are using XSI for character animation, so you got to take that into account -- are they going to look for procedural tools or animation tool performance or what the talents are trained onto. Those seats that do use ICE are certainly looking around, but people have always been able to go to Houdini in the last 20 years - it's always been the standard for procedural. ICE allows you to do node based creativity in the environment you're conformable with without having to go to Houdini, and that's important, it's kept you from bothering to look at Houdini. But the majority of people in the industry are not Softimage users.

Every year thousands of new students learn Maya and more and more animation work is being done with Maya. Maya usage is not shrinking. Whenever Bifrost and its subsequent iterations land, it will be on every one of these desks, thousands and thousands of computers. It's effectively going to be the procedural environment everyone has and learns just by the fact that the Maya user base in modelling and animation is so huge compared to everyone else.

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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by iamVFX » 15 Aug 2014, 22:38

luceric wrote:It's effectively going to be the procedural environment everyone has and learns just by the fact that the Maya user base in modelling and animation is so huge compared to everyone else.
This is why everyone should forget about autodesk "products". For proceduralism move to Houdini, it's cheaper than maya lt now, and improve your skills that don't depend on any DCC and you will find a job without touching maya which each studio tries to replace with in-house software.

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Mathaeus
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Re: Bifrost vs ICE...

Post by Mathaeus » 16 Aug 2014, 00:19

luceric wrote: Every year thousands of new students learn Maya and more and more animation work is being done with Maya. Maya usage is not shrinking. Whenever Bifrost and its subsequent iterations land, it will be on every one of these desks, thousands and thousands of computers. It's effectively going to be the procedural environment everyone has and learns just by the fact that the Maya user base in modelling and animation is so huge compared to everyone else.
Yeah, but which level of education this is... Quantity and quality hardly plays together. So what, Maya home guard against Houdini commandos... Once there is too much of people involved (whatever that 'too much' means), their low level of expectation, tends to pull down the whole thing. Something I already noticed with C4d - even this app can do a lot, in real world, if people are already able to do something usable, using only presets or purchased models, they'll be ready to adapt the idea how c4d is 'not good for modeling' - just to be released of additional learning. Or in other words, today, if I'll have to be gamedev modeller, I'll ask only for me, Max as professional, high-end modeling tool, instead of Maya LT 'cellphone for masses'. And, hardly any of Maya LT people will be able to catch my Max, using the app which asks for special window, just for re-ordering the deforming operators.
Now it seems there is 'easy VFX' project on the road :)
Definitively more of money for AD, but reputation as tool for masters, less and less of that. At least that's how I see what's happening with Maya. Obviously 'easy Maya" project, if there anything like that, is not aimed to small number of 'us'.

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