NURBS improvements petition

New plugins, tools etc.
Eugen
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 31 Jul 2013, 22:38

Thanks, everybody!!
Is there one more soul willing to make it 50?

I will put the petition in the beta forum shortly... and maybe just get the boot, but who knows.

@Mathaeus: XSI does already have NURBS assemblies, you know (which nobody uses)... or did you mean something else?

Re-writing the factory tools from scratch would be unnecessary. The algorithms are just fine. They just need consistent subcurve/surface support to improve their usability, which would be comparatively simple. New tools are another story. The SDK has to get better for those.

eben
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by eben » 31 Jul 2013, 22:51

i'm the 50th !! :)

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Mathaeus
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Mathaeus » 31 Jul 2013, 22:54

Eugen wrote:Thanks, everybody!!

@Mathaeus: XSI does already have NURBS assemblies, you know (which nobody uses)... or did you mean something else?
Yeah I know, of course. Just wanted to say, it seems NURBS assembliesin SI, are heritage of former plugin for Softimage 3d. By the way, I had great ideas with these assemblies for hair styling, but at the end of the day, Kristinka Hair relies only on single surface(s). Didn't worked very well with more than that.

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minilogoguy18
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by minilogoguy18 » 27 Aug 2013, 02:13

Signed, could only help, no reason not to sign. :)

AlanMc
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by AlanMc » 27 Aug 2013, 02:27

All,

I've been following the progress of this petition and I'm slightly saddened to see that the addition of names has slowed considerably in the last month or so. I think this a good idea and was keenly looking to see how it would develop. From the current count the petition needs another 40 names - is there that many additional users out their that could be persuaded to add their names? I originally thought that 100 names would be relatively easy to collect, but I was obviously wrong.

Best Regards,

Alan

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minilogoguy18
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by minilogoguy18 » 27 Aug 2013, 03:23

There's definitely enough users on this forum to fill the petition quite a few times.

I may not use Surface modeling as a hobbyist/game modder but if I can have a hand in improving any area of Softimage I wont hesitate.

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ActionArt
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by ActionArt » 27 Aug 2013, 05:03

I've recently had a change of day jobs and am using Autodesk Inventor a fair bit (just started a couple weeks ago). I have to say, I really wish some of those modeling tools were in SI. I'm quite impressed. Since AD owns both companies you would think there were be more technology crossing floors. AD even owns the solids kernel used. It seems odd they haven't used that in Max/Maya and SI.

No reason the SI team couldn't walk across the hall and get some mighty fine nurbs/solids tools I would think.

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gustavoeb
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by gustavoeb » 27 Aug 2013, 05:37

except that the hall would have to span from Singapore to Montreal, that is :)

unless it was an internet virtual hall, which would work too
Gustavo Eggert Boehs
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Eugen
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 27 Aug 2013, 10:19

Thanks, guys!!
I brought this to the developer's attention in the beta. Can't give updates on the progress, since I don't want to be stomped into the ground by the big NDA boot. Just remember that the mills of Autodesk grind slowly...

luceric
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by luceric » 27 Aug 2013, 12:59

ActionArt wrote:I've recently had a change of day jobs and am using Autodesk Inventor a fair bit (just started a couple weeks ago). I have to say, I really wish some of those modeling tools were in SI. I'm quite impressed. Since AD owns both companies you would think there were be more technology crossing floors. AD even owns the solids kernel used. It seems odd they haven't used that in Max/Maya and SI.

No reason the SI team couldn't walk across the hall and get some mighty fine nurbs/solids tools I would think.
It doesn't make any sense to say that. Softimage already owns a nurbs library, it's actually the same library Maya and Alias is based on, it's writing the interactive modeling tools and operator that inside sofitmage that is expensive. That's all app-specific, 100% architecture softimage code, nothing is reusable between apps.

I don't want to be mean, but I think the online petition result only proves that nobody cares about nurbs, or that the petition is poorly made. Softimage's user base is small, but it's still thousands of seats. And there are countless more more non paying "cg-persia" type users, students who get it for free, people with old versions of XSI, etc, nobody knows the numbers of people actually using XSI. Pretty much all these users are inclined to sign an online petitions, it's free, completely annonymous, and there is no reason for anyone to not want to push for more feature or support a forum colleague, and even sign multiple times 'cause we can. This is why nobody takes online petitions seriously. HOWEVER, let's say you'd take them seriously for a moment: it couldn't get 100 people interested? Are you kidding me? Let's say we estimate the potential number of people that would be inclined to sign this 10,000, as reasonable estimate, that's less than 1% of that! Considering the potential for fake user signing, don't-really-care sympathy signing, etc, it's a very very very low number. there are xsi studios with more users than that.

btw, here is something funny I found on MaxUnderground that might lighthen the mood:
http://www.maxunderground.com/archives/ ... mmentnum78
You can’t do much with splines in max at the moment. We need new (modified) splines and vertices. Have you seen how splines work in Softimage? It is a dream! You can watch them and think all the time “God d***, i am still living in the Paleolithic era!

Eugen
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 27 Aug 2013, 14:03

Edit: that comment from this Max user is really funny... I believe he likes our move component tool for curves, which is rather good.


The question is how to reach that userbase with the petition. It's 63 by now.
These are the places I put it:
si-community.com, xsiforum.de, forums.cgsociety.org, Autodesk area, mailinglist. Didn't put it on any japanese forum. Don't know if that would make much difference.
Talking about the Japanese...
When Helge did his fabric engine presentation last year in Siegen he said his experience with them is that they are somewhat too polite or respectful or something to give much feedback or nag the developers about anything... different mentality. So there might be some potential interest there. Or maybe not, because I suppose most of them do character/games work anyway.

I don't think the petition is made too poorly, actually. If somebody has interest in Nurbs tools, he will get the point. I don't think any better wording would "convert" anybody to such a workflow if she never really needed Nurbs.

No doubt Nurbs are way down on the list, but all I know is how easy it is in 3ds Max to get along with curves, and how comparatively little there is missing in Softimage to make it capable of the same workflows - an even better one, actually, when you keep operators live.
It's not the fanciest of things, but a nice complement to the good polygon tools we have.
Do I'd need to prepare a demo to show who ridiculously simple it is in Max to create clean extrudes, and do some corner rounding to the cross section, etc.?
That's what I'm after, and slow as I am, I'm getting there.
Softimage never allowed these kind of modeling approaches, so people never asked, because they didn't know.

My hope some time ago was that ICE modeling would include Nurbs as well, but it was disregarded for whatever reason. Thought this would be a matter of course, for completeness' sake.


As I said, I'm first and foremost asking the devs to lay the foundation for operator customization, and it happens that there are a few bugs in the SDK that make life hard for people trying to do so.
The topo cluster issue - I give you that it's not a bug but a missing feature - is a general problem anyway, also for polymeshes. Eric Mootz for example had a really hard time to find workarounds with his plugins, as he told me.


Luc-Eric, you might think all this is about flogging a dead horse anyway, but until Autodesk declares Softimage as officially dead, which might even be longer than the rumors say, I'd like to continue using it, and hopefully see some improvements done, too. This is one.

luceric
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by luceric » 27 Aug 2013, 15:35

I'm only making comments as an observer of course, you should continue to do and ask what you want, and the team at autodesk will respond to that as they please, I have no involvement in it. I can't recall ever seen a good public measurement of user's interest in a request, which is why I'm very interested in this subject. I think you've pushed it to all the good place and did all you could to get people to sign. If the community wanted to do scientific test, another petition could be made on another subject, for example "faster animation playback", "performance with many objects" or anything that might appeal to the largest audience, and then compare the involvement numbers.

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Tekano
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Tekano » 27 Aug 2013, 20:38

10,000 a reasonable estimate? for what - asking on twitter how many 1direction fans like the colour orange over red..? :D I think you are being a tad unrealistic in your estimations there Luc Eric. casting a cursory eye over the fence I see the top suggestion for Max (allegedly users in the MILLIONS) on the Autodesk site received a maximum 725 votes. http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/foru ... ilters/top

staggering amounts in contrast there ! ;) so I think perhaps from a forum post asking improvements its not too bad. considering again. the top Maya idea from within a forum post only reached 109 http://mayafeedback.autodesk.com/forums ... ilters/top

but yes I agree overall the low amount of votes so far is pretty disappointing for Softimage nurbs and curves fans , maybe a Japanese translation could boost numbers...?
Gossip is what no one claims to like, but everybody enjoys.

luceric
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Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by luceric » 27 Aug 2013, 21:29

yeah I know the maxfeedback forum doesn't have a lot of votes per items, I checked it before posting. But I figure that the fact you need an autodesk account scares away people, plus you have only 20 votes. Btw, max has does not have more than 6 digits number of users, there was a bizzare post from ken pimentel that said it had a million users, but in fact that number comes from page views.

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