NURBS improvements petition

New plugins, tools etc.
Eugen
Posts: 331
Joined: 10 Jan 2010, 12:40
Location: Vienna/Austria
Contact:

NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 27 Jul 2013, 15:12

Hello,
I'm trying something utterly ridiculous now to get the developers improve the NURBS curve/surface side of things - an online petition:

http://www.change.org/petitions/autodes ... rove-nurbs


The topic, for the last 8 years, has been ignored again and again. If you are as unhappy with this as I am, here's the chance to raise your voice, and if you do so, please also spread the word!

Thanks a lot!
Best regards,
Eugen

Eugen
Posts: 331
Joined: 10 Jan 2010, 12:40
Location: Vienna/Austria
Contact:

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 29 Jul 2013, 10:57

Guys,
if anybody sees any advantage in better NURBS, please do not hesitate and support this!
I started it because I'm sick and tired of asking for a mere measly bugfixes...


By the way, clicking the link does not automatically support the petition, but just shows the page.
Here's the updated wording:


"Working with NURBS is still awkward due to a number of bugs and restrictions in Softimage and it's SDK.
Since NURBS are and will continue to be a viable geometry type useful for many worflows, they should be subject to an upgrade, which last happened in version 5.0, about 8 years ago!

Improvement list, sorted by importance:
- fix NURBS related bugs as has been reported in the beta,
- support subcurves and subsurfaces in SDK and existing tools - as consistently as polygon islands,
- improve the operator SDK, to allow seamless integration of custom tools, including NURBS,
- add support for NURBS in ICE Modeling,
- add more NURBS tools to allow working on curve/surface topology (attach, cut, weld, etc.), or if this is unfeasible, 3rd party developers should be provided with all SDK necessities to do so themselves.

Affected areas:
- curve to polygon modeling, like 3D text, logos, mechanical parts, floorplans, cross-sections, spline cages,...
- ICE based procedural modeling and rigging approaches for more complex animations and visualizations,
- better import/editing/modeling of technical geometry like cars, design objects,...

To Cory Mogk -
Why NURBS should be improved:
First, Softimage users should not be forced to switch to other applications just for basic curve/surface modeling.
Curves in particular, as they represent 2D-geometry, will always be fundamental in 3D graphics.

Second, ICE support for NURBS would lay the foundation for new procedural modeling/rigging workflows that would make Softimage competitive in that field.

Understandably, the Softimage developers are under time and monetarian restictions, so only high priority features get realized, mostly introcuded by bigger studios, and often behind 'closed doors'.
Yet those studios rarely request any NURBS features. The reason might not even be that better NURBS would be useless to them, but because they mostly can choose from a wider variety of tools, and often stick to internal proven workflows.
Yet the other huge part of the userbase, small studios/freelancers, would profit directly from better NURBS, but easily go unnoticed.

Polygon modeling based on curves is an important and reasonable complement to the already good modeling tools in Softimage, but is still unnecessarily complicated and restricted, and this petition is meant to show that the interest is there.
So please improve NURBS again and thus boost Softimage's usability in that area a great deal!
Thank you!"

Moderator edit: moved this thread to "Announcements",
where it seems to be more at home than in "Open Discussion" IMHO - HB

Kzin
Posts: 432
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 11:36

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Kzin » 30 Jul 2013, 17:57

looking at the current state of si and bugfixes we have/get, i dont think something big like this would make it on their list.
it would introduce much more bugs which have to be fixed, that makes it impossible to fix current ones.
so you have the option to support a new big feature and fix it several releases until its working and meanwhile, the old bugs stay in the software and the related parts are not working.
OR, except that the industry changed to polygon modeling, which includes the decision that xsi will be a polymodeller in early dev days (as it was clear that xsi cant be feature rich like planed by devstart) and let increase the chance for fixing actual bugs. i prefer the second one, from my pov, nurbs are dead, it would make no sense to invest alot of dev time into this.

Eugen
Posts: 331
Joined: 10 Jan 2010, 12:40
Location: Vienna/Austria
Contact:

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 30 Jul 2013, 19:24

Kzin wrote:looking at the current state of si and bugfixes we have/get, i dont think something big like this would make it on their list.
it would introduce much more bugs which have to be fixed, that makes it impossible to fix current ones.
These bugs I'm talking about ARE current ones. They block plugin writers to do a thorough job.

First, there's the problem being that the SDK is not fully fit for any kind of topology operator, and that means polygons, too!
If this was working, you can happily do curves as well.
This was actually considered to be done by the old dev-team, As Luc-Eric mentioned. It probably would engage one dev for a full cycle, give or take, but it is as important as it is overdue.
Because the sorry matter of fact is that Softimage is not really customizable, operator-wise, and that is a HUGE drawback, especially in the current situation - the developers are too swamped to add any operators (of whatever kind), but 3rd parties cannot do so because the SDK sucks, so we're stuck, NURBS or not.
Max and Maya are much, much more open in that regard.

Second, there's a bug that shows up when you increase the number of subcurves in a custom op - the new ones will be unselectable until you freeze.
The exact same bug existed for polymesh points also. I reported both, and the poly bug was fixed almost immediately...
Why was the other one not fixed as well in one go? Everybody hears NURBS and runs screaming.

There are a few other minor ones, which I expect to be simple to fix, like wrong COGs for subcurves and such stuff.

So, do you relate to ICE NURBS when you fear more bugs?
Well, when ICE Modeling was added, was it particularly buggy in the beginning?
The foundation of ICE NURBS would mean adding a "Set NURBS Topology" node, and various attributes, like subcurve/subsurface index etc.
The plethora of compounds that actually mess with the NURBS data can then comfortably added bit-by-bit, also by the community.
It would open up the doors for really cool parametric modeling tools, like there continue to pop up for Blender(!)...

Kzin wrote:so you have the option to support a new big feature and fix it several releases until its working and meanwhile, the old bugs stay in the software and the related parts are not working.
OR, except that the industry changed to polygon modeling, which includes the decision that xsi will be a polymodeller in early dev days (as it was clear that xsi cant be feature rich like planed by devstart) and let increase the chance for fixing actual bugs. i prefer the second one, from my pov, nurbs are dead, it would make no sense to invest alot of dev time into this.

Nobody's asking Softimage to become a second Rhino. That's out of question, don't worry.
Rhino, by the way, is used heavily in architecture and design companies. I heard from a friend that works at Herzog & DeMeuron that they have about 250 seats of Rhino and ACAD.
What if you ever get NURBS data from companies like those?


NURBS are not "dead". That's nonsense, sorry. But let's not throw curves and surfaces in the same basket for a moment.
How can curves, which represent 2D-geometry, be dead? Are ICE strands dead?
Did you ever extrude any curve shape? Maybe not, because working with them is so stupidly and inconsistently implemented in Softimage.
If you happen to know 3ds Max, you will know that deriving polygons from Bezier-splines (a subset of NURBS) are a reliable and practical workflow you do not want to miss once you are used to it. You can start off building shapes of all kinds using curves, then extrude (or sweep, for better corners) them, and continue on the polygons.

What you probably mean, then, is that NURBS are not used for character modeling. That's true, yet not for rigging purposes, because they have the big advantage of being parametric. You can position anything on them with UV coordinates. Have fun letting anything slide along a complex polygon surface...


Regarding fixes of existing NURBS tools: it's pretty trivial to add subcurve/subsurface support. I know because I put that into my curvetools addon.
One thing at the moment is, that the devs that created those tools are not around anymore at Autodesk, and the new guys fear a can of worms or something. Pity, because the stuff I wrote wasn't really that complicated. Cut/weld/offset... if I can do this, the professionals can in a fraction of the time.
And they actually wouldn't need to, was there a proper SDK - or ICE NURBS.

Kzin
Posts: 432
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 11:36

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Kzin » 30 Jul 2013, 21:23

this might all be valid, but you miss my point. improving this would mean no dev time for other things. and looking at the new features and bugfix lists for the last si releases, it would mean a huge impact on si's developement. from my pov, it would not pay off when looking on the numbers of si users. if you need nurbs, you are using the wrong app, time goes by for nurbs, its to late, also when its heavyly used in other areas. but like you mentioned, they using different tools. when using rhino data perhaps its better to use max and its nurbs importer.

the users should concentrate on features which has a better chance to be realized, thats what i want to say and nurbs are not a good candidate i think.
especially with all the good nurbs modeler on the market.

Eugen
Posts: 331
Joined: 10 Jan 2010, 12:40
Location: Vienna/Austria
Contact:

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 30 Jul 2013, 22:28

What feature requests make sense depends on what market you are in / what kind of work you do. In my world, NURBS are my friend, and I prefer parametric/non-linear workflows.

As a freelancer, I want to be flexible enough to be able to approach many different tasks, that includes character animation, occasionally.
Now we are at the philosophical question: what kind of tool is Softimage?
It's a general purpose 3D-application, so please don't give me the "wrong application" thing. I don't see withdrawing my pocketbook for other apps, too.

I touched a few, and I like Softimage. Not 3ds Max anymore, not Houdini, not Maya (brrr), not Modo, not Cinema, not Blender (yet).
Workflow is still most comfy here. You can pull off the coolest things with XSI, so a few improvements on NURBS cannot be asked too much - a fart in the forest, that's what I thought.
But then this hair in the soup showed up in the form of SDK shortcomings (point number 3 in the petition text).
This sucks, really bad, and this is something anybody, NURBS aside, can use, especially big studios with TDs who's job it is to customize the hell out of XSI all day long.

But if development resources have become THAT sparse, we are close to withering and dying anyway, but let's talk about such rumors in another thread.

I wouldn't be bothering anybody here if the SDK provided everything I need, and somehow arrange myself with the other NURBS flaws, and fix up the tools I need myself - which I did already, mostly at least, it's just not going to work as good as expected.
That's why we are talking.

steve3d
Posts: 3
Joined: 20 Oct 2011, 17:14

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by steve3d » 31 Jul 2013, 05:14

well, guys, I really don't think automatic-desk will listen to us, if they could listen to us, then we will see much more features in softimage, look these recent versions, they want us to change to use 3dsmax or maya, or they just want softimage as a BIG plugin for 3dsmax and maya.

what they do is just automatically ignore small user group's requests, as their name suggest: auto-desk.... =((

julca
Posts: 145
Joined: 07 Sep 2012, 14:24

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by julca » 31 Jul 2013, 10:09

Good intiative Eugen ! :-bd

I'm agree with you, especially for curve/subcurve manipulation and curve/subcurve management inside ICE.

You got my vote (http://www.change.org/petitions/autodes ... rove-nurbs) !

User avatar
Hirazi Blue
Administrator
Posts: 5107
Joined: 04 Jun 2009, 12:15

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Hirazi Blue » 31 Jul 2013, 10:11

I agree chances are slim that they will listen, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try! Maybe they'll do it out of shock, merely because someone had the audacity to start a petition ;)
One of the least convincing arguments against this to me is the statement you could/should use some dedicated software for this. There are numerous features in Softimage dedicated software can do way better and Softimage spent precious development time on those as well. I am not naming examples, but you get the picture, I hope. The nature of a "generalist application", which Softimage still is, should be it offering a broad spectrum of features, even if there are applications out there who outshine it on a per feature basis.
;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

Eugen
Posts: 331
Joined: 10 Jan 2010, 12:40
Location: Vienna/Austria
Contact:

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 31 Jul 2013, 12:17

Good point, Hirazi.
Yet the borders are blurred where you should start to reach out or stay inside the "host" application. We could debate over this for a very long time.
There are some "top-level" discussions going on now about the whole idea of an all-round application being outdated. We will see.
Maybe it's commercial software that is outdated -> Blender...


Here's why I think at least NURBS curves should be editable comfortably inside XSI:
I know the spline tools in Max, they are not that many, actually, but they work reliably and "dry". In a way they are even nicer to use than in the bloatware that Illustrator is, for example, and they proved sufficient for most cases. So, this is no big deal really.

There's even a thing Softimage would do better than Max, then:
Most of Max' curve tools reside in the "Edit Spline" modifier, so you "freeze in" all the edits during work.
Here, curve tools (like any other) are more granular, and thus make completely non-linear workflows possible, e.g. change some curve offset or corner radius afterwards. That's a cool thing almost no one else can do, except maybe Houdini.


NURBS Surface modeling is more complex, of course, and there's just a narrow gap between trivial and insanely complex operations.
So here your argument maybe right. Rhino or MoI would be the way to go if NURBS are your thing.

Although, if the SDK was fixed, I would love to give it a try and add some basic surface operators as well, and see how far that can be taken.
And, putting curves and surfaces in ICE would open up a real interesting field for experimentation... parametric modeling heaven.


The inconsistent subcurves and subsurfaces support in many of the factory tools is cheap to fix, anyway, and should be done just to stop mocking users with their half-baked implementation. Better then take them out altogether, because they are almost useless anyway.


I'm aware that the whole topic is just a footnote compared to all the other important stuff that needs doing. But given a sufficient SDK, and a handful of flaws fixed, we were good to go with it, too, almost like a by-product.

User avatar
Hirazi Blue
Administrator
Posts: 5107
Joined: 04 Jun 2009, 12:15

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Hirazi Blue » 31 Jul 2013, 12:49

Not to derail this thread needlessly, but talk about the end of the generalist software has been around for quite some time. The generalist software is still more or less thriving and the case of Modo seems to prove that being a specialist packages often isn't enough as they seem to be desperately trying to turn this application, which started life as a dedicated subD modeler IIRC, into a generalist app. By which I don't mean to say this is a bad thing BTW. My point is that all this talk about the end of the generalist apps has been around as long as I can remember. With no real conclusion in sight, I'm afraid.
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

User avatar
gaboraa
Posts: 314
Joined: 16 Apr 2010, 23:14

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by gaboraa » 31 Jul 2013, 13:06

I really like to see better Nurbs tools in Softimage but it seems like an another wish for a distant dream. Maya receives love and I don't think there are any plans on implementing better Nurbs tools. And at the end of the day we feel the frustration of dreaming and wishing things we will not have.

Eugen
Posts: 331
Joined: 10 Jan 2010, 12:40
Location: Vienna/Austria
Contact:

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Eugen » 31 Jul 2013, 13:25

For now, just think idealistically - what do you want? Very simple. You like curves, or surfaces? Just vote, it costs nothing.
Then we will see. Maybe we will be just laughed at as that sorry "dreamers" we probably are, but who knows.
A "never gonna happen" attitude won't help much... everything starts in the mind, after all.

Let's not get too disappointed, if this proves useless, too. Maybe some other time then.

"We must be like water..." - Bruce Lee

User avatar
gaboraa
Posts: 314
Joined: 16 Apr 2010, 23:14

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by gaboraa » 31 Jul 2013, 13:46

Don't worry I already joined the petition and I also very eager to see the improvements on Nurbs modeling. Just hearing the idea of a better curve tools makes me happy;)

User avatar
dwigfor
Posts: 395
Joined: 17 Nov 2009, 17:46

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by dwigfor » 31 Jul 2013, 20:51

49/51 signed.

User avatar
Mathaeus
Posts: 1778
Joined: 08 Jun 2009, 21:11
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Contact:

Re: NURBS improvements petition

Post by Mathaeus » 31 Jul 2013, 21:08

Just to add something...
First of all, I signed. Why not.
Second......
According to old tutorial by Jeremy Birn, as one of very few testimonies :). NurbS assembly stuff seems to be plugin for old Softimage 3d, integrated into XSI, later. While Softimage 3d already had some NurbS capabilities. According to habits of these times, I wouldn't be surprised if this plugin even had SDK or something similar. Maybe developer had a hard choice, to put feature into XSI, just if someone want it - still in hope nobody will ask for SDK. And that's why our member luceric, seems to have headache when anything is mentioned about XSI :)
In short, maybe.... only choice is to re-write entire thing from scratch. Once it's done, someone have to create exporter from Rhino to SI, too. If I'm correct, Rhino is only app, able to export IGES, readable in SI. I think Rhino exporter belongs to times of Softimage 3d, nothing later...

Anyway, again, any improvement in this field is desirable. NURBS is great thing for all sort of rigging too.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest