Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

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ace63
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by ace63 » 27 Apr 2012, 12:28

Well Softimage is in dire need of a new hair system so why not take this stuff? :D

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Rez007
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by Rez007 » 27 Apr 2012, 15:31

Bellsey wrote:I do have contact with people in the product teams, but whether they listen to anything say, well who knows, lol.
However, in that article Disney do say that Maya is at the core of the pipline.
Yeah, that is true. I guess it is wishful thinking on my end, but my logic, I think does work the best if Autodesk wants to sell more Suites. I am just saying for the first year or so, then bring it to the other 2. I highly doubt that putting this in Maya first is going to sell more Suites, if that is what Autodesk is aiming to do. Anyway, I guess with this article and the recent departure of most of the Softimage team to the newly created Maya VFX team, I think one can put the pieces together on what they might be working on next. I just wish it was for Softimage...

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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by Pancho » 27 Apr 2012, 16:34

ace63 wrote:Well Softimage is in dire need of a new hair system so why not take this stuff? :D
I don't think so. Since the arrival of ICE and strands it isn't too hard to come up with your own hair solution. I'm currently on my way to do so and I must say it comes along quite nice. So I'm not a computer nerd.

Though you are right, as not everyone wants to/has the ability to look into ICE, a basic hair solution in ICE would be nice. But Melena and Kristinka are there. Why don't you go for them?

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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by milanvasek » 27 Apr 2012, 16:53

also, there is another hair system on the way:
http://vimeo.com/41125869

but i really like that idea of putting the cool stuff into Softimage first to make all those Maya and Max users buy premium or ultimate suites :) it makes perfect sense from autodesk (greedy) point of view :)
Milan Vasek
ceramic artist & softimage fan
http://www.milanvasek.com

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ace63
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by ace63 » 29 Apr 2012, 13:03

Pancho wrote:
ace63 wrote:Well Softimage is in dire need of a new hair system so why not take this stuff? :D
I don't think so. Since the arrival of ICE and strands it isn't too hard to come up with your own hair solution. I'm currently on my way to do so and I must say it comes along quite nice. So I'm not a computer nerd.

Though you are right, as not everyone wants to/has the ability to look into ICE, a basic hair solution in ICE would be nice. But Melena and Kristinka are there. Why don't you go for them?
I am pretty familiar with ICE but building a hair system with it seems pretty cumbersome to me.
First - you don't have any proper styling tools. I like the styling tools the original Softimage Hair has - this is one of the biggest pros of it.
Furthermore, you cannot generate strands at rendertime with ICE - you have to generate and simulate all of your hair in the scene, which
results in massive performance loss.

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Mathaeus
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by Mathaeus » 29 Apr 2012, 15:16

ace63 wrote: First - you don't have any proper styling tools. I like the styling tools the original Softimage Hair has - this is one of the biggest pros of it.
Furthermore, you cannot generate strands at rendertime with ICE - you have to generate and simulate all of your hair in the scene, which
results in massive performance loss.
well, if 'render time' means entire strand generated by renderer, Let's say, something like King Konger for 3delight, nothing in out-of-the-box SI can do that. It's only about viewport display, and ICE equivalent of 'render XSI hair in viewport' is 'particle display' property, automatically attached to any ICE point cloud.

Of course, would be great to have XGen implementation in Softimage, but.... definition of 'artists friendly' by Disney... does it means the same from forum life, 'I want it simple, even on the price of poor final result, even I can't show anything well done with that simple', I don't think so. I'm pretty sure, Maya users will have chance to enjoy the complexity.

Regarding Kristinka Hair, as it is already mentioned in first post, usually I have some free time during June or July. So , for this year, general plan is:
1: refining of existing stuff, simpler and more efficient interface here and there, a few new nodes. Let's say, version 3.1 or so ( current is 3.0).
2: tutorial. Nothing spectacular, more like all exact steps to get some particular hairdo.

Cheers

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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by scaron » 30 Apr 2012, 20:42

ace63 wrote:First - you don't have any proper styling tools. I like the styling tools the original Softimage Hair has - this is one of the biggest pros of it.
with the new custom tool sdk, i think this is possible now.

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ace63
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by ace63 » 01 May 2012, 12:22

scaron wrote:
ace63 wrote:First - you don't have any proper styling tools. I like the styling tools the original Softimage Hair has - this is one of the biggest pros of it.
with the new custom tool sdk, i think this is possible now.
Yes I thought so too when they introduced the new SDK - problem is that it will probably take quite some time to implement this.

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dwigfor
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by dwigfor » 01 May 2012, 16:35

Rez007 wrote:
Bellsey wrote:Essentially its now the Nucleus solver that's driving nHair so it improves things abit.

I'm waiting to see some of this stuff though ;)
http://www.3dworldmag.com/2011/08/09/au ... echnology/
That does sound great! Bellsey, I don't know if you have contact with the decision makers higher up on what new technology goes to what platform, but if you want to mention to those people, that if Autodesk wanted to really sell a lot of Suites, then it would be the smartest move to put that XGen into Softimage first - that would sell the most Suite seats -fast. If they put it into Maya first, that would do little for the sales of Suites.
I just read an interesting post on cgtalk that sounds directly related to why Autodesk hasn't released xgen yet... Infringement of Joe Alter's patent.
And the trigger for suing Disney is (from the legal doc):

Quote:
What has brought the Defendant's infringement(s) to the Plaintiff's attention wast heir announcement that they plan to license their production software in direct competition with the Plaintiff for worldwide distribution.



Seeing as autodesk were licensing Xgen (http://www.3dworldmag.com/2011/08/0...gen-technology/). Wondered why we haven't seen any results from that deal yet?

Including xgen with (presumably) Maya would have cut the knees out from underneath Shave sales, so Alter is understandably concerned.

cheers,
chrisg

Yeti Fur will not be sold in the US
“To avoid a potential ongoing and expensive legal dispute with Joe Alter respecting the scope of his patent, Peregrine and Alter have executed a settlement agreement in which Peregrine has agreed not to sell or license the Yeti plug-in to users located within the geographic boundaries of the United States until his patent expires.”

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... ge=1&pp=15

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 01 May 2012, 16:59

The "Alter vs. Disney" case seems to already have been settled:
Alter now claims, and court records confirm, that he and Disney agreed to a settlement.
(Quoted from here)

No mention of the kind of settlement, obviously... Quoting Joe Alter directly:
I can’t discuss the settlement, however you can be pretty sure it wasn’t enough to cover the damage this thing’ll do but was enough to feel good about at least standing my ground and not being a complete puss.
(Quoted from here also)
;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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Mathaeus
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by Mathaeus » 01 May 2012, 17:24

Yeah.....poor Yeti. BTW, from my understanding, patent is related to 'stepping' creation of local coordinates along strand. Functionally, something similar to 'deform by curve', or 'extrusion along curve' operators in 3d apps. Ironically, imho just this feature didn't helped that much, nicely to say.

Just for the record, *if* I'm right, no one of ICE hair systems uses this. At least, no one of public available. Exactly for kristinka Hair, this method requires 'repeat' node, which I learn to avoid in order to keep the performance. So actual method for creating local cords in kH is a 'stupid', but very reliable transfer from NURBS geo - which then introduces additional complexity.... And ICE has more than enough force to drive this.

Imho, great styling, still artist friendly, belongs to Hair Farm for Max, which is using the 'Hair Mesh', or, interpolation along mesh extrusion. Who knows, maybe this one is patented, too.

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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by talent103 » 01 May 2012, 17:32

I hear that Cinema 4D has the best hair system. Not sure if that is true or not.

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Mathaeus
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by Mathaeus » 01 May 2012, 18:02

talent103 wrote:I hear that Cinema 4D has the best hair system. Not sure if that is true or not.
Yes, definitively *much* more options than XSI hair, reliable simulation.... Only one small 'I don't like' from my side, it's a 'post process' way of shading in default renderer, but I think this is intentional, to get it faster.

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talent103
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by talent103 » 01 May 2012, 18:38

Well I upgraded to the Softimage Suite last year and just installed 2013 last weekend so I will be trying out Maya's N hair and see how I like it.

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ace63
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by ace63 » 01 May 2012, 21:00

Well the good thing is we can now transfer Maya Hair to Softimage via Alembic

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origin
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Re: Maya nHair - how hard to repro?

Post by origin » 01 May 2012, 21:10

hairfarm's stuff is also patented. Maybe thats the reason these tools never got updated?http://www.ephere.com/geometry/hair/

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