Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Forum for users who have migrated or are migrating to Maya
User avatar
FXDude
Posts: 1129
Joined: 19 Jun 2012, 21:59

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by FXDude » 24 May 2016, 02:09

Matheus wrote:This is already discussed on H forums, usually in not so pleasant way for people who asked....
Indeed so it seems.

is this the thread you reffereed to?
Compounding in Houdini?
http://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/42120/


And a bit here from NikaRagua's second question. (in 2014)
( in his video talking about moving away from what otherwise works rather exceptionally straight forwardly)

ICE Exodus - porting ICE to VEX part 1
http://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/31632/#147184
nikaragua86 wrote: ... so can any Houdini Vex experts comment on the custom variable - is it easy as declaring it as it is in Ice?
sanostol wrote: ... for the parameter stuff, I'm not sure what You are trying to achive. It looks like You are writing data to geometry in the first set data , and then read it out later. [-->exactly]
I'm not sure why You want this, but that does not work that way in houdini,You can not work import data in the same vex tree that is set here. that must happen in a previous vopsop
If not at the SOP level, pehaps they could expand towards inner-space? meaning parhaps a few levels of parallellism at the vopsop level (groupable functions inside a single toplevel modifyer) might be possible?

Then I think we could then see a perhaps slightly bigger part of square 1 of XSI (for the ICE part) in Houdini.
and despite very good control (not necessarily good performance) over all things simulated or procedurally modeled,
square 1 for many other parts also remain to be seen.



Otherwise you reffered to Maya nodes, but while maya nodes can be good to drive transform relations, these nodes (or how maya works inside) can be even worse for following dataflow.

Quote from that same Houdini thread;
tamte wrote: ... just be sensitive about it, we don't want to end up with network mess ala Maya where everything is connected to everything even single node to itself with multiple lines, just because everything is on one level, but I really liked ICE as well.
And DAG nodes 'to drive transforms' and not much more ; (other than perhaps Soup nodes, but usable to actually make soup nodes?)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... &t=1367489
Post about linking Particles speed to distance to emitter, or about an extra basic example about particles, and about nothing else of what ICE can deal with, otherwise only doable through python (or maybe with somewhat canned mash 'nodes').

(post also among a few recent topics about node editor limitations )


Otherwise let's just say.. talk about when Simon says Jump! ...

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

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by Mathaeus » 24 May 2016, 10:41

FXDude wrote: Otherwise you reffered to Maya nodes, but while maya nodes can be good to drive transform relations, these nodes (or how maya works inside) can be even worse for following dataflow.
Instead of ''transform relations'' , why not to name it ''interesting phenomena, happening when all positions of object are deformed at once" :) - I'd say, transforms are cornerstone of *interaction* in 3d, there are built in ways how user can invoke the blending on even that hand made constrain, in Maya (btw similar to how we are blending a built in constraints in Softimage). It 's not only a node tree, it's entire system at once - while yes, for those who are using viewport only as display ( that is, Houdini users), there are only nodes to be noticed. So yes, sometime Maya system is looking over complicated, but, it deals with very very complex operators, simply not available in H, for example, all options of Maya Aim constraint, or SI Direction constraint (while in SI we are just protected from nodes in this area). However, as example, ICE DQ skin simply can not to compete to built-in Maya thing, as it suddenly introduces the dealing with ordering in groups, and what not.
When it comes to getting the fast deformation, it can't go without some sort of interpolation, and best way is called skin/envelope deformer, so story is going back to
transforms.
About tracking the data flow, perhaps Houdini is much cleaner than ICE ( ICE context and all that), but this means more work, and dealing with more abstract categories (for artists).

By the way, I'm wondering, is there anyone who is reading this, except two of us...... :D

User avatar
geoath
Posts: 48
Joined: 03 Sep 2009, 20:24

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by geoath » 24 May 2016, 13:40

Mathaeus wrote: By the way, I'm wondering, is there anyone who is reading this, except two of us...... :D
I do :)
I really enjoy reading the in-depth technical info you provide (and not only in this topic) :-bd

User avatar
rray
Moderator
Posts: 1774
Joined: 26 Sep 2009, 15:51
Location: Bonn, Germany
Contact:

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by rray » 24 May 2016, 15:56

+1, at least trying to follow, and definitely bookmarked all these threads for when I get my H feet wet
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

NNois
Posts: 754
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 20:33

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by NNois » 24 May 2016, 17:20

@FXDude
I think you are just too conservative, just try it before stating. And don't follow tutorials untill you get what you're doing.
In my very own case, Houdini gave me the chance to understand things i don't at the time working with XSI and ICE.
Yes you can't plug things like spaghettis, but at least you're forced to understand what you do.

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

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by Mathaeus » 24 May 2016, 23:57

For those who are ICE addicts already, I'd say it's matter of self respect to take look at Houdini. Looking from positive side, H VOPs and such are much closer to let's call it real, under the hood structure than ICE, making it easier to figure out things like Fabric, later. Otherwise, just like any other transition, something is missing but there are new things, too. Let's say when it comes to ICE style hair creation, definitively is not easy in H to have all that ICE style modulations, but it's far more elegant to utilize simulation for styling, H wire solver works on directly on curves, has self collision. They added curve subdivisions in H 15. And one really special, is ability of Mantra to use VDB volumes created from hair guides, for all sort of secondary rays, which gives around ten times faster render times than completely path - traced hair, also makes easier to modulate shadow ratio, giving a good old shadow map style, smoother shading.

Regarding Maya, it's simply that I'm more around direct modeling and animation. I think we all know that direct animating in SI or Maya always been close. About direct modeling, I'd still take SI, for now - but, for lot of auxiliary tasks, Maya has newer stuff - UV with cut-sew workflow in 3d viewport, couple of ways to use Unfold partially, uv packing. Vertex colors painter is far stronger. For those who remember 'swim uv' feature from XSI 5 or 6, there's Max's style 'preserve uv' that works on any type of uv projection (it automatically compensates tweaks, adjusting the underlying uv). Tweak mode works with transforms, too (for people familiar with Blender's Grab tool or Max 'select and move'). And, yeah, sculpting, not really for huge meshes, but usable smooth - relax painting is possible. Here, Maya is stable with these tasks, maybe exactly because is LT :D

User avatar
FXDude
Posts: 1129
Joined: 19 Jun 2012, 21:59

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by FXDude » 26 May 2016, 18:31

No doubt each package can have their advantages,
but I don't think self respect has anything to do with it.

As far as I can tell, any 'ICE or XSI Exodus' exclusively has/had to do with what studios use,
and is and has been the main reason for looking around which is fine.


But it's not surprising that people like Pooby, Probiner, or Tim Borgmann and others go on using it
(no doubt while staying in tune to how things evolve),
technically beyond differences and similarities, Soft remains like one of the most direct and efficient visual development/production workshop.

Often used as a protoyping tool to see if ideas would work as plugins in other software (easier to experiment with), except while in Softimage, a working prototype can also be a usable final 'asset', and a good sample scene can be as good as a new feature.

Softimage is alot like easy far reach, playing with the guts of '3D'.

And it sometimes feels silly to look or wait for ages for something like it,
while something like what many Softimage users are looking or waiting for is sitting right there lol
(now with awesome Momentum :) )

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

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by Mathaeus » 06 Jun 2016, 01:17

Ok back to motion graphics :) in Maya. I hope Daniel will forgive me running around the topic, for now I think I still don't have enough for a new thread.

Image

Thing in Maya (LT) Node Editor is a rig, intentionally started from scratch, just to get familiar with. For now it describes about 2/3 of final thing, anyway almost complete show is already there. Shadow rig for driving the skin and for 'detaching' the deformed model, SRT interpolators, complete by-node custom IK solution with stretchy bones (ok not just complete, there's still Aim Constraint to globally line up a local IK), hand-made constraints. While Maya (especially LT) offer of math nodes is pretty much Spartan, this became a small challenge, how to get tangens by dividing a vector components and such. Half of that crap is probably completely unnecessary, but makes me happy. Evaluation is amazing, around 130 FPS using 1 level of OpenSubdivs + OpenCL in full shaded mode, so there's room for a lot lot more to add.

Will see is there something from creation process that worth to put on internet, considering tons of existing learning material all around (and good part of that is obsolete). Perhaps, some math nodes trickery, or small comparison with SI. Unbelievable, this software has *inverse* sequence of creating the parents or constraints, just to mention what happens on first day.

User avatar
FXDude
Posts: 1129
Joined: 19 Jun 2012, 21:59

Funny/Sad Story of the day

Post by FXDude » 18 Jun 2016, 00:30

Great & Sad Story of the day about SI performance ...

Maya performance in huge scenes
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... &t=1374593

No doubt there are situations where Maya interaction is faster,
(like with rigs when jumping through all hoops required for paralell evaluated rigs to work?)

But sigh ...

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

Re: Maya 2016 Extension 2 - Examples pack from Creative Market

Post by Mathaeus » 18 Jun 2016, 11:48

Well, 'jumping through all hoops required for parallel evaluated rigs to work' ;) . There's command in Bonus Tools for those who don't want to bother with these two or four switches (depending on what someone has as default). Otherwise yes Maya always been lazy bitch when it comes to refreshing, perhaps there's some experience in rigging and animating, needed to figure out what the hell needs a new setup or what needs just to refresh. But it has advantages in other areas too, imho standard ratio in rigging - animating field always was around 2/1 in favor of Maya against XSI. Let's say any kind of symmetry work - from joy of writing symmetry mapping templates in SI, or trying to make script that deals with tangents in SI animation editor. And there's more... Anyway even that 2/1 in even exotic software was enough for survival before 2014, but today, simply there is no other choice than Maya in this field (or at least some knowledge about), for those who wants to be pro, there. Simply as that.
Regarding large scene assemblies, elements coming from different sources and all that, I'll admit my last experience is from 2006, when by the way this already switched from SI to Max, because of some rendering engine in XSI (forgot the name), despite the all disadvantages of old Max. From what I heard, today Max is beast when it comes to loading a huge static scenes. Personally if I'll be able to choose, Houdini will be an option for out-of-the-box (no plugins or extra scripting) assembly. Has unique advantage of loading literally anything (even plain obj file) directly from hard disk and building networks on top, has passes, there's by design advantage of not creating duplicate materials, you just take care of material - polygon cluster matching. While is still unpleasantly technical sometimes, it's structure allows to easy re-create a lot, things like hard edges or other mesh attributes, so on.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests