The Foundry Colorway

[Bullit]

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/events/live ... rce=Eloqua

[grendizer]

Will this be part of Modo or a new full app?

[Bullit]

Don't know for sure but seems a new app

[Bullit]

Why COLORWAY?
Iterative workflow - Make almost limitless changes to your 3D scene's colors, textures, decals and even lighting set-ups.
Realtime, GPU powered updates - Make instant changes without the need to re-render. Changes to renderings are stored independently of the source image.
Virtual lookbook - Save multiple image variations and ‘looks’, enabling clear downstream communication and design review.
Share ideas - Send desired configurations to the free COLORWAY Presenter app.
Finalize the image - COLORWAY Presenter lets clients iterate on images choosing from options defined in the full COLORWAY app.

http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/colorway/features/

[Draise]

Curious workflow. Me gusta.

[Pancho]

Don't know. Thought it would be a bit more sophisticated. The reflection e.g. stay the same. So fat this is stuff you could easily do in PS or Nuke, only here it seems that the alphas are presented in a icon style way, or do I miss something?

[Mathaeus]

Don't know. Thought it would be a bit more sophisticated. The reflection e.g. stay the same. So fat this is stuff you could easily do in PS or Nuke, only here it seems that the alphas are presented in a icon style way, or do I miss something?

I think it's able to send the adjusted parameters, back to 3d app. They said that they are working on version for Cinema 4d, too, and entire thing will be improved ( if I understood correctly). There's free trial for download, somewhere on Foundry site.

[MauricioPC]

http://etereaestudios.com/blog/2014/07/ ... iz-motiva/

Interesting read ... shine some light to The Foundry/Luxology 'nice guys' aura.

About Colorway and Colimo. Chat with Víctor Feliz (Motiva)
Publicado el 14 julio, 2014 por Cristóbal Vila

As you probably now, The Foundry has recently released a new product: “Colorway”, a tool that makes possible to review and control ‘looks’ in our final renders in real-time. Users (our clients, for example) can also review and make modifications within predetermined material and lighting options.

Here is the teaser for Colorway:



The first time I saw this announcement I immediately have a counterposed feel:

- Happiness, because another great tool was released by a company that owns the main application I use on a daily basis since 7 years ago (Modo), meaning that this one will be even more powerful, because the direct connection between both products.

- Sadness, because this “new” product remembers so much to another tool that has been out there from some years ago: “Colimo” from the small but smart company Motiva. A firm leaded (and composed exclusively) by a couple of good friends of mine, Víctor Feliz and Alejandro Suárez, working hard on their small studio in the south of Spain.


Here is a quick presentation for Colimo:



But, hey, this is the “Real World”, one were competition exists and that is good for us, the users. It isn’t?

However I knew some interesting facts since time ago about Víctor, Alejandro, Colimo and Luxology (now The Foundry). I knew that Víctor and Alejandro were in near contact with different persons from Lux/TF several times on the past years.

And since I read a comment in Facebook by Víctor, a couple of days ago, were he didn’t show himself specially happy with this situation, I decided to contact him and maintain a small chat to get more details on this issue.

Here is the transcription of that conversation:

Cristóbal: When was your first contact with Luxology, Víctor?

Víctor: In April 2010 a retailer of Luxology in Portugal (Paraglobal), contacted me to see if we could create a version of Colimo for Modo. So I was introduced to Brad Peebler (co-founder at Luxology) and we started to work with a beta version of Modo 501. In September 2010 they released Modo 501 to the public in Madrid and Luxology invited us to come and show Colimo 1.0 (unreleased for public on that moment). We accepted, of course!

Cristóbal: How evolved these first contacts?

Víctor: Brad is a great guy and invited us to go to Bordeaux (France) to talk with more calm and to present other developments. In December 2010 we were showing a more evolved version of Colimo and the foundations of another project that would later become RealPerception OFX.

Cristóbal: All that means that you started a close collaboration?

Víctor: Well, not exactly, after that first contacts we received almost no other feedback, except for some emails related to diverse subjects, like trying to create another different plugins for Modo, but that stuff never arrived to see the light (this is the bad side of R&D: sometimes projects die on the road…)

Cristóbal: This means that contacts stopped completely on that moment?

Víctor: Nope! There is an extra important detail: much more recently, in May 2013, I was introduced to Bill Collis (CEO at The Foundry) and he asked me to tell them more details about Colimo in a video-conference with him, side by side with Andy Whitmore (who was the presenter for Colorway some days ago) and his “Chief Scientist” Simon Robinson.

Cristóbal: Yep!, that is an important fact! They seemed really interested on your work.

Víctor: Yes, but then the time started to run, and giving the fact hat I didn’t received anymore news from them regarding to this subject (even if we spoke about other projects) I just assumed that they simply were not more interested on Colimo.

Cristóbal: Until past latest week, I assume…

Víctor: Exactly. Now we arrive to July 2014 and magic!: Colorway appears. Bill Collis regularly and quickly answered to me by Skype, but no more actually. Although I must admit that Brad Peebler is standing up for himself, even if he don’t finds ethical problems with what has happened.

Cristóbal: I understand why you are not exactly happy, now… Some final words, Víctor?

Víctor: I want to stress that my “anger” is not because the competition, not at all!. It bothers me that they requested the meetings, asking for functions and other details, when they had this in mind (create their own product so similar to ours).

More details: this week they showed also a “Colorway Presenter”, a tool that allows to final user (the client) to change only some predefined options, and this is extremely similar to one of features we showed to them in our meet in Madrid (and they liked the more), the “Export to Web” in Colimo.

Obviously we have been too trusting and naive. Maybe because Luxology / The Foundry seemed so cool and nice people, specially comparing with other big companies.

In fact, it’s not “angry” but “perplexity”. And I wonder what the Lux/TF fans would say if this movement would be made by Autodesk, for example.

Finally: I understand that final users only want good tools that works fine for their needs, and Colorway, of course will do it’s job perfectly fine, I suppose. And all these disagreements between developers is not something of their interest… But this is something very sad even for the final users, because third-part developers can loose their interest on creating new tools for TF apps. In fact I had some other interesting ideas and proof of concept tools for Modo that finally, well… won’t see the light. I mean: the final users also loose something with all these issues.

Cristóbal: Thanks for you time, Víctor. Just a small advice: don’t show again an original idea to big companies, even if they look so cool and nice. Keep it closed under four keys ;-)

[Mathaeus]

just if someone is interested, communication master mr Peebler, jumped into Colorway - Colimo thread on Modo forums.

[MauricioPC]

Yeah, but I don't think he cleared much of the air. Anyway ...

[csaez]

Unfortunately there's no too much to talk about, it's just a PR move and people is buying it.
Anyway, I'm sure Motiva's guys have learned the lesson and will do a better job protecting themself next time.

All this sucks big time

[Hirazi Blue]

Yeah, but I don't think he cleared much of the air. Anyway ...

Well, IMHO, quite frankly, mr. Peeblers most recent post in that thread was a joke.
Might be interesting to see how gullible the Foundry community really is.
I can't shake the feeling that mr. Peebler does at least count on that gullibility...

[Bullit]

Well i am one of the first persons to be against current patent laws that put too much strings so i can't criticise this except in behavior.

Now what a about Colimo making a Modo clone?

[MauricioPC]

Well, my "grudge" is more about the ethical behavior than anything else. Luxology and now Foundry always sell this image of a nice and friendly company, who listen to the customers, who's here to make a better world ... or at the least, a better world for artists.

Anyway ... we would expect something like this maybe from AD? But not from TF. And the modo-fanboys already bought his excuse, so there you go. I guess the foundry community is VERY gullible (had to search out this word).

And he comes out as the hero ... come on! I rather prefer the AD guys on the SI list. At the least they didn't tried to appear as innocents or heroes.

[Mathaeus]

Yeah, but I don't think he cleared much of the air. Anyway ...

Well, IMHO, quite frankly, mr. Peeblers most recent post in that thread was a joke.
Might be interesting to see how gullible the Foundry community really is.
I can't shake the feeling that mr. Peebler does at least count on that gullibility...

well, I think gullibility is really too strong word. It's just a fact, that team lead acts also as public performer, similar to 'our' mr. Schoennagel. Personally, never liked too much the work of this guy (I mean mr Schoennagel), but a lot of people did. 'We' weren't been negative all the time, as we are today. Now, if someone believe that the striptease dancer is performing just for him, or there is some hidden message in the show, that's problem of that believer.
As long they are delivering what they are delivering, for really good price and licensing policy ( comparable to XSI Foundation 5 or 4), for me, mr. Peebler is allowed to do everything what he wants. Another story is, if Modo will want to compete against something stronger than Colimo, they'll need more money from users, so, Brad will need to go with another kind of show - but I think he will be able to adapt.