Particles Effects with Entertainment Creation Suite Video?

[nuverian]

pflow is CRAP

I don't agree. ;)

+2 I dont agree.
Sure it's not as sophisticated as ICE, but for a particle engine is sophisticated enough + it's easier to grasp from an artist point of view. Not everyone is a TD

[origin]

Ahh ure THE artist turbulence wind + kraktoa = instant win
But how many scripts to get simple effects had you wrote before they bought box#3 from milk cowing pflow developer?
Do you think Data op is more friendly to artist than ice?

http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mxs5/pflow/pflow__inherit_UV.htm
vs 1 compound in ice.

-not updated since it was bought by ad in 2003!
-slow
-crap interface
-crap

[MauricioPC]

Ahh ure THE artist turbulence wind + kraktoa = instant win
But how many scripts to get simple effects had you wrote before they bought box#3 from milk cowing pflow developer?
Do you think Data op is more friendly to artist than ice?

http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mxs5/pflow/pflow__inherit_UV.htm
vs 1 compound in ice.

-not updated since it was bought by ad in 2003!
-slow
-crap interface
-crap

A lot of things aren't updated after AD buys it!

It's slow because it's single threaded ... that should be the number one concern of updating. I like the interface and I think that for motion graphics and simple effects, it can be quite handy. And of course, PFlow 'needs' Box#3.

Like I said before ... I don't know much about ICE and from what I seen in the video, I loved. It seemed so easy to learn and play with ... and get nice results. Lately I been finding more cool work done with Softimage that gives me the confidence that even if the 2015 were the final version, I could continue to use and create top work in it for a lot of years ahead. And aside the High Quality Viewport that freezes Softimage everytime, it's very stable.

But do you think Maya would be the perfect companion to Softimage? Lately I've been thinking that Max + Plugins would be the better choice. What SI can't, Max + Plugins can.
I've seen some videos of the Max plugins ported to Maya and while they are good, they are better in Max (for a lot of reasons). And for the artists, I think I would prefer spend the $4k of Houdini in Krakatoa, TP, FumeFx and Rayfire. That way I wouldn't need to go all TD to make some cool stuff.

But anyway ... I still like PFlow.

[luceric]

they juuusttt added multithreading and disk caching to pflow in max 2014, so I'm not surprised that it's considered a long-suffering paritcle system.

[nuverian]

Ahh ure THE artist turbulence wind + kraktoa = instant win
But how many scripts to get simple effects had you wrote before they bought box#3 from milk cowing pflow developer?
Do you think Data op is more friendly to artist than ice?

http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mxs5/pflow/pflow__inherit_UV.htm
vs 1 compound in ice.

-not updated since it was bought by ad in 2003!
-slow
-crap interface
-crap

lol, As I said im not a TD or similar, or in other words, I dont write such kind of scripts! So I guess that may prove my point even more. Now I dont support max per se. I hate even to look at it. I just supported pflow a bit, just like I would even xparticles (plugin) for C4D, for which I have totaly opposite feelings than max.
Anyhow of course ICE is better than pflow, but something being better than another doesnt make that another "crap"

[MauricioPC]

lol, As I said im not a TD or similar, or in other words, I dont write such kind of scripts! So I guess that may prove my point even more. Now I dont support max per se. I hate even to look at it. I just supported pflow a bit, just like I would even xparticles (plugin) for C4D, for which I have totaly opposite feelings than max.
Anyhow of course ICE is better than pflow, but something being better than another doesnt make that another "crap"

And it's always good to know how other systems work. We never know when we are going to be forced to use it! Let's hope that never and that ICE and Softimage will live forever!

[Bullit]

PFlow does things good enough for several effects.

Since it is not so granular doesn't have many crap context issues that ICE gets, it has also a more consistent language with not a deluge of hundreds of nodes, so it is easier to get in the first step.
It also has certainly more canned effects that one can change than ICE up front for someone that have not been collecting all ICE compounds along the years.

As usual some elitist Softimagers despise ease of use like once they despised something called Vray...we know how that panned out.

For small shops with artists not knowing math and not collecting ICE compounds, today's Pflow is probably just below* level of ICE in practice if we take strands out of equation.
Pflow also have been developed much faster than ICE recently, and for the user it is irrelevant if it is made by ADSK, external , bought or whatever.

The important thing is that for the overall market particles effects now are not anymore a Hollywood, highly paid Commercials thing, in fact particles are everywhere now.
With current PFlow one will not get ever the ICE possibilities but it will be good enough for several projects made on a not so small shoestring.


*just below means seldom 3d max users not knowing math will ever change for ICE.
For ICE to be adopted by others it must be easier to get, get rid of context issues and have much more sample scenes.

[Mathaeus]

PFlow does things good enough for several effects.

Well just that is a problem, someone will expect more for price of 4-5k euros. 'Good enough, maybe much more than that", today, this field belongs to Blender, probably Modo.
If I'll have to do some quick particles in Max, for example a few instanced birds in background, falling snow, or additional confetti on wedding tape for colleague in facility . I'd look for old old particle system in Max ( hope some genius didn't removed this one), as it really was quick and simple, it had presets too.
pFlow, imho, it's worse of worse. Weak, compared even to Maya solutions from 2003, but still wants you to talk with him, just in order to get something.
And another big problem. Today, Max is only 3d app on planet, not having any volumetric rendering (if we don't count depth fog and MR party volume thing). No point particle primitive too, unless is faked somehow, not even free Renderman compliant renderer for this task. And finally, price of all that great plugins, is starting from 900 buck and more. Nothing in middle.

[Pooby]

There are no context issues in ice.
There are users who don't understand how context works. That's all.

[Bullit]

Mathaeus
You can do much more with Pflow than with conventional system which is still there.
And Data Flow inside Pflow is an like ICE system with attributes.

Pooby
Well i see lots pros in mailing list asking about context issues they face off so i don't think you made your point very well.
If someone come with an easier system why everyone needs to be a rocket scientist? Complexity is not good.


I hate to be defending 3dsmax which i don't like, it is clunky, pflow is plain ugly, bugs are around, scale issues that wreck scenes are typical , but instead of some i don't despise it.
I saw the same behavior when almost everyone was criticizing vray "click of the button render".

[Pooby]

Pooby
Well i see lots pros in mailing list asking about context issues they face off so i don't think you made your point very well.
If someone come with an easier system why everyone needs to be a rocket scientist? Complexity is not good.
.

Tell me what these context issues are. I use ICE a lot and I'm surprised that I haven't come across them. If you tell me what they are, I'm sure I can make a better point.
And as for being a rocket scientist; have you seen what someone with no maths skills whatsoever can do with ICE? You should take a look at my videos on Vimeo.
Of course it's possible to make a system easier than ICE, but it would be seriously hard to make an easier system that can do what ICE can do.

When I first started using xsi. I tried shrinkwrap on a mesh and the mesh screwed up. For ages I assumed shrinkwrap was a crappy tool. Until I learnt enough to realise that I wasn't understanding what it was doing, and how to control it.

[Mathaeus]

Mathaeus
You can do much more with Pflow than with conventional system which is still there.
And Data Flow inside Pflow is an like ICE system with attributes.

Yeah I know that. But considering other particles systems today, imho, what's possible with available pflow nodes, does not justify to spent some serious time on it. Nodal system itself, does not tell enough.
Regarding context, well, whenever you're able to deal with more than one element at once, or different elements, in any way you like, there should be some matching rule. As far as I know, all these rules, anywhere, brings some level of abstraction. Something you just want to take as 2+2=4, perhaps without analyzing. At least, without analyzing at first time.
For small example, Cinema 4d xpresso has no automatic context matching, user have to use (more traditional) iterators. That is, if you want to create the push operator, you have to iterate through all point normals and all points, then to apply result on points, using indices you got from iterator. Even setup has about five nodes, on first look it looks just, weird.

[Bullit]

@Pooby

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searc ... t$20issues

I think these are too many/much issues. Some of that people asking are veterans.

Regarding context, well, whenever you're able to deal with more than one element at once, or different elements, in any way you like, there should be some matching rule. As far as I know, all these rules, anywhere, brings some level of abstraction. Something you just want to take as 2+2=4, perhaps without analyzing. At least, without analyzing at first time.

But why to not have proper conversion context nodes?
Even if they would not work in 100% of cases.

[Mathaeus]

But why to not have proper conversion context nodes?
Even if they would not work in 100% of cases.

Could you say, what exactly you want to do. Otherwise, I'm afraid we will go to nowhere, talking of, what's proper conversion or not.

Anyway, I'd believe the main reason for context thing in ICE, is exactly what makes it different than C4d xpresso or Max pflow : speed. Mentioned classic way in c4d, works nicely for less than, let's say, 5-10K elements. Count of elements and operations, exponentially multiplies the execution time.
While ICE is allowed ( most likely) to utilize SIMD, in similar way to how renderer does. Perhaps ICE doesn't even iterate under the hood, at least not in traditional way.
For another small example, latest Kristina Hair uses 'stepped' changing of context. Strand array is defined before strand creation, which, at this stage, ice understands as object context. Later in ICE tree, this strand array could be individualized by point, or not. Drawback is requirement for forcing context in some nodes ( otherwise one constant node, plugged into array input, could kill the strand creation). Context could be "forced" by lerp or 'first valid' node, having strand position ( for example) as second input. Advantage is possibility to use the modulating node ( function curve or something else), over strand array, even before any strand position is set. Also, there's only one node which defines the strand array - easy to change if someone wants. Also, adaption to 'Arnold way' ( first strand segment is start, instead of particle), this is just one slider. Never heard any complaint, related to context.

[Bullit]

I am not talking about a specific situation, i am talking about bottlenecks that people face frequently.

If ICE is not only for TD's, and is supposed to be mass adopted by many artists something like that shouldn't happen.
Now if ICE is mostly to be employed by TD's then general artists are probably better of with competition.

But then the cries that Softimage isn't widely adopted don't make sense. It is a feature.

[luceric]

Anyway, I'd believe the main reason for context thing in ICE, is exactly what makes it different than C4d xpresso or Max pflow : speed. Mentioned classic way in c4d, works nicely for less than, let's say, 5-10K elements. Count of elements and operations, exponentially multiplies the execution time.
While ICE is allowed ( most likely) to utilize SIMD, in similar way to how renderer does. Perhaps ICE doesn't even iterate under the hood, at least not in traditional way.

sure it does. It doesn't matter that ICE will break the iteration into blocks and run those in parallel, it's still a normal iteration. But that iterator is implied in the tree instead of explicitly written.

the point of contexts in ICE is to reduce the number of nodes and to help make compounds more reusable. If you didn't have them, you could end up with more nodes to do operations per point, per objet, per face, etc, and compounds that work only for one type of components. And you'd have programming constructs like for loops. It's a language design decision.