Some news from Siggraph

[csaez]

Whats sad is they just added ANOTHER nodal graph to maya. Seems like they ran out of hypernames too. And theres something called ShaderFX as well. My word...
The elegance, the meaningful engineering, the practical design... Will we ever see it again? I honestly doubt so.

To be fair, we could say the same about Softimage (FXTree, RenderTree, ICETree)

[bottleofram]

Whats sad is they just added ANOTHER nodal graph to maya. Seems like they ran out of hypernames too. And theres something called ShaderFX as well. My word...
The elegance, the meaningful engineering, the practical design... Will we ever see it again? I honestly doubt so.

To be fair, we could say the same about Softimage (FXTree, RenderTree, ICETree)

And between those three, you have the whole thing covered. In fact, the only real sign of inconsistent development philosophy is the lack of scene-scope graph.

[luceric]

To be fair, we could say the same about Softimage (FXTree, RenderTree, ICETree)

And between those three, you have the whole thing covered. In fact, the only real sign of inconsistent development philosophy is the lack of scene-scope graph.

actually, in XSI there is a schematic view, which is yet another graph that works in a totally different way (just try to click and drag a node)

[keeper]

So Bifrost will be only as part of Maya? Early someone sad that it wil be as standalone application. If standalone, Bifrost can be integrated in XSI?

[bottleofram]

To be fair, we could say the same about Softimage (FXTree, RenderTree, ICETree)

And between those three, you have the whole thing covered. In fact, the only real sign of inconsistent development philosophy is the lack of scene-scope graph.

actually, in XSI there is a schematic view, which is yet another graph that works in a totally different way (just try to click and drag a node)

Hence why i dont consider it the same category of the various nodal "trees" he listed. It's a visual representation - you cant do much with it.

But upon rewatching the video, i notice he accesses the compound by rightclicking the node in node editor. So maybe this new Bifrost Editor isn't exactly naiad specific. Maybe we finally witness the birth of mICE. Oh, sorry about the wild speculation....

[Bellsey]

So Bifrost will be only as part of Maya? Early someone sad that it wil be as standalone application. If standalone, Bifrost can be integrated in XSI?

At the moment, we are unable to confirm the plans for Bifrost, but to perhaps provide some additional info and soem perspective, this is what Marcus has said in his post to the now infamous Max Underground thread....


Bifrost does not know about Maya. There isn’t a single line of code in Bifrost that directly uses the Maya API. Maya, on the other hand, can be made to know about Bifrost. That’s how we, as a test, integrated Bifrost into Maya. It follows that Bifrost could easily be integrated into other DCCs, be made as a standalone product, ported to the iPad – you name it. One of the many strengths of the Bifrost architecture lies in the fact that it’s “product agnostic” and that it can “go anywhere”.

What we showed at the Autodesk User Group last week was the results of our experimental Maya integration. We have to focus on one product and do it right, and the decision was to go with Maya. I understand that users of other products such as Max may feel disappointed, but before you condemn Autdoesk to the 7th circle of hell you should take note of two things:

1. Autodesk has NOT said that Maya is the only DCC that will ever run Bifrost. Just because Maya was chosen does not mean it won’t appear elsewhere.

2. Even if Maya, in the end, is the only DCC to allow Bifrost FX authoring, is that really all that different from Naiad Studio? Nobody was complaining that you had to use Naiad Studio to author Naiad graphs, then export the sim output into your favorite DCC, and go from there? How would this be vastly different? Maya can, in the worst case, be viewed as a “better” Naiad Studio. Use Maya for making your Bifrost FX graphs – then export the sim results into Max and go from there. This is what you did with Naiad Studio + Max, and you can do it with Maya + Max.

[keeper]

So Bifrost will be only as part of Maya? Early someone sad that it wil be as standalone application. If standalone, Bifrost can be integrated in XSI?

At the moment, we are unable to confirm the plans for Bifrost, but to perhaps provide some additional info and soem perspective, this is what Marcus has said in his post to the now infamous Max Underground thread....


Bifrost does not know about Maya. There isn’t a single line of code in Bifrost that directly uses the Maya API. Maya, on the other hand, can be made to know about Bifrost. That’s how we, as a test, integrated Bifrost into Maya. It follows that Bifrost could easily be integrated into other DCCs, be made as a standalone product, ported to the iPad – you name it. One of the many strengths of the Bifrost architecture lies in the fact that it’s “product agnostic” and that it can “go anywhere”.

What we showed at the Autodesk User Group last week was the results of our experimental Maya integration. We have to focus on one product and do it right, and the decision was to go with Maya. I understand that users of other products such as Max may feel disappointed, but before you condemn Autdoesk to the 7th circle of hell you should take note of two things:

1. Autodesk has NOT said that Maya is the only DCC that will ever run Bifrost. Just because Maya was chosen does not mean it won’t appear elsewhere.

2. Even if Maya, in the end, is the only DCC to allow Bifrost FX authoring, is that really all that different from Naiad Studio? Nobody was complaining that you had to use Naiad Studio to author Naiad graphs, then export the sim output into your favorite DCC, and go from there? How would this be vastly different? Maya can, in the worst case, be viewed as a “better” Naiad Studio. Use Maya for making your Bifrost FX graphs – then export the sim results into Max and go from there. This is what you did with Naiad Studio + Max, and you can do it with Maya + Max.

Ok. Only one question. Does Bifrost will be only fluid simulation framework, or it can be used for particles and rigid/soft bodies simulation?

[Bellsey]

Ok. Only one question. Does Bifrost will be only fluid simulation framework, or it can be used for particles and rigid/soft bodies simulation?

Sorry, I don't have any information to answer that.

Again I can quote Marcus in that he said "Project Bifrost” (which is a CODE-name, btw, not necessarily the actual product name) is also a standalone, more general, node-based software that will do fluid-simulation – and much more, in time."

[ojo3D]

The video on OpenSubdiv by Bill Polson from Pixar is very very cool.

http://area.autodesk.com/ooyala/show/pw ... 7tBkppOx7l

[nixx]

[...] Maybe we finally witness the birth of mICE. [...]

Exactly what I thought when I saw that video. As far as I could tell, that system looks and feels (and probably works) exactly like ICE.

[origin]

I have a question for those who use maya also...
are opensubdivsfully supported now?
Do you guys have some good article on transition from max/softimage to maya?
Can you bind S as navigation?
Are the particles procedural with nodes like SI?
are there sticky keys?

All big studio around me are either using maya or moving from max to maya. The AD presentation clearly says that softimage is no more and max is/will be for archvis only

[ojo3D]

- are opensubdivsfully supported now?
- Do you guys have some good article on transition from max/softimage to maya?
- Can you bind S as navigation?
- are there sticky keys?

- Not yet, as the presentation of Bill Polson says. But almost there.

- Bind yes, but I think you can get used to the ALT key really fast.

- No sticky keys to my knowledge.

I know it's not what you want, but maybe you can reverse engineer. ;)

http://www.i3dtutorials.com/tutorial/19 ... troduction

[Hirazi Blue]

I have a question for those who use maya also...
are opensubdivsfully supported now?
Do you guys have some good article on transition from max/softimage to maya?
Can you bind S as navigation?
Are the particles procedural with nodes like SI?
are there sticky keys?

I think you forgot to ask: Can we get a decent "sidegrade" offer, please?

[origin]

I have a question for those who use maya also...
are opensubdivsfully supported now?
Do you guys have some good article on transition from max/softimage to maya?
Can you bind S as navigation?
Are the particles procedural with nodes like SI?
are there sticky keys?

I think you forgot to ask: Can we get a decent "sidegrade" offer, please?

Well to be honest
They should give it for free for existing SI users when they decide to officialy discontinue the product.
If I were a freelance I would never buy another Autodesk product but rather stick with SI as long as its possible (eg I can still use max 2008, I dont need anything from 2013/2014) and then look at Modo/Houdini.

[Bullit]

Beware of jumping too fast. Anyway i wouldn't trust Autodesk at all with anything. Combustion ditched, that Tox thing etc. If they go for Maya only i'll look elsewhere.

[Hirazi Blue]

Well to be honest
They should give it for free for existing SI users when they decide to officialy discontinue the product.
If I were a freelance I would never buy another Autodesk product but rather stick with SI as long as its possible (eg I can still use max 2008, I dont need anything from 2013/2014) and then look at Modo/Houdini.

Agreed. Last time I checked with my reseller on this, however, I was told it would cost me 50% of the current price for Maya, excluding subscription and obviously losing the right to touch my current Softimage ever again. And that sounded a bit steep if they actually do want to convince us all of the necessity/merits of such a switch.