Softimage2014?

[Bellsey]

jsut fresh from the list.. probably not so new but cmon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5fOwSmSaW8&feature=youtu.be

and in Softimage we never got even shadows to show correctly.. I mean SI viewport IS ancient looking at current technology. Anyone can even whisper if anything at all is done on that side?
And I will say again.. being silent with new features in software is really retarded.... What like another company will say oh they have this in Maya, Si or something, let's make something like this but better before they release their version!

....

We've gone over some of this stuff before, viewport, announcing features, etc, so lets not go over old ground.

I saw this movie over on the Polycount games forum and there's no denying it looks great, but lets not forget that it's taken at least 3 versions of Maya to get the viewport to that quality, so it hasn't been a simple task.

[mirkoj]

all clear ofc but still hard not to shed a small tear every time we see something like this

[Jesse]

Wow, Maya viewport 2.0 is looking decent, but what is that shader? It doesn't look like a raytrace render (mr, vray, arnold) shader. I don't mean this as a bad thing but it looks like a easy to use DX11 shader (which explains the title of the video doh, my bad ).

Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't do much where I would benefit from a better viewport the areas I would really appreciate it would be in the area of lighting setup and previz, to get a closer to final representation without the time it takes to render proper. now if my interest is in saving time I would also prefer not to set up 2 sets of shaders, now if I were in games, doing indy development or something where it wasn't important to test in engine maybe? but that seems like a lot of extra setup just to do it all again somewhere else. Though other things that you can do currently with viewport 2.0 are nice, I look forward to it improving still.

I definitely appreciate the direction Softimage has taken with their viewport, since I don't like using mental ray though I don't find myself using it much. I am excited to see how much they can improve it and if it'll eventually function with other render engine shaders, as they said, if I recall correctly.

[angus_davidson]

An old mate of mine were talking yesterday about the new Lightwave thats just been released. As I have mentioned before I have always really wanted to love Lightwave, I could just never get past the modeler being such a PITA. Yesterday I think we found out why.

If you look at the current stable of Autodesk offerings, Maya, Max and SI they form somewhat of a triangle. Each of them has their relative strengths compared to the other. Maya has its flexibilty along with deep API integration, SI is great for character modelling and animation, Max has really good Viewports and very good render support. I imagine its why Autodesk is trying so hard to push the whole jump from the one to the other thing.

Coming back to Lightwave, what it does really well is separate form and function. The Modeler does just that. No gazillion menu items like your faced with in maya that you will never use. Once you have all of your assets sorted you bring them into the main program. So its really the separation of workflow that really appeals to me.

I know its never going to happen but I would really like for Autodesk to think along similar lines. Instead of the vast amount of overlap that they have in 3 separate products. Make Si the Modeller , Textures make Maya the Rigger and Animator and the main Glue that binds everything together , and make Max useful in the only thing its really shines at which is rendering support.

Theres a reason it took 3 Versions to get a decent Viewport in Maya. That reason is because you can only have a third of your resources working on each product, and each third needs to look after 100% of a program.

[mirkoj]

I really really don't wanna fo character rigging and animation in maya.. nor scene assembly.. nor render layers..
heck I don;t wanna use anything with maya or anything else.
I love SI workflow, it feels like a glow to me and I don;t wanna be pushed to have to get socks hats and everything else on top of that if you know what I mean.

I wanna get in SI and have smooth workflow experience from empty viewport to final rendering.
Jumping from one program to another is awful idea, workflow breaker and moving assets from one to another is pain that is just calls for disasters and organisational chaos.
And as much as nice view port and other eye-candy stuff looks great and would love to have them I would personally NEVER replace only-SI workflow with some 3 way + others monster of pipeline.
Ofc long way is time where everything was done inside one software only ad there are image editors, zbrush and similar detailing soft and so on... but is it really needed to split workflow even more and more and end up getting single app to do one and only thing and then fighting how to bind everything together... no thank you.
Shaded view is just fine if other option is to mix all of them and spend 30% of production time moving assess from one package to another and fighting with tech problems that will arise with that kind of workflow. Not to mention over kill for solo freelancers and small studios where you are pushed to learn at least 4-5 software in depth to be able to do job instead of mastering one and being at 100% productivity. It maybe just shows that final target market are huge studios where they can afford to have specialized man for each part and than additional crew to bind everything together but even there does that makes sense???

[angus_davidson]

Its very simple. You build an application for the people who buy it the most. They get the most say in what is put in. Sadly that isnt the solo person or small company. So yes they are very much so aiming predominately at the studios which have a lot more integration. Simple economics.

There are however good things on the horizon. Stuff like the Fabricengine promises to allow people to make the tools that we really need, with interfaces that are not 15 years old and cluttered beyond measure.

[iamVFX]

[Bullit]

I know its never going to happen but I would really like for Autodesk to think along similar lines. Instead of the vast amount of overlap that they have in 3 separate products.

Sorry but i have to fully disagree. Overlap is good, overlaps is what gives us choice to do things differently. We are not equal and we like different things and different way of doing things. Difference is also what brings progress and redundancy.