luceric wrote:
I wish I had the XSI architecture doc handy, because you'd see that if you had a graph of a single 3D object, you'd have a group of about dozens nodes probably up to a hundred connections going left and right. There are a few dozen connections just for the kinestate afaik, that's why all of it is hidden. (Kinestate is made of two transforms plus a pose constrain) A move point has got 3 or 5 connections and hidden clusters ( you should be able to see those in the SDK Explorer in text form)
Very interesting!
Could you upload that XSI architecture doc for us, please? ;)
There have been discussions in the past years whether a "Hypergraph"-like node editor should be developed, or the Schematic View extended, but it never happened.
For the best, maybe. You don't mess with the node spaghetti...
Yet it could be enough to enhance the operator stack in the explorer with a few more features.
We still cannot insert a new operator somewhere in the middle of the stack and see the end result "live", like in ICE (or 3ds Max, which can do this since it's beginnings).
It's one of Softimage's biggest disadvantages not being able to reconnect established operator ports. Would this at least theoretically be possible? There are dynamic ports, after all.
A bit of the "ICE magic" transferred to the operator graph, so to speak.
Softimage, sadly, is the most "hermetic" application of them all in a way. For now, it remains impossible to add custom operators with equal rights as the factory ones. Max and Maya's customization possibilities go much much deeper.
Still after years of requests, almost no efforts are made to for example enhance the operator SDK.
I left 3ds Max once because development stalled, at least where it counts. I see the same thing happening here now, too.
Anything is possible, though, it's only a question of will. If Autodesk would fully focus on Softimage's customizability and support external developers wherever they can, the story could continue happily for many years.
