Softimage2014?

[talent103]

Well the hair styling in Soft is pretty good actually, but the rest of the Hair toolkit is.... well - hopelessly outdated.

Having curls towards bottom of hair and straigt at top is a bit tricky. But the thing that rocks my world is really great and stable collisions with the body and the other hairs. Amazing. And right out of the box.

[McNistor]

But the thing that rocks my world is really great and stable collisions with the body and the other hairs. Amazing. And right out of the box.

You are being sarcastic, aren't you? I hope...

[talent103]

But the thing that rocks my world is really great and stable collisions with the body and the other hairs. Amazing. And right out of the box.

You are being sarcastic, aren't you? I hope...

I am talking about Nhair in Maya not XSI Hair. Have you tried Nhair compared to XSI hair?

[McNistor]

But the thing that rocks my world is really great and stable collisions with the body and the other hairs. Amazing. And right out of the box.

You are being sarcastic, aren't you? I hope...

I am talking about Nhair in Maya not XSI Hair. Have you tried Nhair compared to XSI hair?

Ah, I see. No, I haven't used Maya nHair but I've seen it in action and it is indeed a very workable solution for hair simulation as far as collisions and the such goes. XSI is very deficient in a few areas and Hair is one of the most forgotten and old (if someone has any idea since what version it hasn't been touched!?) as the team in Avid times was working hard on ICE and then Autodesk came and almost nothing has been done other than ICE (which is not a bad thing in itself of course) and adding viewcube, remaking and renaming icons in animation editor, adding an ICE left-menu bar, useless HQ viewport and other wonderful improvements.

[jamination]

Call me a pessimist but I can't see Softimage getting any overhaul of a system (no matter how much the community complains) that is already done (well) in max or maya. The idea seems to be to add unique features, that would make a Max, Maya user buy into the suites.

[angus_davidson]

Call me a pessimist but I can't see Softimage getting any overhaul of a system (no matter how much the community complains) that is already done (well) in max or maya. The idea seems to be to add unique features, that would make a Max, Maya user buy into the suites.

I must admit that is a really valid point. More so when you think how much they are pushing the ability to push from one programs to the next, do a little works and push back.

[McNistor]

Yep, it really disgust me that Autodesk bought XSI and not other company - I don't know which would have been a better one if it even exists - both because the competition got a kick in the balls and because the "suits" strategy Autodesk adopted.
The devs. most certainly are passionate people about software but Autodesk, as cliche as it sounds, is just a faceless corporation interested only in revenue and it shows. Painfully.

[nuverian]

maxon maybe? (dont laugh im serious)

[Bullit]

Call me a pessimist but I can't see Softimage getting any overhaul of a system (no matter how much the community complains) that is already done (well) in max or maya. The idea seems to be to add unique features, that would make a Max, Maya user buy into the suites.

Pessimist? that is good, Good! If you want Softimage in studios and well known that is the best policy.
Than suddenly a Maya artist learns while doing one of those unique things that Softimage is better doing one of the Maya things...

[Falam]

Softimage community is not big, but whether you are a small studio or a individual, you can compete with Maya artist, remember it's all owned by AD.

[mirkoj]

And we still can;t even see good shadow in viewport
It is mostly eye candy but it would be nice to actually have an up to date viewport

edited by gustavoeb: please use youtube tag

[Bullit]

I wouldn't spent a dime into viewport, would let the render engines and cpu/gpu hardware makers do the work.

[McNistor]

I wouldn't spent a dime into viewport, would let the render engines and cpu/gpu hardware makers do the work.

I fully agree, I wouldn't want the devs. time to be spent on things like making eye-candy.
However, there's an economic side to the "eye-candy" approach unfortunately and that is to draw people in.

[Hirazi Blue]

However, there's an economic side to the "eye-candy" approach unfortunately and that is to draw people in.

But sadly not even a large amount of "eye-candy" will actually draw people in,
if you aren't willing to do some proper marketing/PR.
And we all know: that ship has sailed a long time ago...

[luceric]

Better viewport and shader support in the viewport has always been one of the top requests for Softimage, from previz to games, whether for shading accuracy or scalability, both of which viewport 2.0 brings. Chinny just totally messed it up by deciding that unlocking the metaSL support in 2013 would be enough, which is nonsense, because nobody uses metaSL and it doesn't solve lighting, performance or workflow. In Max and Maya, this isn't just used for marketing; almost all the big studios are using opengl for layouts and lighting setup, and everyone is using it in previz. studios use a "uber shaders" similar in principle to the architecture material in mental ray that maps to a renderman/arnold shader. Weta/Lightstorm has even got it in motion builder. The quality of the viewport lighting and shadows in Maya is stunning and requires no setup. Of course, Softimage lost the previz market years ago in part due to the poor viewport and relying on the render region for everything, so that's moot. But it used to be a stronghold of softimage 12 years ago

[owei]

...In my eyes the viewport performance is one of the really weak parts in soft. Right now I´m working on a high poly project which would profit of a faster viewport soooo much. That was one of the biggest demands at the last usermeeting in London, by the way: "Give us an high performance viewport" ;) We will see...
Take a look at for example at fabric and you see what is possible with standard hardware...would be great to have some better scene interaction..

cheers,
oli