What Software to use for animation short (or intro to)

[McNistor]

Early in this thread luceric mentions Softimage’s “aging toolset” and he’s probably right.

I don't think he's right. At least not when compared to Maya or 3dsMax. If XSI is aging then those two are dead. (fancy viewports doesn't count as alive in my book)
It's not the first time when luceric is "bashing" XSI and I have no idea what's up with that.
luceric, is Maya making you upset? (JK)

if you eventually start to use ICE, which might take a while -[...]- an extra dimension to the software will open up to you.
;)

So true...

@Nizar A bit of fanboysm doesn't hurt and in this greyish period for Softimage I think it's even necessary. If we are not willing to promote Softimage I'm not sure who will 'cause Autodesk doesn't seem to do it.

[angus_davidson]

@Nizar A bit of fanboysm doesn't hurt and in this greyish period for Softimage I think it's even necessary. If we are not willing to promote Softimage I'm not sure who will 'cause Autodesk doesn't seem to do it.

I agree that we need to keep vocal about what it is we want, and when we feel that we are being short changed. However it does need to be done in a constructive manner. There is a newish team on the development and it should be going in a good direction. I think its important to remain optimistic and helpful to others who perhaps have just found SI. We need the community to grow. with growth comes momentum and with momentum comes a higher percentage of resources that get put on things like promotion.

In some ways control the future of SI. The more kick ass stuff we produce with with it, the more that gets noticed the better. Some things like having a made with SI in your credits etc goes a long way to getting people interested in it.

[luceric]

Early in this thread luceric mentions Softimage’s “aging toolset” and he’s probably right.

I don't think he's right. At least not when compared to Maya or 3dsMax. If XSI is aging then those two are dead. (fancy viewports doesn't count as alive in my book)
It's not the first time when luceric is "bashing" XSI and I have no idea what's up with that.
luceric, is Maya making you upset? (JK)

Ok, instead of arguing against XSI, let's argue for the reverse? What's would you say is modern and state-of-the-art, and therefore not "aging", in animation, modeling and rendering in XSI? whats happened in the last, say, 8 years in those areas?

[Chris_TC]

Ok, instead of arguing against XSI, let's argue for the reverse? What's would you say is modern and state-of-the-art, and therefore not "aging", in animation, modeling and rendering in XSI? whats happened in the last, say, 8 years in those areas?

Everything ages, but some things age better than other. When was GATOR introduced? 6, 7 years ago? And it's still awesome. I use it all the time, despite ICE.

The same can be said for a lot of things in Softimage. The only thing I really miss when it comes to "modern" stuff is a fast high quality viewport (mainly for anti-aliasing and alpha transparency).

Also, as someone else said: what's the alternative? I've tried many 3d applications, and SI remains the Swiss Army knife for me. By the way, the first actual Swiss Army knife was manufactured over 120 years ago. One might say it's been aging for a while.

[ace63]

Its true that Soft is aging, but it is not better with Maya or Max - I work with Maya on a daily basis and it sometimes feels much older than Soft.

[Rez007]

On a forum dedicated to Softimage, where the users presumably love working with this application, people advise to using other 3d apps.
There is something profoundly wrong with this picture.

I just want to be clear, I am not endorsing another package what-so-ever. I was doing exactly as Nizar described - an unbias, mature response/opinion. The OP has no need for ICE, basically just character animation, and whatever package he chooses that is fine. I feel people tend to absorb the information given if it comes from a unbias standpoint, and that is what I was doing. Personally, I would still choose Softimage for what he is looking to accomplish and that is because I know how to use it, and I feel that the pros/cons outweigh the other Apps. I am a strong supporter of Softimage online, maybe not one of the most vocal (sans Mental Ray for Softimage), but I do support and try to push it whenever I can via more official channels - contacting AD directly. If Softimage was not the best app, I wouldn't be updating my subscription year-in and year-out for quite some time now...To be honest, I am uncertain why topics similar to this that start out with an honest question by an OP, usually tend to turn out to be war of app vs app.

[Bellsey]

All the various 3D apps (Autodesk or not), will age to some degree, with some features ageing quicker than others. Without, literally an army of developers it can be hard for any software vendor to maintain every single aspect of the package, all the time.

As for which package to go with, its better to just pick one you are comfortable with and go with it, whilst also looking at how you can interop to other packages (again, Autodesk or not). There is known quote from a CTO when asked about what would be the next big innovation and product and they said wasn't a product, but a pipeline. And you see how this actually makes sense.
The simple fact now is that modern pipelines, regardless of the size of the studio are very diverse in the packages they use and to a point where they might not do much in one particular package more than another.

As for Max, Maya and Soft, I have said many times, they all have strengths and weaknesses. Despite what many people might say and think, all three can actually be picked up easily and be used 'out of the box'. However, you could argue that of the 3, Max is slightly better at this.
Personally, I've never been a fan of Max, but despite my own views, I can't deny that many people use Max and produce good work in it, and if I felt that Max was the best choice for a customer (based on their specific needs), then I would happily recommend it. Max is very strong in the visualisation field and this sector often doesn't have the needs of ninja TDs like film does.

Maya is perfect for really deep and evolved pipelines, because it's so flexible and tools can be built upon it. For me, I've always seen Softimage (nee XSI) sitting somewhere between the two.
Peoples habits have changed now in terms of work being produced and how they produce it. This is why Autodesk started to offer their Suites, because they really do provide people with a rich broad set of tools and features, giving them more choice and flexibility. Of course, some people might not want a Suite, which is fair enough, they're not for everyone. But if people aren't using an Autodesk Suite, I'd bet they're still using other software in their pipeline, other than their core 3D app.

[McNistor]

Maya is perfect for really deep and evolved pipelines, because it's so flexible and tools can be built upon it. For me, I've always seen Softimage (nee XSI) sitting somewhere between the two.

I've heard so many times this argument and to this day I have no idea what is this about. Probably because I don't work in a big studio that makes great content for big budget Hollywood movies.
Please tell me Mr. Bellsey what tool (written in C++ or whatever) can be integrated in/with Maya but can't be done the same with XSI? I won't even mention the flexibility and power of ICE as it has been beaten to death by now.

Big studios along the last decade or a bit longer even, have been using Maya and so many are still using it. I bet my life that if the same amount of resources and time was dedicated to making XSI the core of a pipeline I'd be hearing this argument about XSI now. Assuming the SDK was opened as long as Maya's of course, a thing which WAS a problem for XSI. Now the only problem is that nobody tries (or too few) because they're tied to using Maya.

[luceric]

I've heard so many times this argument and to this day I have no idea what is this about. Probably because I don't work in a big studio that makes great content for big budget Hollywood movies.
Please tell me Mr. Bellsey what tool (written in C++ or whatever) can be integrated in/with Maya but can't be done the same with XSI? I won't even mention the flexibility and power of ICE as it has been beaten to death by now.

You don't really have access to the true XSI architecture with the SDK. In Maya, everything is opened, you have full access to the dependency graph and the core structure of the app, drawing your own primitives, the UI, etc.

Most maya features are themselves written in mel, python and the SDK. For example, I worked a bit on the Bullet plug-in for Maya, which is completely written with the SDK, and of course Disney made one as well (Dynamica), pixar implements physbam, etc. That implementation is impossible to do in XSI, there is no way to do it the APIs are not there to send cutom data in the graph, control dirtyfication, draw custom primitives, etc. It's difficult in XSI to write proper simulation plug-ins, modeling plug-is (i.e topo/cluster manipulation, viewport manipulators, component highlights, nurbs? don't think about it), the APIs do not exist.

Max and Maya are both full SDKs with which the developers then wrote an application with. XSI is an application that was written, then the SDK and ICE was added on the side. For Max, you got plug-ins like Character Studio, CAT that integrate deeply in the animation editors and everything else as though they are built-in features. They do things like adding custom fcurves types and key interpolation that isn't possible in XSI. Try to add your kind of primitive that isn't a mesh or NURBS in XSI. The first thing Phil told us about XSI is that it would have been impossible to develop CAT for XSI as a third party. It was also impossible to write any kind of hair plug-in for XSI before ICE came along, and even then you have to base it on the built-in primitives and there are limitation for custom UI, brushing, etc.

Now I'm not saying that the Maya UI and workflow isn't old-looking and quirky.. but there is a lot on there for third party developers and pipelines, these are just facts and the reason we were kicked out of the big studios. Both of these apps are SDK first and application, second. Denying that is not helping anyone getting a unbiased view of the market.

[ace63]

Luceric pretty much nailed it in terms of SDK availability. Being able to create your own nodes in Maya (which would be the equivalent to own objects/primitives in XSI) is the one big strength the package has over Softimage. This is a problem with the Softimage design which cannot be easily fixed I guess.

[Bellsey]

Maya is perfect for really deep and evolved pipelines, because it's so flexible and tools can be built upon it. For me, I've always seen Softimage (nee XSI) sitting somewhere between the two.

I've heard so many times this argument and to this day I have no idea what is this about. Probably because I don't work in a big studio that makes great content for big budget Hollywood movies.
Please tell me Mr. Bellsey what tool (written in C++ or whatever) can be integrated in/with Maya but can't be done the same with XSI? I won't even mention the flexibility and power of ICE as it has been beaten to death by now.

Luc-Eric has replied to this, whilst I was writing this reply, so I won't repeat things as he's basically summed it up for me.
I wasn't saying that there's nothing written in Maya that can't be implemented into Softimage, I'm not a programmer so I'm not the best person to really comment on things like coding and SDK's. But often its not about comparing capability, it can be about how things are implemented that allow for the capability.
At the time, Alias pulled off a great trick by making Maya open on different level, for different types of users and it's stayed like that. MEL itself was a revelation at the time, and what you could do with it, especially when compared to the previous PowerAnimator and Softimage3D. And remember, whilst studios were looking into adopting Maya, Softimage3D 3.8 was still being pimped about.

[Rez007]

@Luceric - Out of curiousity, as I have no idea about programming, how long could it take for Softimage to be opened up to the extents that of Maya and Max...months, years, or is it not even possible with the current architecture of Softimage?

[Mathaeus]

Max and Maya are both full SDKs with which the developers then wrote an application with. XSI is an application that was written, then the SDK and ICE was added on the side. For Max, you got plug-ins like Character Studio, CAT that integrate deeply in the animation editors and everything else as though they are built-in features. They do things like adding custom fcurves types and key interpolation that isn't possible in XSI. Try to add your kind of primitive that isn't a mesh or NURBS in XSI. The first thing Phil told us about XSI is that it would have been impossible to develop CAT for XSI as a third party.

Well I hope Phil told you also, how buggy his application was (for whatever reason). You know what's happen in Max, when someone run into dependency cycle. If app doesn't disappear immediately, objects involved in dependency cycle will stay forever without SRT - that is, simply dead object in scene, can not move anymore, can't be even selected for deletion.
Both CAT and Biped can't be scaled. After all, there is 'yearly list' of standard Max constraints, that works or do not works with some of mentioned systems. And so on.

Unfortunately I don't know that much about Maya or Houdini, but compared to anything else, for me, XSI standard kinematics stays the best. Nothing is so consistent, so logical.

Too bad full SDK didn't come. Does it needs to be present from start, I don't know. Somehow I'm ready to believe that, at least before ten years or so, Mental Ray had so much better SDK (or what is equivalent) than V-Ray, for example. And where is V-Ray today. Don't even need to talk about, still 32-bit, zBrush.

[McNistor]

Thanks luceric. I understand, but this begs the question if Maya's so opened why working with it is like scratching to the right ear with the left foot? I mean why hasn't the workflow been improved by the devs (being so opened)? I know the community has been busy with scripts and plugins but why is it so backwards out of the box? Questions, questions...