why not cinema 4d?

[Rork]

I'm with Eugen on this.

Pen mode on a Wacom makes me want to eat glass. The sharp stuff....

There's multiple apps out there based on Qt, and working with them is really, really annoying until you switch to pen mode.
And then working in it gets really really annoying too

[Eugen]

@noseman:
Good morning, adn thanks in advance.
What's your timezone? GMT+1 here.

@MauricioPC:
Well, I prefer the mouse mode, really.
Is this a known issue with a fix?

Xpresso is in no way a substitute for ICE, though. It's a node-based paradigm for creating expressions, like the name suggests - get parameter(s), mangle them, set parameters.
It's not meant to access and work on all the data 3d objects (including pointclouds) consist of.
The 'thickness' operator, is an example of ICE modeling, btw.

Cheers,
Eugen

[NNois]

@noseman I must say you have to try at least once in your life the pass/partition/override Softimage system in your life.

And then, you'll say "what the fuck !" ( like every max/maya and as i see C4D users generally says when they saw )

Would you be kind enough to create a short presentation of your Partition workflow?
Apparently I haven't understood the importance and power of it. I apologise for that.

Hi, I'll try with my frenchenglish...

Let says we have a scene with 50 objects and 3 cameras for 3 shots, we need here to keep all elements in sync and editable immediatly whithout closing or reopening another thing where we don't have a big picture of the total scene.

Take1
-camera 1
-needs to display and render 30 of theses objects, but 15 of them has Material A, the others needs Material B.
-The environment image use Image A.
-Rendered with motion blur and DOF @720p and low AA, frames 0-50
-Here we need to Output multiples images (framesbuffers or AOV don't know the C4D term): The Beauty pass, the Z buffer, Object ID buffer, plus a UV coordinate buffer only on the Material A

Take2
-camera 2
-needs to display 40 of theses objects
-but 5 of them has Material C, the others needs Material A.
-The environment image use Image B.
-Rendered with motion blur @1080p and high AA, frames 51-100
-Here we need to Output multiples images: The Beauty pass and a Mask (B&W) of the obj n°18

Take3
-camera 3 witch is in fact a dummy camera constrained to camera 1 then 2
-needs to display all of the objects, in their default assigned material. but 50% of them needs to have an overide on their material tu change the bump map image to another one...
-The environment image use Image C.
-Rendered with motion blur @1080p and high AA, frames 0-100.
-Here we need to Output multiples images: The Beauty pass etc etc...

Sounds complicated... I'll add on that all of this setup if adjustable in seconds at the last minute because of you know clients changes and you can NEVER know what it could be...


So in fact in Softimage this setup is very simple.

- You create recipients for each shots aka "PASSES"
- Each passes can have his own enviroment like lens shader, sky shader, environment shader etc, AOV outputs
- Each passes can have different render settings, camera

- In each passes you can create recipients for objects "PARTITIONS" or even lights
- Each partitions can have overrides on every parameters, materials, kinematics, visiblility, ray visibility

But hey it sounds like a very complex system, but no. It's actually the contrary because all of this is represented by folders and a tree system. Plus in Softimage you switch to the Take needed (Passe) and all settings are applied and visually correct.

It's very important to know that almost all of these concept was designed in conjuction of the other parts of the software.


I can say you can reference this system like an after effect project, where you import assets then use it in multiples compositions differently in a small amount of time, just like that.

Thank you for your time, hopping i made the picture, maybe this could inspire somes (clarisse IFX is close)

Noël

[noseman]

Before I attempt to show anything related to NNois' post, please take a look at a plugin Called Render Elements and see if it covers some or all of your requests
I'm posting from my tablet and I'll be in the office shortly
BTW I'm in Toronto Canada so I guess GMT+5 (eastern time like New York)
http://vimeo.com/18601732

[NNois]

Before I attempt to show anything related to NNois' post, please take a look at a plugin Called Render Elements and see if it covers some or all of your requests
I'm posting from my tablet and I'll be in the office shortly
BTW I'm in Toronto Canada so I guess GMT+5 (eastern time like New York)
http://vimeo.com/18601732

The spirit is close to this but, you know when you are working with complexes scenes with dozens of objects operators and materials. A plugin like this begins to be not as that an helper than that, but more and more a Stopper because you don't have any cue (and visual cue) about what's changed in your scene, so... you start to mess things.

So, let's implement an explorer view, showing a tree of the scene and a visual about differences in the "render elements", now we can talk ;-)

[noseman]

Yes, I see your point NNois.
In what way is that visible in Softimage?
How do you know what is what? Do you select the current partition and the whole scene changes?
Is there a video that shows that somewhere?
It's a great experience chatting with you guys. I appreciate it hugely. My eyes and ears are wide open.

[NNois]

Yes, I see your point NNois.
In what way is that visible in Softimage?
How do you know what is what? Do you select the current partition and the whole scene changes?
Is there a video that shows that somewhere?
It's a great experience chatting with you guys. I appreciate it hugely. My eyes and ears are wide open.

Yes, switching Passes is like you have opened a new scene.
Overides are tagged just above the parameter meaning there is something "on that"
If it's buttons an color icon indicator point this overide and right click guide you to it.

The more important is that's pass/partion system is organized with folder(partitions) in an explorer (like the windows one) so with just that you get the picture of whats happens in your Passes and your scene

[Hirazi Blue]

@noseman - You could take the ancient Mod Tool for spin, all the fundamentals are there...

[noseman]

@noseman - You could take the ancient Mod Tool for spin, all the fundamentals are there...

one minor issue is that I'm on Mac…
I have a Windows bootcamp partition, but I can't change OS right now as I'm doing this while working
I have some old version of Softimage XSI 6 but I need to find the dongle as well
If I have some time over the next few days, I will try and take a look.

[3DKiwi]

Q: is there a dedicated 'thickness' tool? The 'explode' tool you use in the second video looks a bit like a workaround.

A: The C4D Extrude tool with the Caps option enabled is essentially a thickness tool.

Does Softimage have a modelling guide / construction line system? C4D has an excellent guide and dynamic guide system that's great for technical modelling. Something not obvious in the product pages on Maxon's site. The following page from C4D Cafe's R14 review (written by me) gives an overview of the guide system.

http://www.cafedownloads.com/reviews/r14/snapping.html

[Eugen]

Q: is there a dedicated 'thickness' tool? The 'explode' tool you use in the second video looks a bit like a workaround.

A: The C4D Extrude tool with the Caps option enabled is essentially a thickness tool.

Humm... how?

Does Softimage have a modelling guide / construction line system? C4D has an excellent guide and dynamic guide system that's great for technical modelling. Something not obvious in the product pages on Maxon's site. The following page from C4D Cafe's R14 review (written by me) gives an overview of the guide system.

http://www.cafedownloads.com/reviews/r14/snapping.html

There are reference planes, yes. They can be aligned to anything, also verts/edges/polys. Grid snapping will work on the ref plane.
If you 'get' (=create) a new primitive, it's not aligned to that plane, however - small flaw. But with the small trick of setting all the translation/rotation inputs to 0 (which can be done with a few nifty clicks), it will align to the reference.

No construction lines, but snapping is close to perfect. In combination with the working pivot, there's not much you cannot do.

[noseman]

3DKiwi is talking about our polygon extrude tool.
It's not a "live" tool or deformer and can only be applied to a "frozen" (editable) polygon object.
Having said that, it's exactly like a thickness tool, if "destructive" polygon modelling is what you're after.

[Eugen]

3DKiwi is talking about our polygon extrude tool.

I get it. In Soft, there's an 'extrude along normals' operator, that would be comparable.

It's not a "live" tool or deformer and can only be applied to a "frozen" (editable) polygon object.
Having said that, it's exactly like a thickness tool, if "destructive" polygon modelling is what you're after.

Well, non-destructive would be better... ; )

[noseman]

question:
are the attributes of the modelling Stack animatable?
Can you change the thickness of a shell, for example? Is there a limit what you can animate?
I'm investigating alternative solutions and this question popped up.

Thanks

[Eugen]

question:
are the attributes of the modelling Stack animatable?
Can you change the thickness of a shell, for example? Is there a limit what you can animate?
I'm investigating alternative solutions and this question popped up.

Thanks

Well, I think you can guess the answer... ; )

Everything is animatable, with a few rare exceptions.
See the greet dot ('divot') to the left of any param? That's where you can set a key by clicking, or get a RMB menu with shortcuts to the animation editor, expression editor, etc.
If you activated 'auto key', and change a parameter, keys are set as well, of course.
There's a color code to the divots. Red curve icon: key at this time, green curve: somewhere inbetween keys, yellow curve: param was changed, but no key has been set.
There's these small arrows in the top left corner of a 'property page' (the parameter window). You can go to the next or previous key there.
It's perfectly intuitive and simple...
And all that is just a small part of what people are talking about when the great UI of Softimage is mentioned.

[luchifer]

question:
are the attributes of the modelling Stack animatable?
Can you change the thickness of a shell, for example? Is there a limit what you can animate?
I'm investigating alternative solutions and this question popped up.

Thanks

Well, I think you can guess the answer... ; )

Everything is animatable, with a few rare exceptions.
See the greet dot ('divot') to the left of any param? That's where you can set a key by clicking, or get a RMB menu with shortcuts to the animation editor, expression editor, etc.
If you activated 'auto key', and change a parameter, keys are set as well, of course.
There's a color code to the divots. Red curve icon: key at this time, green curve: somewhere inbetween keys, yellow curve: param was changed, but no key has been set.
There's these small arrows in the top left corner of a 'property page' (the parameter window). You can go to the next or previous key there.
It's perfectly intuitive and simple...
And all that is just a small part of what people are talking about when the great UI of Softimage is mentioned.

Hi, if you see the videos from noseman, every parameter he changes has a small circle at the left of the parameter name. When you ctrl+click those circles you add keyframes to the parameters (like the round-cornered squares from softimage, except you need to press ctrl when you click them)

red circle = keyframe, red outlined circle = keyframe somewhere, right click on the parameter name to show f-curve (like pressing Zero in XSI)

Im doing in C4D the thickness example from noseman, and yes, everything is animatable except for the objects names and the layers they belong (like in XSI). Also, not that matters, but Explosion FX for thicknes is the same workaround as using cloth simulation for thickness in XSI before Autodesk added the ice thickness operator a couple of years ago.

edit.. having said that, unlike XSI, if you dont plan ahead your modeling in C4D, is as editable as 3dsmax stacks (means it doesnt record an operator when you bridge, extrude or bevel, and also for those tools to work it needs to "make the object editable" just like the edit poly from max). But, workarounds are fast and intuitive unlike 3dsmax.