Observations of a New User - Modeling in SI

[ActionArt]

I'm hoping the SI development team will consider listening to a relatively new user, after all, new users are needed to grow the user base

Although I love SI in general It seems to me that modeling is a rather neglected area in SI. The more I use it the more I dislike it. This seems odd to me as it's the first step in most projects and if a project is started in one package (SI, Maya, Max or whatever) it is probably more likely to stay in that system the rest of the way. I'm hoping it will get some attention in the near future.

As a new user I really love some aspects of modeling in SI like the interactivity, the operator stack etc. but there are some REALLY glaring holes that came as a shock to me when I started. I still use other programs for some simple things which is disappointing. Here's a few very basic examples:

Draw Primitives - I can't draw a box, ball or whatever where I want it? Really? I couldn't believe that. Take a look at LW or Modo on how to do this correctly.

Revolve - I need to make some threads on a bolt so I'll just select a polygon and revolve it a few times with a transform and...what? Can't do that? Can't revolve an edge or polygon, have to convert to a curve? Why? No translate/scale/rotate? What? Extrude has it, why not revolve? Inconsistency like this is frustrating.

Extrude - I'd like to extrude some polys and leave the current ones in place to make a solid object. I can extrude OR duplicate polys but not both? Seriously?! This is pretty basic.

Thickness - No command for shell/thickness, I have to go find a plugin?

Duplicate multiple - I'd like to take a rivet and duplicate it a 100 times or so with some transform but it's not interactive?! I have to guess/pre-calculate the spacing and if it's not right, do it again? This is so unlike the rest of SI.

These are pretty simple things that have been in other packages for 15+ years. Cleaning up stuff like this would go a LONG way to making SI an outstanding modeler that people would enjoy using I think.

As a new user I'm blown away by how great the rest of SI is but less than thrilled with modeling as you can tell. It's probably fine for organic characters but some of us need to do mechanical and architectural things from time to time.

Here's hoping for some development in this area. Comments most welcome and please point out if I'm wrong or missing something on these tools.

[Hirazi Blue]

Draw Primitives

miga once published a custom shelf to create primitives at the position the user clicked. Again, not exactly what you want, but it might be helpful.

Revolve

I am not certain about the kind of revolve your after, but the possible effects of the "Transform" tab in the Extrude Op are often overlooked.

Extrude - I'd like to extrude some polys and leave the current ones in place to make a solid object. I can extrude OR duplicate polys but not both? Seriously?! This is pretty basic.

Sad, but true

Thickness

Try this little plugin Interactive Thickness

Duplicate multiple - I'd like to take a rivet and duplicate it a 100 times or so with some transform but it's not interactive?!

Again: Sad, but true

One thing to note for every newcomer in the world of Softimage is that the user community over the years has created a wealth of mostly free plugins to tackle problems the company obviously overlooked. Many (if not most) of them might be old but are still functioning. It really pays to hunt for them. (Or ask on a forum if someone already knows of such a tool, obviously.)
;)

[ActionArt]

I am not certain about the kind of revolve your after, but the possible effects of the "Transform" tab in the Extrude Op are often overlooked.

True, but it's awkward in many situations especially trying to wrap around a specific axis. If they could just add that nice little tab to the revolve tool...

Try this little plugin Interactive Thickness

Yes, I use it daily. It would sure be nice to just have it integrated. It works very well but just a wee bit buggy at times. Still, thank goodness it's available!

One thing to note for every newcomer in the world of Softimage is that the user community over the years has created a wealth of mostly free plugins to tackle problems the company obviously overlooked. Many (if not most) of them might be old but are still functioning. It really pays to hunt for them. (Or ask on a forum if someone already knows of such a tool, obviously.)

Very true and what would we do without them! Many thanks to all those that have written them and shared. It would just be nice to see some of those most basic functions as part of the main program and more consistency in how tools work (like the extrude/revolve example). Thanks for the tips!

[craft]

amen!
i think that the following version(s) will set the basis for that kind of stuff to be improved, but SI has a long way to go in that area... one that they seem to be counting on users for.

Anyway, consider that a trade for SI's features, which are very different from and complementary to those offered by LW or Modo, to use your examples.

[gustavoeb]

interactive thickness is ok... but there should be a REAL solution, that could solve this problem using only one operator that could be moved all over the construction modes. I'm sure once ICEGeometry is out that will be easy to do. But I don't wan't to whait that long!! That is so simple to do in MAX, it botters me to admit it.

[gustavoeb]

plus... although I really like the overall modeling workflow in xsi, max's polyboost just makes things feel so unfair on the modeling side...

[ActionArt]

Yep, SI is fantastic overall but it's time they take a SERIOUS look at modeling. Poly tools need a big cleanup and I won't even start on NURBS which are currently someone's idea of a joke.

I'm hoping the next release will take a look at these things.

[rray]

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I too hope for an update of the modeling tools.

Most of all fixing two little nuisances:

First one would be for the polygon creation tool:
A preference setting to disable snapping to points where a "valid" polygon can't be connected anyway (inside points), and snapping to points that are occluded by other geometry.

The background is that with hires modeling, it becomes increasingly difficult to pick the desired points/edges for poly creation because most times a point that lies occluded and on the back side of the geometry takes precedence over the area that I'm currently working on. Often enough it's not possible to pick the desired edge at all, and I have to zoom in to be able to find a point somewhere on the edge that actually allows snapping the poly creation tool to that edge.

The second nuisance is that in my (totally favorited) supra key mode (as opposed to the dreaded "sticky" keys ) , keyboard behavior is messy. Softimage often stays stuck in modes where it shouldn't be and I have to press Escape several times to get out of that mode.

For example press w, press s, release w, release s leaves you in weightpaint mode, whereas it should return to "nil" tool
releasing the keys in the opposite order has the correct behavior. Something is miscalculated with stacked keyboard events.

I know it sounds like nitpicking but with such a repetetive process as modeling, these little things can really kill the fun if they occur literally 1000s of times.