ICE: For TDs only?

[Chris_TC]

Moderator edit - As per Chris_TC's suggestion I have split this thread from the price change imminent? thread,
the first quote in this post comes from that thread. - HB

IF i will ever feel the need to switch i will go probably Modo, but its not anytime soon.

At this point I could only move to Houdini. Losing ICE would be too jarring otherwise. The thought of doing regular modeling in it is a bit cringeworthy though.

I've recently watched some tutorials on Cinema4D and Modo. Cinema4D had been called the motion graphics application, so I looked at its Mograph tools. The instructor was ecstatic about its power, while I found that most everything could be done very quickly and with more control using ICE. Spend a day or two making "Mograph" compounds, and you're good to go.
Modo has some pretty cool modeling and selection tools. I also love the UI. Surprisingly, the instructor of this tutorial was most excited about the Replicator functionality. Well yes, ICE does that too

[Maximus]

Well Chris, i cannot spend 1 day or even 10 to build c4d mograph tools with ICE, because it might be easy for you but for me is totally out of question, i wouldnt know where to start, while in c4d you just hit buttons and play with effects at your like.
this is the main difference, i have no doubt ICE can do that too and even more, but it is not for a normal user at all.

ICE is not easy to produce those effects if you are not more than average skilled user, this is what i dont like about Softimage, it has just the technical side, while C4D for example have both. You suck at coding? There we made them for you go ahead and use a tracer or all the mograph modules, they are not hollywood fx ready but you can do the job and you can do pretty good and fast. If you want the technical side, there are Thinking particles.

Softimage instead leaves you only with the technical side wich is ICE, and 0 preset out of the box except those in the ICE -> create menù wich in most cases are all the same type of emission.

There are some things that are really horrible for Artists and people that dont have TD mindset.
Also if you are not doing ICE every day, most things you might slowly learn get lost because i cant remember them, this is the difference between an artist and a td. ICE is only for TDs, unless you like staring at bunch of particles emitted from a sphere on ground.

I tried hard many times to learn it, and i did quite well in producing really basic (not usefull for anything in any job i had) effects, but thats it. I would really put into use C4D Mograph modules for sure if i had in Softimage.

Modo is just another damn good software and it gonna have plugin opening doors for fx in future, it already got bullet dynamics.
Sadly the signals for Softimage arent really encouraging. But everytime i say this, there is a total bashing that is not true, everything is fine, we are doing good etc. well words are nice, but the reality is totally another thing.

Sorry i made a bit too long post

cheers, Max

[Chris_TC]

You suck at coding?

If you can plug nodes in a compositor or in the render tree, you can plug nodes in ICE. You don't have to type one line of code.

but it is not for a normal user at all.
(...) Softimage, it has just the technical side
(...) people that dont have TD mindset.

Look at Paul's videos. He proves that you can learn and apply ICE just like you learned how to model.

When you model something, does your software package have pre-made primitives like "Eiffel tower", "apple tree" or "three-headed monkey"? No, it only has a few simple primitives like cube or sphere. If you want to make something complex, you need to know how to model.
You need to know what polygons and vertices are. You need to know what splitting an edge or extruding a polygon means and how it works. Of course you can't just dive blindly into ICE and expect to get somewhere. Just like you can't do Get->Primitive->Cube and expect to turn it into a sports car if you have no idea how to model something.

[Chris_TC]

Could you split this discussion off into a separate thread using your moderator functions? I might have some followup comments, and I think it is a very important discussion. The mailing list has a long thread on this as well, with people talking about moving away from Soft because of its ICE focus. I think it's a hot topic right now.

Moderator edit: Done!
@all - Please don't flame/bash each other as seems
to happen so often in "ICE debate" kind of threads...

[Pooby]

I know that its annoying hearing from a converted person, but you can probably dig out posts of mine from a couple of years ago that are along a very similar line to Maximus.

When ICE came out I thought COOL!! ANYONE can now program.. I gave it a go, and soon came to the conclusion that you still needed to be highly technical. I had no idea what a vector was, a scalar, a matrix / basically anything that wasnt called something self explanatory in layman terms. I still had very little idea how the render tree worked at that stage.
I couldnt plug in more than a couple of things without something turning red and pissing me off as I had no CLUE why or what was going on in there.

For the next couple of years I found it annoying that Softimage seemed to be focussing on ICE. I felt like it wasn't designed for people like me. People who feel like they missed the boat when everybody else went off to 'learn to script' island for the summer.
(I HAVE still to this day only written ONE script and that was copying and pasting somebody elses, and changing the reference in one line. And this was under instruction.)
My work methods are clunky. I hardly even know any keyboard shortcuts. and my Mathematic skills are only about good enough to scape by when buying something at a till in a shop.

Anyway. last year I had to pitch on a job which involved particles. I KNEW ICE could do it, but I didnt know how ICE worked at all. I spent a couple of days looking at the basic compounds and asking people what things like SETs were etc and what this and that meant.. basically just crash coursed it. And by a couple of days, knew enough ( nothing much.. just about 4 concepts) but enough to edit a factory compound to do what I wanted.
I didnt win the pitch.. but thought I'd spend time just going over the concepts again in ICE. the satisfaction of making a compound do something slightly different, built on very shaky knowledge was enough to spur me on as I could see how amazing it would be to actually be able to think of an idea and MAKE a compound from scratch.
It took me flippin ages to understand what was going on in a tree, and what a vector is.. I couldnt understand how a point in space is a LINE for example??? it made no sense.

the upshot is.. ICE IS WORTH LEARNING!

You can use the 'but I'm not technical or I'm an artist' but at the end of the day, thats an excuse. I could teach anyone ICE, because you can start doing useful things after an afternoon. Ok, now when I look at what I'm doing, I know the ME from a year ago would think I'm now an expert, but its all relative.. I'm nothing compared to real ICE experts. I'm using basic nodes and doing no mathematics more complicated than subtracting somehing from somthing else.
If you REALLY think you cant use ICE, then its like hearing someone taking a cursory look when someone else is modelling and saying 'computers are too technical for me'..
One day of ICE learning would pay you back a thousand times over in terms of how it expands your CGI toolset. and I predict that anyone doing one day of ICE, would actually WANT to do the next day, because it IS actually FUN.

[Maximus]

Hey Chris, thanks for answer and Hirazi thanks for moving in another thread the post i was in the wrong section!

Anyway english is not my main language but i try to illustrate and speak without messing things that much.
I can understand what you say Chris about ICE, but its not my case and many people like me, obviously Paul Smith is more talented than me, i couldnt even think what he did.

The problem lies into a system of delivering a product. Softimage didnt born like an ICE tool, it is always been a 360° software for every kind of task, with its shiny aspects and with its flaws, but still you could go and do everything with it.

The latest years saw a massive development into ICE, wich fantastic as it is, is not for everyone.
If one person between 1000 manage to do something without having a TD or more math mindset, doesnt still mean that ICE is for everyone.
If some artist manage to do a mograph animation with ICE doesnt mean that ICE is for everyone.
Also, most artist i saw using ICE produced "basic" things without offense, but that is because they could never go further, they cant dive deep into ICE because they arent TDs.
When i started to study ICE i was happy and i liked it a lot, especially the fact that i felt that was a part of the software, a network all connected, you can drag properties and use them and so on.

But that was at start, because if you want to push it further you are screwed, you need TD you need technical stuff and as i said software like c4d litterally save your ass in projects.
The problem with Softimage is that developers now just prepare the ground, and give it to you, here, take and develop your tools.
While this could be a TD heaven, for artist and freelancers is a total doom, because they cant develop tools, and they cant wait for someone else kindly share that tool in the community.

Take also into account the community and the way those compounds/Plugins/addon everything is released. There is not a central website except rray, you have to browse countless websites to find the latest version thats working and not causing trouble to your scene, you have to test it, its not officially supported, then you have to come into forums and wait for an answer and for help.

Wouldnt be better if you would have a button Deform -> Sweep? out of the box?
I dunno what to say more, im really pissed about the direction softimage took, i'm tired to see a real development on ICE only, there are so many things that are obsolete and ridicolous when you think at it i could compile a never ending list.

Softimage is becoming a technical software, more niche than before, and the intention of AD is clearly this.
Yet they keep saying "we are not working only on ICE" wich it is true but it sounds a bit funny also, because where are the other things that arent ICE? SDK? thats for tech people too.
When we will see some ARTIST oriented development? List me please something that got added in those years from an Artist point of view that doesnt require a massive amount of knowledge to be used in production.
I can list you one, Unified Sampling vs 700 ICE nodes.

I dont want a push button or make good render button, but also i dont feel the development at 360° like it was before, i dont see things that benefit me in my daily work, actually i dont think it has been if you dont use ICE.

I'm derailing again...sorry.
Anyway, to me ICE is really difficult, its not for me, i dont even need it that much, and this software turned from a 360 degree software to ICE only. Now with even increased cost, i mean wtf?

I dont need ICE only, i need Softimage at 360°, switchin the software usage to just a single portion of it, because this is what it is happening, is killing a lot of people using it.
I might be wrong, but again this is what happens everyday.
Of all the tasks i do daily, ICE is the last one, i barely use it, i dont need it, i started to learn it because it was there, and i realized it was fairly more complicated for the use i would need. If you need ICE, softimage is heaven, if you dont need ICE it is an old product compared to newest software like c4d and modo.

Max

[Chris_TC]

Let's take this example step by step. And then I'd like to know whether this is really considered TD only stuff. I brought up the Mograph tutorial on Vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/25329937

The first thing I see at around timecode 6:00 is the generation of a 3D grid of spheres. These spheres are then procedurally animated such that they jitter around, and the jitter animation only affects specific spheres. Here we go.

Chapter 1) We add an empty pointcloud into the scene and make an ICE tree. We don't need a simulated ICE tree, a regular one will do. But the scene is so empty! Don't be scared. You're a writer, with an empty sheet of paper in front of you. But you know all the words (nodes). You just need to combine them such that they make sense.


Chapter 2) We need to add particles. Typing "add" into the node search box should help us out. "Add Point", that sounds right. We need to define a position for the point. Okay, we plug a 3D vector into the node because it has X, Y, Z values. And that defines a position. Alright. We see something. A black dot at the scene origin (position 0,0,0).


Chapter 3) We could go fancy now. We could add an instance shape, which is very easy. But since we're dealing with spheres, we don't even have to. Let's just change the size of our dot. Type "size" into the node search box, and you'll find "Set Particle Size". If you're daring, you could dive into this compound and find out that all it does is specify an attribute called "self.size". You could do this on your own if you wanted to, without the help of the "Set Particle Size" compound. But we'll keep it simple.


Chapter 4) One sphere is not enough. We need a grid. We could build logic on our own. But despite what you might have heard, ICE does come with presets. The one we will use is a node called "Generate 3D Point Grid". Replace the Add Point node, and now we have a grid instead of a single point. If you look into the compound, you will see that it uses the same "Add Point" node we used earlier. But instead of adding only one point, it adds many.


Chapter 5) We want to make the spheres move. So we must affect their position. Type "position" into the node search box, and you'll find "Set Point Position". If we plug it in, we're back to a single sphere. No, actually we're not. We're just specifying a single position for all the spheres. So they're on top of each other.


Chapter 6) We shouldn't just overwrite the sphere positions with a new position. We should GET the old position, modify it and set it back. How do we modify it? Well, we want them to jitter, so a "Turbulize Around Value" sounds like a good idea. Turn on "Animated" in the property page. We want them to move, after all.


Chapter 7) Now the turbulizing should only affect certain spheres, not all of them. We have many ways to do this. There are for example nodes that test whether points are inside of a volume, which you can move around. But we want to stick with the Cinema4D version. So we select the point cloud and enter point selection mode (T). Then we select all points we want to affect and copy their point IDs into a String to Array node (Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V). This node will convert our comma-separated list into individual values. It will make 0,9,19,20 into:
0
9
19
20
We compare this list to the point ID of every point. So let's just take a look at an example. Point number 19 compares its own ID against the list. It returns 0 if the ID is identical and 1 if the ID is not identical. So here goes:
0 (not equal to 19, so we return 0)
9 (not equal to 19, so we return 0)
19 (equal to 19!! Hey, this is me! Let's return 1)
20 (not equal to 19, so we return 0)
It's easy to see that the comparison returns a list telling us whether the point is part of our selection. Our example point 19 returns this list (fancy term = array):
0
0
1
0
Since not all values are 0, we know that the point is part of our selection. But how do we tell ICE this? Well, we just let it search for a "1" in the array (yes, we are using the fancy term now). If the array contains a 1, the point is part of our initial selection. If it contains no 1, the point is not part of our selection. So when a 1 is found, we do the turbulizing. When a 1 is not found, we do nothing and simply keep the old point position.


Now be honest. Apart from the last step, was this really so difficult? If you construct it bit by bit, it's not rocket science. One step at a time, and complex compounds will emerge.

[Pooby]

Chris, you should show how you can stick that Compound on the interface, so next time you use it, you wont have to go near ICE. When its a regular looking PPG, it seems more appealing.

I dont understand this 'I dont need ICE' thing. ICE can make so many tools, SURELY people would like the tools that can be created IN ICE.

ICE is treated like its a thing, like some kind of super complicated particle system, when its not that at all. Its a thing that CAN do particles but its a nonsense to say you dont need it. THEN go on to say you want Soft to concentrate on other tools when its a tool-making device.
Since ICE, there has been more tools made available than in all the time before It, by a long way.


Anyone who actually WANTS to learn ICE, can learn it easily. I said in my videos that I would help explain anyhign to anyone who get confused and I have had NOBODY ask me anything.
This implies that either it is easy. OR people want to stay in their Status quo comfort zone of just grumbling about ICE and not really making any effort. because its really not hard to ask me a question if you're confused.

[Chris_TC]

doesnt still mean that ICE is for everyone.

It's not for everyone. But everyone who's smart enough to use a 3D application is smart enough to use ICE. Sure, some people are doing insane things with it (Lagoa started out as an ICE compound as far as I know). I can't do these crazy things because they require math that's beyond my understanding. This doesn't mean that I can't use ICE at all. I just use it on a more basic level.

You need to get away from this mindset of "I can't do this". It makes no sense. You manipulate fcurves and keyframes to make cool animations. You move polygons around to make cool models. If I show an fcurve or a wireframe to my brother, he thinks I'm casting spells because it looks so complicated. But it isn't. You know that. ICE is the same.

Of course all development is now HEAVILY based on advancements in ICE. ICE has access to so many parts of the software that not using it at all leaves money on the table. It's like using Photoshop without layers. If you want to do anything complex in Photoshop, you need to know how layers work. You can't possibly understand a layer mask or a blend mode if you don't know how layers work. ICE has now taken over Syflex. And if I may predict the future for a moment: ICE will take over many parts of the software. Hair will be ICE based. Factory deformers will be ICE based. ICE will have the ability to generate image clips, which can feed back into ICE.

Embrace those nodes. You will see more and more of them. Using Syflex in a node-based environment is SO much better than what we had before. It's a familiar environment. You can start plugging nodes without reading the documentation. You can easily see what's going on in your simulation because the ICE tree shows it right there in front of you in an organized manner. You don't juggle half a dozen property pages. The node flow lays it all out plain and simple. AND you can plug your own subtrees. Change the way data wires into the simulation. The possibilities are endless.

[Chris_TC]

Chris, you should show how you can stick that Compound on the interface, so next time you use it, you wont have to go near ICE. When its a regular looking PPG, it seems more appealing.

Right, of course. If you turn it into a compound and put it on the interface, you can simply apply it to an empty point cloud. Find the operator, click it, and you get all your controls in a single property page.

Writing the long explanation above took me quite some time. But actually putting together this tiny example compound took what, maybe 5 to 10 minutes?

[tomalc]

The problem with Softimage is that developers now just prepare the ground

Would you prefer them to build wacky tools without having prepared the ground first ?

I'm very happy with this mindset, even though it means having to wait a little. Now the ground is done, there's ICE topo, there is the new viewport sdk. Doing tools with this isn't easy (mostly the viewport side as it's CPP), but any tool made on this ground will be rock solid..

Given all the "core rewrite" that failed (ie. max & lw) I would say kudos to the Softimage devs...

Thomas Le Calvé

[Rork]

Adding ICE to Softimage will eventually get us lots of cool plugins, free or commercials.

I've seen some comments on upcoming commercial tree generation systems, bridge building tools, city scapes, tools that were normally for max or houdini.
People are still 'getting into' ICE, and external parties have Softimage on their plugin radar now. Especially with the new modeling tools.
And despite some really complex ICE stuff I've seen on Vimeo, I have to agree with Paul and Chris. Some basics are quickly learned and very beneficial.

I found this one this morning:
http://vimeo.com/groups/ice/videos/26124101
and deconstructed it doesn't look overly complex. And even with my math skills I can follow this.

rob

[Hirazi Blue]

This is not me as a moderator, this is me as a user:
I feel the necessity to chime in: every time someone dares to admit ICE is harder than (s)he or she initially hoped and (s)he is having less fun with it than "advertised", there are obviously many people claiming the opposite or even flaming him/her. I've possibly gotten a bit farther with ICE than Maximus over the years, but I can recall thinking the same thing and even posting about it with the same kinds of replies.

I think ICE isn't for TDs only, but to claim

everyone who's smart enough to use a 3D application is smart enough to use ICE.

seems a tragic oversimplification also.
In the same vein someone could say:
look, I know how to work on a consistently
advanced level with our beloved Mental Ray,
so ergo: it's easy...
edit: not the best example, I admit, but I hope you know what I mean
;)

My advise would be: let's agree to disagree...
(that way we at least agree on one thing...)

[Pooby]

I think ICE isn't for TDs only, but to claim

everyone who's smart enough to use a 3D application is smart enough to use ICE.

seems a tragic oversimplification also.
In the same vein someone could say: look, I know how to work on a consistently advanced level with our beloved Mental Ray,
so ergo: it's easy...
;)

But it is true, because ICE can be used on any level from a 3 node "getting point postion and multiplying by 2 and setting it" to, making a hair dynamic system.. And I would say that most usage can be gained from ICE nearer the first example.

For example, today, someone asked me if you could use a live shape key to 'copy' the deformations of an object that was parented to something else (and keep the parented motion) of course this doenst work, as shapes are relative to the object.
But with ICE, a compound can be made to do this in about 3 minutes, it only has about 6 or 7 nodes (its just a matter of applying a couple of learnt 'tricks' (multiplying by matrix.. I have no idea what that really means, but I know what it does.) and once done that tool is always available to you or anyone else you send it to.
Having the knowledge to do something like this really doesnt take long to pick up. Its really just learning a few simple tricks.

[Chris_TC]

I found this one this morning:
http://vimeo.com/groups/ice/videos/26124101
and deconstructed it doesn't look overly complex. And even with my math skills I can follow this.

Excellent! That's what I wanted to hear. This was done by yours truly, I just haven't posted this on the forum yet because it's only part 1.

seems a tragic oversimplification also.

But why? I really fail to see the difference. In poly modeling you have a bunch of tools at your disposal. To model efficiently, you must know these tools. But knowing the tools alone is not enough. You also must learn how and when to apply them. On top of that, you must have some basic understanding of what a polygonal model is, i.e. vertices, polygons and edges.

The ICE equivalent to the latter are the different data types. You should understand what a 3D vector is, a scalar, an integer, an array and some other common types.
The ICE equivalent to the modeling tools are nodes. You don't have to know every node. If you understand the basics of "what goes in?" and "what comes out?" you will quickly understand even unfamiliar nodes. Because that's all a node does: it takes data as input and gives you data as output.

My advise would be: let's agree to disagree...

In this case I strongly feel that we should not leave it at that. I think we some sort of beginner's workshop where participants are tasked to make a tool. And every time someone is stuck, they can post a question. You could start for instance by replicating some of the Mograph tools from Cinema4D (Max mentioned he'd like to have some of that functionality). And you know what, if you're stuck at the very beginning and don't even know where to start, then just say so. A nudge in the right direction goes a long way.

[Hirazi Blue]

@Chris_TC - Sorry, but IMHO you and Pooby just do not seem to get it: it's true you CAN learn ICE and it might even turn out to be easier than you initially thought, but if you don't see it (the "workflow") and/or don't get it (the "mindset"), you will be lost forever. This has nothing to do with intelligence and/or computer skills IMHO. It's a visual way of coding (yes, it's coding!) and some people just can't get their minds around that (through NO fault of their own...).