ICE in Maya is an engineer's worst nightmare

[Daniel Brassard]

Just read this on XSI List. Interesting.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... TR9nXO5iBg

So, if you become an ICE expert, the Maya folks and Studios will be looking for your knowledge in a few years.

How ironic!

[Tekano]

I doubt anyone (if they had the luxury of choice) using Softimage for any length of time would want to work inside of Maya though - I know I dont For me its Softimage or the no way jose

[Daniel Brassard]

Well Tekano, your soul is mine anyway so

For your decent to hell punishment, I will make you work in a low paying job for very long hours, fire you and rehire you when I feel like it, have my minions argue that your render need more lens flares and motion blur, make you work on Maya with no plugins using Mental ray for rendering only, in a dark, hot room with other 3D Max complainers that signed their soul to me, while watching those wretch Softimage Artists in heaven showing off their new Shiny 2014 fandangle.



EvilDan

[Tekano]

ha! I think you are enjoying your new evil role with a little too much enthusiasm - but yeah that my bleak future alright the way things are going

[Daniel Brassard]

Seriously thought, I know how you feel Tekano.

I also see an opportunity for future employment without having to compromise or let go my favorite apps.

The future may be brighter for us in the long run!

Daniel
(The think outside the box dude)

[bottleofram]

Interesting. The pieces of the puzzle are getting together. I think it's clear the positioning of the products and the likeliest path each one will take in the coming years. Cant say i'm surprised in any way, but i wont hide my disappointment.


Here's to delusion. 'twas helluva fun.

[Nizar]

What is so clear? Maya will have in about five or more years a procedural approach like softimage?
Modo would like to have the some with their "schematic" (cannot be compared to ICE), also blender has many approach like this (never finished, only proposal), also Cinema has its Xpresso node editor and Houdini has... Houdini. So what is the problem? IMHO is natural, all application will try to evolve in these way (node editor/procedural), softimage and houdini are many steps forwards the competitors.

[Chris_TC]

softimage and houdini are many steps forwards the competitors.

Yes, it will take a lot of time for Maya to get to where ICE is. We've had ICE for a long time now, and we're still not even close to the level that Houdini sits on.

[Letterbox]

Actually I disagree with the idea/philosophy that ice will be put in maya, why bother? Sell them Softimage, as a plugin right, it exists = you make money now.

I think clearly there are much bigger issues for the future that need to be addressed. Those are more along the lines of what is being developed in Korea ie FluX etc, that data and single core dcc's are the bottleneck, NOW. Have you see the sheer amount of data a Sony F65 camera pumps out (not even in stero) its in TB. I dont see anything being able to handle that data and processing in a dcc enviroment today. Same for Mari. Same for Lidar. Since everything is going digital 4k and even 8k later, that's only going to get more and more the largest issue.

The other to me is this continual ONE core usage. I find it very strange that Mental ray (20 years old?) (Vray 10 years old) and every other render uses not only every core, but can run on a network of systems where as by comparison not one dcc completely uses all cores all the time! Which is also why i think Flux etc has great architecture.

As for Softimage, in some ways it's protected by our Japanese friends, because of it's concentration there, (hate to use this word, someone will surely go of the deep end !!) it makes no "economic" sense not to continue it's development to some degree (What this will be I think be shown in the 2014 and beyond versions.) because you're not going to want to lose the money that market makes.

So if you don't use nor need this kind of data nor processing power, I don't think you need worry toooo much.

Sidebar:Interestingly someone did ask once about using ice on multiple machines. And we have done some work along those lines, only hitches are 1) time 2) sdk 3) docs ... all are lacking.


Just for fun and to go wow at... Here's a video of an 8k TV - How long to render... 7680 × 4320 with motion blur

[Nizar]

Letterbox I agree with your post, but I don't mean Maya will have ICE, but I mean Maya will have something like ICE. All software must evolve, all software house (more or less) see the procedural approach like the future, an innovation they want selling to their clients. Years ago was global illumination, HDRI or others things, now all software have something like this, some better than others. So maya will have something like ICE, but not only maya, also Modo and I bet Lightwave will try to implement something like this in future and the some for Blender etc. etc.

I think the doubts any of us have about AD is how they can handle so similar application and, in a customers logic, they must differentiate much possible their application so Maya don't break the softimage market and viceversa, so a customer like me through: Maya for cinema and FX, Max for video game and archiviz and Softimage for what?
But actually they reach the goal to maintain alive all three applications.

I remember the day when AD brought maya. All talking about the imminent 3dsmaya applications and how AD will kill Maya. Well Maya is still alive, there is no 3dsmaya or a 3dsm with maya features (or viceversa), and the some is for softimage. I don't believe at all they will kill softimage, if they want doing so they would killed softimage years ago. So, to day, I think AD is not the best place for softimage, but is a safe harbour and softimage will live for many years.

Only I fear a bit the cloud future, but will see.

[satyajit]

I don't know why they are trying to port ICE to Maya. Apart from the hardship of development, what would be the purpose of SI (to autodesk) after that. They can't sell SI as "companion to Maya" once they say we already brought the reason you buy SI to Maya.

Making a visual programming tool for making MEL scripts would be a much better idea. MEL developers would jump by hearing that and lots of small studios would be able to make custom tools.

Mindset of a MEL developer and ICE developers are miles apart.

[EricTRocks]

Is everyone intentionally skipping the facts that have been stated in the linked articles / posts? Seriously. The comments about how it is a sure sign they are porting ICE to Maya is just ignorant. Read the posts. Look at the title of the thread.

THEY AREN'T PORTING IT!!! If anything they are developing the nodal editor already started (and not a secret at all and is already in the Maya package) in Maya. Look at the facts. The core of Maya cannot handle ICE. ICE is not just the damn editor, its a system. The ICE Tree is the editor. That, who gives a crap if that is in other software? Did you see the Houdini guys all up in arms about it? No, they weren't worried about it cause Houdini has had it forever and its been their bread and butter for years. If Fabric Engine adds a node editor does that mean they are porting ICE too? With a Maya node editor, they are only going to be able to expose the data and structures they already have in place. Come on. Seriously.

[bottleofram]

THEY AREN'T PORTING IT!!! [...] The core of Maya cannot handle ICE. ICE is not just the damn editor, its a system. The ICE Tree is the editor.

You are absolutely right. A few people who saw ICE will be slightly disappointed. Fortunately, there aren't many...

And with that bitter comment out of the way, i'd like to clarify i certainly didnt mean to imply it was clear they are building ICE in maya.

However,

If anything they are developing the nodal editor already started (and not a secret at all and is already in the Maya package) in Maya. [...] With a Maya node editor, they are only going to be able to expose the data and structures they already have in place.

this is assertion. We cannot know what exactly they are doing (extension of current tech or something new), but we know for a fact they have taken away from Softimage what was needed to kickstart Skyline (which is, admittedly, a standalone, but apparently they think it should be maya-only accessory), they shifted the whole Montreal team to maya, and finally, they acquired Naiad whose creators have gone same route. ICE in maya might be an engineer's worst nightmare, but that was never the idea to begin with.

Now the product manager basically oversees the whole of Entertainment Creation Suites and manages its significant part.

It is irrelevant whether Singapore delivers or not. This concludes 4 years of crippling xsi's momentum in favor of different products, cementing its position as a companion application.

Expect a lot more of viewport cubes, interaction models, meddling with the user interface... Kiss goodbye to significant improvements to animation, rigging, operator multi-threading, modeling, rendering, fluids, asset management, data handling, etc. etc.

But hey, at least ICE experts can rejoice! They wont have to learn a new platform for a while.

[EricTRocks]

We cannot know what exactly they are doing (extension of current tech or something new), but we know for a fact they have taken away from Softimage what was needed to kickstart Skyline (which is, admittedly, a standalone, but apparently they think it should be maya-only accessory)

Yes a prototype node editor that had no backend even remotely connected to what runs ICE. Even more, as far as I know, its still a prototype and hasn't moved forward.

they shifted the whole Montreal team to maya

Yeah, and they didn't ensure they had capable developers to replace them did they? Also, please list all of the developers that have came and gone for the many years before the latest dev shift back to Avid days please. There have been quote a few from what I hear, yet the Software has thrived and been given some awesome features.

they acquired Naiad who's creators have gone same route.

Yeah, so what are they doing with Naiad? Are they putting it in 1 or 3 of their apps? Until we know best not to assume its just for Maya.

It is irrelevant whether Singapore delivers or not. This concludes 4 years of crippling xsi's momentum in favor of different products, cementing its position as a companion application.

How have they crippled it? You're not being realistic of where Softimage sits in the Western market.

Expect a lot more of viewport cubes, interaction models, meddling with the user interface... Kiss goodbye to significant improvements to animation, rigging, operator multi-threading, modeling, rendering, fluids, asset management, data handling, etc. etc.

You don't even have any way of knowing what is coming and this is all just fear mongering and speculation.

[bottleofram]

Yes a prototype node editor that had no backend even remotely connected to what runs ICE. Even more, as far as I know, its still a prototype and hasn't moved forward.

Skyline is, at the very least, inspired by ICE and might have been implemented as ICE feature if not for the acquisition. Regardless, heres a suggestion some xsi devs went to work on it.

Yeah, and they didn't ensure they had capable developers to replace them did they? Also, please list all of the developers that have came and gone for the many years before the latest dev shift back to Avid days please. There have been quote a few from what I hear, yet the Software has thrived and been given some awesome features.

Individual developers come and go. How often the whole teams?

Yeah, so what are they doing with Naiad? Are they putting it in 1 or 3 of their apps? Until we know best not to assume its just for Maya.

Fair enough. The line from Chris Vienneau, who you quoted on the list, connect it to one package and in the world of suites, i dont see a place for redundancy.

How have they crippled it? You're not being realistic of where Softimage sits in the Western market.

I am being realistic. They made no effort to better this position.

You don't even have any way of knowing what is coming and this is all just fear mongering and speculation.

Speculation, that i will give you. Fear mongering is more like what happened with those max rumors - spinning the information so it suits your case. I don't think i made anything up (otherwise, i apologize).

Its a conclusion. An opinion.


Cheers


A

[EricTRocks]

Skyline is, at the very least, inspired by ICE and might have been implemented as ICE feature if not for the acquisition. Regardless, heres a suggestion some xsi devs went to work on it.

Yes inspired. The UI for sure. But its a game middleware proto. It wasn't to be implemented in Softimage or Maya. Its supposed to be a standalone.

Individual developers come and go. How often the whole teams?

Was it the entire team? How many devs from the old Softimage days were still on the team before the news came out that there was a new dev team. Also keep in mind some of the current devs ("new devs" for clarity) have been working on Softimage for a few years as per Luc-Eric.

...and in the world of suites, i dont see a place for redundancy.

Really? 3 applications basically capable of the same end result which all have tools to create 3D models, animation, and particle simulations?

I keep repeating this but we can't come to any conclusions on how Softimage will progress and be developed as fact. Only time will tell.