anyone from blur here.?!

[farhaad_yousefi]

hi i am going to work in a project that they doo all the stuff in max..
i wanted to know what's the best pipeline to get bipeds into siftimage and animate and send back to max.. i think someone from blur might give most help .
any tips is appreciated..
thanks.

[scaron]

we rig and animate in softimage, and point cache it back using the pc2 file format. so we dont have to transfer character studio biped into softimage as part of our daily process... BUT we do have a set of tools to use fbx as a middle ground to transfer animation on to our rigs. a lot of custom tool time went into these, if you need any hints on how to do this ask...

still my advice is to just use 3dsmax

s

[farhaad_yousefi]

thanks a lot scaron..
so there's not any fast way to bring max biped into softimage and animate and send back..or any of those tools that blur send out would be useful in this procedure.?
can the new crosswalk 4 be any help.?!
or the new fbx 2010.?
--------------------------
the fact is a project is being transferred to our division which uses softimage..so we have many scenes animated with biped..but nothing fancy ..normal bipeds
so i have to bring the animated and non animated scenes and bipeds into softimage and finish the job
and give it back to max for rendering department..
what would be your proposition for scale down to a third world country..

[scaron]

haha scaled down to third world country... blur works for cheap, game cinematics dont pay big bucks.

you can download our tools and look for bipedfbxsingleIO and on the max side
on the xsi end the tools you want is MocapTransfer. but i can assure you it wont be an easy task since the rig needs to be exactly like ours ;)

ask any questions about the tools here.

[farhaad_yousefi]

now i'm trying the latest blurbeta on trial 2010 softimage..but the installation doesn't seem too install properly
..when i locate the work group (as described in guide) the blur does not appear in my menu...how's that possible ?, but i copied the whole plug in folders into my max 2k9 (r11) and it works properly.!
on the same machine..!!!

[farhaad_yousefi]

finaaaalyyy..... unfortunately in the blur guide there was nothing about installing :"pywin32"
but on xsiwikipedia..information was sufficient ...
so I've installed the tool completely..
now i'm getting down to it.! thanks but please stay around for i think i'll be needing your guidance through my max/xsi
workflow..

[farhaad_yousefi]

haha scaled down to third world country... blur works for cheap, game cinematics dont pay big bucks.

you can download our tools and look for bipedfbxsingleIO and on the max side
on the xsi end the tools you want is MocapTransfer. but i can assure you it wont be an easy task since the rig needs to be exactly like ours ;)

ask any questions about the tools here.

i've tried so hard..but i don 't get how exactly is the procedure..!!
can you say how would be the road map.?!

[farhaad_yousefi]

i am just guessing here...

download and install our tools for max and xsi
open max with your animated character, export the biped as .fbx
new scene, open the "bipedfbxsingleIO" tool from the "treegrunt" tool
fill out the fields, click export
in xsi you need a rig that matches our hierarchy and naming convention, you can build one using the 'megaRigBuilder'
find the 'mocaptransfer' tool from the 'blurStandardToolbar' its on the 'animation' tab.
select any part of the character, choose 'loadfbx_thischaracter' and load your exported fbx file from max.

steven

i did exactly what you told me..but in max it keeps telling me an error :
"you must open the mocapexport rig and load a bip file before exporting "
where did i go wrong.?!
p.s:sorry for my mistake in going into pm section.!

[scaron]

FBXCharStudio_Rig.max is a file that should have shipped with the tools... we normally have it online in our library directory... the way it finds the file without your help is by filling out the 'config.ini' file that comes with our tools. look in that file for 'libraryRoot' and set it equal to where ever the 'Assets' directory was extracted to your hard drive.

[satyajit]

Hi,

Sorry for dropping in your discussion Farhad. But I want to ask scaron and you, why exactly 3DSMax is required for a production. Is SI still not well rounded? I can understand Max is still the best in FX, with wonderful plugins like TP, AB, FFX etc. Are they the only reasons? I'm a fan and kinda worship studios like 'Blur'. Blur has wonderful artists specializing in Max. Is that the reason?

And would really want to understand what is the main reason for not completing a production within SI. Is it impossible to do a typical kickass 'Blur' cinematic within SI?

Thanks

[scaron]

short answer... our talent and knowledge is based on 3dsmax for lighting, rendering, and effects.

when it comes to effects we still dont have a competitor to fume fx, blur uses this every where its hard to imagine a shot where it isn't used. also we dont have a ray fire like tool in softimage, although it wouldn't be hard to reproduce.

we use mostly mental ray so there is no problem matching the look.

we rarely get the time to make radical changes like that. the move to softimage was a big big move and cost a lot of money. it also took time to get back to the same quality/time. we lost talented individuals who didn't want to use softimage, i dont see blur ever switching again so easily.

last comment is... "use the best tool for the job" for our staff 3dsmax is the better tool choice ( trust me i dont want to admit that ) for lighting, rendering, and effects.

steven

[satyajit]

Thanks a lot for replying Steven.

Yea, FFX rocks! It's amazing to see what profound effect a plugin can have on a industry and software platform.
I wonder what would happen if Papa Autodesk tells Sitni Sati to port FFX and AB to Softimage, may be to boost it's sales or something. But that's not gonna happen, even in distant dreams. .

Anyway, SI users still have emfluid! Let's see how it evolves.

I recently did an CG workshop with Allan Mackay. Learnt a lot of approaching and making movie FX with Pflow, AB, RF and FFX. I knew a little bit of TP, so punched that into the workshop too. Allan is truly an encyclopedia of 3dsMax FX. While doing the workshop I kinda tried to push the boundaries and felt that to really be flexible in designing FX it'd require about 10 third party plugins from FFX to PFlow Box1 -3, TP etc and they cost a lot. And after that also you require to do a lot of scripting too. I guess that's what the experts are for.

Right now, I'm trying to replicate the projects I did with Allan in SI. That's proving to be quite some fun. Though FFX is irreplaceable, let
s see how the end result looks.

Thanks again for your time Steven, you guy's rock!

Satyajit

[mirkoj]

Hey there!
We are using same pipeline in our studio:
- Modeling and texturing in 3dsMax and ZBrush
- Exporting models to Softimage for rigging and animation
- And then getting animation back into 3dsmax for rendering where all materials and lightning are waiting for animation.

Diference is that our rigging is done right there in Softimage as well.

One note, I would really love to have whole production pipe line based on Softimage as it showed that is is way.. I won't say better don't wanna start flame wars.. it is way nonlinear than anything else.
So instead of waiting for models to be fully done in max I could start rigging way before, and also all model changes can be done at any stage of animation.
Referenced models are fantastic.. true there are some bugs from time to time bust still nothing major.
Just my point.. that is an war that I'm fighting in my company to base whole production on Softimage but... Rendering in VRAY plus people that know how to setup lighting and rendering in max have no idea of Softimage.. One day I hope... VRAY for XSI still in beta but it is comming there...

[satyajit]

Thanks for replying Mirkoj.

Yes VRay is another reason! We all are waiting for VRay to be released in SI. I heard that they are not having enough Beta Testers!

Are you using pointcache to exchange animation data between SI and Max? One thing I'd also want to ask is that with enough SI artists and animators would a studio still opt for Max for final render and FX?

I can assume the workflow can be.

1. Model and Texturepaint/Displacement/Bump/Normalmap in Max/Maya/SI etc.
2. Shade in Max.
3. Export Obj/FBX to SI
4. Rig/Facial Rig Animate in SI
5. Export Pointcache from SI and import in Max and share the same pointcache. When the animators are animating in SI they'll update PC and they will reflect in Max Scene where it's all assembled.
6. When the animating is done and approved by director/client FX is designed in Max as another layer and here's where it get's interesting....
Fx can be a two way process. It can interact and be dependent on the Animation in SI, but it is designed in Max. Also, animations can be dependent on FX.
Like, supposedly I am to make a raindrop falling over a flower petal, shaking them. Now the petals are animated in SI and then the rains are given in Max. But it won't work correctly because the petals are dependent on the particles. There may be a workaround in this simple example but it'd get harder in complex scenes. Whenever skeletal and facial animations are dependent on Dynamics and Particles. And there can be thousands of cases like this. So, how to backtrack.

Going from SI to Max seems to be a linear workflow. Or am I missing something?

[farhaad_yousefi]

wow.!! it got more serious than i thought ..;)