Motion graphics with Softimage questions

[Paulrus]

Hi guys,

I've been getting a lot more work this year doing motion graphics & most of the time I use Softimage for creating some 3D elements, but the actual motion graphics happen in After Effects.

Now I'm working on a job where I'm doing 99% of it in Softimage and I'm running into little things that are slowing me down. So I'm hoping someone else has been in this situation and can share some advice.

First, I need to be able to easily fade in and out a bunch of models that all have different surfaces. In AE you'd just select all the layers, hit T for transparency and set it for everything at the same time. In Soft you can't easily do that - especially when everything has different materials. The only solutions I have is to either A. put everything into different passes and then comp it together & fade things in AE or B. manually go into each material and animate the transparency. Is there a better way?

Second, I'm finding the Explorer to be really cumbersome when I load my scene up with tons and tons of objects, curves, lights, etc. I want to be able to organize things into bins or layers or something so I could more quickly find what I'm looking for. I tried using the Scene Layer window, but it's pretty clunky. Is there any other method to organize a large amount of "stuff" in Soft?

Finally - Is there a way to set up something like the memo cam in the Dope Sheet? I hate that I need to select things to get them to show up in the dope sheet. What I'd love to do is pick the things I want in the dope sheet, hit a memo-cam button and then have it recall the objects I'd selected later.

Anyway - if you're doing motion graphics with Softimage, I'd love to hear any tips/tricks you've got.


Thanks!

Paul

[Draise]

For organizing things in the explorer, select what you want in a group, and hit the "Group" shortcut, I believe it is CTRL+G. (I am traveling and don't have access to Softimage at the moment to verify) This will create group of all those selected items in the explorer. Then later in the visibility options in the explorer, you can toggle what you want to see and what you don't want to see (models, lights, cameras, selected model, passes, animated objects, etc)

Regarding the transparency, you can quickly use the group selection and place a parameter>override attribute, then select the transparency or surface attribute in any item to override it. So the override will link into the transparency node or surface node, and you can override all the objects in the group's transparency. (select the override, hit 7 for the Render Tree then work with the override, plug a new shader with an animated transparency, etc) This override can happen in a passes also. I recommend it with passes to not permanently override your shaders, not sure about the group overrides.

Regarding the preselected dope sheet, select the camera and when the dope sheet is activated, lock it with the padlock icon beside the refresh icon. Now it won't change or update to each object. You can also call up multiple dope sheets, let them refresh to your selected object and lock them once you are happy with the dope sheet you want locked.

Maybe that will help you out a little?

[Paulrus]

I've tried groups before, but I guess I'm just not crazy about Softimage's workflow in the Explorer window. Maybe I'll give it another try though.

I tried putting overrides on groups of objects but got no effect at all. Though, I was trying to override the transparency slot on the surface node, not applying a new surface. Wouldn't that override the entire surface of all the objects? I'll have to explore that a little more. I honestly don't use overrides much.

The dopesheet idea is clever, though I think I'll end up with dozens of them open at once.

One thing I like in Eyeon Fusion's spline editor / dope sheet / timeline editors is that you can choose what shows up in the list. You can have all nodes, only selected nodes or only nodes that contain animation. It'd be cool if Softimage's dope sheet had the same functionality.

Thanks!

Paul

[gustavoeb]

Wouldn't that override the entire surface of all the objects?

No, you can override any specific port or shader property... very useful. Though of course it is simpler to set transparency in AE, since it is a compositing package not a 3d app

One thing I like in Eyeon Fusion's spline editor / dope sheet / timeline editors is that you can choose what shows up in the list. You can have all nodes, only selected nodes or only nodes that contain animation. It'd be cool if Softimage's dope sheet had the same functionality.

The left-side of the animation editor (curves, dopesheet, etc...) is a mini explorer where you have some options. It is always tracking your selected objects, but you can choose to display only animated properties, all properties, local proparties, marked parameterrs, transforms, and so on... So you can costumize it a bit. Plus if you are using groups or keysets, you can select those in order to display all curves you want at the same time...

[Chris_TC]

I've tried groups before, but I guess I'm just not crazy about Softimage's workflow in the Explorer window. Maybe I'll give it another try though.

When I want to group stuff, I simply parent it under Nulls or Model Nulls. That way it looks neat in the explorer, and I can expand it whenever I need to.
I can't think of a better way of working than the explorer. The layer window in after effects for example always makes me want to punch a wall.