Spliced ICE

[FabricPaul]

Hi guys,

Very pleased to share this with you.



This video shows Splice in Softimage accessing data from ICE. If you’d like to access the Splice beta, please email beta ar fabricengine (dot com) with a bit of background information (skillset, experience etc).

Cheers,

Paul

[owei]

Great work!! Great to see Softimage extended by the power of Fabric Engine more and more! Looking forward to Helge´s presentation at UeberTage this year!!

cheers,
oli

[Letterbox]

Great to see Softimage extended by the power of Fabric Engine.

+1

The example I think while easy to understand, I thought it was lacking. It didn't show me something that uniquely gave me a need for Splice, in so much as to do 'THIS' you need Splice. After hearing about it, maybe my hope's for the demo were too high. Maybe that's a longer and harder vimeo to make. But here's hoping that it's the first of many such vimeos that show Splice capabilities inside xsi.

[Bullit]

Nice, even if i concur somewhat with Letterbox, i am wrong in saying that it makes possible to do sort of conversion ICE to Splice to export to other applications and vice versa?

I also noticed in the struggle of renaming that splice interface needs some upgrade with a search and rename fields.

[Hirazi Blue]

Tasty indeed...

@FabricPaul - Do you already have a "ballpark" figure as to the pricing (structure) of all these modules?

[FabricPaul]

I'll leave Helge to respond on the tech front. The point of the video was to show that Splice can access ICE data, since that had come up a few times here/on the mailing list - it's a 'first look' at ongoing work. Expect more eyecandy when Helge presents at Uebertage.

Packaging-wise - Splice will be included as part of Creation Platform. I'm not sure when we'll come out of the closed group, but when we do it will not be as a separate product to Creation.

[Hirazi Blue]

Okay. Will all of the modules be accessible through your free licenses (or don't you offer them anymore)?

edit: in case you're wondering - yes I removed my next post

[FabricPaul]

Splice is not a module, it's a platform capability.

The only module we're currently working on is Horde, which is a closed beta. Horde will not be part of Creation Platform, so it's not available with the free license.

Stage development is temporarily on hold while we investigate some new technology areas that affect our thinking - right now we're looking at moving certain functionality into CP (such as the offline rendering integration). We don't want to develop something that's redundant, so we're exploring these other avenues first. We should make an announcement relating to this in a month or two once we've worked it out

[FabricPaul]

btw, the free licenses aren't going anywhere: http://fabricengine.com/get-creation/ - we're committed to making Fabric free for individuals. It's purely out of self-interest - we want everyone to be using it

The functionality in some of the other modules isn't dead btw, we're just revisiting a lot of things because of Splice. This has led us to double-down on the platform rather than building out more modules (which is hard to sustain as a small company). This means a lot more of the cool stuff is going to be part of the main platform (including elements of Horde, Stage, Flex etc).

Thanks,

Paul

[laluneverte]

The example I think while easy to understand, I thought it was lacking. It didn't show me something that uniquely gave me a need for Splice, in so much as to do 'THIS' you need Splice. After hearing about it, maybe my hope's for the demo were too high. Maybe that's a longer and harder vimeo to make. But here's hoping that it's the first of many such vimeos that show Splice capabilities inside xsi.

Nice, even if i concur somewhat with Letterbox, i am wrong in saying that it makes possible to do sort of conversion ICE to Splice to export to other applications and vice versa?

I also noticed in the struggle of renaming that splice interface needs some upgrade with a search and rename fields.

What you guys are looking at is a framework, not a point click solution. People tend to expect pretty and colourful demos, however it's important for the technical people out there to describe the inner workings with a simple example. Splice is as much about performance as it is about portability. It offers a way to keep the RnD investment and move it to different platforms, instead of programming for a particular DCC (such as Softimage). We don't see a need to say "THIS" is what you need Splice for, but rather explain what it's general capability is. Given the feedback we are getting it's fair to say that we seem to be on the right track. Like Owei said, come by the german Softimage Uebertage in September if you want to see more and talk in person.

Also, Bullit, if you want something fixed and improved, I am very active on our beta mailing list in responding to feature requests and improvements. Right now is the time to drive the product, so if you really care about it, join the beta and raise your voice there.

[laluneverte]

Same goes for you, Letterbox, of course. Feel free to join the beta and voice your hopes and production scenarios there. I am keen on helping to get Splice into interesting projects.

[Letterbox]

What you guys are looking at is a framework, not a point click solution.

That's and the rest of your comment is clearly understood.

The 'THIS' I refer to is not a pretty colorful demo, rather something that show/sell's me on the concept of how and what and where the framework could take us, and what makes it a unique FE component.

I can clearly see that with the other FE components, I didn't get that understanding of the conceptual framework of Splice from this vimeo. But as I previously said that may well be hard to do in a short vimeo, I don't know.

But I appreciate your feedback.

Edit:
Andy's comments on the vimeo gave me some of the answers. So for the moment it's all good.

[Hirazi Blue]

Could one of you please fix the apparently broken link
to the so-called "Licensing Guide" as it is being linked to from this page?
;)

[FabricPaul]

Thanks for the heads up, fixed.

[EricTRocks]

Letterbox, you should check out the other videos from Fabric Engine about Splice on vimeo. Some really great examples of how powerful this can be. Mainly the performance of a full character rig solver and that it is portable as well.