Kraken - first steps???

[Hirazi Blue]

After finally having been able to successfully install Kraken on Windows 10 (look here and here),
I was wondering if there is any kind of "gentle" introduction to this powerful system,
geared towards beginners in rigging like me.

[jonmoore]

There's a ton of Kraken specific videos on the Fabric Engine Vimeo. 10-20 if memory serves right.

Having had a play with Kraken and having gone through the videos on Vimeo, I'm not sure it has a gentle workflow for beginners to rigging. It's a very technical beast but that's where it's power lies.

I really think the FE team could do with a couple of non-technical artists as collaborators. I'm not sure they realise how even their supposed 'artist friendly' workflow tools such as Blocks are still considered to be too technical by many artists.

[EricTRocks]

Hi jonmoore,

Yes Kraken does have a technical aspect to it. Like you said this is where the power lies. However, you are also right that general users should be able to use the built in components and those components should be developed more to be more full featured. This is the goal and with each release I hope to add more and more features to the components as well as supply new components as well.

Would be interested to hear the types of things that would improve the system for you.

Best.

[jonmoore]

Hi jonmoore,

Would be interested to hear the types of things that would improve the system for you.

Best.

The feedback I get from less technical artists is best summed up by "Fabric Engine needs to be more like ICE".

As flippant as that sounds (and I'm sure it's something you hear often) I think one of the things that helped a lot of non technical artists delve deeper into ICE was the manner in which ICE became the main interface with Softimage's particles system. Abstracted compounds are difficult for non technical artists to get their head around but a collection of compounds that help make a defined workflow more flexible are far more approachable and inviting. The DCC neutral aspect of FE probably complicates this a little but something I'd love to see is Eric Mootz's XSI Plugins live on within FE. A particles system with built in elements of emFlock and emTopolizer is something I think many artists would find approachable (and willing to pay for). It's hard to define what it is about particles systems that makes them less technical and more approachable as a nodal workflow but I think it has something to do with making the abstract of vector math more immediate and real. Once you get artists comfortable with working with compounds with a real and immediate outcome they're more likely to delve deeper in an attempt to understand how the compound achieves it's goals.

I'm constantly astonished regarding the amazing things that Fabric Engine is helping realize in the hands of talented technical artists. The knitting system put together by the team at Psyop was a particular fave from your recent Siggraph showcase. But I think FE needs to ship with content akin to a plugin/s, that exists to solve a particular creative goals. I have a personal preference for it to be particles based but it could be a point renderer like Fury or a character design tool such as Species. What it is is less important that it being a defined something that solves a particular creative goal. Whilst technical artists see FE as a something akin to an enormous set of Lego Technic, less technical artists want the model of the Millennium Falcon to be pre built so they can take it apart and rebuild it.

I better stop now as this is beginning to sound like a bit of a ramble but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm saying.

[Hirazi Blue]

Wow, this thread has been hijacked rather quickly...

[jonmoore]

Wow, this thread has been hijacked rather quickly...

Just answering a direct question. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it.

More seriously. As I mentioned in my original post there aren't any 'simple steps to' type guides for Krakken but if you follow through Eric's videos from this page to the most recent, that should give you a good overview.

Once you've been through the content it would probably be a good time to feed back to Eric directly ref what's missing in the content as a beginners guide to Krakken.

https://vimeo.com/user6371427/videos/page:5/sort:date