Lagoa on CGSociety

[Rork]

Interview with Thiago Costa:

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_cus ... ry_id=5866

[Hirazi Blue]

"...URL-tags, dear Watson"

Anyhow: already posted in the 2011.5 thread here ;)

[Rork]

Ah... You beat me to it

Another thread means more exposure ;)

[redmotion]

Good interview apart from....

Of course, he'd like to integrate the engine solver into many other packages. All in good time

Would he? The writer made a comment like that in the second paragraph! Usually comments like that end up at the end. It'll make people think "hmm, actually instead of buying SI I'll sit on the fence and see what happens".

[Mathaeus]

Good interview apart from....
Of course, he'd like to integrate the engine solver into many other packages. All in good time

Well, while ago I've heard the same, when AD released Maya Nucleus stuff ( "it's for all Autodesk applications" ) and all that is still Maya-only.....

Anyway, it's really really nice to see that SI guys managed Lagoa to be part of SI. Long live Softimage! - what he will do on open market, that's really his private business...

[redmotion]

what he will do on open market, that's really his private business..

Of course, and fair play to him, he deserves to get all he can from it. My point was why, in the first 'independent' article to appear about Lagoa, does the author of the article have to mention possible versions for other software? It's not even out yet - I just don't think that's helpful to Softimage. (Maybe it was just to get non-SI users to keep reading, I don't know).

EDIT: It's great thats getting prominent coverage though ... and all the more strange that there isn't going to be a demo version.

[Mathaeus]

(Maybe it was just to get non-SI users to keep reading, I don't know).

I think so... Maybe it's something similar with words that I've heard from girls, many times in my long life: "we will be friends"

[Hirazi Blue]

@redmotion - I really do not see a problem here and the author of the "technology focus" doesn't seem to be at fault in any way. Lagoa to us primarily is a (probably/hopefully well-integrated) third-party addon to the Softimage toolset, but it is licensed technology nonetheless. This article is more or less an interview with it's creator, who obviously wants to be able to further his horizons in the future by providing a similar toolset for other software, as it seems he wants to offer Lagoa as part of "a custom simulation or consulting service." On the Lagoa Technologies website, that isn't quite ready yet, there's a clear distinction between the trademarked "Lagoa Multiphysics" and the product licensed to Autodesk called "Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 for Autodesk Softimage".

Thiago Costa thinks big, more power to him for that... ;)

[redmotion]

Interesting, the story has been taken down and its contents is "being revised".

[Rez007]

Interesting, the story has been taken down and its contents is "being revised".

Yeah, it has been like that for the past 3-4 days. This is complete speculation on my part, but if it was just for a content edit, it most likely would have been re-opened by now, unless it is getting caught up going through some channels of approval. I think it most likely has to do with the actual release of this article and the timing of the Subscription Packs and Premium Suites, which are soon to come out. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets re-released after the SAPs and Suites have shipped. My guess is, maybe Autodesk asked if the story could be withheld until a later time. Unfortunately, with the sentence "Of course, he'd like to integrate the engine solver into many other packages. All in good time." probably wasn't the best to be mentioned on a brand new release, as it seems like it was a generalization made by the author rather than a direct quote. With this statement being made, there were already a couple of comments on that article of people asking when it is coming to Max and Maya. I don’t think that really fares to well with Autodesk's plans in trying to sell the Premium Suites come the end of this month. It seems like now people just might wait until it is released for Max and Maya, (if it is even in the works - pure speculation based off of that comment) rather than upgrading or buying a new Premium Suite.

That is just my thoughts about why it was taken down - regardless, whatever Costa wants to do with Lagoa that is up to him, pending his licensing agreement with Autodesk, and more power to him for his work, but that statement could not have been in a worse place.


The first page of the article can be found here - cached by Google:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

[Hirazi Blue]

While I have almost given up second guessing the wonderous ways of Autodesk, I would think, that the publication date might be a bit too early, but the whole "...into many other packages. All in good time" remark shouldn't really have much to do with the withdrawal of the article, as we were told Lagoa was technology Autodesk "only" licensed, leaving the future development of the engine (including it's implementation in other software) solely in the capable hands of Thiago Costa.
There might however been a clause in the Lagoa deal forbidding Thiago to go public with his own plans before Autodesk released Softimage 2011.5. This would also explain, why the "hidden" website behind the lagoatechnologies.com frontpage contained way more info a couple of days back, while now it's back to a bare framework.
The attitude of the CGSociety, removing the article, without any explanation to keep all theories (like my own) at bay, however, is what I find more puzzling...

[redmotion]

I noticed that an FX plugin developer for C4D is getting a bit annoyed at the lack of stats for Lagoa. I think he feels slightly threatened by all the publicity for it!

I'm eagerly awaiting release, however, I'm wondering: most of the demos for materials other than liquids are rendered using particles so up close it just looks like a load of spheres stuck together. While this is great for cool demos is no good for photoreal work, is it?

I'm wondering how people might go about rendering realistic looking earth? Is the idea that for final renders you bump up the particle res until it looks like grains or can't see the individual particles? You can't really apply empolygonizer to an earth like material and get a good result.

[Hirazi Blue]

FYI - The Lagoa "Technology Focus" has been unearthed.
I can't say if they changed anything since its "prerelease" though.
You can find it here ;)

[Rez007]

I more-or-less just skimmed over it again, but unless I missed it, it seems like they took out the part about this possibly going to other software...Well, the wording is at least different in regards to this.