Modern Alchemists release In-App Purchase & Open Feint plugins for Shiva3d

Modern Alchemists (of Aeon Racer fame) have just made two new ShiVa3d plugins available. Modern Alchemists ShiVa Libs are a bundle of custom written addons which are designed to work with ShiVa 1.9 and UAT 1.2 beta 7. 

Currently featured libs:-

MASS: In-App-Purchase for iOS and Android
MAOF: OpenFeint for iOS and Android

You can get all the files/code either from the download section or via SVN here: http://code.google.com/p/ma-sh/

Next up: Mortar, automated AdMob for Android integration.

All code is under LGPL License.

Thread at the Stonetrip forums can be found here.

nDo - normal map creation without leaving Photoshop

Teddy Bergsman has posted a tutorial at Philip Klevestav's website about how to use a Photoshop plugin called nDo here.

Information and download link for nDo can be found here.

Why does it stand out amongst the numerous normal map creation softwares? It allow creations of normal maps in Photoshop. This approach could be a game changer for normal map workflow. I still can't believe photoshop can't do this natively...

Craft Rig by Tiago Beijoco

I think I missed this one when Tiago Beijoco posted about it on Si-community (in January). It's a very sweet, customizable rig. It works similarly to the Auto-Rig built into Softimage but sports extra features like stretchy limbs and spine. You choose the numbers of elements required for each part of the rig and then a script builds it for you.

You can download directly from here or check out his website for a video about it.

studioNEST Momentum + Kratos

studioNEST Momentum + Kratos Final from helge mathee on Vimeo.

Excellent toolset for rigid body dynamics and shattering coming sometime this week.

Keep an eyeout for it here: http://www.studionestbarcelona.com/opensource/

emPolygoniser 2.0 released

emPolygonizer2 Official Release Video "go ahead, mesh my day!" from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.


emPolygonizer2 Sneak Preview 1: Tim Borgmann's Test Renderings from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.


emPolygonizer2 Sneak Preview 2: Tim Borgmann's Test Renderings from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.

emPolygonizer2 is a custom operator that allows you to create what is typically called "metaballs".
The basic technique used by this plug-in is called "polygonising a scalar field" or "marching cubes". It was invented in the mid-eighties by Lorensen and Cline.

The plug-in consists of a "DLL" file (Windows) or "so" file (Linux) for the operator (compiled C++ code for 32 bit and 64 bit versions of XSI) as well as several VB Script files.

emPolygonizer2 is well integrated into Softimage|XSI and it is used just as easily as the other custom operators.
The operator supports the following objects and components as inputs:
nulls
curves and curve lists (points, knots or curve)
polygon meshes (points or polygons, parameters can be driven by weight maps and vertex color maps)
point clouds (points and strands, parameters can be driven by point size and point color)


emPolygonizer2 Sneak Preview 3: Tim Borgmann's Test Renderings from Eric Mootz on Vimeo.

Go here to the mootzoid product page to find out more

NOTE: Softimage 2011 and 2011.5 only. Includes Lagoa Physics support (coming in Softimage v2011.5).

rray.de Softimage resources website update

Reinhard Claus of rray.de has updated his Softimage XSI resources pages. The update covers many recent plugins (and also a few old ones - like my dxf importer :) ).


Notable additions include links to many free XSI character rigs, plus studioNEST's recent plethora of plugins for rigging and ICE and Eric Thivierge's utilities plugins. 

Voronoi plugin

voronoi shatter test + rigid body 2 from msk on Vimeo.

Vimeo user msk has recently released a free plugin that uses a point cloud to create polymeshes broken into pieces using the classic Voronoi algorithm. (Source is included). I've not tested it yet but if it works it'll come in very handy. Not sure how useful it will be...
Download link is available from the video page.

Softimage to Octane plugin in the works

The Octane render developers recently updated their manual with command line/batch file commands. A guy on the Octane forums (face) is currently developing a C++ plugin which automates quite a lot of the exporting from Softimage to Octane including full camera setup, animation and mesh animation. (Exporting each frame as an OBJ file and relinking it into the Octane Renderer scene).

Very similar to what I had started doing myself before I found out about this one. So I've put that little project on hold!

According to the author, this will accompany the v2.2 release of Octane.

EDIT: This plugin is now available for download here. You'll probably need the license to access this thread at the Octane renderer forums.

CTRL_Ghost 2011 and mrHiddenOptions shaders expose MR Progressive Rendering in Softimage 2011

CTRL_Ghost is a custom shader by CTRL (have made many "hack" style MR shaders in the past.) The recently updated one for 3ds max 2011 works with Softimage and exposes the progressive rendering feature. You can download it from here and here.

The plugin also unlocks Image Based Lighting, Importions, FG Contrast, Irradiance Particles/Environment but most of this is unnecessary as the render manager exposes most of it. However, it may also expose Combined Final Gather + Irradiance Particles and Importons but I've not tested it yet.

Also in the running (and currently nicer to use) is mrHiddenOptions - the thread and downloads are here.

Both can be installed in your SI2011 User folder:
DLL file - "*\User\*\Softimage2011\Application\bin\nt-x86-64"
mi file - "*\User\*\Softimage2011\Application\mi" (without the "phenolib"folder already presented in the program directory.)


EDIT: (Now I know what it is...) Progressive rendering, rather than offering a fast preview like many new interactive renderers appearing now, it starts at the settings you set and then continues to refine the image over time. You set a limit to how many iterations you want it to process.


(mrHiddenOptions tested) It seems that with PR you can set your AA setting very low like Min -2 Max -1 which would normally look like this (scene is a group of reflective phong spheres - total 1,920,800 tris 0:00:10.02 for rendering):-

With PR switched on (wallclock  0:00:30.85 for rendering) and max_time =1 (one render iteration):-

From here PR continues to smooth AA, add bounces, reflection depth, etc. But I still don't think it has the same value as a feature as say, GPU acceleration or interactive rendering which starts extremely low and acts as an extremely useful way to quickly preview the scene. Bit like Octane.


I really don't think it will be long before a renderman-compliant GPU-based reyes renderer becomes commercially available.

Sunposition and dxfimport plugins for 2011

As the title suggests, I've compiled these plugins for Softimage v2011.

Available for download from the usual locations:-

dxfImporter2011
Sunposition2011

Post there or here if you have any problems using/installing/etc.

EDIT: I've also updated the Architectural Shader Compound to use the new version of the mia_x material. Get it here.

Architectural Shader (framebuffer) Compound

EDIT2: Also updated the measure tool to show feet and inches. You can get it here.