studioNEST snShatter tool - coming soon

studioNEST Shatter Early Preview from helge mathee on Vimeo.

To quote the original page: "This is a quick demo of the fracturing operator from studioNEST, called snShatter. The implementation of this operator for Autodesk Softimage will be released as opensource, like the other tools from studioNEST."

UPDATE:


studioNEST Bullet Early Preview from helge mathee on Vimeo.

Making Metagun

Just came across this little gem - Making Metagun. Showing the development of a whole game in 7mins of time-lapse video.

It's not the only video of this type. There's several of note using Unity too:

Softimage 2011 SAP to include both Lagoa Multiphysics & emPolygonizer

It's official.
The Softimage 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack will include both Lagoa Multiphysics and emPolygonizer 1.721. Nice!
Source: http://twitter.com/luceric/statuses/21944883703

Let's hope all the SI2011 bugs/usage issues have all been squashed too.

MATERIALS Tutorials by Philip Klevestav

Posted up on Game Artists recently is a fantastic set of tutorials on how to create specific materials for Game art.
http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/materials.html

METAL

As with all materials, there are a lot of different types of metal. In this tutorial I go through howto create a pretty standard matte metal wall with a sci-fi touch and I tried to make it something inbetween clean and worn.

ROUGH AND COARSE STONE

Stone cliffs and rocks usually have a lot of direction of some type in them. In this tutorial I go through how I go about sculpting such a material in Zbrush and the process from there.

This tutorial will guide you through the creation of a rough stone surface, this could be combined with something more similar to the cliff wall tutorial above to create various types of rock surfaces.

Cracked stones can look very different depending on what materials is underneath the surface, what type of damage has been done and how long ago the damage was made. Here I go through some steps to create a broken up ground piece. Ingame something like this could be masked out and used as a decal as well.

SMOOTH AND SEMI SMOOTH STONE

Marble can be another tricky surface to create. Here I created a clean polished marble surface that is highly reflective. It is all about subtle details on these kind of clean materials, especially when it comes to the normal map.

Clean concrete blocks are usually pretty smooth, but there are details and small subtle variations is such surfaces that you can really play around with. In this tutorial I go through some steps you can do using Photoshop only.

BRICKS AND BLOCKS

Older or larger tiles may benefit from being sculpted in a program like Zbrush first. Here I go through some steps to sculpt such pieces and how much you can build with just a couple of sculpted stones if placed right.

Sometimes it is not really necessary to sculpt your stones. Especially when it comes to smaller brick walls. In this tutorial I go through some steps to give your brick wall more depth than a simple photo texture would work if generated into a normal map.



EDIT: Previous tutorials by PhilipK, excellent stuff!:



PHILIPK.NET - WORKING WITH MODULAR SETS


PHILIPK.NET - WORKING WITH MODULAR ROCKS

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. 

cmivfx releases Syntheyes Complete Training

http://www.cmivfx.com/productpages/product.aspx?name=Syntheyes_Complete_Training


cmiVFX launches its latest training video for Syntheyes 3D Matchmoving software under the long format video structure plan. This video is complete training for Syntheyes utilizing several projects that overlap complex problems for the matchmoving artists. Topics include, 3D Tracking, Cleaning And Adjusting Tracks, Difficult Nodal Pans, 3D Stabilization and SO MUCH MORE!


Also, you can also get 10% off your purchase right now by using the code: VFX104 in the cmiVFX store.


Syntheyes is a 3d matchmoving software package by ssontech and has been used on many, many VFX blockbuster movies. 

Markerless Mocap Software from iPi Soft

iPi Desktop Motion Capture™ is an entry-level markerless motion capture technology that literally puts motion capture at animator's desktop. You can shoot a video right at your workplace using a webcam or inexpensive digital camera and have it converted to 3D animation on your PC. The technology is targeted at small studios, freelance animators and motion capture enthusiasts.

Features / Editions	Express	Basic	Standard
Number of cameras	1	3	4
Technology	Optical markerless	Optical markerless	Optical markerless
Single-camera mode	Included	Included	Included
Supported cameras	Any digital camera	Sony PlayStation 3 Eye	Sony PlayStation 3 Eye
Availability	Coming soon	Coming soon	Beta version available
Free 30 days trial	Coming soon	Download free 30 days trial
Technical Support	Coming soon	6 months of free email-based technical support. Additional technical tupport options coming soon.

http://www.ipisoft.com/products.php

Looks interesting.

cmiVFX Mid Summer Sale

cmiVFX Mid Summer Sale: Limited Time Only – 25% OFF ALL Training

25% OFF ALL Training Tutorials, Today through Thursday, August 12, 2010 and ramp up your training for the upcoming fall production season. 

cmiVFX brings real world directly to you with training and projects created by some of the best Visual FX creators working in the industry today.  Go to http://www.cmivfx.com today for your 25% OFF, enter Promo Code:  CMI25VFX

And if you missed this deal, you can still get 10% by using the code mentioned in my previous post.

10% off cmiVFX online training videos

Using the code VFX104 you can get 10% off of cmiVFX training videos right now by at the cmiVFX store. (Excludes subscriptions).

Softimage specific videos of interest are both by Thiago Costa and deeply investigate the potential of the ICE platform:-

Softimage ICE For Production

Softimage Scalar Data

Both tutorials can also be bought together for a $9.95 saving.

Also available are many informative tutorials for Nuke and Houdini.

Enjoy.

Lagoa Physics and Softimage to be included in new Autodesk Max & Maya 2011 Entertainment PREMIUM suites

Interesting to see that Lagoa Physics may already be part of the next Softimage release...? Or at least the new 2011 premium entertainment suite (coming soon)...

A quick read the links below seems to point towards Softimage is being "sidelined" as a key Autodesk media/entertainment 3d application and that it is instead being included with Max or Maya PREMIUM Entertainment Suites as an addon application like Mudbox.

http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/07/autodesk-entertainment-creation-suites-premium-launched-at-siggraph/

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=13420613&siteID=123112

http://area.autodesk.com/userdata/static/sigg10/pr/autodesk_suite_premium.pdf

UPDATE: Quote from Raffaele Fragapane on CGTalk:

Soft is still sold as stand-alone and has seen none of its areas of interest crippled, is still commercially viable on its own, and it exceeded sales expectations a couple times instead of bombing year after year and failing to strip market off its competitors.
It simply doesn't have the same market penetration as Maya does, and saying otherwise would be delusional on Soft or Soft users side, so this is a way for AD to squeeze more money out of their biggest userbases (making a large and expensive bundle attractive) that they wouldn't otherwise milk. This much is pretty obvious, other speculations, until further announcements, are rather far fetched.

As long as it keeps feeding money into the ICE architecture and Soft features, and makes Soft seats available in studios that wouldn't have had one there before to begin with, Soft users don't have much to complain about. And I'm one of them.

UPDATE2: Other quotes from people more knowledgable about this development:-

http://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list/browse_thread/thread/c1ef25844792e043

I'm now convinced this is a real positive for Softimage and Softimage users - Autodesk have decided to address requests from many studios who use Max and Maya predominantly to have access to Softimage and it's tools. The new Premium Suite provides this access at a discount rate.

UPDATE3: To quote Mark Schoennagel on the SPH google group:

Lets just say very soon everyone who has Softimage will be getting Lagoa for free. 

And if you put some funky colored glasses on it will even be in stereo... :)

Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0

Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 - Teaser from Thiago Costa on Vimeo.

Recently up on Vimeo is this video showing some incredible plugin development from Thiago Costa. Go to the Vimeo page for the Hires version. Simply stunning.

Particle physics framework that gives control over:
- High friction granular materials
- Incompressible fluids
- Elastic structures
- Plastic deformations & more...

Anyone still with doubts regarding the potential of ICE needs to see this vid!

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.

I love SketchUp!

I've been fighting against learning SketchUp for quite some time. I always thought it was too simple. Wasn't organised. That not much was possible with it. That it didn't have the features which would justify its place amongst "real" modelling packages. However, a few quick under-pressure stints using it at work and at home have changed my mind. Completely.

It's not by any means a "full" modelling package, of course. Its not really right for organic (anthropomorphic)  or hardbody modelling (automobiles, etc) - no sub-d's - but what it does in terms of accelerating basic box modelling is fantastic. It allows extremely accurate and easy box modelling in minutes. What takes minutes in Softimage takes seconds in SketchUp.

If you are doing Archviz, use it. Once you get your head around it. You won't look back. You can quite easily design a building from scratch in SketchUp, possibly to a level of detail which you could generate drawings from (using the section tool).

My workflow is now:-
1. Flesh out the main building in SketchUp (use export with instances) - the "Sketch" bit.
2. Import into Softimage. Clean up mesh/de-triangulate/etc. Add more of the fine detail, scenery. Unwrap. Add materials/textures. Add Lights.
3. Render.

The free version exports the Collada format which can be brought into Softimage more or less intact using Crosswalk.

I found this out pretty late in the day (due to the new Valve Steam update bugging out all the SDK apps) but there is also a plugin by Valve for exporting vmf and smd files. It's in the SDK directory. While I probably won't use it, it does mean that fleshing out levels is much faster than using Hammer. Hammer is SLOOOOW and needs a rewrite.

And this my main bane with most 3d packages... Sometimes 3d just takes so bloody long... (rant over)

Octane Render - Interactive Unbiased GPU renderer

This scene is a benchmark scene from the Octane render forums. 1024x512 this image was rendered on a nvidia GTX260 in about 16mins.

But to give you an idea of the speed. This is what it looks like after 20secs.

This image is 1920x1080 using direct lighting algorithm. Render time = 1min30secs.

Octane Render is very new GPU based interactive unbiased renderer from Refractive Software. It is currently in an open beta testing phase in which you can join for a discounted price (currently 99 euros). Not only do you get early access to all versions but you are also licensed to use all final v1.x point release versions.

I'm currently testing my own copy atm. I will post a review here later in the year when it is close to or soon after release.

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.

ICEy Goodness!

Bradley Gabe has recently posted two tutorials regarding creating bezier interpolation in ICE. He's posted some exquisite videos over the past year. Check out his vimeo channel here.


Tutorial: Build your own Bézier Curve Interpolation in Softimage ICE from Bradley Gabe on Vimeo.


Tutorial: Animation tricks using Bézier Nodes in ICE from Bradley Gabe on Vimeo.


ICE flesh - Production Example - Chick Fil-A from Bradley Gabe on Vimeo.

Another major force in recent ICE video mastery is Ahmidou Lyazidi. He's really showing off the potential of ICE kinematics.


ICE kinematics toon limb from Ahmidou Lyazidi on Vimeo.


ICE arc interpolation from Ahmidou Lyazidi on Vimeo.

He's recently released his arc interpolation node in this video to the community and you can get it here.

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.

Building1 Closeup composite

A bit of remodelling to an old scene and using a new pass based image creation technique. This is a low res compositing test image.

A selection of passes below:

'Original render size:1920x1080 (render times for passes)

'Albedo
'wallclock 0:00:56.54 for rendering
'AO <- may try baking this with higher settings (using second unique UVs projection for animation)
'wallclock 0:07:09.58 for rendering
'FG
'wallclock 0:02:31.26 for computing finalgather points <- (will be pregenerated for animation)
'wallclock 0:04:08.25 for rendering
'metal
'wallclock 0:02:21.31 for rendering
'highlight
'0:03:27.49 for rendering
'Depth
'wallclock 0:00:28.69 for rendering
'background
'wallclock 0:00:16.28 for rendering
'white matte
'wallclock 0:00:37.99 for rendering
'glass <- The main bottleneck!
'wallclock 0:26:03.71 for rendering
'with bump res increased wallclock 0:50:34.96 for rendering (probably should lower)