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I really like XSI, if I had a more up-to date version(or just the same version as my senior, drat that lack of backwards compatibility!) I'd be okay with sticking with it. The biggest problem I find is the lack of community support online. Polycount et. al are coming down with Max and Maya support threads, plugins, tips and tricks, tutorials and all that jazz, but there's barely anything that I can find for XSI. When I have a problem or I'm trying to figure out how to do something, my Google searching usually brings up a couple of not particularly relevant 5 year-old threads from CGHub and little else. Also, my copy is old enough(version 6) that its FBX support via Crosswalk is seriously bockety, which is a huge issue right now :|
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Sep 10, 2010 19:06
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cubicle gangster posted:This is odd, I was always under the impression that xsi was much better than max & maya. For me, it's just having to break through the learning barrier.
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Sep 10, 2010 19:36
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floofyscorp posted:The biggest problem I find is the lack of community support online. Yeah this is a massive problem with Softimage that nobody really seems to care to fix (in fact Autodesk undid all the good that was happening with the softimage community and replaced it with "the Area" which is a bunch of poo poo). Part of the reason I've stopped using it for my personal stuff. The software itself is awesome, as soon as you get rid of Mental Ray and shoot Joe Alter in the face for making such a terrible hair system. Everyone has their preferences though.
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Sep 10, 2010 19:37
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What renderer do you use instead? I thought MR was integrated really tightly(and well). I know about all the big alternatives for Max/Maya/C4D, but I'm completely ignorant of what's available for XSI.
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Sep 11, 2010 15:33
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Hey guys, I finally finished my car tutorial, check it out if you've ever thought of modelling a car but didn't know where to start! http://www.ten24.info/index.php/shop/cartuts/cartutorial-43/
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Sep 11, 2010 16:54
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Furious George posted:Hey guys, I finally finished my car tutorial, check it out if you've ever thought of modelling a car but didn't know where to start! "Oh hey, awesome, I've been wanting to see one of those!" gently caress, it costs  I'm too poor just to buy a tutorial, although I'd love to see it, since it looks great! Guess I'll have to stick to all the crappily made tutorials already out there 
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Sep 11, 2010 17:06
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Sorry about that, it took too long and has too much content to make it free. I'll be lucky to break even on it given the hours put into it tbh, but it's something a lot of people have asked for. There's some other free ones on Ten24 if you're interested in character modelling at all though.
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Sep 11, 2010 18:44
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DefMech posted:What renderer do you use instead? I thought MR was integrated really tightly(and well). I know about all the big alternatives for Max/Maya/C4D, but I'm completely ignorant of what's available for XSI. That's the problem, there isn't much of a choice. Right now the 3Delight for Softimage is awesome, but it's a REYES renderer, so carries with it all of that baggage. There's also an Arnold connection, but most people can't get this right now as it's in Beta of sorts (in production). So your options are to cache and export to render in something else like Max/Maya. But then you lose all of the awesome Softimage Pass workflow benefits of using Softimage in the first place (and replace it with really broken Max/Maya workflows).
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Sep 11, 2010 21:22
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Furious George posted:Sorry about that, it took too long and has too much content to make it free. I'll be lucky to break even on it given the hours put into it tbh, but it's something a lot of people have asked for. There's some other free ones on Ten24 if you're interested in character modelling at all though. Yeah at first I was like "what the hell I'm not buying a tutorial." But upon looking at it, it does appear you've put quite a bit of work into it. I still won't be buying it to be honest, but it does look fairly comprehensive.
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Sep 11, 2010 21:31
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It does include the model and textures as well, which are probably worth 20 bucks on their own.
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Sep 11, 2010 21:39
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Hazed_blue posted:Looking good so far. The two things that I think need to most work right now are the macro detail and color variation. I see a lot of good micro details there with the wrinkles, but they're also very dominant right now; I'm not getting a good impression of the overall shapes going on with his face. Play with the shade, and use some variation for the different areas of his face. Most important thing with the shade is to avoid simply using black. Skin is semi-transparent, so try to add some color to the shadows. Thanks for the great crits here and on the zbrush thread Hazed Blue, spot on. I Added some color variation to the diffuse and spec maps and it really made a good impact (although i think i might have over done it a bit.) After taking a few days break from 3d stuff i can see this with more fresh eyes and the maps still need work especially on the mouth area, baby steps... also i suck at lighting in Marmoset. 
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Sep 12, 2010 13:27
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Oxygencult posted:Thanks for the great crits here and on the zbrush thread Hazed Blue, spot on. I Added some color variation to the diffuse and spec maps and it really made a good impact (although i think i might have over done it a bit.) One tip that seems applicable here is don't forget that you can use much higher resolution texture maps. Most games these days can use much higher res than they used to, and you don't need to make them such low resolution, only the model (which most game engines these days can also handle about 2-4 times as much polygons as you have). I can tell mostly the low quality from the gums, teeth, and rings hanging from his nose and ears. Also the bottom lip and chin are looking pretty bad too with the slightly blurred texture. Otherwise, I love the model and I loved the sculpt even more, looking good.
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Sep 12, 2010 13:32
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Care to help a fledgling CG animator out? Just graduated and I'm looking for work in character animation. I have my demoreel here, and I'd love some critique and/or advice. And if someone out there is willing to take on an industry noob who's done keyframe and mocap/MotionBuilder work... 
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Sep 16, 2010 02:36
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Izzy posted:Care to help a fledgling CG animator out? Just graduated and I'm looking for work in character animation. I have my demoreel here, and I'd love some critique and/or advice. I don't have any specific advice, but I think you need a lot of work to get it to a professional level. You have a good understanding of the basics, but I would honestly lock yourself in a room for a couple of months and animate for 8-12 hours a day. After that I think you would definitely be able to get a decent job somewhere. I might also try to include some acting pieces in your reel. Right now it's just walk cycles and things moving. Try to get one of the characters to express some sort of clear emotion. Animation is not movement! What type of job are you going to be applying to? Just a simple internship somewhere or a paying job? Do you want to do character animation or mocap stuff? Answering these type of questions will help you tailor your reel to the job you are applying for.
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Sep 16, 2010 03:31
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Izzy posted:Care to help a fledgling CG animator out? Just graduated and I'm looking for work in character animation. I have my demoreel here, and I'd love some critique and/or advice. From a reel logistics standpoint, I'd shorten the title cards at the beginning or take them out completely. The longer someone has to sit before seeing work, the worse your chances. Also, playblasts are fine, but I personally find the Maya grid distracting. You can turn it off, or just throw down a plane to cover it. There are more creative ways to show a ground plane and perspective. As far as the content, you just need to keep animating/analyzing your animations/getting 3rd and 4th parties to give you feedback/repeating. It's obvious you have a solid base, but your animations (as excellently stated above) need to convey the illusion of LIFE, not just the illusion of movement. Another suggestion that is 100% my own personal opinion, but I hate the Animation Mentor (or similar) models. I'd say use anything but those.
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Sep 16, 2010 04:24
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Thank you both! I've been having a rough time finding people willing to give me honest and knowledgeable feedback. Kingsbury especially helped me figure out what's been "off" about my reel. It's rather painfully obvious now that it's been pointed out, actually.  I've been going through The Illusion of Life and getting a ton of ideas from that. Are there any good sites for getting animation feedback as an alternative to spamming this thread?Unfortunately an unpaid internship isn't an option for the most part. I'd eventually like to specialize in character animation, either for film/TV or for video games. I'm most familiar with the latter, due to my major and the fact that all but one of my animation teachers came from that industry (Midway Games, specifically). That's where I'd ideally like to end up, but I can do rigging, modeling, data/animation cleanup, hell, I'll clean the toilets if it'll get me animating eventually.
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Sep 16, 2010 21:22
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Izzy posted:Thank you both! I've been having a rough time finding people willing to give me honest and knowledgeable feedback. Kingsbury especially helped me figure out what's been "off" about my reel. It's rather painfully obvious now that it's been pointed out, actually. Thankfully, this is an industry that, for the most part, pays its interns. Also, I've found that for games, the more diverse your reel, the better. Diverse as in, if you show an animated character you animated but then note that you also designed, modeled, textured, and rigged it too, that will be much to your benefit.
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Sep 17, 2010 02:45
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I actually do have that in the reel breakdown I send out (my website is here if you're curious). Aside from the first and third animation clip ("Lt. Dan" and "Andy," respectively), the models and rigs were done by me. The mocap models are by other students, but I rigged those, directed the mocap and did the data cleanup and animation polish.
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Sep 17, 2010 05:20
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Furious George posted:Hey guys, I finally finished my car tutorial, check it out if you've ever thought of modelling a car but didn't know where to start! That looks really interesting, just decided to buy it on a whim.
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Sep 18, 2010 06:48
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Back from Semi-Permanent. Framestore, Pixar and Buck were the animation highlights of the two day event I think. No techniques anyone who wasnt already into animation would find new, but the enthusiasm and passion these guys had for their work was amazing.
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Sep 18, 2010 10:37
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SynthOrange posted:Back from Semi-Permanent. Framestore, Pixar and Buck were the animation highlights of the two day event I think. No techniques anyone who wasnt already into animation would find new, but the enthusiasm and passion these guys had for their work was amazing. sup fellow semi-permenenter There were a few speakers who were a bit of a bore, but moreso because you could tell they're not used to presenting. Still extremely talented. I kinda expected it to be pretty glossy, considering the conference attracts students more than anything. But it was really inspiring stuff and I came away pretty motivated and more focused on what kind of path i would like to go down with my career. Buck was the definite highlight for me, I'd only seen a sneak of their stuff before I went. Amazing work and such a fantastic presentation. I love their approach to, well, everything they do, and they seem really genuine about their work. Did you go to the after party? It was pretty rad, lots of free booze, amazing building, and got talking to a few interesting people and even a couple of presenters (simon from pixar was a cool dude)
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Sep 19, 2010 12:09
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I was there but I couldnt make out any of the presenters. It didnt help that they were so tiny on stage from where I was sitting, hahah. Yeah, Sylvia Ji was uh... and oh boy Lief Podarski went on a bit. But overall yes it was a very inspiring couple of days. All the other speakers were really well worth watching. I am feeling very sorry for myself right now after having way too many of the free Asahis at the after party though.
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Sep 19, 2010 12:14
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SynthOrange posted:I was there but I couldnt make out any of the presenters. It didnt help that they were so tiny on stage from where I was sitting, hahah. haha yeah, i think throughout her talk she started to come to the realization that her work over the last couple of years hasn't varied much, hence she closed with 'i think ill start doing some furniture pieces...' Leif was a total space cadet, that guy is going to be so bummed if the world doesn't end in 2012
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Sep 19, 2010 12:25
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Yeah, he really didnt come off very well when you have Claire Martin going on before and actually doing something to change rather than hoping for the best. Still, keep dreaming Leif. Did you get to talk to anyone at the after party?
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Sep 19, 2010 13:01
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Loved claire martins stuff, I did get a little annoyed that she didnt seem to think there were any social inequity issues worth documenting in australia. Me and some friends had a bit of chat to Simon Allen, met Sylvia Li in the elevator. A friend of mine wanted to see what was under Timba Smits hat, so he cheekily took it off his head (i think we were well on our way by then...). Met a few other industry types. Maybe to get this all a bit more back on topic, anyone wanna share some tips on 'networking'? for me I guess its just common sense, but literally just going up to someone and going 'hey I love your work/presentation, dude' and just chatting to them about anything is always your best bet. Most people who do this sortof stuff are pretty chilled and have plenty of other interesting things about them they like to talk about, and the if the flow of the conversation comes to work or software or whatever, then so be it. I've talked to guys who can't switch off when theyre in these situations, they walk up and talk a whole lotta shop or beg for any leads on jobs, and then shove their business card in your hand. Its really draining.
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Sep 19, 2010 15:03
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It's a lot easier if you refer to 'networking' as 'making friends' instead. Semi-Permanent sounds like it wouldve been fun. Unfortunatly theres not much oppertunity for events ike that in the uk. Once a year I get to go to a vray event in a hotel in london, and hopefully find a few people willing to hit the pub for a bit before going home.
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Sep 19, 2010 17:05
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 50 seconds done!
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Sep 19, 2010 18:08
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Hinchu posted:
Nice work! I'm excited to see what this is when you're done. On a much more amateur topic, I've been working on this:   I'm not sure how to render it. I tried a basic landscape reflection map and it looked weird. Any hints on how I could set up a render for this? Or any hints/tips/critiques on my mesh? This is my first SubD(?) model so I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. 3DS Max 2011 by the way.
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Sep 19, 2010 21:55
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Moist von Lipwig posted:I'm not sure how to render it. I tried a basic landscape reflection map and it looked weird. Any hints on how I could set up a render for this? Or any hints/tips/critiques on my mesh? This is my first SubD(?) model so I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. For the mesh, I'd recommend ditching the little vent like bits on the main saucer, and doing them AFTER you sub-d the rest of it. Doing little details like that is quite difficult for me, especially to get the loops and whatnot to continue properly. If you do it wrong, you end up with weird geometric distortions and stuff, which it sort of looks like what you have there. Here's an example:  See, rather than try and muck about with getting the sub-d to work for the little hole things (smoothing groups, loops, etc.), just leave it plain, then AFTER you sub-divide, extrude the polys manually. It also saves a lot of polys too, so faster rendering. So I'd change yours to this:  That way you'll get a nice clean mesh, and you can (bit fiddly) go in and select the polys for the vents, extrude them, and voila; all done! So get to work. 
KiddieGrinder fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Sep 19, 2010 |
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Sep 19, 2010 22:21
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THUNDERDOME II IS HERE AND HEADING STRAIGHT FOR YOUR FACE: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3349884
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Sep 20, 2010 14:41
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Quick stills from an animation i'm doing  Got another 3 weeks left - i'm 3 in, but i've been doing the whole thing by myself. 7 minutes of animation, shitloads of tropical foaliage, loads of internals... It's fun though, one of the smoothest jobs i've ever done. Nobody gives a poo poo and their philosphy seems to be 'if it's in the right lines and looks good, it's cool'
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Sep 20, 2010 19:28
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cubicle gangster posted:Quick stills from an animation i'm doing I hate you.  That looks amazing.
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Sep 20, 2010 20:08
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Did you model the trees or are they provided by another application such as Vue?
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Sep 21, 2010 13:27
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They're all from archmodels, turned into proxies with the materials re-done from scratch. The only reason I point that out is to let you know you'll have to do it... They're not from the new one - they're from a couple of the older tree packs. They released their new tropical tree and plant collection a couple of days after i'd finished collecting all these together and making my own library to pull them from  I want vue to be good, I really do. But every time i've tried to have a small go of it, it's been a slow buggy mess and crashed a lot doing really basic things. Not had another go of the newest one though.
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Sep 21, 2010 13:48
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Wow! Hinchu, that is one freaky awesome looking Tinman you have there! Rivets and all. Is that just a material on it or is there an HDR map on it as well?
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Sep 22, 2010 23:13
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Anyone in animation might want to check this out. http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/treecopy/download.shtml 'treecopy' Copies a directory structure without copying the files inside it. gently caress yeah! Been looking for something like this for ages
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Sep 23, 2010 10:31
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cubicle gangster posted:Anyone in animation might want to check this out. Would anyone mind if we go on a 'useful utilities' tangent? Windows, both: DJV -- awesome no-install free sequence viewer. Bulk Rename Utility -- There's a 'no-installer' version halfway through the page. Accidentally screw up your output's naming structure? Easily rename entire sequences in one go. What other little tools do you guys use to help things along?
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Sep 23, 2010 12:56
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I use direct folders too - http://www.codesector.com/directfolders.php Double click in the empty space of a window and it brings up a list of favourites and recently viewed. Getting around a network without it now is such a loving chore. Gonna have a look at djv I already use 'batch file renamer' too, haha. edit: djv is boss, thanks! Sits nicely between ram player and PDplayer.
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Sep 23, 2010 13:41
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This is the renamer I've used for the past 10 years: http://www.albert.nu/default.asp?sub=programs/default.asp?sub=renamer/main.htm It's not very...intuitive. But it's simple and powerful and once you learn how to use it you can do poo poo super fast.
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Sep 23, 2010 16:24
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http://opensource.studionestbarcelona.com/studio_NEST/opensource.html Awesome tools for Softimage. Bullit dynamics implementation, object fracturing, strand hair dynamics (which is interesting to me as S&H was a massive complaint of mine). Go get it! Gogogo!
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Sep 23, 2010 21:42
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