Posted: Aug 19, 2009
Category: Autodesk Softimage, SIGGRAPH
Social Media:
Ahhhh.... I'm finally back home in Los Angeles recovering from my- gulp- 18th Siggraph! Well, maybe recovering isn't the right word, Recharging? Rejuvenating maybe? I don't know but at eighteen its re-something!! Wow, Eighteen, so many more letters to type then good ole o n e! Well I guess this was my first Siggraph with Autodesk and this is my first blog post on The Area so perhaps there are a few firsts here we can talk about. Yeah, that's a muchhhh better way to look at this!
Well for those that missed the conference in New Orleans it was another fantastic event. For me personally, I had the honor of kicking off the expo for Autodesk in the main theater of our awesome "green" booth. The morning the convention hall opened I arrived an hour or so early to run through my demos and make sure everything was working correctly behind the scenes. Since the booth was front and center in the convention hall I could see from my perch on the stage the crowd starting to build behind the always friendly badge-checkers. Our excellent show reel was playing loudly and with my usual 4 shot, 5 sugar cappuccino I was more than feeling the energy of the show! Finally at 9:30AM the floodgates opened and all the conference goers poured into the main hall. As the crowd quickly approached I was getting into my ICE particle demo when suddenly, just like the particles flowing around the obstacles in the demo, the crowd started flowing around our booth! What the heck was going on?!?! Where were they all going?!? Not sure what to think of all this my head followed the herd around the corner when I saw it... There it was, a colorful little cartoon-like house just behind our booth with the word Pixar above it... Of course!!! The Pixar poster, the rush for the annual Pixar poster, I should have known! Thankfully after a few minutes our booth filled up and I continued to show off Softimage 2010!
Of course the announcement of Soft 2010 was the big news on the Softimage side of things. With the integration of Face Robot technology we've added the ability to produce amazing realistic facial animation for both rendered and real-time pipelines. The other big news in the release is in the area of performance. Below is a video I whipped up showing some of the improvements on a couple scenes. It's amazing going from 7.5 to 2010 as the performance across the board has significantly improved. The crazy lag that happened when you deleted or copied large number of objects is for the most part gone. Long wait times in the fcurve editor is also a thing of the past. Playback speed has also gone through the roof, especially on deformed objects. In the demo pod at the show I had duplicated a few higher res characters and had 70fps in 2010 and only 7fps with 7.5. Astounding really. Those of you using it day in and day out will really feel the enhancements.
The rest of Siggraph revolved around the amazing city of New Orleans of course. We had a fun Softimage users dinner that Jen Goldfinch organized at a restaurant in the French Quarter on Monday night. I think we had a table for the 30 reserved but way more than that showed up! There weren't the big parties at night this year which I think was a good idea because of the economy. With people losing jobs and all, a big hoopla party probably wasn't the best thing to do. What I did think was amazing though were local companies like TurboSquid sponsoring a Habitat for Humanity project for Katrina victims. They invited people from the industry to help build a home in the hard hit Lower Ninth Ward before the show started. While I couldn't make it myself I'm happy to know some people from Autodesk were able to fly in a couple days earlier and help the effort. It's amazing how years later the area is still in need of tremendous work. Congrats to everyone who contributed to those types of projects or any charities over the week.
So that's really about it for now. I'm looking forward to my new blog site here on The Area to report what's new in the world of Softimage at Autodesk and share some of the interesting things I might be doing.
In order to post any comments, you must be logged in!
Re: Enthusiasm - Yeah, I guess I had some creative interlines to exculpate. You know as difficult as it may sound, I would be willing to promote Softimage and travel around the country with the official Softimage Swedish Swimsuit girls. I mean, like ...if I HAD to and all. ;)
Face Robot video? That's awesome sir... can't wait to view it! Speaking of facial motion capture... I know NaturalPoint has their Arena Expression software that's pretty slick-ified with the needed .c3d format for Face Robot. While the Arena Expression package is a bit on the high side at 6K (but still glorious), I can say there is a lower cost little "dark horse" in the works. I was chatting with Luuk Steitner the other day and he's working on a new version of his facial motion tracker, Zign Track 2, which will eventually have a .c3d format export. He said ZT2 will be released in the next few months with a .c3d export at release or to follow as an update.
Posted by Mark Schoennagel on Sep 09, 2009 at 12:37 AM
Holy cow, we should give you a blog VFX!!! Great post, thanks for the enthusiasm. I paused the Tivo to make sure I took it all in..while I sat up and straightened up my tie of course. I hear what youre saying on a few things though and I promise the fight's still on, just at the end of the day I dont get all annoyed when someone says they used Maya. haha
Will, things are good, nice to see you one here! But one thing, its a BUS not a Van! Ford makes a Van... A 1966 split window Volkswagen bus is bus. Thanks for asking though, its going great. ---side note--- my buddy and I are restoring a sweet 21 window bus and plan to drive it across the country this spring. I think we on track to do it!
I'm going to try to post as many videos as I can on here. Im currently working on a face robot video which Ill post in a week or so. I'll have a little write up about our trip to Austin too next week too.
Great to have Soft repreesentin. ;)
mark
Posted by VFX Media on Sep 03, 2009 at 03:15 PM
Mark,
Re: Not a Software hissing match. I agree and I admit it's a new and different sitch-i-ation now that Softimage has become mind-meld-matter-streamed into Autodesk, and now that it's texture-grafted along side Max and Maya as a toothbrush trading family member. And so now we say, uh yeah all that smack we said about you guyz in the years before, uh we didn't really mean it... really. Sawww good. No really it's good... nice tie... looks great on you. :)
As a firm supporter of the Softimage legacy and it's creative genius in software engineering, I really just want to yell out my enthusiasm for the forthcoming Softimage 2010 and wave the checkered speed flag of GigaCore III. Or uncomfortably get right up into someone's grill like a wild-eyed drill sergeant, just itching to have another John Peddie speed comparison to stir up some fun again. Or perhaps pull out my wallet only to be shockingly told, no no put that away...this 95,000 dollar Face Robot is on me... it's cool... I got it. Or create a full blown ocean with realistic waves and foam using Amaan's ICE compounds in 4 minutes flat and then anxiously raise my hand and
say, I'm done! My plate is clear. Can I have desert now? But I won't say anything, or they say I'm not supposed to... so I don't upset the "M" people.
It's all hush hush don't ya know. And so we whisper to ourselves how cool it all is like giddy kids with a big secret and pop up our heads and smile when an adult walks by. What are you kids up to? Nutt 'in (with tucked back smiles). Or it's like I have a favorite football team or star quarterback and I can't shout out boisterous raves or return fire with sarcastic pokes at the opposing team. I get about half way out of my seat filled with boiling exuberance, when I suddenly realize the coach (mob boss) is looking my way in his grimacing "protect the family" stare. Or I lower my eyes and bow my head in the hall when a Maya guy walks toward me. Hey Jim... nothing... ya' know... same old same old... later. Or when I walk by the 3ds Max dude who just keeps glaring at me and waiting for me to say something cute about his view cube or his training... I mean steering wheel. Make my day Xsissy punk, he sneers.
I know nothing. I see nothing. I keep my thoughts to myself, because I'm supposed to. I follow the new unwritten family hush. I feel like I'm on the dark side of the sphere and comfortably numb in these new surroundings. And I think, maybe I'm not really sure what I want to do with my 3D life..? Maybe I should just sit here and be quiet. Ya know... keep it all bottled up.
Why yes sir this is a Softimage pledge pin on my uniform. Yes sir, I know I'm worthless and weak. Then they say to me, tuck in that shirt, adjust that belt buckle, tie those shoes. Yes sir, I know I sit in here all day and play with ICE particles. I do. They say who are you? Where did you come from? Are you listening to me? What do you want to do with your life? And I perk up and say, you know what I want to do? I want to blow out the engine in my Maserati at 185 and walk away from the flaming mess feeling really good about it. That's what I want to do! And another thing I want to do is invest my limited little life span in the fastest , most genius, most comprehensive 3D software package I can, as I spin through 3D space at 1037.5646 miles per hour! And I just REALLY want to give 'em the Billy Mays and shout... SOFTIMAGE 2010 ROCKS HARD BABY! Y-Y-YES! THE KING OF SPEED IS IN THE BUILDING! OH YEAH! HOOZ UR KINEMATICS GRANDADDY NOW? BOOM! IN YOUR FACE! (robot)... but I won't say anything. I'll just keep quiet. Keep it all inside... on the DL. Supp? Hey Jim... nice tie... looks great on you, really. ;)
Posted by crossbone2007 on Aug 28, 2009 at 04:43 PM
Now that we have a blog, I'm waiting for the thing that the softimage community lacks the most some compelling training materials. I hope the SI advance users will consider doing that in the near future. I'll wait for some great post.
Posted by Magian on Aug 28, 2009 at 03:00 PM
I've been hoping Softimage would have a blog here and I am glad to see this happen. Bookmarking now. Please post often. :)
