Softimage 2010 came out just seven months ago - yet we have another huge release to tell everyone about - check out the feature list at the bottom.

Here are just a few videos showing some of the new features in 2011.  For more information check out Autodesk.com/Softimage or The Softimage Wiki http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Autodesk_Softimage_2011

I might add some more videos later, or maybe I will do another blog entry for those.  Either way check back here soon.  Push the full screen button too when watching the videos, its much better that way.

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Automatic Lip Syncing for Face Robot

I had so much fun playing with this! ...try saying "super simple to setup" 5 times!

 ICE Kinematics

We only scratch the surface of what ICE kinematics can do and what it will mean for rigging in the future. 

No more needing bones, debugging is easier, massive reduction in the number of objects needed, the rigs are much more difficult to break as the dependencies are far fewer, secondary dynmics can be easily added -  and the factt that the relationships of the entire rig' and its behavior are separate from the rig itself means referencing can be completely re-thought,   Just crazy

Rendering

Soooo much new stuff for everyone - yay!

Texturing

A few enhancements to texturing and uv unfolding

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Camera and Render Slates

Simple but so useful.

Scripting enhancements

A quick breakdown of the new features in 2011

General

• Icon to Maximize Floating Windows
• Extra-wide icon to close PPGs and Views
• New Views
  • Shader Code Editor
  • Shader Version Manager
  • Cache Manager
  • Lip Sync
• New Preference to get Softimage text announcements

Camera and Viewports

• Viewport object transparency
  • Object>Display>XRay Surface Display Opacity slider
    • Change the viewport opacity of geometry using a slider
  • Display Options>XRay Display Type>Transparent
  • Viewport visibility menu>XRay Surfaces
• New buttons in Camera PPG to keyframe camera
• Camera frustrum display
  • Camera clipping planes values now sliders
• Viewport Slate
  • Text or tokens can be used to display scene information
• New menu toggle for X-Ray (display option)

Modeling

• Updated Booleans
  • Booleans are now faster and more stable
• New implicit bone primitive
  • Useful for ICE kinematics

Texturing

• Update to UV unfolding
  • New option to unfold islands generated by the unfold operator
  • Symmetry - if the geometry and cutlines are symmetrical so will be the unfold
  • New PPG option to update the Unfold without packing as well
• Multiple UVs in the Texture Editor
  • control+click to set the UV editable/non-editable
• Copy/Paste UV Improvements
  • Edit > Paste UVs
  • Edit > Paste Special > Using Source UVs Indices
  • Edit > Paste Special > Using Target UVs Indices
• RenderMap/Ultimapper now use Pass Renderer (including 3rd party)
• Automatic Tangents and Binormals

Animation

• Function Curve Editor & Dopesheet & Mixer
  • Highlight playback range in background
• Preference for Collapsing Animation Layers
  • Preserve Animation or Preserve Tangent Handles
• Preference for scanning for old plug-ins in fcurve editor
• Get>Property>Static Kinestate
  • Used for reference (neutral) poses

Face Robot

• Automatic Lip syncing
  • A new workflow for creating phonemes (and visemes)
  • A new lip sync tab for Stage 5>Act
    • Viseme Setup
  • Support for English and Japanese phonemes
  • Lip Sync Creation options
    • Use AIFF, AVI, Quicktime or WAV
    • Add text
    • Automatically creates animation
  • The new view can display the Phonemes and weight curves

Simulation

• Update PhysX library to version 2.83
  • NOTE: Due to a change in the PhysX library, actual shape collision results will be different in 2011
  • Support for CUDA acceleration for PhysX Rigid Body Dynamics (including ICE)

ICE

• Springs and damper attributes for ICE rigid bodies
• ICE Kinematics
  • ICE can now drive the Global kinematic property
  • The rigs' relationships can be expressed in a graph contained on a separate object (like a null)
  • You can use the simulate ICE tree to easily do secondary dynamics
  • ICE Kinematics and traditional Kinematics can live side by side
• ICE Tree
  • User Tools>Replace model name with this_model
  • Preference for disabling cycle checking when connecting nodes in ICE tree
• ICE Compounds and Nodes
  • Includes much of Phil’s ICE Pack
  • Around 130 new compounds and nodes

Scripting and SDK

• Python now installed with Softimage
• Script Editor now support tabs
  • MMB or control+W to close tab
  • RMB on tab to open containing folder
  • New file options including "save all tabs"
• Scripting Preferences
  • Show spaces instead of Tabs
  • Use Python installed with Softimage (Windows only)
• Custom Dynamic Shader creation
• RenderMap exposed to Custom Renderers
• Shaders
  • Shader Plugin API
  • Shader Parser Plugin API
  • RT Shader Wizard (HLSL and CGFX)
• ImportFromSI3D Command No Longer Supported
• Many Object Model additions
• many C++ API additions

Data Management

• New Tokens
  • [Camera] [CameraAspect] [CameraFormat] [CameraProjection] [CameraType] [Model] [Object] [Version] [CameraDisplayInfo]
  • New Tokens and Templates page in documentation
• Cache Manager
  • View>Animation>Cache Manager, Animate>Plot>Cache Manager, Simulate>ICE>Edit>Cache Manager
  • UI Simplification
  • Cache Manager hosts Read, Write and Simulation caches
  • New Cache lists
    • To read and write multiple objects at the same time (cache list or add one by one)
  • Automatically scans the selection for available attributes to cache (listbox)
  • Tokens are saved with the scene not copied from the template preference
  • Simulation tab list all cache file node in read mode
  • Animation read tab lists all source caches with their corresponding object
• Caching Improvements
  • Multiple objects can be cached at at time (in the same path)
  • Default template Preferences are used at scene creation, but can be overridden per caching session
  • Consistent paths and file name tokens for all types of caching
  • Current output path for caching is now visible
  • Universal tokens supported (see Tokens and Templates [Data Management])
  • Version token supported
  • No frame padding in the cache File Name mean the frame padding setting from Scene Render options is no longer used.
  • ICE particle ID attribute can be cached
  • Setting the new XSI_CACHE_ASCII environment variable lets you save the .icecache file sequence in ASCII.
     

Rendering

• Shader Authoring
  • All shaders available in Softimage 2011 now use the new Dynamic Shader architecture
  • No longer have to load *.cgfx or *.fx files into hard-coded CgFX or DXFX shader nodes.
    • Files are read directly by the Softimage CgFX or HLSL parsers
  • Shader Versioning
    • Shader Version Manager
    • Versioning of shader compounds supported
  • Option to make shader compounds uneditable
  • Shader Editor
  • Shader Wizard
  • New Shader Events
    • OnCreateShaderDef
    • OnCreateShader
    • OnConnectShader
    • OnDisonnectShader
  • New Shader Port Types to match ICE types.
  • New Array Port Type.
  • Improved Gradient Port Type.
  • Shader Tree XML Export .xsishadertree
  • New CGFX Parser
  • New HLSL Parser
  • New SPDL Parser
  • New .mi Parser
  • New generic .xsishaderdef Parser
• Shaders
  • Around 35 new utility shaders
  • Around 170 mental ray shaders
• General
  • Common mental ray
    • Softimage, Maya and Max now share the same version of mental ray
  • Stand-ins for rendering animated ICE particle instances
  • Improved setup for Physical Sky and Sun shaders
  • RMB Material commands available in render tree material node
  • Render Pass Partitions now support Stand-ins.
• Lighting
  • Support IES light Profiles
    • Use mia_photmetric_light in the light's render tree
  • New flatlight
  • Additional Area Lights Parameters
    • Use Geometry a light source (Area Light>Geometry>Object)
    • Area light>Geometry>User
    • Low Samples options
  • Raytraced Soft Shadows
  • New Light shape attenuation options
    • Barn Door effect
  • Light lists
  • Local Ambient Lighting Property
    • Get > Property > Ambient Lighting
• Render Tree
  • Connect shaders to the camera node and pass node directly in the render tree (dynamic input ports)
  • New shader families and new node color coding
  • Shader nodes support new data types
• Render Slate
  • Show scene information (using tokens) in renders and render region
  • Layout and color options
  • Pass options control render, region and preview
• Multi-Camera Rendering
  • Specify a "group" of cameras to be rendered per pass
• LUTs
  • Softimage now supports Autodesk LUSTRE .3dl 3D LUT files
  • New LUT Preconditioning options control linear to logarithmic conversions

Crosswalk

• Version 5.0
  • Crosswalk 5 supports 3ds Max 2011, Maya 2011, and Softimage 2011
• FBX 2011
  • New FBX scene scaling import and export options
  • New FBX batch processing commands to support the scaling options