Todd Akita's ICE: Design Tools document!
Posted by Mark Schoennagel, 21 September 2012 6:43 pm
Well here it is guys, Todd Akita’s awesome "ICE: Design Tools" pdf from his presentation at Autodesk University!! For anyone who’s getting their feet wet using Softimage ICE you definitely want to read this. In the document, Todd masterfully explains many of the math fundamentals required to really excel at programming ICE. I read it once, then read it again and learned even more… I even did the very rare thing and printed it out!
For those of you that don’t know Todd, he’s the lead TD at Psyop, one of my all-time favorite studios in the world. Located in New York City, they consistently produce some of the most beautiful, innovated and creative spots that you’ll ever see. Constantly pushing the envelope, a trip to Psyop is always one the highlights of my New York visits. Check out their website and take a look and some of their projects, amazing!
If you didn’t know, Todd is going to be presenting again this November at Autodesk University in Las Vegas. AU is a crazy cool educational event covering all of the Autodesk products that pretty much takes over Mandalay bay and surrounding hotels! Of all the Autodesk events I have been to AU was by far the best… extremely informative, inspiring and actually a little overwhelming to be honest.
So with that, here it is, Todd’s document. Thanks Todd, you rule!!!
One more thing real quick, The Softimage International User Group meeting will be taking place Sept. 28th in Siegen Germany. Really wish I could attend that one, I could use a nice Bratwurst!! (and a beer of course)
mark
RSS Feed
Subscribe to RSS feedPlease only report comments that are spam or abusive.
11 Comments
wulechuan
Posted 21 September 2012 10:39 pm
fig.33a: shoulde be "E2 X E1 = Y" instead of "E1 X E2 = Y".
brudney
Posted 22 September 2012 8:27 am
FalconCrest
Posted 22 September 2012 2:40 pm
nixx
Posted 22 September 2012 6:44 pm
FalconCrest
Posted 23 September 2012 3:52 am
nixx
Posted 23 September 2012 7:05 pm
I wouldn't go about studying math first, getting into ICE second. I think these should go hand-in-hand. Things will come to you (or you 'll look them up and study them) as needed. And this way, the knowledge will "stick" for good
nebbeckett
Posted 24 September 2012 9:17 am
takita
Posted 24 September 2012 9:53 pm
thanks for all the feedback,
@wulechuan:
Great catch, I will try to fix that... otherwise the elephant would have to be a spider-elephant on the inside of the roof.
@falconcrest:
The trig examples in this document aren't quite as fleshed out as they could be WRT ICE (this was a written companion to a live presentation so not everything that should have made it to the written doc did), but the version I'm working on for the class in November at AU should fill in a lot of the holes and have better usage examples.
So there is certainly more to come.
Also the November version should have a little bit for people newish to Softimage, with a mini crash-course on how to get around the app a bit.
Also I should of course extend thanks to Bradley Gabe, Felix Gebhardt, Chinny, Guillaume, and of course the good folks at Softimage Japan who encouraged me to produce this.
FalconCrest
Posted 26 September 2012 1:32 am
I searched many resources, and although some of the basics of vectors for example are not hard, I still found myself, not having the ah-ha moment, and, well, it's been a while since I touched this math, trig and algebra. I look forward to the document in November, I have looked over the present document, and alot still intimidates me, I'll continue to try chug along in hopes to gain some ground before your next document. I also encourage you for the creation of the next documentation, I may not have the credentials as those you listed, hopefully one day.
Thank You !
reallyimmaturenick
Posted 30 September 2012 1:37 pm
Regardless, thanks for the effort, the community will surely put it to good use.
FalconCrest
Posted 30 September 2012 3:38 pm
Then you have to look at another fact, ICE was built so that Artists can get their feet wet and create what they need, when they need it. Artists in General don't all have the TD background that some have, that is not to say they can't learn it, it's that it's a little harder then those with TD background, I swear some don't understand this notion in the community. What Todd is doing in the community is excellent, and I'm sure the time it takes for him to create, break-down formulas etc is time consuming, I'm sure Artists / TD people alike have and will appreciate his efforts, and hopefully more people come forth to help those TD inclined and Artists get up to speed, when stuck in the muck.
Add Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment. Login or Register here