Softimage Training MORE, MORE!!!

[Emilio]

Hello, I know Maya has a lot of more users than Softimage. But in my personal opinion Softimage is a much more powerful software than Maya. And now with ICE, it has left Maya light years behind. Specially with the new ICE nodes that now not only drives particles, but also geometry. You have double the lessons for Maya against Softimage. Or is it that you have to double the job in Maya to achieve nearly the same results in Softimage?

There are several things that there is not even a starter's guide like for example Face Robot, that is now a standard within Softimage.

I have seen things that people do with Softimage unbelievable. Like a wave rig with Ice Nodes that is just amazing!

I think also that the render tree needs to be exploited a lot more. In Softimage 2011 there a lot of new render nodes. I think subsurface scattering has a lot of possibilities for liquids for example.

Me and I think that Softimage users that love DT want a lot of more lessons.

Thank you and keep the good job!

[stwert]

Softimage sounds very cool with a lot of powerful features, I'd like to try it out sometime. I think the quantity of training is simply supply and demand, more people have been looking for maya tutorials in the past. Of course, if lots of people want more softimage training, DT will provide it. You can request training under the Help tab at the top right. I don't think it has to do with how long it takes to achieve a result :p

[Emilio]

He, he I know... I am just teasing Maya users. We Softimage users hope that there will come soon new training videos to keep up to date with Softimage. That with each new version in my personal opinion it gets huge steps. Like the Face Robot lipsync ability. It is just amazing.

DT at our studio has become a very valuable tool on almost a daily basis. The ability to bookmark a specific subject or workflow is great.

Thank you

And here a video of the aquisition of Softimage from Autodesk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7UWImpG54

[danlefeb]

With the new 3ds and Maya Premium Suites (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=13420613) that Autodesk just announced at SIGGRAPH, you'll find a lot more Softimage users.

[stwert]

Argh... I get so confused with all these acquisitions and moving things around... why would you buy a suite with Maya AND softimage? Why are they selling Maya and Max and Softimage... what if I wanted to buy Maya and Max together? Why the heck would I want to do that anyway? ICE vs Houdini effects vs nParticles/fluids?? Honestly, you have to have a phD just to keep track of the changes in the industry nowadays. Well, what does it matter... sooner or later Autodesk will own everything and sell them all and do a half-@$$ed job of developing all of them. It's like having all your eggs in different baskets, but all the baskets are in the same truck. Maybe they should modularize everything so that you can choose your dynamics module (out of a few options) and rigging module and a modelling module and they all play together. /RANT

[danlefeb]

OK I apologize for bringing it up. I was merely pointing out that there will be a lot more Softimage users out there now that it is being packaged together with 3ds Max and Maya in some packages. But let's not turn this into yet another baseless rant thread. If you don't want to buy the suite then don't. But for those who have a legitimate reason for wanting 3ds Max/Maya and Softimage in the same pipeline (and there are tons of those reasons out there) then it's a great way to save money.

[stwert]

No, I apologize for my rant. But it would actually be nice to have a nice concise post listing some of the reasons for having multiple packages that claim to do 95% of the same things. I know it's a matter of opinion, but it would be nice to see some of the opinions. Maybe a chart? Everyone loves charts. With checkboxes. It would be nice if Autodesk did that for all it's hundred software packages. It's a bit hard to glean from their glowing descriptive summaries of the various software packages what is actually contained in the package.

Sorry for the hijack. If this thread wasn't already about comparing software packages, I wouldn't have jumped in. Anyway, you can lock the thread if you see fit, but it would nice to have a calm civil discussion (:p) about some the pros and cons for these multi package packages.

[chrisg]

why would you buy a suite with Maya AND softimage?

Maya Rendering + ICE Particles. Softimage is a really nice software once you get used to it. It is really well designed.

[danlefeb]

...that claim to do 95% of the same things.

I'd like to see where it's claimed that they do 95% of the same thing. Yes, there's overlap in what they do. But there's overlap in so many other things, too. You can model in both Maya and Zbrush so why would anyone need both? Well obviously one of them does sculpting a lot better than the other. You can render with both mental ray and RenderMan, so why would you want both renderers? Maybe because they both have different strengths. Personally I just started using Inventor again for a lot of hard surface parts because it's simply a lot faster to model some things out in there than it is to model them all out in Maya.

Likewise, there's no need to try to force one application to do everything if you can save time by taking advantages of the strength of an application to achieve the same or better results in less time.

Do the math. Say you charge $50/hr. You average about one project per month. That's twelve projects a year. Then say you spend $2k extra on getting Softimage along with Maya. If you can save 3 hours per project by using the extra application then it's paid for itself. If you can save more than 3 hours per project then it's obviously well worth your while to pay the extra cost for the extra application.


...but it would nice to have a calm civil discussion (:p) about some the pros and cons for these multi package packages.

I have no issue with a calm, civil discussion. The problem is that these threads are never calm or civil for very long. So just a word of warning to anyone reading this thread: it will be watched closely. No rants. Keep things professional and productive or this thread will be closed.

[danlefeb]

Oh yes, and the new premium suite will include the Turtle renderer and Lagoa Multiphysics!
http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/07/autodesk-entertainment-creation-suites-premium-launched-at-siggraph/

[stwert]

Thanks for the opportunity for a discussion on this, I will try my best to be civil and objective :)
Good points, chris and dan. I'm really limited to my small maya bubble, so forgive my ignorance. What renderer does Softimage use? Not mental ray?
About the overlap, the zbrush/maya comparison is a different thing; max, maya, softimage all have modules for Modelling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, Lighting, Dynamics, Rendering (basically a complete CG workflow). It sounds like softimage has better dynamics and facial rigging for example than Maya. Can't this be modularized better? It seems so redundant. The thing that I like about maya is that you can basically do it all within a single package. But if it's better for people switch to Softimage for dynamics, then back into maya for rendering, what use are the maya dynamics and softimage rendering modules? It seems a waste of resources for the developers and spreading everything pretty thin. Of course people don't usually like to switch when they are so used to one particular package (e.g. nDynamics). And as I write this, I realize that people have different needs and likes, so they may want to work in maya for dynamics and softimage for rendering, who knows?

So what would be really cool like I posted above is to split everything up. Then people could pay for a single modelling module, a single dynamics module, a single rendering engine, and then go between them... but then the unified UI goes out the window... Shoot! This is why I'm not CEO of Autodesk. Any thoughts?

PS That Lagoa multiphysics does look pretty cool.

[danlefeb]

About the overlap, the zbrush/maya comparison is a different thing; max, maya, softimage all have modules for Modelling, Texturing, Rigging, Animation, Lighting, Dynamics, Rendering (basically a complete CG workflow).

I know what you're saying, but every software program has its pros and cons...this is true for everything, not just CG software. But it definitely rings true in CG as well. So while 3ds Max, Maya and Softimage may have all the same components there, the strengths of 3ds Max are not the same as the strengths of Softimage. And vice versa.


Can't this be modularized better? It seems so redundant.

Easier said than done. As you know they were separate companies at one time so they were built very differently. So it's not as easy as copy/paste some source code from Softimage to Maya and expect it to work.


The thing that I like about maya is that you can basically do it all within a single package.

The same can be said for both 3ds Max and Softimage. But as I mentioned, if you can save some time by using multiple tools then why not? You can roof a house by yourself but if you can get someone else to help you then you can get it done even faster. Same result in less time. And as they say, time=money.


So what would be really cool like I posted above is to split everything up. Then people could pay for a single modelling module, a single dynamics module, a single rendering engine, and then go between them...

As I mentioned before, this is a lot easier said than done. While you're at it you could throw in the capabilities of MotionBuilder and Mudbox. At that point you're talking about five software packages originally created by five very different companies that have evolved themselves for (accumulatively) decades before all being Autodesk. To integrate all the capabilities of 3ds Max, Softimage, Maya, MotionBuilder and Mudbox into one seamless package would take many many years of development. But for all we know they may be working on that now. In any case, it's not an easy task. And of course you have to support the current customers of all three software packages until the revolutionary uber 3d program comes out. :)


That Lagoa multiphysics does look pretty cool.

Yes it does. Very cool.

[stwert]

That's all very true, which is why I think Autodesk needs to stop acquiring more packages and start refining/rebuilding/re-arranging their existing acquisitions to play nicer with each other and make some effort towards unifying it all. Keep the meat and trim the fat, so to speak. In my mind, it only really makes sense to have similar packages with different strengths and weaknesses when they are owned by different competing companies. The competition is what makes them all stronger, and when that is gone, I think development and innovation slows down. So it seems like Autodesk leaves the innovation to others and then buys them up. Yeah, easier said than done, and of course there are still competing companies with stuff like C4D and Houdini, but I bet Autodesk wants to take those on in the future. (Not meaning to bash Autodesk, just my 2 cents).

[danlefeb]

There's two sides to every story but in the end it's a business. Those companies had to have seen something in their future that was unstable to even contemplate selling. For example, in Alias' case they were owned by Silicon Graphics from '95 until '04. Right there is a red flag that Silicon Graphics was having financial issues (they ended up going under in May of '09). Then Alias as sold to a private firm then that firm turned around and sold them to Autodesk in '05.

So looking at it that way it could very well be that if Autodesk hadn't bought them out that they would've gone under. I agree that competition is a great way to initiate innovation, but unfortunately innovation costs a lot of money and very rarely does it bring money back in with any regularity. Look at Google, Microsoft or even Autodesk's current R&D departments and all the little applications they come up with that never go anywhere. And I'm sure there's even more behind the scenes that don't even get announced publicly. Think of all the development hours that go into those applications and remember that those hours aren't being put in by minimum-wage workers. While they may find a way to use those technologies somewhere, it's still money being burnt up front to develop something that may or may not make money in the future. Not all companies can support that on a regular basis.

Even the most innovative companies that are seemingly making tons of profit can go under if mis-managed. Enron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron) is the poster-child for that.

Obviously all that is speculation from an outsider, but I'm just throwing some things out there off the top of my head. Basically it boils down to: We don't know the full story. I can understand the desire to loathe a large company like Autodesk for seemingly buying out all the competition, but on the flip side I can understand that every business needs to make money to survive. Yes, Autodesk needs to keep their current customers happy to stay in business. But they know their financials and if they see the opportunity to make some money by buying out new technologies from other struggling companies to keep them from going out of business, I have no issue with that. Especially when so many other people make a living off them staying in business.

[Emilio]

What are the new training courses for Softimage?

[stwert]

According to the newsletter:
Introduction to Character Rigging in Softimage
Introduction to Rendering in Softimage

[curly]

I think the weakest point of Softimage is Mental Ray. Softimage just doesn't have a decent fast render engine.

Max has Brazil and Vray and FinalRender. There's also the Quicksilver GPU render engine.

My humble opinion is to use both 3DS MAX and Softimage together. 3DS Max retargets betters mocap through the biped system. You can also use CATOOLKIT for rigging game characters. 3DS MAX has a muscle system and
a demolition plugin (Rayfire) If you want to do crowd simulation the biped (character studio) system allows that.

In terms of user efficiency I really think Softimage shines. If you have to parent things you can do that from your main control panel and use the left or middle button to pick the child or parent. Also adjusting the pivot or center is a lot easier in Softimage. In 3DS Max you have to go to the motion panel.

If Softimage would have had a better -> faster renderengine -> it would be the perfect application for character animators. I just think it doesn't get the love it deserves. Autodesk is marketing the application as an add-on. The don't see the potential.

[Emilio]

What??? Only 2 new courses for Softimage??????

At least I expected to see a lot of more into ICE and Face Robot...

Well Curly for crowd simulation. You have ICE built into Softimage. We have done crowd simulations with it and by getting the animation mixer into it, it is really amazing and very fast to build and to interact with geometry.

You just from your character build a group CTRL-G and plug it into the source of the ICE tree. You have your crowd in a blink of eyes. Plug another ICE node and the complete crowd flows around a surface avoids collitions with them selves and change the rythm of the whole thing.

For the render I agree with you. But seems the mental images are aware of this and are getting a new render engine. I have been taking a look around and I have seen 3delight for Softimage that is seamless. No need to change shaders. It translates the MR shader into the 3dleight engine and it works awsome. The only thing is that I haven´t found a way for FG and GI. Seems they are working into it. In our own tests it doubles the speed of MR. Specially with hair which by the way renders much more beautiful than MR.

The other one that is coming is Arnold Render. I have seen some videos at You Tube and simply WOW!!! with FG and GI. You can almost interact with it in Real Time in the Render Regions.

So I think great stuff is coming onto the render with Softimage.

I think DT is leaving behind Softimage while it has a lot of stuff to show. And with integration also. For example the RealFlow Renderkit is really a time saving plug in. You just need to simulate the particles. Then get them into Softimage without simulating the mesh and the RealFlow RK takes care of building the mesh in a shader. So you can change the look of the mesh in a blaze without resimulating the mesh. And the best of all is that the RealFlow plugin builds an ICE node where you can easily manipulate the particles and integrate them to the ICE system.

DT we Softimage users are waiting for a lot of more than just two courses of Softimage. I personally think that you have covered about 110% of Maya but very little of Softimage.

I know AD gave away to schools a lot of free "educational" copies of Maya to fill the room classes with it and to brain wash the new artists. And you are trying to keep up with this. After all business is business, but I am starting to look around to other on-line trainning companies that are keeping up with Softimage. Although I love DT.

So please, more, more trainning on Softimage!!!!

I will outline some you can work on it.

-Weightmaps.
-Crowd Simulation with ICE.
-Rigging with ICE.
-Drive geometry with ICE.
-The Render Tree and the capability of it's Layers.
-Liquids with ICE.
-Face Robot with full body Rig and the animation mixer.
-Lipsync wtih Face Robot.
-Cloth
-The new MR shaders.

just to mention a few...

[chrisg]

Hi Emilio,

We are not leaving behind Softimage. I agree with you completely that ICE is an amazing tool and I am looking forward to teaching more ICE courses. It's just we have many, many videos in Softimage/XSI, so we are dedicating some time to the other applications in our library. ICE is amazing and I love using Softimage, so we are not going to leave it behind.

[Emilio]

Chris THANKS A LOT!!!!!! Looking forward for the new courses on Softimage.

[spam_septic]

Great to hear, Chris. ICE and Face Robot courses would be very welcome!
e.

[Emilio]

Chris, just read two days ago of the new releases... I am very sad... Well not as much because you are getting RF5. But...

WHERE IS SOFTIMAGE?????? Maya here, Maya there... You said there were a lot of Softimage training... Check out on Maya, it doubles Softimage... Haven´t you had enough of Maya? At least you can have the same lessons for both Maya and Softimage. Guess that I will have to continue my pursuit to reference in the good old Softimage help menu. I am sorry to put this but take a look what other guys are pulling out.

and it is not yet ICE...

[chrisg]

Hi Emilio,

No, we haven't had enough Maya :) Again, we have a lot of different software to cover and Softimage has the second largest amount of video content. We will continue to produce Softimage content in the future but I can't comment on what our future plans are.

[Emilio]

Ok, ok... I know a lot of guys have not had enough of Maya... ;) But as Roger Rabbit said once pppplleeeaaseeeee!!!!. He he. Well have to wait.

[Daniel Moraleda]

Hi! Im new to DT and I really love Softimage... The Softimage tutorials section is very useful, complete and detailed. Thanks Chris and DT! =)

If someday DT release some tutorials for Facerobot/lipsync and rigging with ICE as Emilio says, I would be very grateful! Some updates in the rendering area and little details like interaction with realflow 5 would be amazing too.

Thanks again DT!
I am very impressed with your effort for keep all the apps updated! =O

P.S. sorry for my basic english

[Frost Giant]

I teach Maya and 3DS Max.

I'll throw my hat in and say I would love to see more Softimage video training as well!

[Emilio]

Just put my hands into the new 2011.5

Breathless!!!

Any news on new Softimage courses?

Or for the November releases we are going to see more Maya? Just asking...

[Arlekin]

Yes, more XSI training please I would hate to migrate to 3ds or Maya.

Also does anybody have any idea what Autodesk is planning for XSI? Do they plan to sideline it? They did give it facerobot so at the moment it's still around but would like to hear what others think. I mean, if the thing gets booted or killed off it would make sense to start switching software....

[juanjgon]

I also want more training about Softimage. This is one of my choices to work with, and all training i could get could be welcome.

[Arlekin]

Just put my hands into the new 2011.5

Breathless!!!

Any news on new Softimage courses?

Or for the November releases we are going to see more Maya? Just asking...

Indeed just looked at lagoa - all I can say is WOAH!

[Emilio]

I think that with this new release from Softimage, seems that all of our fears of AD killing Softimage are gone!!! I am now hearing a lot of faithfull Mayans wanting to learn Softimage.

[Aados]

Why is there "Introduction to MAX 2011, Introduction to Maya 2011" but not for Softimage 2011 ?

[mj41865]

Why is there "Introduction to MAX 2011, Introduction to Maya 2011" but not for Softimage 2011 ?

Well the sad sorry fact is that Maya and 3ds max are far more prevalent in studios and even among freelance generalists, so there are far more Maya and Max users, thus far more need for training for those packages.
I'm hoping, however, that with Softimage 2011 and all the new ICE stuff and Lagoa, that that will change soon.
Unfortunately, the new tools are only available in the Subscription Advantage Pack, so any gain in usage Softimage 2011 might have otherwise enjoyed is negated by the fact that you have to have a Softimage subscription, and you can't get it in the trial version, so studios and freelancers will be slow to adopt it. A vicious cycle, it is. ;)

I haven't renewed my DT subscription here because all I'm really interested in is Softimage and I know all I need to know about it now. I have to use Maya and Max at work, and any problems I have can be answered there, but I have a Softimage subscription of my own, for my own personal usage.
(I'm a closet Softimage junkie you might say...)
Eventually I'm going to go solo and create such astonishing things with Softimage that the whole 3D world will take notice and throw away their Maya and Max disks and convert to Softimage, thus restoring purity and goodness to the world of 3D that has become so corrupted by Maya's and Max's stranglehold on it.
Well, one day, that's the plan. ;)

And then there will be so much Softimage training here you won't be able to even find the Maya stuff. :D

The good thing however is that the XSI|Softimage training they have here is outstanding and is still very applicable and usable. At least, from what I remember, it is - I haven't seen any in a while now aside from the few physical DVDs I have from the earlier days.
Really, IMO there are only 3 things missing - Face Robot, Syflex and now Lagoa I'm still amazed that they never did a Syflex tutorial for Softimage, but even moreso I simply can't believe they never did a Face Robot tutorial series. That seems like a huge glaring omission there.

Well, the developers of Softimage are different than the Maya and Max people - while the Maya and Max people are busy creating new interfaces and breaking existing tools, the Softimage crowd are busily plotting their takeover and triumphant return to glory...

I do really love using Max and Maya though... no, really, I do.... Okay, I'm lying about that. Just don't tell anyone. ;)

[Emilio]

Hope we will get good news soon on Softimage really NEW tutorials on this matter. I am really waiting for good news and start training again with DT on January.

[chrisg]

We are re-dedicating ourselves to Softimage in the new year. Unfortunately, you won't be seeing this reflected in our January release, but February . . .

[Diurno]

I'd love to see more Softimage training too, althought right now i'm trying to move to Maya, cause the sad truth is that even now, very FEW studios are using softimage...the majority still looks for people who knows Maya, or 3d Max.

[mj41865]

We are re-dedicating ourselves to Softimage in the new year. Unfortunately, you won't be seeing this reflected in our January release, but February . . .

Now you're talking - that's what I wanted to hear! :cool:
I'll probably be renewing my membership after the holidays anyway, since I'm going to have a lot of time off in January. So if you guys feel so inclined, by all means feel free to put it out early. ;)
But I probably ought to catch up with the the recent Maya and Mudbox stuff anyway, and I really want to see the latest ICE videos you have.

Aside from what I already mentioned, i.e., Lagoa and Face Robot, it would be really cool to see a pipeline-based video with Softimage at the center of it all. XSI/Maya/Mudbox/Photoshop... using Crosswalk and FBX and all that good stuff. Softimage of course can more than stand on its own, but let's face it - we all need to go in and out of all kinds of programs throughout the course of a project and interoperability training between several programs is seriously lacking in the 3D tutorial world.
Well I know you guys do a good deal of that, but you're the only ones - and I don't think you have any at all involving XSI/Softimage and other programs.

Of course it would help if Autodesk played along better. I want to see a "Send to Softimage" button in the next version of Mudbox. ;)

But I know that whatever you guys do it will be top notch, first class training.

Well thanks for the information Chris, that's awesome news that you guys have more Softimage stuff in the works!

[Selina]

I'd love to see some more intermediate - advanced training on rigging - the equivalent to the Maya tutorials on Rigging characters/vehicals for cartoon style animation with stretchy bones and lattices etc.

Thanks!

[Emilio]

Well. CG Society ranked this january the 20 best of 2010. Guess who ended ahead of Maya? Yep SOFTIMAGE!!!!! While Maya ranked number 6, Softimage is number 5 according to the CG Society ranking.

And who is number ONE???? Thiago's Lagoa within Softimage. Hey DT hands on SOFTIMAGE!!!!

[aaronkent]

We are re-dedicating ourselves to Softimage in the new year. Unfortunately, you won't be seeing this reflected in our January release, but February . . .

Well Chris I really hope thats the case. I let my subscription lapse since you guys stopped producing decent content for the best 3D/underdog app out there. If Februrary's training heads-up arrives in my in inbox and I like what I'm seeing then you'll have my business again.

As an aside, I really respect your business model, but the fact is when someonebody gets a certain amount of skill under their belt your training packages start to really loose their punch. CMIVFX offers only a handful of Softimage training packages, but for any intermediate to advanced user they're far and away light years ahead of what you guys provide. You want my money, give me training comparable to that. The lessons don't even have to be that long, but make them project driven with a professional application/theme we could use while working professionally. Sunder (i think) the guy that did the ICE nodes library seems pretty buttoned down with ICE and the underlying logic. Have somebody brain storm some 3D tasks (like you burning matchstick - a great tutorial BTW) and have him complete them using ICE. Give us the equivalent of the Maya training you just did with the insect coming outta the wall, but with an ICE based workflow. Anyways.

Sincerely

Aaron Kent

[rouge]

We are re-dedicating ourselves to Softimage in the new year. Unfortunately, you won't be seeing this reflected in our January release, but February . . .

It's March already and there is only one new softimage tutorial since 2011. I'm really want to see more advanced softimage tutorials like the exploring animation principles series in Maya, facerobot and some in depth project base tutorials like the infiltrator. Honestly I have considered to stop subscription for quite a while because a lot of softimage tutorials have been outdated and not so much new softimage tutorials have been released lately. We even still haven't seen introduction to softimage 2011 while Maya & 3dMax have it already for quite a long time by now. And I don't think the request forum works that well. Because I have seen facerobot tutorial request since September. Seriously, we need more softimage tutorials!

[BootStrap Boon]

Would highly appreciate a facial modelling, rigging and animation tutorial. Rigging especially please.

[Strelok]

I would like to see something along the lines of using ICE strands for hair on a figure, specifically "hair" strands following NURBS curves. I found a tutorial on the net from someone who did such a thing with great results but it's not easy to follow, especially for someone with only an intermediate grasp of ICE.
I think DT could do an awesome job of explaining how such a thing can be done in an easy manner to follow and understand.

Oh and a Syflex tutorial would be great, especially now that Syflex is "on ICE" in Softimage 2012.

[reuldereut]

I do agree totally with you !! and for a beginner like me, using what to do what is an absolute confusion.
I started a training on Maya, then I see that 3dsmax, softimage acclaimed by some DT users!!
for an individual like me, the price of 1 of those program has to be budgeted yearly so you imagine if I have to buy the 3 of them !!
reul.

[FoxDeltaGames]

Ill take a throw at this. for me Softimage is one of the best and very easy to use modling software out there. i did already try to mess around with Maya and 3dsMax, but for some reason i can not get a grip on them. plus a lot of the modeling you can do in Max or Maya can be done in Softimage. what i really love about Softimage is the keyboard lay out. its very easy to push the keys you want etc etc. but then again im use to Softimage. one thing i like about 3dsMax is that you can export ASE which is really good for if you are making custom collisions for UDK.