Re: clip maps in XSI

[Raffaele Fragapane <jaco(at)thejaco.com>]

what I'm saying is not that I absolutely don't want to see a clip map in 
the options; what I'm saying is that in first place there IS a 
straightforward and elegant solution to get it done, and secondly what I 
don't want to see is more bloat or confusion when I open something.

just look at the way bump map slots ended up being, with people confused 
on which one to use, when and why.

if you start adding a clip map to the material node (which I wouldn't 
scream the roof down for if it happened), which would be an exception in 
how you handle transparency as opposed to many other elements, why not 
adding a reflection map as well? and then why not a specular channel 
too? and maybe add that specular channel to every shading node with a 
specular too, and then how many special cases are you going to add? 
after all I think I mapped speculars and reflections a lot more often 
then I had to clip something (which I'm doing right as we speak for 
several shots by the way, and I can't see where a sprite node falls 
short of expectations).

whether people like it not, certain aspects of application design are 
polarizing in nature, and you probably know this better then I do.
you either get consistancy and an open ended system, or you get 
immediate fruibility but much more uselessly complicated layouts (and 
good luck trouble-shooting them, which is one of the main problems we 
have with XSI right now, trouble shooting abstruse situations that are 
mostly there because of wrappers and high level interfaces that were put 
there to dumb down things and curtaining the core in smoke).

at some point you have to draw the line between the poles, figure out 
how much distance you can cover between such poles, and decide where you 
put the fulcrum and how much ground on each side you will cover.
I have my opinions about this, and I thought I made it quite clear that 
what I was saying goes by -MY- opinions and -MY- necessities; I'm not 
going to argue with anybody about how they should get their work done, 
I'm only saying how I know I get mine done faster.

the point isn't just clip maps, the point is where things at large are 
going to go (I was quite flabberghasted to read you saying you couldn't 
clip map in XSI frankly), and Soft as a company is free to take them in 
whatever direction will make the most people happy and guarantee the 
best ROI; however, don't expect me, or some other people for that 
matter, to like it or shrug it off.

and for the record, if I hear the "but you're a technical person" thing 
again I think I'm gonna kill 5 kittens and send them to Brad!
my background is architecture and sculpture and I come from a family 
where we were all introduced to paint and canvas much sooner then to TV, 
if I could learn how to write a shader or what normals actually do and 
got more productive for that much, any dummy can.

I'm done ranting now :)

******************************
|     Raffaele Fragapane       |
|     Rising Sun Pictures      |
| "Remember, TD is for TopDog" |
******************************



Luc-Eric Rousseau wrote:

> really.. I don't see strong reasons why the material or the surface shader shouldn't have a connection that's explicitly for clipping the material with an image.  (As you know, the effect is not the same as transparency, because the specular highlight can apear where the object is transparent.)
>
> I think we agree that not precisly modeling the contour of an object and clipping it with an image instead is a completely legitimate method of quicky modeling objects. Like plants and leaves, flat objects with rough edges that you'd just paint in photoshop, like for example the edge of a knife, clothing accessories, or low-polygon count hair simulated with grids.  It's much easier and elegant to combine that with a real transparency map if the node has the surface-clipping concept built-in.
>
> As for the TLE, I think there's room for improvement and it could use some TLC, but the principle is sound and it is being used; that's a discussion for another day.  Btw, keep in mind that many artists aren't going to go on forums and pick up a fight with a more technical person about how they get the job done :D
>
> ------------------
> Luc-Eric Rousseau
> Team Leader, User Interface
> Softimage|XSI
>
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