Interesting ideas.
I think the most important issue is to implement a robust framework upon
which more complexity can be built. At this stage, if Crosswalk works
as well as the video demonstration, then that will be a great foundation
upon which further options can be added.
Many interchange formats have come and gone and pretty much all of them
have been a disappointment. It is also worth mentioning that much
depends on what Autodesk have in the pipe as far as future development,
and the implications of changes they make.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf
Of Andy Jones
Sent: December 14, 2006 2:03 PM
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: Does Crosswalk include Point Baking ?
We had a little meeting with Soft and this is actually along the lines
of a point we wanted to make -- even if Crosswalk is meant to be a back
and forth between packages, it would be good to be able to have some
sort of heirarchical control over what the translation methodology is.
The idea I proposed was to make a Crosswalk property that can be
propagated in any of the usual ways to tell Crosswalk how to go about
spitting something out to another package. For example, suppose Soft
has all the envelope stuff working perfectly -- you would probably want
Crosswalk to keep the envelope live and set up the whole rig on the
other end. However, if at some point you throw a "Shape Jitter" on your
mesh, or some deformer that doesn't live in the other package, you'd
either want to do a point cache or make a conscious decision to allow
Crosswalk to just make a best effort at the deformers, skipping the
shape jitter. And in a lot of cases, even if everything goes across
perfectly, you might still just want to opt for a point cache.
I'm sure there will be a lot more discussions about what we all actually
want out of Crosswalk in the coming months -- pretty exciting stuff.
- Andy
Raffaele Scaduto-Medola wrote:
> Oops, I meant to say I was interested in a method that keeps either
> all my deformers, or a point baking system.
> Sorry for the confusion, has my network connection is sometimes
flacky.
>
> THX
> RSM
>
> _____________________________________________________
> Raffaele Scaduto-Mendola - www.turbolinea.com
> raffaele(at)turbolinea.com
>
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2006, Raffaele Scaduto-Medola wrote:
>
>> Actually, I'm not interested in a method that either keeps all my
>> deformers (which I still think is impossible since I don't think
>> neither SoftImage or Autodesk/Alias are willing to share), or keeping
>> no deformers at all (which is whar point baking is).
>>
>> The other pipeline efficiency workflow problem which I am looking to
>> adress is that I am interested in a deformer that is linked to a data
>> file (as opposed to the creating blendshape per frame). The reson for
>> this is that I can setup animation scenes for animators to animate,
>> and bake out data files to specific areas, that then automatically
>> get read by lighters in their lighting scenes. IE when the lighter
>> re-opens his shot, he would always get the latest point baked out
>> animation (because the point data cache file is "referenced").
>>
>> And Kim, you are right, point oven does this, but in order to keep
>> consistent with Lightwave MDD format, its not very efficient on
>> larger networked productions (last I checked), but I will check again
>> since I have to come up with a solution.
>> At Omation we did come up with a better alternative, which would be
>> really nice to see implemented across softwares, for the "mixed tool
>> pipeline".
>> I also have to think these are the same problem TD having to
>> intergrate particle work from one package into another have to face.
>>
>> But I will probably check out Point Oven again.
>>
>> THX
>> RSM
>>
>> _____________________________________________________
>> Raffaele Scaduto-Mendola - www.turbolinea.com
>> raffaele(at)turbolinea.com
>>
>> On Thu, 14 Dec 2006, Andre DeAngelis wrote:
>>
>>> So, correct me if I'm wrong, but what you are asking for is the
ability
>>> to preserve some deformations while baking others to a point cache?
>>>
>>> I just don't see how that could work. Point caching is ultimately a
>>> destructive process.
>>>
>>> Then again, it really depends of what you are trying to do.
>>>
>>> If you are converting in one direction (say Maya to XSI), then you
have
>>> the option of point caching or applying the corrective shapes/curve
>>> deformers afterwards.
>>> If you are converting bi-directionally (Maya to XSI to Maya) then
what
>>> is to stop you applying the corrective shapes/curve deformers in
Maya?
>>>
>>> Alternatively, if you want another way to share point data to an
>>> external file, you can always export to an ASCII or XML file.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On
>>> Behalf
>>> Of Raffaele Scaduto-Medola
>>> Sent: December 13, 2006 6:17 PM
>>> To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
>>> Subject: RE: Does Crosswalk include Point Baking ?
>>>
>>> Its not so much about defeating the purpose, but more about the
mixed
>>> tool
>>> pipeline, which interested me, about this tool.
>>>
>>> I can see it as geared toward game production where you do want to
pass
>>> back and fourth assets between different software, which is still
nice,
>>> but can you pass stacks of deformers other then weightmaps and blend
>>> shapes, like relaxers, corrective shapes, curve deformers... ?
>>> In more traditional, larger format television series and feature
film
>>> you
>>> end up point baking the deformation stack, just to simplify and
>>> parallelize the work process.
>>>
>>> Now alternatively, does XSI/SoftImage provide a way to bake out
point
>>> data
>>> floating point information into a binary format (open source) that I
>>> could
>>> read into Maya or 3D StudioMax (and vice versa) ? Because that would
>>> help
>>> solve part of my mixed tool pipeline woes.
>>>
>>> Again, the only cross software tool I have seen to do so is Point
Oven,
>>> but its not has efficient as I would like.
>>>
>>> THX
>>> RSM
>>>
>>> _____________________________________________________
>>> Raffaele Scaduto-Mendola - www.turbolinea.com
>>> raffaele(at)turbolinea.com
>>>
>>> On Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Andre DeAngelis wrote:
>>>
>>>> Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of Crosswalk?
>>>>
>>>> Point baking isn't designed to keep operators like enveloping live
-
>>>> it's more of an end of production process.
>>>>
>>>> Crosswalk appears to be focused on earlier stages of the process.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On
>>>
>>> Behalf
>>>
>>>> Of Raffaele Scaduto-Medola
>>>> Sent: December 13, 2006 2:48 PM
>>>> To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
>>>> Subject: Does Crosswalk include Point Baking ?
>>>>
>>>> Hello all,
>>>>
>>>> XSI 6.0 new tools looks really nice. I am looking forward to
revamping
>>>> my
>>>> script pipeline to use Delta Referencing (via its object model...
>>>> examples
>>>> ???).
>>>>
>>>> But my questions is, does crosswalk have any way to handle point
>>>
>>> baking
>>>
>>>> between XSI-Maya-LW-3DStudio ?
>>>> I am looking to find out if there is anything similar to Point Oven
>>>> baking
>>>> (across software), but a more optimized point data/per frame
format.
>>>>
>>>> THX
>>>> RSM
>>>>
>>>> _____________________________________________________
>>>> Raffaele Scaduto-Mendola - www.turbolinea.com
>>>> raffaele(at)turbolinea.com
>>>>
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