Re: Coming back from Maya
| Date : Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:03:19 -0500 |
| To : XSI(at)Softimage.COM |
| From : James Edwards <jedwards(at)digitalextremes.com> |
| Subject : Re: Coming back from Maya |
The lack of alt key navigation was the biggest annoyance in picking up XSI as a new user. I don't care about qwerty - I actually do think that XSI's XCVB and spacebar are a rather nice alternative. That said, I still think the xsi keymap dependency is right out of the stone age. Any program can give you keybind customization, but very few allow you to control mouse input. All you have to do is try using a program like Silo, which makes full use of a multi-button wheel mouse with full customization to see that CTRL + Alt + Shift can be far more powerful and efficient than running your fingers all over a keyboard. It's great that XSI at least makes use of multiple mouse buttons for SOME things, but it's not enough in my opinion. And not being able to modify what is there makes me a sad panda.
What I'd like to see someday, is a full mouse customization map similar to the keymaping setup, where you can just drag and drop etc. to configure the mouse. Being able to do overlapping, contextual mapping that is tied to a specific layout or module would be even cooler, as I'd like to be able to reuse keys for multiple things if they occupy prime keyboard real estate.
James
Ponthieux, Joey wrote:
Gene Crucean wrote:But therein lies the problem. I get the impression that you think Maya is THE standard. That, in and of itself, is a personal preference because no standards body has determined that Maya is the standard. There nothing wrong with it being your preference, if you find the QWERTY setup to your liking that is perfectly fine, but I do think it is a bit presumptive to suggest to Softimage that they should adhere to a competitors method of navigation and hotkeys as their dominant navigation tools. To their credit they included a limited QWERTY keyset, but I don't use it, even though I know it well. The points I provided here were my most important reasons why.Sorry Joey I should have taken more time to respond to your post./
1. The XSI interaction model, as a whole, is far better for XSI than
attempting to apply someone else's interaction model on top of XSI.
/This isn't exactly my point. I don't think XSI should implement a hotbox, marking menu's and all that. Just make it (navigation and hotkeys) a little more standard, that's all./
//On the old dog part you might be right. Next October marks exactly 20 years that I will be doing 3D. Not willing to learn, no. I learned the Maya QWERTY setup, I didn't like it. Admittedly, not liking it might be due to the fact that I used Soft3D for 4 years prior to using Maya, but regardless, when I started using Maya Alias/Wavefront provided absolutely no Softimage keyset. You had to use Maya, the Maya way. Or you don't use Maya at all.
2. After just barely 5 years on Soft3D, for nearly 8 years I tried to
shake ZOP on Maya, I just couldn't do it. The ALT-Key navigation system
on Maya just didn't cut it. It just wasn't natural. Most importantly
their system made it very difficult on people with wheel mice, zoom and
orbit were always a a hairs hit away from being right on cue when you
pressed the buttons, too many different mouse button combinations for
something that should be really simple, and they don't make mice the way
the used to(sans wheel), which is what they designed the nav keys for in
Maya back in 96 on SGI. Without even considering the 1-2 years overlap
where I was using Soft3D and Maya simultaneously, six years later I was
still habitually, and erroneously, hit ZOP in Maya for navigation. I
took that as a signal that the ALT key just wasn't as comfortable a fit.
It wasn't until Maya ended up on Windows did they correct a major flaw
with the ALT mouse worklfow where they assigned dolly to ALT-RMB.
They couldn't do this on SGI, this was bound to a special XWindows
command within Irix. But by the time I moved to PC about 3 years ago,
Maya on Win vs XSI on Win.....well ....you be the judge of that./
All I get from this is the old dog, not willing to learn new things vibe and that you had a hard time re-learning a new method, WHICH is why XSI now feels more natural to you.This is the heart of the whole argument, In Softimage, you can hit the O-LMB for omni-orbit, O-MMB for Y-orbit, O-RMB for Z-orbit. It doesn't work this way in Maya because Alt-LMB, Alt-MMB, and Alt-RMB in Maya are Orbit, Translate, and Dolly respectively. The mouse buttons do not provide granular control of the orbiting channels like XSI does because they are taken up with other commands./
3. The ALT Nav system on Maya also limited finer control, the mouse buttons were taken up with Pan, Dolly, Orbit. Zoom in Maya was embedded into the interface for the Camera's Attributes under Focal Length. In XSI it is exposed under Z. It was an extra step any time you wanted to limit Orbit to X, Y, or Z, slow Dolly vs Fast Dolly, etc. Roll was two tiers down under the viewport View command. On XSI, its just one key press, L. /I'm not really sure where you are going with this./ /
In Maya navigation looks like this
Alt-Shft-LMB = Y-Orbit, (There is no Z-Orbit that i can find.)
Alt-Ctrl-LMB =rectangular Dolly/Zoom
Alt-MMB = translate
Alt-Shft-MMB = Y-translate
Alt-Ctrl-MMB = rectangular Dolly/Zoom
Alt-RMB = Dolly,
Alt-LMB-MMB = Dolly (The SGI legacy I was referring to because you couldn't use Alt-RMB in any interface because it was tied to an XWindows command in IRIX)
Alt-Ctrl-RMB = rectangular dolly/zoom.
Alt-Shft-RMB =Dolly(bears no difference to Alt-RMB).
How are all these redundancies and inconsistencies any better than O-LMB = Orbit O-MMB =YOrbit O-RMB = ZOrbit P-LMB = Dolly P-MMB = Slow Dolly P-RMB = Fast Dolly Z-LMB = Pan Z-MMB = Zoom Out Z-RMB = Zoom in Shft-Z = Rectangular Zoom. L-LMB = roll L-MMB = slow roll L-RMB = fast roll.
Admittedly I never understood why Zoom wasn't just Z-MMB with mouse interaction, but hey that's just one thing, the only thing, that is inefficient but it's a Soft3D legacy. Heck, Maya doesn't even provide a Zoom(focal length) capability at the keymap interface, you have to dig for that in the Camera Tools or Camera Attribute editor under the viewport. The same goes for Roll.
But I think you see the point, indeed in Softimage there are more keys to push but they are ordered, consistent, and predictable. My first impression in Maya with the Alt nav mouse button commands was "oh what a novel idea" but that wore off every day I had to use Alt-LMB-MMB for Dolly and it hit critical mass when I could find wheeless mice anymore and had to use them. Alt-MMB is Translate, wheel by itself is Dolly. One microsecond off moving the wheel before the wheel goes down completely to be MMB and your committed a navigation move you didn't intend. What an absolute....UIT are XSI commands, not Maya commands.In Maya F8,F9,F10,F11 are Object, Vertex, Edge, and Face in Maya. But F9,10,11 are all poly based commands. By last count there are about 25 different component types in Maya which can be accessed via component selection, there are few keys that are compatible with NURBS modeling. You have to use Q for select, then select the "Select By Component Type" button, then select the component button, which can often be in a pulldown for that specific button. This means you have to look to the keyboard, then back to the interface. Or use marking menus./
4. For selections Spacebar,T,E,U is a lot more efficient than Q and a
visual hunt for the right Component icon. You could assign any of these
to keys which I did, but you shouldn't have to do this.
/Why is it more efficient? On my setup I use U, I, T for components. I don't have to hunt for anything.
In XSI, T works for vertices on Polys, Curves and Surfaces. M is also available. E & I for Poly Edges, Y & U for Polys. You have a lot more key choices with XSI than you do in Maya for component selection./R can be easily misinterpreted as Rotate. It took months for me to to rethink, "R means Scale". That's unnatural, in 3D R means Rotate. If they had used any other keys this would have been fine. But it's worse than that. Within QWERTY is both R and T why not take advantage of the keys R and T for Rotate and Translate. Yeah yeah I know W,E,R is Translate, Rotate Scale respectively, theyre in order. But what harm would it have been for ERT to have been Scale Rotate Translate? SRT is an acceptable ordering alternative which is universal to 3D. Easy to remember, consistent and logical. But no, QWERTY is the order the tools are laid out in the tool box, gotta have it that way. Duh, reorder the tools in the tooolbox.
5. For transforms, there is Maya's WER(move,rotate,scale) and Soft's
VCX(move, rotate scale). I always liked the fact that Space(select) was
closer to VCX in Soft. In Maya it was nerve wracking to no absolute end
why the heck did they assign Scale to R? Duh?
/I literally have a finger on Q at all times. My Q is your spacebar and believe me there is nothing faster than pushing my finger down. I'm not saying my way is better... but I am saying this comment is just a personal preference.
R as scale. Why is that weird again?
Because it's a major part of where AliasWavefront replaced the missing functionaly in the keymap in Maya when compared to the keymap in XSI. You can't use Maya efficiently without using marking menus. I'm not saying you can't use Maya, I'm just arguing efficiency. In all practicality you cannot model in NURBS in Maya with any comfort unless you are using Marking menus. It's a major part of the Maya component selection paradigm. The point is that you get to the point after 4 years or so with Maya where it's just easier to stick with marking menus than it is to switch between keymap component selection and marking menu component selection. At this point the keymap is pointless for component selection. It's a weird sort of situation. I hated marking menus, but for efficiency I had no choice./
6. Hotbox and Marking menus? What can I say? Theyre both wonderful and a
real headache at the same time. Theyre fast and elegant, but there's
nothing more absolutely frustrating than to use a stroke on the HotBox
because you used it as a Marking menu, and now your current view has
disappeared because it been replaced with a new view. Admittedly the
marking menus are faster, but only if your scene is simple and not as
cluttered, if you have a real heavy scene, marking menus can be a real pain.
/Why are we talking about hotbox's and marking menu's?This gets to your point of standardization. I'd argue that most developers have standardized to this, because it makes sense. However, it is a simple interaction axis with 3 to 6 controls. It's not a keymap of a hundred or more commands. It's easy to standardize, and to get developer's to use as standard, a keymap is not.
/7. Manipulators, that was new to 3D, and quite revolutionary. But just about every app implements that now, it's no longer an issue. /And manipulators?It doesn't, it shouldn't. But it is a valid point where one app has a feature the other doesn't and sets it on a different point of performance.
/8. Middle Click. Absolutely nothing like it Maya's arsenal. Not even the
nonsacred tool(Y) or repeat key(G) come close.
/Completely agree. And I use it constantly with my setup. Why would this have to change though?But this get's back to the same age old problem, who's standard? Why shouldn't we have multiple companies trying to compete for that idea, why should we say Maya is the standard? Who set's the Standard? Admittedly I understand your concern and frustration with this. I was using Soft3D, Max, and Maya heavily during one period in my career. I hated it, the switching back and forth, the relearning of the keymap every time I changed apps, morning, night, and weekends. It's hard to be efficient. But I've used the apps you refer to, and I have a difficult time accepting one of those apps as any sort of preferable navigation standard. The salient thing about that is that I spent as much time on that app as I did on Soft3D and XSI combined. Do I have a personal preference, yes. And while I think you discount personal preference, if we're going count anything regarding what standard is best, personal preference counts the most. You don't set a standard because one company sells more apps, you set a standard because it is better. More apps doesn't necessarily equate with better application. Better marketing, better timing, better position in historical reference, more applications to merge into one app, better position to re-engineer given whats visible in the market to evaluate and improve upon, better hardware, different userbase, better suited for studios and pipeline production at a specific point in market history, who knows? But I darn sure don't want any developer to say, I quit, I'm gonna make an app that looks just like theirs. What is the point in that? What do we gain from that?
/These are just interaction issues. I set up Max to behave like Soft
once, got it pretty close. It was impossible to reengineer Maya's
interface close enough to Soft to make it worthwhile. You could do this
with Max. Frankly I don't buy the myth that Soft3D's mindset is old or
out of date. It was good, clean, efficient, and didn't place things in
conflict with each other. It exposed almost everything you needed for
selection and navigation right on the keyboard. If that interaction
model is bad, then I'll take bad./
To be completely clear, my point isn't that the Soft3D's mindset (specifically navigation and hotkeys) are old (which they are. Directly pulled from Soft3D) or even bad for that matter. Bad for me, but maybe not bad for everyone. My point is that mayyyyybe it's better to just use a more standard set of hotkeys and navigation as the default, thus helping the majority of the industry feel a little more at home when they jump in.
Joey
Like I said earlier, I think the strongest point to use the default XSI way now is because the majority of XSI users use it.
Cheers
On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Gene Crucean <emailgeneonthelist(at)gmail.com <mailto:emailgeneonthelist(at)gmail.com>> wrote:
So, you guys really have no reason why you use it other than you are used to it? Honestly I just want to know WHY you guys use it.
Joey, your entire post was made up of personal preferences and what you are used to. Not to mention got pretty off topic. I appreciate you taking your time though.
/ >Is it really worth forcing all of their current users conform to a setup that most are not comfortable with?/
I think in the long run... yes. But you see, you just touched on a double edged sword and contradicted yourself in the same post. You ask if it's worth it to conform most current users, but then say "Does the 1 second required to move a finger across the keyboard really cut into your productivity?" Hmm interesting.
So here is another branch off of this topic... user base. Do you want to make the small XSI user base conform? Or make the entire rest of the industry conform? The numbers speak for themselves. Just sayin.
C'mon Kim, you can do better than that. Hotkeys have nothing to do with what you are saying. If we were talking about a hotbox, then I would agree.
Bernard, I agree. But that's a preference again with no meat. I like meat and potatoes.
On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Juan Brockhaus <juanb(at)the-mill.com <mailto:juanb(at)the-mill.com>> wrote:
I actually prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate. just my 2 cents.
Juan
Ponthieux, Joey wrote:
> You asked.....
>
> 1. The XSI interaction model, as a whole, is far better for
XSI than
> attempting to apply someone else's interaction model on top
of XSI.
>
> 2. After just barely 5 years on Soft3D, for nearly 8 years I
tried to
> shake ZOP on Maya, I just couldn't do it. The ALT-Key
navigation system
> on Maya just didn't cut it. It just wasn't natural. Most
importantly
> their system made it very difficult on people with wheel
mice, zoom and
> orbit were always a a hairs hit away from being right on cue
when you
> pressed the buttons, too many different mouse button
combinations for
> something that should be really simple, and they don't make
mice the way
> the used to(sans wheel), which is what they designed the nav
keys for in
> Maya back in 96 on SGI. Without even considering the 1-2
years overlap
> where I was using Soft3D and Maya simultaneously, six years
later I was
> still habitually, and erroneously, hit ZOP in Maya for
navigation. I
> took that as a signal that the ALT key just wasn't as
comfortable a fit.
> It wasn't until Maya ended up on Windows did they correct a
major flaw
> with the ALT mouse worklfow where they assigned dolly to
ALT-RMB.
> They couldn't do this on SGI, this was bound to a special
XWindows
> command within Irix. But by the time I moved to PC about 3
years ago,
> Maya on Win vs XSI on Win.....well ....you be the judge of that.
>
> 3. The ALT Nav system on Maya also limited finer control,
the mouse
> buttons were taken up with Pan, Dolly, Orbit. Zoom in Maya
was embedded
> into the interface for the Camera's Attributes under Focal
Length. In
> XSI it is exposed under Z. It was an extra step any time you
wanted to
> limit Orbit to X, Y, or Z, slow Dolly vs Fast Dolly, etc.
Roll was two
> tiers down under the viewport View command. On XSI, its just
one key
> press, L.
>
> 4. For selections Spacebar,T,E,U is a lot more efficient
than Q and a
> visual hunt for the right Component icon. You could assign
any of these
> to keys which I did, but you shouldn't have to do this.
>
> 5. For transforms, there is Maya's WER(move,rotate,scale)
and Soft's
> VCX(move, rotate scale). I always liked the fact that
Space(select) was
> closer to VCX in Soft. In Maya it was nerve wracking to no
absolute end
> why the heck did they assign Scale to R? Duh?
>
> 6. Hotbox and Marking menus? What can I say? Theyre both
wonderful and a
> real headache at the same time. Theyre fast and elegant, but
there's
> nothing more absolutely frustrating than to use a stroke on
the HotBox
> because you used it as a Marking menu, and now your current
view has
> disappeared because it been replaced with a new view.
Admittedly the
> marking menus are faster, but only if your scene is simple
and not as
> cluttered, if you have a real heavy scene, marking menus can
be a real pain.
>
> 7. Manipulators, that was new to 3D, and quite
revolutionary. But just
> about every app implements that now, it's no longer an issue.
>
> 8. Middle Click. Absolutely nothing like it Maya's arsenal.
Not even the
> nonsacred tool(Y) or repeat key(G) come close.
>
> These are just interaction issues. I set up Max to behave
like Soft
> once, got it pretty close. It was impossible to reengineer
Maya's
> interface close enough to Soft to make it worthwhile. You
could do this
> with Max. Frankly I don't buy the myth that Soft3D's mindset
is old or
> out of date. It was good, clean, efficient, and didn't place
things in
> conflict with each other. It exposed almost everything you
needed for
> selection and navigation right on the keyboard. If that
interaction
> model is bad, then I'll take bad.
>
> Joey Ponthieux
> NCI Information Systems Inc.
> NASA Langley Research Center
> ____________________________________________________________
> Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and
> do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.
>
>
>
> Gene Crucean wrote:
>> Can I ask why you old school Soft users think the native
interaction
>> model is better than every other piece of software out
there that all
>> relatively mimics the same qwerty setup?
>>
>> I'm looking for solid reasons why it's /better/. Is it
faster because
>> you guys are so hardcore that you don't even use a mouse...
therefore
>> freeing up your right hand for O,P usage? ;)
>>
>> I'm calling you guys out. XSI dragging along the old Soft
mindset just
>> further alienates potential users from hopping on board.
IMO, SI would
>> be better off in the long run if in V7 they just dropped it
and kept
>> the qwerty setup as default. Maybe drop it completely from the
>> software but offer the keymap as a download from the
site... at least
>> until the "old dogs" retire.
>>
>>
>> $0.02 ching ching
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Julien Stiegler
>> <julien.stiegler(at)free.fr <mailto:julien.stiegler(at)free.fr>
<mailto:julien.stiegler(at)free.fr
<mailto:julien.stiegler(at)free.fr>>> wrote:
>>
>> Hey eric,
>>
>> it's a great initiative to host tested/working/quality
scripts and
>> plugins on
>> your site.
>> What about contacting ALL the xsi addons authors and
ask them the
>> permissions to
>> host it on your site ?
>> I have a good collection of them but the authors still
need to be
>> contacted for
>> permissions ....
>>
>> regards
>>
>> Selon Eric Thivierge <eric(at)xsidatabase.com
<mailto:eric(at)xsidatabase.com>
>> <mailto:eric(at)xsidatabase.com
<mailto:eric(at)xsidatabase.com>>>:
>>
>> > Well Kim,
>> >
>> > It's a community based site. I don't script too well
myself so it's
>> > pretty much up to the others on the list and in the
community to put
>> > some things on the site. The site is for hosting the
files of
>> various
>> > resources to get rid of the horrible "File not found"
errors. So I
>> > counter your comment with, "Shouldn't YOU put some
scripts in
>> it?" :)
>> >
>> > Cheers Kim. Hope all is well.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> > Eric Thivierge, XSI Database Admin
>> > www.xsidatabase.com <http://www.xsidatabase.com>
<http://www.xsidatabase.com>
>> > eric(at)xsidatabase.com <mailto:eric(at)xsidatabase.com>
<mailto:eric(at)xsidatabase.com <mailto:eric(at)xsidatabase.com>>
>> > Forum Username: EricTRocks
>> >
>> >
>> > kim aldis wrote:
>> > > Shouldn't you put some scripts into it? ;-)
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >> -----Original Message-----
>> > >> From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM>
>> <mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM>>
[mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM <mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM>
>> <mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM>>] On
>> > >> Behalf Of Eric Thivierge
>> > >> Sent: 01 February 2008 03:32
>> > >> To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM <mailto:XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
<mailto:XSI(at)Softimage.COM <mailto:XSI(at)Softimage.COM>>
>> > >> Subject: Re: Coming back from Maya
>> > >>
>> > >> Right on Marcus! Don't forget we have a new
scripts section
>> as well.
>> > >>
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > ---
>> > > Unsubscribe? Mail Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM>
>> <mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM>> with the following text in body:
>> > > unsubscribe xsi
>> > >
>> > >
>> > ---
>> > Unsubscribe? Mail Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM>
>> <mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM>> with the following text in body:
>> > unsubscribe xsi
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> Julien Stiegler
>> Réalisation de film d'animation, vidéo interactive,
>> pré-production, post-prodution.
>> http://animatic.no-ip.com/cv.html
>>
>> ---
>> Unsubscribe? Mail Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM>
>> <mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM
<mailto:Majordomo(at)Softimage.COM>> with the following text in body:
>> unsubscribe xsi
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>
> ---
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- Re: Coming back from Maya
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- Re: Coming back from Maya
- From: "Gene Crucean" <emailgeneonthelist(at)gmail.com>
- Re: Coming back from Maya
- From: "Gene Crucean" <emailgeneonthelist(at)gmail.com>
- Re: Coming back from Maya
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