Re: Schematic View

[Eric Lampi <ericlampi(at)yahoo.com>]

I don't concern myself with arranging the layout.  I refresh and clean up enough along the way so I know where they are located.

It would make you more organized, you just don't use it, so I don't think you really get what I am talking about.  When you're working with a complex particle setup, it's much much easier to see your clouds, forces and emitters in schematic view than the explorer, you can see the simulation links after all, it's pretty straight-forward.  I find the same to be true with deformations as well, I can see what's connected to what.  When I need to work with skeletons, the same thing.  I just can't imagine using the explorer for that.

I started out using Amiga 3D software, Turbo Silver, Imagine, then Lightwave.  When I saw SoftImage 3D for the first time in college, I got cross-eyed looking at the schematic view for the first time and it wasn't until I started working that I understood how useful it was.  I got used to that way of working and took it with me to XSI.

It's not senility, it's experience, and one day you'll grow up, stop "mowing lawns" and understand. (Ha!  Take that Junior!)

E

Freelance 3-D Animator, F/X Artist

----- Original Message ----
From: Steven Caron <carons(at)gmail.com>
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:05:03 PM
Subject: Re: Schematic View

i do get what you are talking about the problem with young cg artists isn't the use of the explorer or the schematic, but because they lack organization. no argument there. if you dont know the name of something (or part of it.. wildcards!) and you can't see it in the viewport. then your SOL... you are going to look aimlessly no matter what.

the schematic wouldn't make me more organized, it would just have organizing my scene in logical hierarchy, then organizing my schematic view too in a visual way and then loose the organization when you do a rearrange on accident, doh!

"Now enough lip from you young man, get off my lawn."

you senile old man, you asked me to mow it!

s

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Eric Lampi <ericlampi(at)yahoo.com> wrote:

I think you missed the point.  Filters only work if you actually name things something specific.

If you don't use the schematic view, you probably have no idea what I am talking about.  Looking at a directory structure like the explorer is great for some things, but it doesn't encourage you to organize your scene.  Take one look at a schematic view and you would go crazy unless you organized it.

Now enough lip from you young man, get off my lawn.

E

Freelance 3-D Animator, F/X Artist

----- Original Message ----
From: Steven Caron <carons(at)gmail.com>
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM

Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 5:01:00 PM
Subject: Re: Schematic View

"...I watch them aimlessly hunt in their hierarchy for a node in the explorer..."

they must be picking up habits from watching you use the schematic... cause you dont aimlessly hunt for anything in the explorer, you use the tools provided like the search box, the scopes, the filters, hitting "f" to frame a selection, or "e" to set scope to selection, use "shift+f3" or the selection button on top the transform button for quick selection access. i always see people hunt for clusters, but there is a clusters button to the right of the selection button on the mcp that advances you right to them.

a damned kid
steven

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 1:47 PM, Eric Lampi <ericlampi(at)yahoo.com> wrote:

I constantly use the schematic view.

People, especially younger CG artists sorta laugh at me for using it (damned kids), but I can't tell you how many time as I am sitting next to them that I watch them aimlessly hunt in their hierarchy for a node in the explorer.

I can pop open my schematic view and very quickly find what I need.  It helps that I actually name things, and put them into a null hierarchy that makes some ordered sense.  Don't get me wrong, explorer is great, but both have their place and strengths.

E

 

Freelance 3-D Animator, F/X Artist

----- Original Message ----
From: Raffaele Fragapane <raffsxsilist(at)googlemail.com>
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 4:01:17 PM
Subject: Re: Schematic View

I fail to see why the schematic isn't a good window to estabilish connections.
Have two display modes per node like the rendertree does, with and without connection points (collapsed to active and not), and allow to click on a constraint link and drag it off a kine input and into another when nodes aren't collapsed (so to prevent accidents).
Parenting could be the same, but is nowhere as sorely needed.
How and where is that not ideal?
And yes, the explorer does cover a lot of ground that maya, due to the outliner being a piece of crap, has to cover in the hypergraph, but being ordered predominantly alphabetically and always vertically, it might require me to use two windows or a veeeeeery long drag waiting for scrolling to go down to estabalish a connection that in the schematic might be visually 2 pixels away (IE: one arm to another).

Regardless of the above, since you seem to like the schematic and use it, how can you think the current display and ordering routines are fine? Do you build by hand every little piece of every rig, knowing ahead exactly end to end what a 200pieces hierarchy will be like, and diligently place every node?
If you do, you're clearly insane or Japanese, but if you don't, and you ever tried generating a 20 segment tail + helpers procedurally, I'd like to know how you approach ordering 70 nodes of the same colour splattered horizontally all over other absolutely unrelated nodes, without losing at least half an hour that could be used for more important things. That is without even going into cases where you have a whole quadruped with a tail and a ghost generated procedurally, that kinda stuff basically precludes you from using the view entirely.

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 9:40 PM, Thiago Costa <thiagocosta3d(at)gmail.com> wrote:

In fact I used/use hypergraph for about 2 years and yes it's way better then XSI schematic.
It boost productivity immensely in maya because the Outliner is a piece of crap. And because of that you fall into a very linear workflow, where just the hypergraph can make things more accessible. You can do less in the Outliner than you do in the XSI schematic view (parenting and selecting basically).
What we need now is a way of connect parameters on a nodal based interface, but I don't think this is something for the schematic as it's just a high-level-scene-overview type of thing...

Don't get me wrong, I think an update in the schematic would be great (specially for technical users). Be able to drag constraints would be great, API access, decent sorting algorithms... yes I want that!! Now consider that 90% don't need the schematic at all :(
This is why I said that these improvements are in the end of my list...