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Maya 5


michael

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there are some new/cool things:

parentBlend - if you have an object on a motion path you can blend that animation into another constraint...hard to describe quickly - but pretty cool.

the 'new' IK/FK blend isn't that good, looks like Houdini 6's blend is WAY better.

there are some new fur things - seem nice but I'll need to try them before I get my hopes up - my worst 3D experience ever was with Maya Fur....

vector rendering looks VERY cool - flash/eps/illustrator format...good for web guys

a unified rendering system - long overdue - with Maya (new improved Hardware) and Software, the new vector thingy, and mental ray...all from one window...

paint effects to poly conversion - very nice

new poly reduction tools...

I'd say right now (not having tried it out yet) that this is what 4.5 should have been...but it will please many people I think....have to wait till May to try it out myself... :)

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I really like what I've seen of the hardware renderer. Really like it. I was hoping for a nice hardware renderer in Houdini 6 but I suppose we wil have to wait for Open GL 2. A hardware renderer that supports fragment and vertex shaders through VEX Builder would rock.

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I have it here. The vector-render is nice and the integration of MentalRay looks good. I was not able to check the hardware-renderer - I have to go

and get an other gfx-board.

The poly-modeling-add-ons are useful and the poly-reducing works fast.

But in some way I like the modeling in Houdini better :blink:

I had no time to check the fur-stuff.

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I really like what I've seen of the hardware renderer. Really like it. I was hoping for a nice hardware renderer in Houdini 6 but I suppose we wil have to wait for Open GL 2. A hardware renderer that supports fragment and pixel shaders through VEX Builder would rock.

Take a look at the GLslang presentation of 3Dlabs at GDC on page 58: http://www.3dlabs.com/support/developer/og...ang_GDC2003.pdf

You might be interrested :-)

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parentBlend - if you have an object on a motion path you can blend that animation into another constraint...hard to describe quickly - but pretty cool.

I think Houdini has had the Blend object since at least the Houdini 3 days ...

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parentBlend - if you have an object on a motion path you can blend that animation into another constraint...hard to describe quickly - but pretty cool.

I think Houdini has had the Blend object since at least the Houdini 3 days ...

I thought Maya had it since the beginning too? I remember going to the maya launch event and they had a demo where a cowboy threw his hat at a hatstand... and that involved blending between parents.

didn't it? Maybe I'm confused? :)

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Take a look at the GLslang presentation of 3Dlabs at GDC on page 58: http://www.3dlabs.com/support/developer/og...ang_GDC2003.pdf

You might be interrested :-)

I've read a bit about this. My understanding though is that it's going to be a high level programming language. What I'd really like to see, and if I were a much, much better programmer with lot's of time on my hands I'd love toi try to work on it myself, is the hardware renderer to end all hardware renderers. Something that's artist friendly.

In a nutshell:

You could visulally build hardware accelerated shaders ala VEX Builder, and they would automaticly compile theselves at render time or at the click of a button. Also, a compositor of sorts ala Halo that would allow you to build and apply effects to part of or the entire frame buffer for the hardware renderer.

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Yes, that would be great. Perhaps SESI could implement an automatic conversion system from VEX to GLslang. This would also be handy for the VEX-shaded viewport-mode, which should be much faster and more accurate then. This tool could also be used for a hardware-renderer, which does additional things like antialiasing, motion-blur, etc. In my opinion this is possible.

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Unless I'm missing something pretty fundamental, this is nothing special. You could do this with the Blend Op all along. Of course in 6.0 now there is a handy interactive Blend state to help out, but this is nothing wow about Maya's parent blend tool.

( "Make Boat" ha ha! )

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Vector rendering.. while very nice, I don't see a single use for it in character or effects work for features or TV, so I don't particularly give a damn. Perhaps A|W is focusing on the web development market now that they have saturated the TV and feature business with Maya?

I must be honest and the plans which I've heard for the future of Houdini are going to surpass Maya in so many places where Maya has held distinct leadership. :) SESI just have to be fast and forthcoming on these new features to ensure a strong foothold in the future.

One thing I'd like to know is whether people agree with the current development strategy that Side Effects hold to where very few new features come out mid-version - only critical areas and bug-fixes get addressed, and once a year a whole new version of crazy new stuff gets released. On the most part, I think I would like to see more progressive releases of features as they are developed. Take, say, a new deformation system for character - would you rather wait for a version 7 or would you take it sooner at a sub-version rather, like 6.2? For 5.5, the only new feature that appeared throughout the development of 6.0 is the Partition SOP.

I like the idea of getting more frequent portions of technology implemented as they are being developed rather than waiting for a full version. Of course, I recognise the importance of if SESI are doing some fundamental architectural changes to not release premature tools built on outmoded architecture (as was the case with much of 6.0), but on the whole the version transition becomes smoother and the tools get into our hands sooner. This also helps us give good feedback to SESI before the tool is finalized.

Comments on this train of thought?

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re: vector rendering.....true, not much use for me either...but the web people will be happy, and that is a market that A|W has pushed hard for in the past 18 months or so...

on the subject on development strategy and releases...

part of me prefers to have new features come with a whole version, and sub-versions for fixes...maybe have some features that are 'ready' but need a shakedown come with the .5 release...- having features 'creep' into the app on .2 or .2.114 releases always make me nervous...like that game Janga...one more little block on top and the whole thing comes tumbling down....

on the other hand - having the newest toys to play with right away is sweet :)

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Well I can see the vector rendering being useful for broadcast, as it seems some cartoons are actually using other 2D vector packages to create entire half hour episodes. But really I don't much care about it one way or the other. Might be useful for doing titles in film as well.

I would like to see new features introduced as they are developed, however, it could lead to Houdini's development becoming very spastic. There would probably always be something in every release that's horribly broken because of the constant stream of new features, and customers would also probably be slow to upgrade, because they'd already have a good chunk of the features of the next major release. I have to admit I'm a bit overwhelmed by the new stuff in 6 though. I barely had a grip on 5.5 and now I have a whole bunch of new stuff to figure out.

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