Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0

[nghia59]

A friend sent me this video today. I'm kind of surprised I didn't find this myself as I am a huge Softimage fan. Check it out and enjoy...

<object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13457383&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;sh ow_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fu llscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13457383&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;sh ow_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=&amp;fu llscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/13457383">Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 - Teaser</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/thiagocosta">Thiago Costa</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

You can find his personal site here.

http://thiagocosta.net/

Really awesome stuff for off-the-shelf software. Bit sad that more people don't use this. Also this might be real-time for game development?!

- Nghia

[El Burritoh]

The XSI mailing list went nuts with this yesterday.

ICE is powerful but it is dense and hard to fathom sometimes. It takes the mind of a programmer to really push it, since it's almost node-based programming. ICE-based tools like this that can expose more artist-friendly controls and still offer that power are a breath of fresh air, even if they're not released yet! :D

[PascalR]

nice vid, thanks for sharing:thumbsup: and thanks El Burritoh for sharing your views on this tool:sw:

[nghia59]

ICE isn't that bad. The hardest part is trying to remember what all those 300 or so nodes do :D. The way it all works though is a lot like shader trees. What little I've done with it isn't all too bad but doing more advanced stuff requires knowing more about each one of those things' functions.

- Nghia

[El Burritoh]

ICE isn't that bad. The hardest part is trying to remember what all those 300 or so nodes do :D. The way it all works though is a lot like shader trees. What little I've done with it isn't all too bad but doing more advanced stuff requires knowing more about each one of those things' functions.

- Nghia

We're definitely able to get good work done with it. But it's somewhat intimidating for artists when you open up a network and see 36 different mathematical nodes like scalar-to-vector-sin-multiply-by-vector-rotate-add-build-array.... Call me a noob, but that's not artist-friendly terminology. It requires TDs on one side setting stuff up for artists on the other. Unless you're one of those people who is an artist and a programmer.

But if you can create that kind of workflow, where the TDs are generating complexities that the artists and animators don't need to worry about, then ICE can be used for some crazy awesome stuff. I lament that there's no realtime feedback for things like particles (like PFlow), but all things considered ICE goes way beyond that anyway.

[nghia59]

I hear ya Tim. And agree.

For the most part I think that XSI's weakest feature is that they lack a bunch of quick pesets for artists to just get moving on. This is apparent in shaders, Rendering, and now ICE.

I wish they'd add just a few more things to those specific subjects like they did for animation and modeling. Their base system is one of the nicest I've seen out of any package, but there are times when you just want to pull out your hair because they make it so darn technical. My next huge foray into cg will be to learn proper rigging, animation, and scripting.

BTW, did anyone post this?

http://www.fxguide.com/article606.html

It seems like the world is slowly turning into Weta Digital.

- Nghia

[nghia59]

Some more awesome stuff from Softimage ICE. Te cool part is that there are a ton of tutorials on the page. Yay!

http://vimeo.com/mootzoid/videos

A sample vid of emPolygonizer2...

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14233773" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/14233773">emPolygonizer2 Official Release Video "go ahead, mesh my day!"</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/mootzoid">Eric Mootz</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

- Nghia

[oglu]

and the best is those two tools are integrated in the soft advantage pack coming next month...

[nghia59]

and the best is those two tools are integrated in the soft advantage pack coming next month...

Hey, what's the "soft advantage pack"? Please tell me more!

- Nghia

[oglu]

its the extension for subscription user...
will be out same time as the creation suits...
maya, softimage, mudbox and motionbuilder in one package...

maya will also get turtle and soft the lagoa physiks and the empoly but version 1.7 i think....
and there should be a bridge to get ICE data to maya and max...

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=13420613&siteID=123112

http://twitter.com/luceric/statuses/21944883703

...

[El Burritoh]

and the best is those two tools are integrated in the soft advantage pack coming next month...

We're all very excited about this at work!

[nghia59]

The XSI mailing list went nuts with this yesterday.

ICE is powerful but it is dense and hard to fathom sometimes. It takes the mind of a programmer to really push it, since it's almost node-based programming. ICE-based tools like this that can expose more artist-friendly controls and still offer that power are a breath of fresh air, even if they're not released yet! :D

Hey Tim, your dreams have now come true with artist friendly ICE tools! Yay! Count on Softimage to do the right thing for artists.

http://www.the-area.com/blogs/marks/introducing_softimage_2011_5_with_lagoa

BTW, they just pwned RealFlow and NCloth.

- Nghia

[El Burritoh]

Hehe! Yeah it's a good time be an XSI user!

I dunno about beating out Realflow though. It all depends on how accurate the fluid can be, and right now everything we've seen looks a little on the blobby side. I'd like to see some production work with it...but then I guess we'll do that ourselves soon!

The viewport interaction is awesome, and it's especially sweet to see the variety of effects Lagoa allows. Let's hope the technical hurdles and curve balls aren't insurmountable in an actual production.

[nghia59]

Check out Florian Witzel's video on the milk commercial he did for Psyop.

http://vimeo.com/fw/videos

He did all the wave physics and animation in 4 weeks by himself in the preICE days by writing his own rig. I think that can happen with all the ICE stuff we have now.

We tried using RealFlow at the last commercial house I worked at on PC and it would never finish a simulation before it crashed. The minimum time it took for a sim was about 5 to 6 hrs and wasn't feasible so we just wound up doing it with some poly tricks. So for me any type of fast interaction with fluids is a win. I do wish that someone would try to do something mmassive with ICE like you see with Fume though.

- Nghia

[oglu]

download should be ready in your subscription center...
http://autodesk.com/subscriptionlogin

[El Burritoh]

Luckily for us Softimage isn't owned by Apple, or else we'd be treated to a motto like "iCE. There's a node for that."