View Full Version : SLA Buffy the bubble slayer
Per-Anders 09-18-2002, 01:28 AM You're probably thinking "What the ƒ?ç¥?".
This little thread is simply an explanation of the SLA shader Buffy, seeing as so many people keep asking the same question, i.e. "What is Buffy?".
A very simple explanation is that Buffy is a two sided shader, on the front side it's white, on the back it's black. Ok so what does that mean in real world terms? Ok the simplest way of explaining this is to do a couple of examples.
Example (a)
Firstly add a plane object. Now make a new material. In the Colour channel add BhodiNUT Buffy. Apply this to the plane. Now do a couple of renders. One from the front of the plane, and the other from the back. Ok so now you see what's going on with this apparently simple shader. On the front it renders white... no the back render it's black.
Ok so that shows clearly that the shader shades one side white and the other black... but what happens with a more complex shape? Would a sphere be half black and half white? The answer is no. As far as C4D is concerned there is no front and back to any object, the only things with fronts and backs are Polygons.
Ok so to demonstrate this, and to show what would happen if you were to use Buffy on a more complex object here's the second excercise.
Example (b)
Create a new scene. Add a sphere object and add a sky object. Create a new material and in the Luminosity channel use BhodiNUT Buffy, then activate the alpha channel and use BhodiNUT Tiles. Change the tile settings to Lines 1 change the colours to be Black and White, and remove any Grout or Bevel (bring them down to 0%). Apply this to your sphere.Now render. You will see that the bits of the sphere that you can see through the lines are black, while the front is white.
Next make the sphere editable, and go to Structure->Reverse Normals. This will flip the polygons in the sphere. Re-render.
So what has this demonstrated? The fact that Buffy is linked to the way that the polygons face.
This is all... what next? That's all very nice and what have you, but why Buffy? What practical use is it?
Buffy is good for a number of things, but the most obvious one is creating solid looking transparent objects.
Why is this? Well the most obvious thing is to look at something glass... if you have a nice blob of the stuff then that's even better. something like a crystal ball is ideal for this. But if you look at that then you will notice that if it's perfectly clear without any real grub on it (i.e. dust) that there's no Specular Highlight on the interior of the object, only on the front side. If you see a specular highlight through the object then either clean it or try to make sure that there's nothing near the other side where the specular highlight appears. You should find that the only highlight on your object is on the front... getting an idea now?
Example (c)
Taking the last scene, map any texture you want onto the sky, and then for the sphere reverse the normals back to what they were, then adjust the Material as follows:
Switch off the Colour and Luminosity channels, switch on Transparency and set the Index of Refraction to be around 1.6, this is a moderate to heavy glass (for a complete lookup table of index of refractions check here (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tables/indrf.html)) Tick fresnel. Go to the Specularity tab, and bring the specularity brightness right up to around 150% (we're not creating a realistic glass here, just something for an example). Make sure that only transparency and the specular colour are on.
Next to show the specular highlight add a simple Omni Light and move it to a position where you will be able to see the specular highlight clearly, and render.
Ok so now you're seeing that this looks like either a very dusty peice of heavy plastic, or a bubble. So you can guess what's going to happen next right?
Go back into the material for the glass/plastic, and switch the Specular Colour channel on, in this channel apply BhodiNUT Buffy. Now re-render the same scene.
So suddenly it looks solid right? Well at least a little more solid than it did. So what's going on here? Where the specular colour is black of course it doesn't render as a black specular channel, a specular highlight with a black specular colour simply doesn't render, because specular highlights are addative. So then by putting Buffy in the specular colour channel you're able to make the material only specualr on the outside (or if you were to reverse the normals only on the inside). You can also apply this to the colour channel if you want to have some dustyness on your sphere (but don't forget to tick additive in the Transparency channel).
Buffy and other textures
So this is all well and good but just black and white are a little limited. What about other materials... or even textures?
Buffy will help you here, but you will also need to use fusion. Make a fusion channel and put Buffy in the alpha of the fusion, then simply put the texture/colour you want for the front in the top channel, and the texture for the rear in the bottom channel of the fusion. You should now find that you have the level of control you had before only you're now dealing with two textures, the front and the back texture. This doesn't have to be purely for transparent materials. What about making a playing card in one texture front and back. Place the front image map into the top of the fusion and the back image into the bottom of the fusion... problem solved.
With careful thought buffy gives you two textures applied to one surface with one texture tag.
I hope that this clears things up for people and that now you will all have some idea about what Buffy is, and it's uses.
|
|
michaeli
09-18-2002, 01:58 AM
Great!, thanks again mdme_sadie !
:thumbsup:
say-g
09-18-2002, 03:24 AM
excellent info dude! i was starting to wonder wat buffy did... other than kill vampires :applause:
AdamT
09-18-2002, 03:57 AM
Great explanation, Mike! You should write Bhodinut's manuals. It seems that the quality of their documentation is inversely proportional to the quality of their software.
Per-Anders
09-18-2002, 04:45 AM
Dunno who Mike is, but you're welcome. I just hope that this is helpful info and that it clears things up for everyone. :)
neilyb
09-18-2002, 08:26 AM
Great explanation!:beer:
ThirdEye
09-18-2002, 08:54 AM
Great mdme!!! Put it also in the tips and tricks thread so it will remain!! ;)
Brilliant :thumbsup:
You really are a natural at this Mdme_Sadie :)
Stu.
geoffr
09-18-2002, 10:55 AM
great explanation.
i agree with adamt, you should write the manual for sla.
the reason i don't use sla to anywhere near its full potential is because the documentation is woefully inadequate and far too reliant on ones understanding of technical terms which are never properly explained in the manual.
a picture speaks a thousand words after all. god knows how many it would speak with annotations!
thank you for his detailed contribution!
:applause:
this is a nice forum!:thumbsup:
AdamT
09-18-2002, 12:31 PM
"Don't know who Mike is...."
Oops! Thought was your name. Somehow mdm_sadie seems awkward.
neilyb
09-18-2002, 12:50 PM
Lets just name him/her :
Worthygodofsmellslikealmondsforcinema4d
:wavey: :wavey:
flingster
09-19-2002, 07:56 PM
just because of this thread i gotta go and find out what the hell youre all talking about! heh heh
seriously though, thanks for this info...I have no doubt I will need to refer back to it in the future.
Originally posted by AdamT
Great explanation, Mike! You should write Bhodinut's manuals. It seems that the quality of their documentation is inversely proportional to the quality of their software.
Actually relational to the fact we spend the time we need to be focussing on manuals trying like hell to figure out what the SDK functions actually do and if they work. We could spend a month writing manuals and then the cost would be proportional, we would sell none...
darf
Per-Anders
09-19-2002, 09:41 PM
I emailed Maxon through their suggestion system, asking if they would produce a tutorial book for COFFEE and the C++ SDK, case study based in the same way that the rather tutorial manual for C4D is written. Personally I think this is a good idea (after all Alias Wavefront tout Maya's MEL Scripting and Expressions with pretty extensive literature with their product) and would help spread C4D into studios where people need to be able to write custom plugins etc on a regular basis. Not to mention it would get a heap more plugins made for C4D by the user base who would all love to have some guidance on how to write plugins, scripts, etc... (how many times have you thought... "wouldn't it be great if... only i wish i knew how to program then i could make that" ?)
Now I suspect of course that there will be nothing of the sort forthcoming from Maxon themselves (unless enough people email in saying... wouldnt it be great if we had a tutorial manual for COFFEE & C++ SDK) so either write Maxon, or if anyone is au fait enough, please write us a full easy to understand book! Ideally with a section on converting COFFEE to C++, or two seperate books COFFEE and C4D C++...
anyhow. if anyone else things this is a good idea... say so, and mail Maxon. (You never know, they might at the very least release a book as something you could download as PDF or Buy from the Maxon store.
(And no-one bother to suggest getting a few O'reilly manuals on C++ as that doesn't really help with coding for the SDK)
LucentDreams
09-19-2002, 09:59 PM
Originally posted by mdme_sadie
I emailed Maxon through their suggestion system, asking if they would produce a tutorial book for COFFEE and the C++ SDK, case study based in the same way that the rather tutorial manual for C4D is written. Personally I think this is a good idea (after all Alias Wavefront tout Maya's MEL Scripting and Expressions with pretty extensive literature with their product) and would help spread C4D into studios where people need to be able to write custom plugins etc on a regular basis. Not to mention it would get a heap more plugins made for C4D by the user base who would all love to have some guidance on how to write plugins, scripts, etc... (how many times have you thought... "wouldn't it be great if... only i wish i knew how to program then i could make that" ?)
Now I suspect of course that there will be nothing of the sort forthcoming from Maxon themselves (unless enough people email in saying... wouldnt it be great if we had a tutorial manual for COFFEE & C++ SDK) so either write Maxon, or if anyone is au fait enough, please write us a full easy to understand book! Ideally with a section on converting COFFEE to C++, or two seperate books COFFEE and C4D C++...
anyhow. if anyone else things this is a good idea... say so, and mail Maxon. (You never know, they might at the very least release a book as something you could download as PDF or Buy from the Maxon store.
(And no-one bother to suggest getting a few O'reilly manuals on C++ as that doesn't really help with coding for the SDK)
Just curious as to how hard Darf is laughing to himslef right now, but when it comes to this stuff, Darf has been fighting wiht maxon for ages, they just don't want to help 3rd party developers unless they have a name like cebas or Joe alter. SDK documentation is there, sort of, but it was far too late, and still of little use to many.
AdamT
09-19-2002, 10:02 PM
Actually relational to the fact we spend the time we need to be focussing on manuals trying like hell to figure out what the SDK functions actually do and if they work. We could spend a month writing manuals and then the cost would be proportional, we would sell none...
Yeah, I understand it's a lot of work to write comprehensive manuals, but they can be invaluable. The importance depends on the complexity of the software, but sometimes I'm willing to pay a fair bit more for a good manual, and sometimes I simply won't buy software if the manual's no good. I didn't buy Realsoft3D because it didn't have a real reference manual. I recently bought Messiah:Animate, but may unload it because there's no paper manual and I'd rather not read the whole damned thing on my computer screen.
And seriously, ya'll could've put a couple more hours into the Praline manual and made it much more useable.
Per-Anders
09-19-2002, 10:07 PM
I know (and i know about Darf's fight with Maxon)... but it's the only positive thing we can do to try to remedy the situation... us users want support, and we want Maxon to do well... and one way for that to happen is for there to be lots of developers producing kick ass software and plugins for maxon products... as it is... compare the number of plugins on say... highend3d.com for maya to c4d, or the number of lightwave or max plugs available... Maxon so so so need to get their priorities straight when it comes to third party support. Lightwave's premier SSS plugin OGO-Hikari... from a complete unknown in Japan... not Worley Labs or Cebas or Joe Alter... even though I'm grateful for their support of C4D, and their plugins are nice, I want variety, and I want C4D to be more extensible... hell we all do. But i just think that by letting Maxon know in enough numbers that the User base is interested in something... well... maybe they might listen to us... they are still after all not one of the huge overgrown companies that don't even know who their customers are...
go and tell maxon that we want to help make their product better!
Originally posted by AdamT
And seriously, ya'll could've put a couple more hours into the Praline manual and made it much more useable.
I believe PRALINE's use is very obvious. What did you find to be absent?
darf
geoffr
09-19-2002, 10:46 PM
i'm curious. how many people on this forum know how to use the sdk or even what its about?
i'm just a lowly designer who's in awe of people who can program. don't get me wrong, i have tried, but my mind's just not made for it.
now, i would pay for a book on sla.
a nice one with pictures (i can handle pictures).
one that gives an example of what the different settings in lumas does for instance (and what to do with the specular channel if your using it in the luminance chanel) etc, etc.
i know i can experiment but, unfortunately, when everything has to be done in a rush for a presentaion then spare time isn't an option.
printed books.
i like printed books.
ones with pop-ups in are the best though ;-)
Per-Anders
09-19-2002, 11:26 PM
i think you highlighted the problem at the top... no-one not even plugin developers know about the sdk or what to do with it... because it's so badly documented... it shouldn't be that way. so write maxon...
as for the printed book, i wrote about that at bhodinut (same thread title under the sla forum)... it's just not really that economically viable... the other thing to remember is that a new version of C4D is coming out, Maxon bought rights to SLA so therefore there's every chance that there will be a substantial section dedicated to this in there (although it might not be as in depth as a dedicated book on the subject)... and what with it now being rather more of maxons problem... it's rather less of a thing that bhodinut should have to deal with (at least as far as manuals are concerned.
ThirdEye
09-20-2002, 12:34 AM
I am asking myself many things since R8 announce... I've read all the features and I think R8 is a really great upgrade but... I have a lot of doubts about other things. You know, Maxon is made by a bunch of people who program everything of C4D, from start to the end. Maxon develops C4D like Ferrari develops its cars in Formula1, they make ALL the car, the engine, the chassis... But there's a question... Are they able to make a software that can compete with monsters like XSI or Maya? Do they want to? They're really good programmers, but they're fewer than A|w or Softimage or even Discreet... Now Maxon acquired SLA from Bhodinut... Are they able to develop all these things? They are used to develop ALL in their house as I said before but the result is lack of 3rd parties plugin for example... What do you think about this policy?
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 01:41 AM
Well... the thing is, C4D would be in with more of a chance if they gave more third party support. There are a lot of other companies than Pixar producing versions of Renderman for example, it just needs one individual to make a plugin for RIB support... but Maxon don't want to give the support to third party developers it would seem at the moment.
C4D is being retarded by this... take Maya. Without it's extensive "Conductors programme" for third party plugins and scripts (and extensive tutorials on the subject of scripting both in C++ and in MEL) it would be pretty useless... Maya without plugins is just a pain to use (and certainly nothing special). All it's best features are accessable through plugins... in fact there are a few things that you just can't do or get access to without typing at least one line of Mel code in.
I'm sure that there are features of C4D hidden similarly. Maya is customised by the people that use it because they're supported to do so, and because that is in fact the real power of Maya. C4D could be as powerful as any program out there if Maxon would support third party developers in the way that Alias|Wavefront do.
Imagine the plethora of plugins that would be available. Every artist who got a hold of C4D would be given the tutorials and the support to get the most out of their package. Studios would be able to customise and fit C4D into their "pipeline" along with all the other packages that they use... even surplanting a few in the end.
Maxon needs to let their baby out. Sure they should still keep the main package there... but they need to give the small user who might be a no-one but have a brilliant idea the tools and support to bring their idea to Cinema, rather than to a competitors product. After all from what I hear Joe Alter only made Shave & Haircut for C4D & Maya because he fell out with Newtek... wouldn't it be bad for us if BhodiNUT or another smaller developer decided to cease all work with C4D and move to another platform because or the lack of support from Maxon?
say-g
09-20-2002, 01:57 AM
'Imagine the plethora of plugins that would be available. Every artist who got a hold of C4D would be given the tutorials and the support to get the most out of their package. Studios would be able to customise and fit C4D into their "pipeline" along with all the other packages that they use... even surplanting a few in the end.
'
sounds like a dream mdme :)
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 02:00 AM
Another thing that Maxon should do is have everything run through a script engine in the way Mel does, and Lscript... in that every action is done using code (in maya every button and every movement/selection/whatever is done using Mel... and the interface is even built up using mel... and every time you do anything it's corresponding code goes through the mel browser...) currently as far as I can tell the output window/console in C4D only echoes errors/runtime debug.... no COFFEE scripts etc...... the reason this is useful in MAYA etc is that you can copy and paste a bit of code into a new button, or anything... do an action, copy it, paste it, tweak it so that it's independent of any objects you specified, and assign it to an action... it's like taking the history pallete in photoshop and selecting a section of it to be a macro... only that's just the surface... it's way more powerful underneath... because of it's editability and the fact you can then mix it in with conditional loops and functions into one big plugin script... or of course you could just make a macro script on a button or a script line (this is similar to fireworks history pallete actually rather than photoshops)... hmm i'm gong to go and suggest that right now at maxons website... everyone post your suggestions there... please!!! :)
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 02:16 AM
a lot of things start with a dream... i think C4D is potentially the best package out there just because of it's ease of use and fast production line. maya doesn't have that. c4d needs that.
i was thinking just the other day. you know people are going on about c4d not having ngons... but it could... through a plugin... i even worked out how it would have that, and not only that but an even more powerful form of modelling... if only i knew how to program.
i figured that, well. what you could do is have a ngon object, kinda like hypernurbs, but with two null object groups underneath it.. the first to hold spline objects (which would be the edges of the polys) and the second to hold faces created by lofting between specified lines), and an ngon palette, or replacement tools.
so you'd have line tools, beziers etc, and poly tools. the line tools would create lines in one group underneath the polyobject. then if you were to select a line shape and click the make pol button it would create a skin in a second group for the curve... so what would happen is basically it would just loft over that one curve, and that would be an ngon, if you move the outer line the "ngon" moves too, so it appears like an ngon... but with full bezier curves, kinda like nurbs modelling. the distance between each point would be a different curve as far as c4d would be concerned to that for further tools you could extrude out a set of edges and new lines would be placed from the edges giving the impression of poly edges (of course these would be beziers) the whole thing would be invisible, but would enable you to create ngons and model with ngons) you could then draw another line and use a tool to select an edge somewhere and get it to extend out to the second line... sort of a super object loft.. and then you could very simply draw on the surface anywhere, and it would automatically cut for you, so that you could shift the new curve you drew on the surface and it would move the points/lines/polys underneath... great for modelling bonnets creases etc... this would all be possible. there are so many possibilities... but without any documentation that makes any sense... and with far better programmers than me completely flumoxed by the sdk... what hope do I have? or anyone reading that idea who could program... what hope would they have? it shouldn't be this hard. no other company makes it this hard.
derwolpertinger
09-20-2002, 02:45 AM
it is unbelievable. you are full of cool ideas. so plz: LEARN HOW TO PROGRAMM!!!:D
dmthurman
09-20-2002, 03:36 AM
Mdme,
Hey you ought to teach a few classes down there in S.F. area...:D Hell I might even fly down for that...You have a ton of insigt into this program, and is always welcomed in this corner..
D.T.
AdamT
09-20-2002, 04:30 AM
I believe PRALINE's use is very obvious. What did you find to be absent?
Well sure it's obvious to you! You wrote it! What wasn't obvious to me (dummy) was how to use the fog gradient to create a nice atmospheric haze on a landscape without totally obscuring the sky. I did figure it out, but only after mucking around for an hour or so. The manual states, in toto, "This is a standard SLA gradient as used in several of the other shaders in this package. The gradient is used to select the color opacity change of the fog between Minimum and Maximum." Eureka!
Another thing that wasn't obvious was the best way to use Ruffl in a scene where there are very few real reflections. I more or less figured it out, but only after mucking around for another couple of hours. It didn't help that the sample scene uses an extra level of Fusion that isn't explained anywhere. Figured that out too--after 10 or 20 minutes.
Another thing that wasn't obvious to me was the function of the gradient control in Ruffus.
The manual offers no explanation whatever as to what Raylength is or does.
I don't want to come off sounding harsh, because Praline is a great product that really provides some invaluable functionality. And I know that you've sort of taken the attitude that you're not really marketing plugins--just offering tools you've developed for your own use at a good price. So I'm not really complaining--just offering feedback that you're perfectly welcome to pitch if it suits you. Take from it what you will. But I highly recommend Praline to everyone!
Adam can I join the dummy club? :D ......I had pretty much exactly the same experience with Praline,and if it was not for mdme_Sadie I dont think I ever would have used buffy,let alone completely worked it out either.
Am I alone in finding documentation included is dwindling in all applications?
Stu.
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 05:14 AM
You're not alone! When I first got an Acorn Electron it came with a manual this thick! (spreads hands pretty wide apart) Elite came with like three manuals! Then with my first PC (a 186 or 286) just GEM had a manual that fitted in one of those huge a4 ringbinders (just). then when i got my amiga it have four manuals but they were only about as thick as a semi decent Terry Pratchett book... moving on a few years and when i got the computer i'm currenlty working on (an apple powerbook g4 500) i got a pamphlet, and a few unbound sheets of paper, and there's no text on OSX at all! (just an advertising brochure that comes with it)... so no you're not the only one. we want decent printed manuals.... what the hell are the rainforrests there for? damn it! i want to not wear my eyes out reading PDFs and having to switch back and forth between programs... grrrrrrrr
Ya agreed :thumbsup:
Reading pdfs on my puter does not help me absorb the information from them,mind you a book lets me get around 25% or thereabouts and the rest well I just repeatedly re read the book.
I know we have had this SLA manual discussion before Sadie {hope I can call you that} lets see if 8 brings any add on info about SLA etc.But if it doesnt I think maybe we should revisit this idea,but everyone will have to get in behind it so it will work or that will be end of anyone making any manuals they see as unecessary now and in the future.
Pre orders would be the way to go :) ,you get the amount of orders you need for the first run and to make it viable,then as more orders come in you do more runs,or not whatever the case dictates.But even if you do one run and there are no more orders after that then you are not in the red as the first one was viable because of the pre orders.You have people make a deposit to secure there order for their copy when you get x amount of orders, and if there is not even a first run you just return the deposits.
Stu.
ThirdEye
09-20-2002, 10:38 AM
If they don't want to gain 3rd party support they're destined to follow the leaders forever. A lot of features of other programs arrive on C4D within one year or two (when they arrive). Let's take "light exclusion" for example... If they've given support to us surely someone had programmed it not this year but 3 or 4 years ago. XSI new features are more fantastic everytime they release a new version (6 months), Maya has the A|w great background of research (for example the new great fluid simulator) done by its engineers and by all the studios in the world. Same thing with Softimage 3D, that continues his long life thanks to studios such as ILM that develops the software themselves. Lightwave had HDRI, GI and 3S two years ago, not to mention f-curves, n-gons, max's carachter studio, material system, XSI crowd simulator, NURBS... Maybe it is very difficult for a simple user to program a crowd simulator or NURBS support, but it surely would be "simple" to write some code lines for gaining for example the already mentioned light exclusion control or the possibility to select multiple objects, or a decent DOF. Now we have this things with R8 but i feel we are always late... :rolleyes: This has not to sound harsh, I defend C4D since the 5 rel because I'm fond about his workflow and his ease of use, and I want to tell one more time that C4D is easy to use because it has been well conceived to be easy, not because it has fewer features than other programs.
PS sorry for my bad english :shrug:
say-g
09-20-2002, 11:12 AM
whats an ngon ?
ThirdEye
09-20-2002, 11:48 AM
it's a polygon with n edges, in C4D you can't go over 4 edges, we have only tris and quads
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 06:20 PM
Agreed third eye... we need to get some employee/s from Maxon to notice us users... and this thread... amongst the many others belating Maxon of it's thrid party developer support.
Kiwi. The trouble with me taking pre-orders for something that doesn't even exist yet is that... well it just doesn't even exist yet. I don't know if i have writing and producing a book on the matter in me to be honest. It's a huge investment of time etc, and i need to be doing commercial work to pay the rent. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of doing something like this, but I can also see the downside that once people are giving me money to do this... then it becomes a contract, and it's a contract for something that I've never done before... I could make a rough estimate of the costs, and I really think that the normal twenty or so people posting on this board who might be interested aren't going to want to pay that much for a book.
Well, I should tread a bit more carefully. My issue is that not enough time was spent in preparation and testing of the SDK ( from code implementation to documentation ). I must state that the SDK support team does put forth an effort ( more than adequate for the level of C4D ). The majority of time that is wasted in my opinion is trying to use functions that were never finished ( I do not feel the v7 SDK was actually finished ) and were documented as if they did ( this means they act very buggy ) and functionality that I assumed was there but just wasn't. There are all kinds of issues when developing software, from resources to direction, it all has to come together to make a piece of software viable to a user base. If the user base was to approach MAXON about their support I would suggest placing emphasis on them completing and thouroughly testing their SDK components. This task would consume alot of resources and they have to believe there is a benefit to this effort. A place where the user base can make a point. Any software that does not have an open SDK becomes stale because progress often comes from a source with a different vision than that of the mother ship. Not taking away what the mother ship has created. Only stating it can become better by allowing their creation to evolve by as many ways as possible...
darf - bhodiNUT
ThirdEye
09-20-2002, 07:13 PM
Open source is the future (look at Linux for example), if someone doesn't understand this... good luck :rolleyes:
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 07:14 PM
Personally I just feel that there's not enough Documentation of the SDK.. what it is, does, how to get into it from the basics to the intermediate to the more complex...
I mean, to be honest I don't care who does the documentation, i just owuld have thought that eitehr Maxon, or a company that worked alongside Maxon directly should be able to do the job. I mean it's true that it's not something that everyone would use. But large studios would want to, and people who've got these ideas going on would... So it doesn't even need to be a direct part of hte package (Hayes manuals don't come with the cars... but I wish there was the equivalent of a Hayes manual for 3D apps), but i think Maxon could invest the time in getting some copywriters in, maybe another company... there must be companies that specialise in CG manuals... New Riders.. or something, someone out there who produces, publishes and creates technical support documents as generic.
C4D is IMHO a wonderful product, but that's not to say it's perfect. There are many features that it lacks, but the thing is those features are the kind of features that a third party would be best to produce. Crowd simulation, liquids simulation, SSS.
Basically I agree totally with what you're saying Darf.. though for me Starting out just the Manuals are what's really important... but i can see that if the SDK isn't completely there as stated in certain parts of hte manuals that would be very very frustrating, so the thing is if it's such a drain on resources. Why not get some third party to write the SDK manuals, including examples, case studies (as the main product tutorial manuals do). They would of course have to work very closely with Maxon's programmers, but it would be signifigantly less trouble for Maxon themselves, and it would benifit all of us in that C4D would gain so much in terms of there would actually be a starting point for those wishing to make simple plugins for simple tasks, I mean at least it would be better than the one or two pages that COFFEE get's in the C4D manual and the not entirely clear COFFEE reference. All you're told is COFFEE is really powerful, and you can do these amazing things with it... and then nothing. When I needed to make a very simple thing which was basically just a sporadic light attached to an emitter to create sparking electical wires it took me the best part of three days trawling through things and not understanding why certain things didnt work etc... that kinda thing shouldn't be that hard to do (it's meant to make life easier not harder).
Us people want manuals... we love to learn (at least I do), and I don't think anyone of us want's anything but for C4D to grow and get "up there" with the big boys. I'd love to see more high profile projects listed on Maxons website. In fact I'd love for them to be screaming out about it like Newtek do on the front page of lightwaves website (and alias|wavefront, softimage, eias). C4D is so great, it can be greater.
Originally posted by mdme_sadie
I'd love to see more high profile projects listed on Maxons website. In fact I'd love for them to be screaming out about it like Newtek do on the front page of lightwaves website (and alias|wavefront, softimage, eias). C4D is so great, it can be greater.
The thing is there aren't going to be any "big boy" projects done in Cinema until Cinema has solid CA tools that can compete with Maya and Softimage. Render engine quality places a distant second to storytelling ability in the minds of story tellers, and the big projects are all about telling stories. If the CA tools aren't there, nothing else is going to make up for it.
Per-Anders
09-20-2002, 10:35 PM
release 8 is all about fixing that (i thought)... lots of ca tools... but they can be better still. Maya's basic character animation toolset is only ok, but it's because of it's extensibility that it's really used to much, cos you can make up an interface to controll all the parts of your model, you can make your character walk, speed up and slow down all with coding in mel, you can add eye flicker, crowd simulation, some simple ai... get lighting rigs to follow a characters movements through mel... the character animation that's done in maya in the big studios is mostly done using stuff that they're programmed themselves... and mostly cos some animator decided that they'd become a technical guy after having fun playing around and programming maya itself... c4d doesn't have the manuals to show how to do this in c4d... if we had that, then we'd probably have a similar proportion of users playing around with stuff... and new plugins would get developed. maya's new release is pretty much entirely made up of the basic maya package which hasn't been updated much as far as i can see and a whole bundle of third party plugins integrated... this is how packages progress. and c4d can be used for good ca, but you need the plugins to get it there (like golem, and the upcoming port of messiah). i mean... maya is even considered an "os" by certain nameless companies because of it's programmability... c4d needs that in order to progress into the pipeline and move up from there.
As the user base continues to grow I think 3rd party involvement is inevitable,as C4D will get so far and then it will have to compete with the other apps which do have 3rd party involvement wont it?
Stu.
i've heard that the end-user-license-agreement does not contain a paragraph that ensures c4d or maxon being mentioned in the end-credits of movies, etc. i think it is ridikillous that maxon cannot state, which movies were using c4d in the making of the film.
michaeli
09-21-2002, 02:38 AM
Wish the Maxoner will see this thread.:beer:
CGTalk Moderation
01-13-2006, 03:00 PM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.
vBulletin v3.0.5, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.