Sla

[derwolpertinger]

well i think it's just a great idea. you already mentioned all advantages such a manual will bring to the users and maxon itself so i don't know what to say more but I WANNA HAVE IT!!:buttrock:

[AdamT]

My feeling is that, since SLA is now part of Cinema, it should be included in the manual just like the rest of the features. That would be my suggestion to Maxon.

Now if someone wanted to write an extra value book including and in-depth study of SLA, DirtyNUTS, Baker, Cinema surfacing in general, UV mapping (Body Paint style and more generally), Praline, and Cinema's use of GI and lighting, I think that would be an invaluable asset to the community. Taken together I think these areas prompt more questions and confusion than everything else put together.

[neilyb]

The idea is a good one and I would love to have an indepth manual/tutorial book on the SLA shaders. I think these alone deserve some time taken with, as they are rather complex.
As for the other plugins I cannot say, SLA is the only one taken on board by Maxon as part of the prog. But if Maxon were willing to bring out a book on the subject I would be right there with my order!

[slouchcorp]

:thumbsup:

[JINN]

Definately a good idea, the majority of Bhodinut plugins remain somewhat of a mystery due to the fact that there is little or no information on them.

For novice users it's hard enough getting to grips with normals, splines, polygons, points, and nurbs...let alone understanding the application of SLA.

So go for it, but make it start off basic, ( principals stuff etc).

;)

Ditools has only just released a manual (albiet somewhat basic), which has finally given me enough info to realise what can be done with the plugin features.

[geoffr]

yes please!!!!!!!!
i would buy this book.

the problem with a lot of computer books is that they're just printed with the black plate because it's cheaper. they then stick a cd in the back so that you can see the images in colour on screen. why do this? it's just as bad as having a pdf. i bought the cinema 4d xl handbook which did this, and, of course, the cd has snapped in half due to the fact that it's stuck inside the back cover of a flexible paper back.

sla is, i'm sure, very powerful indeed but i just can't get to grips with it. what anistropic settings do you need for that brushed metal look on a uv mapped item? why so many x and y coordinates? amplitude, scale, length, intensity, glare, projection, projection scale.......?

i think there is also a very large market for a cinema 4d texturing book as well. everyone uses textures at some point with their models. how to texture an item with uv mapping without using bodypaint? (uvmapper, a god send!)

it's a market just waiting to be tapped. you've seen how many books there are for lightwait and max.

[Burlap_Sack]

You can download SLA manual (http://www.maxon.de/pub/documentation/manual_sla_e.pdf) if you don't have it already.

Its not too much. But it's a start. :shrug:

[flingster]

Yup I agree this community NEEDS a SLA Manual worth reading not that pdf they currently have which is basically for the press to read when they promote the product. A poor excuse for information on usage.

I don't want to go Maxon bashing...but...this is now an integrated part of the product suite and we will shortly be on version 8 isn't it about time we had more info on this tool. I'm not even sure that it needs to be "this is how you get this rushed metal look" (though basic material settings would be a bonus) just more on what the hell it all means...what are the effects of setting changes. This would allow users to experiment more confidently without wasting large amounts of time on a trial and error routine.

Ultimately its the responsibilty of Maxon to produce this reference material everybody on this community is aware of SLAs power and potential....now all Maxon need to do is unleash that creative force to a very thirsty community.

You got my vote...and I would pay for it...although I do feel it should come with the other manuals, after all we don't just pay for development time we also pay for reference materials.

[darf]

Originally posted by kiwi
Who knows if we get in behind darf on this one we might just get it to happen :thumbsup:
Stu.

I spent many hours, days, weeks, years, trying to make SLA work within the MAXON presented fashion of working. With v8 it is the first time they have made real attempts at making the interface non-modal. I have yet to see SLA being non-modal but this is no longer an issue for me. I took it under my wing to write node/layer based shading system built upon BT. Coming together well and soon to far surpass anything SLA could do ( of course supporting basechannels for full SLA support ). The real test is to offer the user infinite power while offering very direct strategies for common tasks. Currently I am approaching it as preset nodes ( one node for surfacing but compiund nodes that have the output surfacing node built in so the nitty gritty is only shown to the user if the want access to it ). I find this method's greatest advantage is seeing and editing everything at the same time. The modal texture tree philosophy was MAXON's, we just didn't have the knowledge of the SDK enough to stand up and go our own direction at the time. Now we do. The big question is if anyone would really care?

OK, so I ramble... ;-)

Answer to the question: We offer assistance on our forums ( forum.bhodinut.com ) for SLA and other bhodiNUT products. We will not be putting resources into documenting SLA anymore ( as stated, it is MAXON's now ). The differing philosophies between MAXON and bhodiNUT make it difficult to followup on something such as this. We are focussing on real tools we use and making a serious effort to add information to the tools ( ours ) we have already released and making it easier to learn about future products. We have always made a serious effort to make the user experience better. There is always a demo of our products, liscensing and registering could not be much easier IMHO. Manuals are placed up online ( yes, I know they need more detail and we are addressing that ). OK, rambling ceasing for now...

darf - bhodiNUT

[Per-Anders]

darf... if the node based bt texture system is currently under construction may i be a beta tester? i'd happily help write the manuals for people, and if your'e going to sell this component, i'll buy my beta copy... please can you email me at mdme_sadie@yahoo.com

[AdamT]

Yay! Let mdm_sadie be a better tester!

[flingster]

darf -> I dont think anybody is questioning your fantastic support for the C4D community. What I do feel though is whilst tools like SLA offer the user infinite possibility to new users this is also simply blinding and confusing. The documentation for SLA currently that I have seen is simply lacking. This is because yourselves simply concentrated on developing an industry benchmark software app.

As Maxon by the sounds of it have now taken control of this product then it is their responsibility to document it. The resolution is easy.
Better documentation means less support calls
Better documentation means better production pipelines.
This all results in C4D being used more in productions, which in turn means better software sales (bottom line).

The current Cinema documentation puts many products to shame and the tutorial manuals are also excellent. As SLA was third party development Maxon have neglected documenting it in the past. This simply has to change and this part of Cinema's feature set needs documentation quickly.

I also think that we need to count our blessing sometimes for the toolset available to us and stop doing ourselves down as Cinema users. Cinema is a world class product with a world class feature set. Yes it can be inproved but flavour of the month features are not in my opinion going to make Cinema a world beater. What will make Cinema a world beater is listening to its users and providing its "loyal" user base with what it wants.

I await my updated SLA manuals Maxon!

[sad]

the sla-sytem absolutely needs a well written manual. it took me months to understand it and i'm learning new things on every single day. i'll support the people who will do that.:)

[kiwi]

Please let mdme_Sadie have some input into the manuals darf.My reason for saying this is because mdme_Sadie has a natural way of explaining C4D/SLA,and when mdme_Sadie explains it I get it,and it stays in my head,as opposed to when I read the pdfs it becomes like groups of variables that just dont connect the dots for me and leaves me with confusion :)


I love SLA please keep up the great work :thumbsup:



Stu.

[michaeli]

I agree with kiwi. let mdme_sadie join to write the manuls, he's so great on making the SLA easier and simpler to understand. :thumbsup:

[flingster]

I realise mdme_sadie has an excellent way of explaining SLA within the context of forum. But the responsibility lies with Maxon. I have no doubt mdme_sadie like the rest of us have very busy schedules and I'm not sure its good to put pressure on them when ultimately the responsibility lies elsewhere. If Maxon agree with the opinions of this forum then they should cough up the bucks for what should have been done a long time ago and release programmers from documenting software and pass this on to dedicated technical authors like any other software production process. I'm sure mdme_sadie would then be more willing to contribute to this endeavor, but don't forget the amount of time and effort these things take.

[LucentDreams]

I think you guys might have missed the root of Darf's coment though he made it quite clear, SLAis no longer Bhodinut's concern, maxonhas take it over so documentation is up to them. we can help by writing tutotirals, but in all honesty I consider SLA or any procedural shading system to be an advanced feature that rightly should be used by more advanced users, remeber the ol debate in Leigh's texture threads? That was a prime example of how many people don't appreciate procedurals because too many newbies try using them. They are advanced, take a olot of time and experimenting, I learned a little about sla from the three tutorials originally posted onthe old site, and from inspiration and a file or to from JeremyW. The rest was simple testing of it myself. I hardly used the documenttaion they had back then which was in HTML and I don't think hadanyimages if I recollect right.

Seriously SLA is hard to put in words without confusing everyone just as much, so basically download examples and leanr what settings did what to get the final result, place each channel shader into its each channel to see how it effects

[darf]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
I think you guys might have missed the root of Darf's coment though he made it quite clear, SLAis no longer Bhodinut's concern, maxonhas take it over so documentation is up to them.

Just to be clear. We put up the SLA forum to help the users as much as we could. I tried to create and release some samples to show users ways to abuse SLA. I became frustrated myself at the inability to work with my textures all at once and the overall stale SLA architecture. It was conceived in the 90's and written to work in the philosophy of MAXON. It is simply a pain in the !@#$ to use IMHO. That is why I am focussing my extra time of the BT implementation of texturing/shading and other systems. The nodes are becoming higher level allowing for much easier use by users and BT in general has become far more stable. I honestly believe this is where the texturing focus will be within three months. I just have to get it wrapped up. ;-)

darf

[AdamT]

Sounds great! Looking forward to it. Even though it's not the easiest to use, SLA truly rocks for producing great-looking textures and effects.

[flingster]

ok...I understand all this.
Maxon should produce documentation. This we are all in agreement.

Yes SLA is an advanced feature, however, this does not mean it shouldn't be documented...this really means that the need for clear and adequate documentation is needed even more than ever. Without this documentation it really relies on hit and miss exercises in futility...I can't really see the benefit of this to anybody...just because it was hard to learn in the past does not always mean it should remain this way. We are in agreement that its also very difficult to document...but again this IMHO should not mean skip the documentation part. Yes procedural textures by nature are difficult, time consuming and involve trial an error as with all texture work..but again this is not an EXCUSE for not documenting a feature set.

Does anybody know whether Maxon are willing to re-write the documentation to SLA?

[kiwi]

flingster mdme_Sadie said in a previous post he would happy to help with writing manuals,thats why I mentioned it.It was not my intention to put pressure on anyone :)



Lets hope SLA is re documented then :thumbsup: I do hope however its a separate book/pdf,if it is done at all that is.



Stu.

[flingster]

sorry.. missed that.
I'm with you really I think consensus of opinion is really who cares whos responsibility it is...or who thinks what...what us users really want is documentation.
simple really...

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