sla ease of learning/use

[3dg]

Hi Martin,

That seems to be par for the course I'm afraid. Although the newest set of documentation (for R8) is a large improvement over documentation for earlier versions, the very basic applications of tools are not explained well at all.

So I feel your pain. But I am trying to move past the documentation and just "figure things out". I'm sorry that this does not help you with SLA, but I just wanted you to know that you are not alone.

I also must say that this is not a gripe, but just a fact that I have accepted in the past few days. The folks at Maxon (Rick Barrett to be specific) have gone out of there way to help me on several occasions, and I do not take that lightly.


Gary

[Martin Kay]

Hi Gary, well one can always post up a query on one of the forums, but if you don't know what questions to ask, because you haven't really a handle on things, well... Sla has turned out to be much better and useful than I initially thought, but thats because I never used it much in the beginning because there wasn't much inspiration around.

[Per-Anders]

SLA is very very powerful, but it's now pretty old and new things have come along (i.e. stuff like darktree). If you need to ask questions about SLA try asking at the BhodiNUT forum (although remmebr that SLA is now owned by Maxon, not BhodiNUT so there's no point asking for new features in it, or complaining about the manual over there). Anyhow people will help you to achieve whatever you're after, although because the forums aren't frequented as much as there or Postforum, then it may take a few days before someone comes back with an answer.

There are various tutorials on the web, and of course a fair few hidden and dotted around on the forums (do look through old posts on BhodiNUT ( http://forum.bhodinut.com ) as you will find a lot fo poepl ehave gone to the toruble and effort of giving in depth explanations of various features.

I've written a few tutes myself, if you search around there's one that explains Buffy in depth. then i did a tutorial on my website on Cel/Toon shading using SLA, and there were a few recreation of XSI images that were discussed over at bhodinut.

As for darktree for C4D... well... not just yet, ha is available is a beat of Symbiont, which is a set of presets made with darktree... i believe that darktree is going to be ported fully for pc and symbiont for both pc and mac (eventually).

[flingster]

Ooh my god...you hit the nail on the head here bud. Last two days i've been trying to digest the sla manual....darn it...damn hard work...techno speak hell. That said mdme_sadie is right get yourself over to bhodinut forums cos they are a most excellent resource...especially as some users are kind enough to share their efforts which you can download and figure out how the hell they got there...hopefully sparking some ideas on the way.

I think you'll find though the concensus of opinion is just keep hacking away and you won't be disappointed.

[AdamT]

Just to clarify, there is a beta Simbiont for Cinema that's working pretty well. A Simbiont is the plugin that let's you use procedurals created in Darktree Textures--a standalone texture generator.

The Simbiont comes with 20 or so full shaders and a bunch of channel shaders as well. Depending on the particular shader, the Simbiont gives you a greater or lesser degree of control to customise or "tweak". The Simbiont will handle any DT shader made with DT2.0 and above, so you can use shaders downloaded from the net in addition to those that come with the Simbiont dowload.

DT is available for Windows only, and I don't think there are plans to port it to Mac, but there are plans to release a Mac Simbiont for Cinema.

[Martin Kay]

As far as DT is concerned that sounds great especially if you're using Win.
On the sla thing surely Maxon can't do anything to sla unless bhodinut are involved? Sounds poor to me and a shame...

[Per-Anders]

Maxon bought the code so they can do what they want with SLA. BhodiNUT need not be involved at all... however personally I think it would be profitable all around if Maxon paid BhodiNUT in to update SLA into a full on shader tree system integrated into the AM for animation of all parameters. However it's not BhodiNUT's responsibility to deal with SLA anymore, purely up to Maxon as to how they look after their assets.

[flingster]

I think from a customer point of view this would be my option, but by the sounds of other threads...neither maxon or bhodinut seem to want to go down this route....pity really...cos it would give us bhodinuts creative input and consistency in development combined with integration via maxon....now thats a force to recon with in the Oooh so competitive world of 3d software. Maybe if we beg, shout, loud enough....both parties will see the light...or should that be....be able to see out of the darkness! dunno...either way i would like to see this route of development...that said each party presumably has their own reasons....I don't think we would be having this discussion if we didn't feel in a small way that SLA had been passed up in some small way in development terms.

[Per-Anders]

well... you know, i don't think that BhodiNUT would be adverse to it (at least from what i've heard) they seem quite keen on the idea.

Looking around the forums and reading what others have written it seems pretty clear to me that Maxon need to bring in a troubleshooter to bring back control to the corporate structure and bring back internal communications. I think that the bad blood between BhodiNUT and Maxon isn't really with the whole of maxon after all it looks to me like Michael and Darf get along pretty well over in the SDK forum (at least to my eyes, but i could be wrong).

I get the feeling that the management structure and internal communcations structure is set up in a way that may need some tweaking, it feels like a small company that became big, but got the worst of small company problems with the worst of big company problems.

Of course If i was a manager at Maxon I would leap at the possibility of bringing in BhodiNUT, I mean BhodiNUT purposfully invented themselves this identity that no-one knows, but, well, they've worked on a lot of big things, for a lot of big names, and they know what they're talking about.

If I were a manager at Maxon I'd bring in BhodiNUT not just as programming resource but as a consultancy on overall development strategy, but I'm not... however I think it would be quite a coup for whomever who could actually bring BhodiNUT in. But i suspect that maybe poeple don't know exactly how heavyweight BhodiNUT is, and just think of them as being a "small" developer... ... big mistake and underestimation IMO.

[flingster]

heh heh...i like reading your response to things it always gives me a different perspective on things. I also think that Bhodinut like their independence to much to just give it up lightly! I still live in hope though..
:buttrock:

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