PDA

View Full Version : Shape Manager killing me...

twosheds
05-25-2011, 02:29 AM
I have a figure that I've made over a hundred shapes for. I can't help it, I'm addicted to sculpt layers in Mudbox and how well they work with Softimage. :D
Well this figure needs all those shapes anyway...
I have all these shapes organized into nice neat little groups in my Softimage character, but the problem is that whenever I switch between the Create and Animate tabs (or vice-versa), all my nice neat little collapsed groups expand completely.
This is becoming a serious nuisance.
I was hoping to be able to make a script button to see if I could collapse them all with one click, but nothing shows up in the Script Editor when I change any of that in the Shape Manager.
I've also looked all through the Preferences to see if there's a "Don't mess up my Shape Manager organization" option, but found no love there either. And of course the manual has nothing to say about it.
Any ideas - some sort of custom script, or some other way, or am I just stuck with it the way it is?

If so, I'd like to offer a few suggestions for future Shape Manager design:

1) Don't expand collapsed groups automatically *ever* ;)
2) Make multiple columns possible instead of just one, and/or allow for horizontal rows, as well as the ability to turn off the camera view.
3) Allow for mouse wheel scrolling through the list in both the Create and Animate tabs.
4) Add Shape Manager support to the Spread Sheet
mixe
05-25-2011, 11:27 AM
Maybe you could put them in a Customer Parameter Set? It's much neater to work with.

cheers
twosheds
05-25-2011, 12:26 PM
Maybe you could put them in a Customer Parameter Set? It's much neater to work with.

cheers

I tried that late last night and wasn't getting anywhere with it. I never really messed with custom parameters before. It was very late though and I was tired and having a hard time concentrating on what I was doing, so I'll look into it some more.
Thank you. :)
mixe
05-25-2011, 12:38 PM
No probs! :)

Here is a quick tutorial:

1. Create a new "Custom Parameter Set"
2. Select the Custom Parameter Set and choose "New Custom Parameter"
3. Shift+drag the green circle in front of the newly created parameter to the parameter in the Shape Manager.
4. You can make new Custom Parameter Sets within the first one and they will appear as tabs.
twosheds
05-25-2011, 01:31 PM
Oh, cool!
So I guess I could make each of my groups its own set of custom parameters then. That would be extremely useful since most of the time I'm concentrating on one group at a time.

Edited...

Just tried it out, making custom parameter groups from a few of my shape groups. Like all things in Softimage, it's just unbelievably easy to do and user-friendly once you know what to do.
And you're right too - the custom parameters are a WHOLE lot easier to work with than the Shape Manager and faster too, since the whole thing doesn't have to refresh after each change, and I can just close the SM and don't even have to have it taking up screen space.

Thanks so much again! :)
CGTalk Moderation
05-25-2011, 01:31 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.