EIAS 7.0 Preliminary Feature List 10/27/2007

#1

This is from our website:

EIAS 7.0 Preliminary Feature List 10/27/2007

Compiled PPC, UB, WIN

Multi-Layer Rendering

A new plug-in shader system has been added for post processing which gives you the ability to create multi-layer output files in the PSD and RPF file formats. This means you can render the different material properties of your scene on to different layers of a Photoshop file directly. You can render the diffuse on to one layer, the specular highlights on to another, the reflections on to another, etc.

EIAS layer system is organized as a set of modules (Layer Shaders), it’s opened for third party developers and future expansion. Three basic Layer Shadera are included in the 7.0 release.

  1. EI_Layers.shl Render out the scene to a layered Photoshop file

  2. RPF Saver.shl Render out data to an RPF file. This format is used by a variety of applications.

  3. DOF.shl This layer shader provides dof effects directly at sub-pixels level without multiframe rendering.

The layer interface in Animator is very easy to use. Any Layer Shader can be applied to a whole scene and/or to any sets of objects. The name of the set will be used as the folder name in the Photoshop Layers window. The new “pseudo-transparency” feature allows a layered render of objects even they are obscured by others in a scene. With EI_Layers you can also render front and back sides of phong transparent objects on separated layers.

The layer system is fully supported by Renderama. When you render using the layer shaders a completed image file will be created along with a sequence of .psd or .rpf files. Renderama will return all of the files to the host. The files are stitched for strip network render.

HDR Support for all Textures

Animator and Camera now allow .hdr files to be used wherever textures are supported. You can use the whole range of the HDR image or clamp it to any desired value and/or modulate/adjust it as you need.

New Raytrace Sky Maps

The World Info window’s Raytrace tab now contains both: raytrace reflection sky maps and raytrace refraction sky maps. If a ray is cast and does not hit any objects, these maps can be used to assign a color to the ray for reflected and refracted rays respectively. Effectively, you can use these maps as skydomes environments around your raytraced scenes.

New Mapping Types

Three new mapping projection types have been added in order to allow you to work with the large number of existing HDR files on the web. These include: SkyDome, LightProbe, and VertCross. These options appear automatically in the Texture Info window for any Reflection or Sky map.

Image-Based Lighting (IBL)

This powerful new feature creates lighting and shadows based on Global Illumination Sky map image. It allows you to match the lighting between a photograph and your render or to save time by using a photograph itself as the source of lights’ color and intensity. The IBL is fully integrated into EI GI system. All you need is to assign a desired Sky map (typically HDRI but any texture can be used as well) and select “Adaptive Sky Map” mode in GI Sky panel.

GI Glossy

In addition to diffuse lighting, GI now can perform a fast highlights calculation based on the Sky map color and intensity. It’s a huge time saver for GI scenes. Instead of “manually” creating numerous auxiliary lights to add speculars to your scene, you can derive the highlight directly from the brightest points in the sky map.

Dynamics Physics

Rigid body simulation featuring all Animator joint types
Enhanced collision detection
Based on powerful ODE engine http://www.ode.org
Multithreaded calculation (of collisions and time stepping) for
Complex scenes
Non modal window
Very fast Solver
Substitution of Spheres and blocks with optimized proxies for faster calculation
Polygon reduction for heavy meshes for faster collision detection
Automatic detection of concave surfaces
Automatic calculation of volume and weight of closed and open meshes
Own open GL viewports for convenient setup control
Complete control over environmental parameters such as gravity and units
Bones with weights
Xpressionist interaction
Mesh reduction
Mesh convexification

Xpressionist

Real time expression feedback
“Kontrolleur” plugin is a “user-defined interface” that acts live to typed-in values
Upgraded function library

Animator Fixes & Improvements

  • fixed “deforms/bones + plugs” prob: now plugs react correctly for their child groups changes if they are produced by bones/deforms.

  • improved: XP scripts can control deforms in drag mode

  • fixed bug: “inherit deforms” = OFF was not functional if a parent group was an effector.

  • improved: increased speed of ccn writing for prjs with a lot of bones

  • fixed bug: plug-ins could not generate geometry after their duplication

  • fixed bug: items in texture lists become unselectable if drag&drop was started but not completed

  • fixed prob: “Smooth Across Facets” and “Color Blend” options (Group Window, Shading Tab) were not working as designed

  • fixed prob: for plug-in groups “Use UV space” (Group Window, Shading Tab) had effect in Animator but not in Camera

  • fixed bug: rama + deforms + shadows once = crash

  • fixed bug: opened Texture Dialog was not updated after texture’s image was replaced

  • fixed bug: crash if not-viewable font was selected in “Add Font” dialog

  • fixed prob: large images (> 2500 pixels width or height) were not displayed in Animator (Cmd-B) correctly

  • fixed prob: no more crashes when Animator is brought forward after a large image has been copied to the clipboard

  • improved: for HDR images, the viewer (Cmd-B) shows floating pixel’s value of picked pixel (instead of ARGB 0…255)

  • improved: group’s flags in Shading Tab (all in “Texture” panel and first 3 in “Color” panel) are saved in FACT file

  • improved: the control-go feature of pre-6.6 Animator has been added into 7.0

Camera Fixes & Improvements

  • fixed prob: there was a significant slow down if large groups (like 400K or more polygons) were rendered with “outline” options (or such groups are plug-ins children).

  • fixed prob: Camera removed UVs of plug-in children groups if they had no textures. Thus plugs could not inherit UVs of their child groups without unneeded (in fact) textures

  • fixed bug: “Diffuse Bias” (GI Window) had no effect for groups with default “diffuse” value 1.0 (Group Window, Diffuse Tab)

  • fixed prob: missed RT reflections if they passed thru transparent/clipped objects

  • improved: GI illumination calculation at object’s edges

  • fixed prob: significant RT speed slow down for scenes that contain both: very large and small objects

  • improved: if GI is ON then Camera automatically triangulates all quadrangle polygons in all rendered groups to avoid artifacts that often happened with non-planar quadrangles

Renderama Fixes & Improvements

  • fixed a series of random bugs with render strips that appears as “all frames should have same palette” error message

Plug-Ins and Shaders API

  • new service for model plug-ins: selection listening. Now EI plug-ins can receive dynamic info about items that are selected/deselected in the project to perform selection-dependent actions

  • new service for model plug-ins: reading blocks of polygons to speed up plug-ins that read geometry intensively

  • advanced UI listbox service for plug-ins and shaders. Starting from EI7 a plug-in/shader can create a listbox with enabled/disabled and/or locked/unlocked icons. List’s items can have individual icons as well. List’s items can be reordered and inline edited by user. A plug-in/shader can scroll list and assign unique IDs for items to simplify manipulations with them

  • new UI service: plug-ins and shaders can have popup buttons (same as in Animator windows)

  • new service for shaders: memory blocks. Now a shader can have blocks of data of arbitrary length. It eliminates a restriction “one value - one interface control” for EI shaders, now they can have as much data as they need, in Animator and Camera as well.

New Custom Controls

Two new standard UI controls are added: Graph Control and Gradient Control. EI plug-ins/shaders can tell host to create these controls in their windows and to get/set their data. It saves the developer’s time to create such controls manually (as it was starting from EI 5.5).

Expanded API for Layer Shaders and EI Post-Processing

EI shaders API is expanded in order to support multi-layered rendering and post-processing effects. Third party shaders can do the same thing that the pack of EI7 layer shaders (EI_Layers, RPF Saver and DOF) do. They can create their own render layers (standard or custom) that will be written out by host in a PSD file, or write their output files in arbitrary formats, and/or generate post-processing effects.

#2

well you just answered my question about crashing with Photoshop/clipboard business !

and wooooooo hooooooooo what a superb set of new toys to play with - well done to all you guys at EITG :bowdown: , I’ll be upgrading as soon as I get back from my holiday.

James

:applause:

#3

Can’t wait for the HDR and dynamics! I ordered my upgrade!

#4

Could you expand on what attributes do the included Layer Shaders export? Can one derive an occlusion pass layer, for example, or a tangency to camera one? If not so, would that be easy and cheap for some developer to provide?

It would be great to hear from the developer community about the new plugin and shader API features: what they think they’ll be able to accomplish through these.

This is incredibly exciting!!!

(Any secret features to reveal some time later, “Autodesk, start your photocopiers”-style? :smiley: :smiley: :D)

#5

You know I happen to know for a fact that something pretty cool has been missed off that list :wink:

Ian

#6

More than one… but again… its best to let EITG spill the beans in due time.

Meanwhile I’m prepping a new list of CA tools for v8. I plan to be heavily involved in that upgrade.

#7

Wow! I’m truly impressed.
This upgrade will make a big difference for me in terms of convenience and quality.
Thanks a bunch, guys!

Jim Mulcahy

#8

That’s some list. Very nice!

#9

Hi, Brian.
In regards of the v.8 and your involvement in it, can i point you about TAFA morph animation system? I hate to be a pain in the ass, but Mac Reiter (the developer) hardly could make any OSX version and seems that further development its hard too. Is a very eficient facial morph animation tool and something like this could be a huge steap forward comparing with the current implementation. I don´t know what kind of deal can be done with him, but could be very great.

http://www.macreitercreations.com/

FelixCat

#10

Felix,

I’m familiar with the application. Vertex morphing & caching for v8, however its improved upon, will take a number of things into consideration…however, I’m not one to determine if its techincally possible. (aka, I’m not the programmer) My input will be my pipeline and animation experience at the major studios and how we can begin modifying EIAS’ capabilities to make it a more friendly character animation application.

I deal with CA setup and animation every day in previs and I have a pretty good understanding of how everything should “fit” together in a robust pipeline. But like all things, time, money and personnel will dictate how much will actually get accomplished.

#11

The real question here is not whether or not you CAN improve the CA tools but whether or not you SHOULD. Let’s say you decide to jump off the bridge and then you see the dude standing below (it’s a movie reference) and magically you now have CA tools in EI. Do you honestly think that major studios will go “Oh, cool, EI’s got CA tools! Let’s pitch our entire Maya pipeline in favor of EI!”?

#12

Hey, Blair, don´t be unfair. I coubt anybody is thinking about major studios droping the entire Maya pipeline in favor of EI. but i´m not so sure the big houses are the big business. There are lots of medium and small shops doing CA for TV spots, documentals and demos, and the FX for TV are done in many, more or less, low end apps like Lightwave and C4D. And this medium and small shops had droped EiAS when their business become more focused in animation (Matt Drummond comes to my memory). My own very little business is slowly shifting to CA and i´m not happy shifting apps, and i´m doing everything in my hands to not do so… Besides the huge invest in time, i like this app, and his workflow fits my way.

FelixCat

#13

I agree with Felix here. You won’t get the big studios, but you may keep a lot of animators jumping the EI ship to go to other apps cause they have out grown EI’s CA abilities. ME and a lot of others I know come to mind. If EI had tried to add/fix some ca tools, I would not be moving to another app. But we CA have been ignored for quite a while.

I will continue to use EI for what it’s good for, and I hope work continues to bridge gaps between Camera and apps like Maya and C4D. Love to animate there and render in Camera. And if it was done right, small studios would move to Camera/renderama. Camera kicks ass. It was the one thing that kept me coming back to EI.

#14

Thats not the point Blair. (At least in my opinion.) EIAS has a choice to either compete against its competitors (Which we all know include Maya, XSI, Max, C4D and LW) or relegate itself into obscurity as a previous generation hard surface animation tool. Its either that or settle outside the entertainment industry and try to exist as an auxilary support package. Every other application out there is making strides into Character and storytelling and we must too. (Heck even Houdini is embracing character tools) We all know Camera can hold its own rendering wise, but Animator is woefully underpowered. Now when I say Character Tools…that doesn’t necessarily mean just rigging type tools. Perhaps I should clarify and say EIAS needs a massive overall animation upgrade to Animator.

There are three fronts that EIAS must address in order to become fully competitive again.

  1. A dedicated modeler.
  2. Enhanced animation, character tools and vertex level caching, deformation and manipulation.
  3. Additional bridging tools that allow EIAS better access into various companies’ pipelines.
    (Preferably direct access to the Camera rendering engine but that’s probably unlikely)

The first one is a gimme. We all know we need our own modeler…preferably one that understands EIAS and is geared specifically to address the needs of EIAS users.

The second is necessary because EIAS is still primarily limited to hard surface animation and always has been. Some have been able to obtain some decent character and organic output, but comparitively, it looks dated and vintage and they have to limit their characters to the limitations within Animator. The entertainment industry thrives on story and story is dependant on characters. IF EITG doesn’t want to break back into the entertainment industry, then it should gear itself solely to the hard surface markets. Will they survive on those markets? Probably…but they wont ever really grow. Broadcast is becoming more and more character driven as well. My arguement suggests that CA tools are far more energizing to an application and its desirability than any other feature. Why? Because all the other applications that support CA can also do hard surface just fine. Just look at Gnomon, Animation Mentor, and every school out there. CA is unquestionably the BIGGEST reason people get into computer animation. We should address that.

The third is necessary because we must live in a world dominated by packages like Maya, Max and the whole autodesk clan. Direct access to Camera via other platforms would be great, but that’s never been a goal of EITG. The alternative is to ensure that other applications can bridge into EIAS with extreme ease and take advantage of our awesome renderer. You’ve already gotten the ball rolling with FBX, but we also need FBX export, rock solid UV texturing transfer, and vertex caching to transfer deforming geometry from other applications.

#1 Satisfies existing customers.
#2. Appeals to new younger users that expect CA animation capabilties in their software.
#3. Appeals to larger companies and business looking for alternatives to renderman and mental ray etc.

Do we need other things? Sure. We need a new interface, better particle systems, soft body dynamics, referencing, instancing, and so forth. The list goes on and on. But the need for #1 is being talked about and recognized by EITG. #3 you’ve already gotten started but must finish. #2 is the only thing not being addressed…and its time.

#15

I’m agree with Felix and Richard.

#16

well said brian…

and i m also curious, if EI 8.0 not going to emphasise in CA, what else… any advise?

#17

I know the issues of improving the Character Animation toolset within EIAS must seem difficult, perhaps even overwhelming, given how EI’s traditional focus has been hard body, logo, and arch viz work. Attempting anything that is new and unfamiliar will bring with it certain difficulties and feelings of unease.

However, moving beyond your comfort zone is a way to push your abilities and grow. Sure you might stumble, have initial failures; but success will come, provided you make the attempt and work hard.

As Brian has stated earlier, it isn’t necessary to overhaul EIAS completely to turn it into a Character package, it just needs a few additions and improvements to offer Character Animators a stronger showing from their favorite animation software.

#18

If dedicated character tools are not in EIAS’ future I would suggest the following:

  1. A new interface for Animator (v7.5) Complete overhaul.
  2. A dedicated modeler (v8)
  3. Advanced instancing, referencing, snapping and placement tools that exceed Placer Deposit and rock solid UV tools and improved texturing capabilities specifically designed to address architectural and broadcast markets. (v8.5)
  4. Any animation tool upgrades (outside of CA) that we can muster. (ie improved graph editor, a relook at constraints, updated link editor and pivot snapping in windows, integrated path animation, local transforms, soft regions for deformations, FBX export, etc…(v9)
  5. Further advancements in Dynamics, softbodies and fully integrated particle systems that take advantage of the instancing tools in v8.5. (v10).
#19

I’m 100% with Brian.

  1. A dedicated modeler.

  2. Enhanced animation, character tools and vertex level caching, deformation and manipulation.

  3. Additional bridging tools that allow EIAS better access into various companies’ pipelines.

But it is my opinion that no-way EIAS will attract new user’s without a dedicated modeler.

#20

I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but I keep hearing about an increase in CA for broadcast work… where? I can think of Human Weapon… anything else? I know that people like to do CA, I just don’t see the market. The big studios handle the movies, the video game industry is pretty set in it’s ways, what else is there? Maybe I’m missing something. I do work for broadcast (cable) and in my experience, there is no budget nor time for CA. Maybe one day that’ll change, I see no evidence of it today.

Peter