For me, I’d like to have vertex and edge editing capability for sds imports. It would be sooooo useful for creating morph targets and hand-animating cloth.
And an updated version of transporter. I know FBX is here but it would be massively helpful to import relevant data like IGES and native Maya, Silo, Rhinoceros, Modo and Soft Image files. Rhino does a good job of importing and exporting to a wide variety of formats – maybe something like that?
Just my 2 cents.
man this is so right i have always tried to do this in any thing i have done be it skateboarding using truespace or going out with a fat chick. i always trying to promote the good in any activity that i do. i wish people of today had the D-day spirt like my nan.
Unfortunately all of those programs you listed are all NURBS/SubD centric programs. EIAS only speaks polygons right now. Spline entities are not understood. In order for Transporter to handle those model formats it needs to understand NURBS and tesselation. FBX was written specifically for EIAS to do this. It will import .fbx data from these packages and any NURBS entities will be converted into polygons for EIAS to understand. Tesselation is the same process that EIM and SILO have to use when exporting files to EIAS as .fact files. Polys only.
hi
A bit OT, i know, but i think a real improvement in CA tools 4 EiAS could be very important right now. Since Pixar, clients seems very interested in animation. For instance, one of my clients is asking me about some number of CA shorts for cine and TV, and i´m not sure if EiAS is the right tool for the job. I will make my best for fit in but i think i will miss something that can put some kind of handlers on the face for more subtle control, besides morph animation… maybe something like poor´s man SOFTIMAGE|FACE ROBOT. :drool:
I will have rigid clothes an stiff hair (life is hard 
) but the expresions on the faces are crucial.
Maybe too much work a feature like this, i now, but dreaming is free.
FelixCat
Hi Brian,
I know EIAS is polygon only but EIM used to be able to import IGES files (NURBS data) very well toward the end of its life. And it used to export FACT files very well, of course. Maybe EITG could take the SAT, SAB and IGES import features that were in Modeler and repurpose them in Transporter. And the SDS looks like it’s being handled well by the clever folks at Konkeptoine. Their “Encage” system would probably make Ed Catmull blush with pride. Maybe EITG could put all this in Transporter, taking the place of some outdated formats. I mean, come on . . . is there anyone out there who still uses Sculpt and Swivel 3D? 
FBX is great but it would be nice to be able to get data from other time-tested, universal formats too.
Thanks Brian,
I’ll do that but I can’t find his contact info on the EI forums or the main site. Would you happen to have his contact info?
I think its just simply info@northernlights3d.com.
I don’t want to post his personal email address here.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were build on Spatial Technology libraries, so EITG probably can’t use that.
Hi Manuel,
I just got an email back from Blair at Northern Lights. It turns out the Spatial libraries ARE extremely expensive and that IS why they aren’t used. That’s probably the main reason why EITG let the modeler go – the Spatial ACIS stuff. There are other libraries, even open-source ones, that might be used instead. Rhino and other NURBS packages use the AGlib NURBS library to great effect. Maybe there’s some way EI could use that?
Oh well, we’ll see. . . .
Rhinoceros has had to remove all AGLib technology from Rhino because Alias, who owns the library, didn’t like the idea of a low-cost Nurbs modeller competing with their super expensive high-end stuff. So I don’t think you’d want to license any technology from those guys.
If that’s so, one would asume there is a market for an EIModeler sucessor. If there was an affordable modeling engine around, it could be interesting for EITG to market such a modeler as a low cost conceptual design tool (and EIAS as a rendering and animation “upgrade”?), implementing the features such customers demand without making them getting in our way too much.
I am finally learning EIM’s ways and getting to like it a lot. I long for more versatile surfacing tools and being able to tweak curves and surfaces as in Maya’s malleable NURBS. The ideal would be something quite like Maya, modeling-wise: NURBS, poly and SubD toolsets and being able to convert from one to another.
There are a lot of specialized new modelers around, lately: SubD ones, mostly, ranging from costly to quite cheap. Would it be interesting to provide a cheap new “Rhino-like” conceptual design one?
About modeling tools in Animator: perhaps an ideal first tool would be a versatile Bezier curve primitive (it being able to, say, parent its endpoints or selected knots to other objects, simulate tension under gravity, etc.), and ways for plugins to read it and do things such as, say, produce tubes of several kinds, distort an object along, distribute objects along, etc.
I think the basic problem here is that a rendering / animation package is a HUGE project, and a modeler / CAD type app is another HUGE project. Either of these is quite a bit more complex than most other kinds of apps on the market.
Having one company do BOTH requires some pretty major resources (even doing one of them does). EIAS is what EITG does, and does well. They have a long history and quality they are building on. Doing a modeler really isn’t their speciality. EIM was cool in some ways (Ubers for example), but IMHO quite lacking in its tool-set and workflow. I think this is just a matter of resources and this not being their primary skill set.
I use Concepts Unlimited, and feel the same way about their rendering implementation. They are experts at modelers, but the 3D/rendering part just doesn’t have the feel of a dedicated rendering package like EI.
Sure, one can get good results out of CSi’s rendering app… and for industrial designers that just need a few conceptual renderings… they might really love the built-in ability. Same for EIM, some great stuff was done with it, and was nice to have it right in the EI package (though not really built in)… but it just doesn’t match the dedicated modelers.
So, I voted for building a few modeling tools into EIAS, but leave the job of a real modeler to a company focused on doing it at a high level. Otherwise, you just end up with a mediocre product, and the primary app suffers a slow-down because of resources.
-Steve
What are these libraries I here them mentioned a lot but what are they. I can guess there like sud-ds mathematics Catmull and clark but I don’t know there names) if so why not one of you clever 3rd parties make such a lib probably be a lot of work but if you can sell if to other people then that must be an incentive or is that lvl of math far beyond mere mortals. Me I find my 9x table hard
Well, first of all, all the libraries mentioned here were for NURBS modelling, not Sub-D’s. And yes, I don’t think that creating a NURBS- library is something you would do in an afternoon with the help of your first-grade math book. Hence they’re all so expensive.
Well, obviously a poly modeler and encage integrated would be best but I know that’s not in the cards. For my character animation, vertex control is almost a necessity. Some kind of smart skin. Also, EI needs to tweak/fix some of the features that are already there such as weight maps. Also, I’d like to see deformers look at weight maps for there influence. Lattice def would be nice too. Personally I love EI but it’s almost like it’s pushing me away. :banghead:
Richard
[QUOTE=DickM]Well, obviously a poly modeler and encage integrated would be best but I know that’s not in the cards.
Nothing’s been said, even the beta team do not know whats planned for each “major release”, after the mactel port who knows where development might go, i would like to think EI will have poly modeling tools one day, but not expecting it any time soon :sad: , 3rd party developers appear to do their best to fill this void, sure, Mr Revolver looks like being a really usefull tool, but its not enough IMO.
Reuben
Some internal modeling tools are definitely required… I agree. But until that day comes… I think we need something.