Author Archives: xsisupport

Mouse’s XGen to Autodesk

Posted on by
3

Walt Disney Animation Studios has licensed its XGen visual effects and animation software, used for Rapunzel’s hair in “Tangled” as well as fur, feathers and foliage, to software giant Autodesk.

Under the exclusive five-year license, Autodesk will turn XGen into commercial software available to animation and vfx professionals and to students. Announcement came at the Siggraph computer graphics conference.

via Mouse’s XGen to Autodesk – Entertainment News, Siggraph, Media – Variety.

Server is unreachable. Marked as invalid for the next 300 seconds

Posted on by
Reply

By default, any network drive that times out is “marked as invalid” for 5 minutes (300 seconds), and you’ll see a message like this in the script log:

# INFO : 4000 - Server '\\server' is unreachable. Marked as invalid for the next 300 seconds

The timeout interval is controlled by the environment variable SI_FILEPATH_ACCESSRETRYDELAY.

Setting SI_FILEPATH_ACCESSRETRYDELAY to 0 will force Softimage to always try to access the files on the network drive. That might be useful if your network has extremely poor reliability.

From an XSI mailing list thread about this message, here’s a bit more info about how Softimage resolves paths:

XSI first checks the last path that an image has been found. This
might be offline drive X:. If a drive times out, we don’t try to
check that location for a while because otherwise it’d be really slow.
At this point, XSI resort to searching for the file from the user
path, using its search logic.
So that warning isn’t a problem – unless your “user path” was really
set to X:, in which case, go fix the path in the external file list.
The path where XSI finds the image is called the “resolved path”.

–Luc-Eric

runonce.bat to the rescue yet again

Posted on by
2

Another couple of cases for runonce.bat!

  • First, there was the case of the messed up Render Manager.
    The Render Manager was slow to display and doesn’t show the properties in the right-hand panel.
    The customer originally had this problem in 2011, and then is started happening in 2012 too.
  • Second, the case of the Softimage 2012 that hung at startup, even after several reinstalls.
    The installer does run runonce.bat, so it’s a bit surprising that a reinstall didn’t fix the problem.

Softimage 2012 SAP Features

Posted on by
Reply

Update: See Planet Softimage for more details and vidoes.

Features:

  • Modeling tools—Enjoy new options for thickness, hole capping, edge cutting, and extrusion, together with a new Add Smooth Edge Loop tool.
  • Selection tools—Create different component selections faster and more easily.
  • Bullet Physics—Take advantage of enhanced collision detection in ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) and rigid body simulations with newly integrated Bullet Physics.
  • Animation & scene management—Enjoy improved overall productivity with a number of enhancements that increase efficiency throughout the pipeline.
  • ICE enhancements—Now customize production and pipelines more easily with the ability to attach and run script code inside ICE Compound Property Pages.

 

via Autodesk – Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Softimage 2012.

Autodesk Announces Subscription Advantage Packs for 2012 Entertainment Software

Posted on by
Reply

via Autodesk Announces Subscription Advantage Packs for 2012 Entertainment Software

The Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Softimage 2012 software delivers practical production tools to Softimage artists and technical directors. The Advantage Pack provides:

  • New modeling and selection tools that greatly improve productivity and ease of use
  • New options for ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) rigid body dynamics that enhance the simulation toolset
  • Extended SDK access that provides greater control over customization

PS: New options for ICE RBD = Bullet

Finding the .fx file for a realtime shader

Posted on by
1

To get the .fx file for a realtime shader (RTShader), you go through the ShaderDef:

// Given a render tree node (shader), get the .fx file
var o = Dictionary.GetObject( "Sources.Materials.DefaultLib.Scene_Material.MrWiggle1" );
LogMessage( o.ShaderDef.DefinitionPath );


// Given a progID, get the .fx file
var sd = Application.GetShaderDef( "HLSLParser.MrWiggle.1.0" );
LogMessage( sd.DefinitionPath );

// INFO : C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012 SP1\Application\phenolib\HLSL\MrWiggle.fx
// INFO : C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2012 SP1\Application\phenolib\HLSL\MrWiggle.fx

Back from vacation

Posted on by
Reply

Well, I’m back in the game after a relaxing week off. Biked, relaxed, hung out on the back porch with a cold beer …

Riding a bike in Montreal is a lot more fun than driving a car these days.
A collage of photos from one of my rides out in the west end of the Montreal island:

Driving in Montreal (aka coney island)