Installer images
Test distance between every Nth particles (XSI mailing list)
by Chris Marshall
Set the state id’s of the bigger particles to something different than the smaller ones.
Then use the setup in the jpeg, which basically uses the Get Neighbouring Particles by State compound, testing the distance between the big particles using the Cutoff Distance.
by Peter Agg
by Fabricio Chamon
ICE: Rotating particle based on neighbors position?
by Fabricio Chamon
In general, we’d prefer you didn’t disable the CER reports. But if you’re in the middle of debugging a plugin that constantly crashes, for example, you might want to temporarily disable the CERs.
To disable CER reporting, edit the Softimage setenv.bat file and add this:
SI_DISABLE_CER=1
Maya, and presumbably 3ds Max, work the same way.
MAYA_DISABLE_CER=1
Show-me-the-team easter egg in Softimage:
To get this easter egg, create an empty file named “ShowMeTheTeam.dsc” and drag-and-drop it into an XSI viewport. This has to be in a version of XSI that supports dsc import.
I used XSI 6.02 here, but the easter egg is from before that, because when 6.02 was released, the Support team was Manny, Erik, and Steve.
I see that some of you have found the 2013 docs.
For your convenience, here’s a list of the new commands and Object Model methods, but with actual links 🙂
New Commands
New Methods (Object Model)
This is an intro-level post about ICE that shows two simple examples of how you could change things “on collision”.
In this example, I use the Execute On Collide ports of the Bounce off Surface compound.
In this example, I used States with Test for Collision as a trigger.
In 2013, you can use the selection view attribute to get the materials that are selected in the Material Manager.
Here’s a python custom menu item that shows how to do it. In summary, you do this:
import win32com.client
from win32com.client import constants
null = None
false = 0
true = 1
def XSILoadPlugin( in_reg ):
in_reg.Author = "blairs"
in_reg.Name = "MaterialsManagerPlugin"
in_reg.Major = 1
in_reg.Minor = 0
in_reg.RegisterMenu(constants.siMenuMaterialManagerTopLevelID,"Custom_Tools",false,false)
#RegistrationInsertionPoint - do not remove this line
return true
def XSIUnloadPlugin( in_reg ):
strPluginName = in_reg.Name
Application.LogMessage(str(strPluginName) + str(" has been unloaded."),constants.siVerbose)
return true
def Custom_Tools_Init( in_ctxt ):
oMenu = in_ctxt.Source
oMenu.AddCallbackItem("Get Selected Materials","OnGetSelected")
return true
def OnGetSelected( c ):
view = c.GetAttribute( "Target" )
Application.LogMessage( view )
Application.LogMessage( view.GetAttributeValue( "selection" ) )
for mat in view.GetAttributeValue( "selection" ).split(","):
Application.LogMessage( mat )
return true
Here’s the answer to the Cannot create projects or scenes – The disk is write-protected case I mentioned in my last week on the frontline post.
If you get this “the disk is write protected” error when you try to save a scene, it’s probably because you are trying to save your scene in the XSI_SAMPLES project. The XSI_SAMPLES folder is in the Softimage installation folder (in C:\Program Files\Autodesk), so you usually don’t have write permissions to XSI_SAMPLES.
You need a project to save a scene, so create a new project somewhere where you have write permissions, for example, in your Documents folder.
Then save your scene.
In Softimage 2013, you can use the ViewportCapture.DSCodec parameter to set the codec for your viewport captures.
DSCodec is an string that encodes the codec ID and parameters. To get the DSCodec value, do a viewport capture and set the Codec. Softimage will log the DSCodec value in the script history:
# INFO : ViewportCapture.DSCodec: AAAAFnNwdGxycHphAAAAAAAQAAACAAAAABR0cHJsAAACAAAeAAAAAAAYAAAAGGRyYXQAAAAAAAAAUwAAAQAAAAEAAAAACW1wc28AAAAADG1mcmEAAAAAAAAADHBzZnIAAAAAAAAACWJmcmEAAAAACm1wZXMAAAAAABxoYXJkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKc2RuZQAAAAAADGNtZnJhcHBsAAAAAA==
Here’s a Python snippet that shows how to set the DSCodec parameter:
from siutils import si
si = si() # win32com.client.Dispatch('XSI.Application')
from siutils import log # LogMessage
from siutils import disp # win32com.client.Dispatch
from siutils import C # win32com.client.constants
def dispFix( badDispatch ):
import win32com.client.dynamic
# Re-Wraps a bad dispatch into a working one:
return win32com.client.dynamic.Dispatch(badDispatch)
oViewportCapture = dispFix(si.Dictionary.GetObject( "ViewportCapture" ))
oViewportCapture.NestedObjects("File Name").Value = "C:\\test.mov";
oDSCodec = oViewportCapture.NestedObjects("DSCodec")
#log( oDSCodec.Value )
# INFO : ViewportCapture.DSCodec: AAAAFnNwdGxycHphAAAAAAAQAAACAAAAABR0cHJsAAACAAAeAAAAAAAYAAAAGGRyYXQAAAAAAAAAUwAAAQAAAAEAAAAACW1wc28AAAAADG1mcmEAAAAAAAAADHBzZnIAAAAAAAAACWJmcmEAAAAACm1wZXMAAAAAABxoYXJkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKc2RuZQAAAAAADGNtZnJhcHBsAAAAAA==
oDSCodec.Value = "AAAAFnNwdGxycHphAAAAAAAQAAACAAAAABR0cHJsAAACAAAeAAAAAAAYAAAAGGRyYXQAAAAAAAAAUwAAAQAAAAEAAAAACW1wc28AAAAADG1mcmEAAAAAAAAADHBzZnIAAAAAAAAACWJmcmEAAAAACm1wZXMAAAAAABxoYXJkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKc2RuZQAAAAAADGNtZnJhcHBsAAAAAA=="
Neural net
by Mossman
Changing contexts
by gustavoeb
ICE trig maths, camera facing angles
by Rob Chapman
ICE trig maths, camera facing angles
by peter_b
“with the combination of the normal at the surface, the orientation of the particle and the vector from point to camera – and dot / cross products, you can do plenty different things.”
Motion Tools v0.3
by gustavoeb
Filter volume emission by weightmap
by patrick nethercoat
LK Lightning 1.5.0 is out!
In Softimage 2013, the XSICollection object now has a Filter method, so you can filter XSICollections by type, family, or path name.
oFilteredCollection = XSICollection.Filter( [Type], [Families], [Path] )
I updated my find all cameras script to use XSICollection.Filter, and here’s the timing results (form the same scene, but in 2013).
# INFO : getCameras_FindObjects finished in 0.033000 seconds # INFO : Found 8301 cameras # INFO : getCameras_FindObjects_w_Filter finished in 0.269000 seconds # INFO : Found 24 cameras # INFO : getCameras_FindObjects_w_SIFilter finished in 0.044000 seconds # INFO : Found 24 cameras # INFO : getCameras_FindObjects2 finished in 0.001000 seconds # INFO : Found 49 cameras # INFO : getCameras_FindObjects2_w_Filter finished in 0.003000 seconds # INFO : Found 24 cameras # INFO : getCameras_FindChildren2 finished in 0.149000 seconds # INFO : Found 24 cameras # INFO : getCameras_SelectAllUsingFilter finished in 0.035000 seconds # INFO : Found 24 cameras
FindObjects2_w_Filter 0.003000 seconds SelectAllUsingFilter 0.035000 seconds FindObjects_w_SIFilter 0.044000 seconds FindChildren2 0.149000 seconds FindObjects_w_Filter 0.269000 seconds
Here’s the updated script for Softimage 2013:
import time
si = Application
log = si.LogMessage
from win32com.client import constants as C
import win32com.client
oCameraColl = win32com.client.Dispatch( "XSI.Collection" )
si.SetValue("preferences.scripting.cmdlog", False, "")
def timeExecution(func):
def closure(*args, **kwargs):
startTime = time.time()
try:
ret = func(*args, **kwargs)
except Exception, e:
delta = time.time() - startTime
log('Failed in %f seconds' % delta)
raise
delta = time.time() - startTime
log('%s finished in %f seconds' % (func.__name__, delta))
return ret
return closure
@timeExecution
def getCameras_FindObjects():
oCameraColl = Application.FindObjects( "", "{5FC0CCAE-3DC8-11D0-9449-00AA006D3165}" )
return oCameraColl.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_FindObjects_w_Filter():
oCameraColl = Application.FindObjects( "", "{5FC0CCAE-3DC8-11D0-9449-00AA006D3165}" )
oCameraColl = oCameraColl.Filter( "camera" )
oCameraColl.RemoveItems( oCameraColl.Filter( "", "", "CopyPaste*" ) )
oCameraColl.RemoveItems( oCameraColl.Filter( "", "", "View*" ) )
return oCameraColl.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_FindObjects_w_SIFilter():
oCameraColl = Application.FindObjects( "", "{5FC0CCAE-3DC8-11D0-9449-00AA006D3165}" )
oCameraColl = si.SIFilter( oCameraColl, "camera" )
oCameraColl.RemoveItems( oCameraColl.Filter( "", "", "CopyPaste*" ) )
oCameraColl.RemoveItems( oCameraColl.Filter( "", "", "View*" ) )
return oCameraColl.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_FindObjects2():
c = si.FindObjects2( C.siCameraID )
return c.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_FindObjects2_w_Filter():
cams = si.FindObjects2( C.siCameraID )
oCameraColl.Items = cams
oCameraColl.RemoveItems( cams.Filter( "", "", "CopyPaste*" ) )
oCameraColl.RemoveItems( cams.Filter( "", "", "View*" ) )
return oCameraColl.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_FindChildren2():
cams = si.ActiveSceneRoot.FindChildren2("", "camera")
return cams.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_SelectAllUsingFilter():
cams = si.SelectAllUsingFilter("Camera", "siIgnoreComponentVisibility", False, "")
return cams.Count
@timeExecution
def getCameras_Model_FindObjects():
cams = si.ActiveSceneRoot.FindObjects( C.siCameraID )
return cams.Count
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_FindObjects() )
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_FindObjects_w_Filter() )
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_FindObjects_w_SIFilter() )
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_FindObjects2() )
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_FindObjects2_w_Filter() )
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_FindChildren2() )
log( 'Found %d cameras' % getCameras_SelectAllUsingFilter() )
eX-SI 