On the subject of PhysX hardware acceleration, I saw this press release yesterday:
NVIDIA GPUs Provide Edge to 3D Animators Utilizing Autodesk Softimage 2011
Integration of NVIDIA PhysX Engine and CUDA Enables Artists to Create Realistic Water, Lifelike Characters and Dynamic Explosions With Reactive Debris
Here’s a Python version of the CustomOperator.AddParameter example in the SDK docs, which shows how to add parameters to a scripted operator (SCOP).
from win32com.client import constants
from win32com.client import constants
null1 = Application.GetPrim( "Null" )
f = XSIFactory
s = """def MySOP_Update( ctx, out ):
xsi = Application
xsi.logmessage( 'update' )"""
sop = f.CreateScriptedOp( "MySOP", s, "Python" )
sop.AddOutputPort( null1.posx )
param1 = sop.AddParameter( f.CreateParamDef2("text", constants.siString, "hello") )
param2 = sop.AddParameter( f.CreateParamDef2("bool", constants.siBool, True) )
param3 = sop.AddParameter( f.CreateParamDef2("int", constants.siInt4, 10, 0, 100) )
param4 = sop.AddParameter( f.CreateParamDef2("dbl", constants.siDouble, 0.5, 0.0, 1.0) )
sop.Connect()
Application.InspectObj( sop )
Raytraced soft shadows are not implemented for infinite lights.
This snippet shows how to read a connection (or value) mapping template into a Python dictionary.
t = Application.Dictionary.GetObject( "Model1.Mixer.MappingTemplate1" )
n = Application.GetNumMappingRules( t )
d = {}
for i in range(1,n+1):
r = Application.GetMappingRule( t, i )
d[r.Value("From")] = r.Value("To")
for k, v in d.iteritems():
Application.LogMessage( k + " > " + v )
Line 8 GetMappingRule uses output arguments, so we have to take the returned ISIVTCollection and extract the From and To output arguments. We use From as the dictionary key.
The online store sells Standalone licenses only. No network licenses. That’s why you don’t see Linux listed (because Linux licenses are always network licenses).
A network license costs about $750 more than a standalone license.
Softimage 2011 includes PhysX 2.83 and supports CUDA acceleration for PhysX rigid body dynamics (this includes ICE rigid bodies). So what do you need to do to take advantage of CUDA ?
You need an NVidia card that supports CUDA, and you need to enable PhysX hardware acceleration in the NVidia control panel.
If all requirements are met, an INFO message “PhysX Hardware is Enabled” is logged in the script editor the first time you use ICE RBD.
A customer reported this error during the Crosswalk install: “Feature Transfer Error – Catastrophic failure”. Actually, he posted the screenshot on his facebook page, Jennifer Goldfinch saw it, contacted me, and I ended up with the case.
Happily the problem was easily solved. The md5 of his downloaded exe was wrong, so he switched from Google Chrome to Firefox, downloaded again, and Crosswalk installed just fine. Afterwards I downloaded Google Chrome to try it myself, and I didn’t have any problems with the Crosswalk download. Go figure.
I didn’t see the md5 on autodesk.com/softimage-crosswalk, so here it is: 63AF7E5BA1CD27269FE2B1FD135F373C.
The T2S_MentalRay addon includes copies of Softimage DLLs, such as sibase.dll, and that causes problems in Softimage 2011. I’ve had two cases of shader/workgroup problems that were resolved by removing this addon.
Update: As noted in the comments, the problem is older versions of SPDL files that contain GUIDs used by the Softimage factory shaders. Addon shaders are loaded first, so these SPDLs override the factory defaults and cause problems.
A Subscription customer reported getting this error during the Softimage 2010 SP1 install. I also saw this reported on the AREA for ModTool. However, these are the only two reports of this error that I have ever seen.
Error Number: 0x80040707
Description: DLL function call crashed: gdi32.DescribePixelFormat
Setup will now terminate.
The customer worked around the error by installing in Safe mode, but later had problems loading his C# plugins. So we tried a silent install of Softimage 2010 SP1, and that seemed to do the trick.
You may have noticed that the ray3.exe executable no longer ships with Softimage. That’s because mental ray standalone 2011 now supports 3ds Max, Maya, and Softimage, so there is one mental ray product that includes the shader libraries for all supported DCC products.
If you were using ray3 to check the version of mental ray, you can do the same thing with raysat -version.
eX-SI 