Friday Flashback #91

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The Yearning3D still images, created in 1993 by Char Davies using Softimage|3D on Silicon Graphics hardware. Char Davies was the Vice President of Visual Research at Softimage.

Char Davies, The Yearning, 1993.
3D digital still image.
Distinction Prix Ars Electronica 93 in the category Computer Graphics.

All of my work, including the paintings I made for many years before using 3D software, is concerned with communicating a particular vision of the world. I do not consider these images, The Drowning (Falling from One into the Other) and The Yearning, to be computer graphics or computer art, but rather art created through computer technology. I call them 3D still-images for they are essentially frames of 3D virtual worlds. They were made interactively with the 3D animation software SoftImage. In my research I am constantly pushing the software’s capacity as an intuitive and emotionally expressive instrument, for it is this capacity that I value most.
…
Interactive 3D software (and I should specify SoftImage because my creative method is dependent on it and was in fact born from it) enables me to virtually embody the metaphorical content of these images, bringing them across a threshold from the realm of dim intuition into a “real” world of light and three-dimensional form. By working extensively with simulated light and shadow in virtual 3D space, combining photo-realism and abstraction, solidity and transparency, volume and spatial ambiguity, I am able to integrate subjective and objective, metaphysical and physical realms, in a way that technique and content become synonomous.

Char Davies,The Drowning (Falling from One into the Other), 1993.
3D digital still image.
Distinction Prix Ars Electronica 93 in the category Computer Graphic.

Glossy reflections in the Arnold standard shader

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In the Arnold standard shader, you use specular reflections when you want glossy reflections. There’s direct specular (the “classical” specular hightlight) and indirect specular (glossy/blurry reflections), and both are part of the same BRDF behaviour. In this screenshot, direct specular (Direct Scale) is turned off, so you see only the indirect specular reflections. The Roughness makes those reflections glossy.

So what’s up with the separate Reflection/Refraction tab? Well, that tab gives you an alternate way to do sharp, mirror reflections (with no blurring or glossiness). However, with Specular, you can get pretty much the same thing by setting the Roughness to 0:

Finally, since I mentioned the direct specular, here’s the shaderball with just the direct spec:

ICE Modeling – Setting extrusion length and inset based on polygon area

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Here’s a modified version of Mr Laforge’s compound that does the extrusion length and inset based on polygon area. Yeah, it uses a Repeat so I don’t think you would use it on a dense mesh and then just leave it in the stack to be reevaluated over and over.

The main idea is that you have to store the polygon indices (and the lengths and insets) before you do the extrude.

See also ICE Modeling – extruding polygons with random lengths

Might as well…change the default scene renderer

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Goodbye for now, mental ray. Arnold is now my default scene renderer 🙂

File > Preferences > Rendering

Now everytime I start Softimage or create a new scene, Arnold will be the scene renderer. And I’ll have an Arnold light by default (Arnold doesn’t support the default Softimage lights).

And you’ll have all the Arnold render channels.

The SItoA addon includes some events for setting up new scenes when Arnold is the default renderer.

Saturday Snippet: Finding the Python and PyWin version

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Courtesy of Eric Thivierge:

import sys
import os
import distutils
import distutils.sysconfig
site_packages = distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib(plat_specific=1)
build_no = open(os.path.join(site_packages, "pywin32.version.txt")).read().strip()
print "Python version:   " + sys.version
print "PyWin32 version:  " + build_no

See also Supported versions of Python and PyWin

Friday Flashback #90

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Trick question: when was Softimage 3D ported to Windows NT?
Answer: In version 3.0, Softimage 3D was available on Windows NT in early 1996, but Softimage 3D Extreme on Windows NT was available only in mid-1996, in version 3.5.

Here’s what I could cobble together as proof…

Microsoft Delivers High-End 3-D Animation Software for Microsoft Windows NTJan. 16, 1996

REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 16, 1996 — Microsoft Corp. today began shipping a new version of its award-winning 3-D modeling and animation software, Microsoft® Softimage® 3D, for the Windows NT ™operating system. Softimage 3D 3.0 for Windows NT offers the same production-proven 3-D animation environment as Softimage 3D for Silicon Graphics® systems, while delivering workstation-class performance at approximately 50 percent of the overall system cost. With this breakthrough in price/performance, more animators now can take advantage of high-end 3-D animation software.

For more than nine years, Softimage has provided digital-media artists with an intuitive, creative, production-proven 3-D modeling and animation environment for creating characters and scenes for films, commercials, games, interactive multimedia titles and other productions. Softimage products have helped create many of the world’s most innovative, visual effects-rich productions, including films such as “Jurassic Park,” The “Mask,” “Jumanji” and “Casper” ; commercials such as the Shell Dancing Gas Pumps; and interactive games such as Virtua Fighter and Daytona. Softimage has pioneered many of the advanced animation techniques that are used throughout the industry, including inverse kinematics, spline-based modeling and animation, and motion-capture technology. In 1994, the company merged with Microsoft to help bring these 3-D animation capabilities to a broader audience.

“Today marks an important milestone in making high-end 3-D animation capabilities widely available,” said Daniel Langlois, senior director at Microsoft and founder of Softimage. “Because Windows NT offers the same high-performance graphics capabilities as UNIX® -based workstations and all of the benefits of a highly competitive ‘PC economy,’ many more content creators will be able to take advantage of high-end 3-D animation software. And these compelling price/performance figures will get even better over time.”

Softimage 3D comes to Windows NT
InfoWorld, 22 January 1996

Microsoft delivers high-end 3-D animation software for Microsoft Windows NT; Softimage 3D for Windows NT provides workstation-class capabilities and performance at approximately half the system cost.
REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan. 16, 1996–

Microsoft Corp. today began shipping a new version of its award-winning 3-D modeling and animation software, Softimage(r) 3D, for the Windows NT(Windows New Technology) A 32-bit operating system from Microsoft for Intel x86 CPUs. NT is the core technology in Windows 2000 and Windows XP (see Windows). Available in separate client and server versions, it includes built-in networking and preemptive multitasking.

Softimage 3D 3.0 for Windows NT offers the same production-proven 3-D animation environment as Softimage 3D for Silicon Graphics(r) systems, while delivering workstation-class performance at approximately 50 percent of the overall system cost. With this breakthrough in price/performance, more animators now can take advantage of high-end 3-D animation software.

Product Overview: Softimage|3D Version 3.0 for Windows NT
January 1996

At its first release, however, Softimage 3D Extreme for Windows NT is not available. Softimage 3D Extreme offers additional features including Softimage Mental Ray distributed rendering, MetaClay for modeling organic shapes, and a particles system for creating fire, smoke and other effects. Softimage 3D Extreme for Windows NT is expected to be available by mid 1996.

SoftimageNT
January 1996, 3D Design magazine

The beta version of SoftImage’s NT has yet to implement some more advanced features, such as Mental Ray and Particle, but SoftImage promises to have them ready when the program ships this quarter.”

SoftimageNT-review-Jan-1996

Microsoft Introduces Major Upgrade to Softimage 3D
May 16, 1996

All major Softimage 3D features are now available on Intel® Pentium® Pro, Alpha and MIPS® RISC 4400-based systems for the Microsoft® Windows NT® operating system and the Silicon Graphics® platform.

Supported versions of Python

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The “officially” supported versions of Python are the versions that ship with Softimage.

  • On Windows:

    Python 2.6.4 & PyWin 212
    We didn’t go with 2.7 because of a bug in PyWin 214.

    You can use Python 2.7 if you have it installed on your system: just disable the internal Python in the scripting preferences.

    Softimage won’t work with Python 3.x

  • On Linux:

    Python 2.5
    Softimage ships with Python 2.5 because we needed to compile [and distribute] the pywin32 module for a specific Python version on Linux.