Softimage 2011 Review: Improving Dynamics and Flexibility
The latest version of Autodesk Softimage comes with various improvements in areas in which it has excelled in the past and that it also differentiates from other packages. The first one to mention is updated lip sync support for the integrated Face Robot module. The new panel allows you to load in audio files and generate facial animation from it. A feature that can be useful in scenarios where you have to record an actor's voice but were unable to do a full facial motion capture setup on him or her, a situation that can be quite common.
Softimage 2011 will analyze the audio and automatically apply the correct phonemes and shapes to a character's mouth.
Softimage 2011 now offers render slate tools, which allow you to add information to your viewport cameras well as to your render outputs. A handy feature to keep scenes organized and burn information onto images, something that can be very useful when adding lens or scene info to previs. The tool allows great flexibility to hook up pretty much any information you want to display.
The well-known PhysX engine got an update, after it had become less and less current in recent releases, the latest version will improve your dynamics performance by a great deal.
ICE has become the big selling point of Softimage in recent years and one of its most exciting and flexible features. The latest addition will only help to keep that up. ICE kinematics will allow technical directors to create their own rigs and kinematic chains using ICE. Basically you can start programming rigs without writing a line of code, but instead you can create them using the node-based interface, create compounds and share them with other users. An added set of ready to go ICE compounds will further help users to get the hang of this powerful system.
Softimage now also got rid of the old particle system. For several versions you had the option to use the new ICE system as well as the old one. Seeing the funny note in the documentation says it all: "This means that you can no longer load scenes that contain the legacy particles into this version of Softimage. Sorry, but you knew this day would come. "
Artists who create shaders will find the new system that is in place to generate them very useful. If you have the source code of a shader, Softimage now generates the user interface for you automatically. This also opens up the door to a whole new world of shaders that till now were maybe only available for 3ds Max or Maya and not Softimage. Now through this more shaders can be brought over and also shared between projects that use various softwares that use mental ray shaders. At the same time they also added an updated shader library that now contains more than 100 shaders ready to go.
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I missed something when I wrote the text above. Some will say that 7.5 was for making transition into Autodesk, 2010 for optimization and stabilization (which is huge!) and 2011 for beginning again to add new killer features again...
I am not tying to say that Autodesk has put a stop to SOFTIMAGE development. Since the upgrade in 2010 was not something that can be easily counted like the number of new features, however, I only want to say that I will have to watch a little more before I can say anything.
Well, I believe that the development didn't come to a halt, yet there definitely has been a slowdown.
SOFTIMAGE was outputting several features like GATOR or MOTOR in its every update until it was purchased by Autodesk. Now it seems to me that SOFTIMAGE is only outputting 1 such feature per 1 or 2 upgrade(s). Obvisouly i am not talking about minor enhancements.
It took XSI 7.5, SOFTIMAGE 2010 and 2011 to feature ICE Kinematics, basic version as far as I am concerned, from ICE that was introduced in XSI 7.0. If it stayed independent of Autodesk, it would have probably been released in 8.0 (2010) or so.
I know SOFTIMAGE is the best 3D animation package out there (especially after I have been received again a lecture in building things in Maya...), and new features have arrived. However, I also see a slowdown in the development, and I am not sure what will happen in the future because most of the features that arrived are those everyone had expected (such as ICE Kinematics or lip sync in Face Robot). If SOFTIMAGE were not given such features, Autodesk would have been criticized heavily...
This is not to criticize or put down Autodesk; I am merely saying that I will have to wait a little more before I can say that the development for the software is not slowed down at all. I know that performance boost in 2010 and such invisible efforts take a lot of effort and time, and I regard the inclusion of Craft Studio to be another sign that Autodesk is not discarding SOFTIMAGE.
I hope all the best for the hard-working SOFTIMAGE development teams, yet I also have freedom to say that I would like to watch Autodesk a little more.
P. S. There are MAX users that claim that Autodesk is to kill Maya and XSI and combine the techonologies into a new version of MAX, called Excalibur. I don't see why they would want to keep alive the least capable package (in terms of software architecture) and kill the better ones when they have them all, but anyways, Autodesk should put some control over this kind of rumors. Makes it more difficult to trust them...
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