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better distribution, now strand size always fits between neighboring strands, whatever deformation is used 
lighter in render time: strand segments are generated sparingly, also there are built-in strand resolution attributes default is spread in X-Z plane. NURBS surface is optional, strands will fit to NURBS only if NURBS is connected diagonal distribution, like common fabrics. Should be much faster than old one. Fitting on strand size rely on simple, 'parallel' computation, not on geometry query by distance.
-community discussion / local 
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here on vimeo, coproduced by MJD's friend Nour Almasri. This video by Fabricio Chamon shows how to create a cracked surface using FX Tree painting and the AI Apply Thickness plugin (which is also written by MJD Boukhari).
Symmetrize Polygon, Weights and UV with one click Realign points symmetry Select Mirror Components UV Mirroring Subtracts polygons and clusters and merges them back without losing properties.
vimeo.
-community discussion / local backupScales an object to fit a specified length. This length can be taken from another object, points or specified manually.
Translate an object by their bounding box centers, regardless of their center position.
vimeo.
-community discussion / local backup
XSIBase discussion / local backupThis tool has been updated since then. Substituting instance master is a new feature. Documentation (Japanese/Google translation here) Uninstall the previous version before installing the new one. You also need to manually delete the jhInstancia.Preset file from your user directory when you uninstall the previous one. e.g. C:\users\ XSIBase discussion / local backup
The system is far superior to other similar products. The features and functions: Simple construction Classic control by means of 3 nulls Easy setup Incredible performance Realistic optimized dynamics The ability of symmetric duplication Unique skinning algorithm Skin sliding effect
Now English version of the plug-in is available to download (see the top of this post) Adhering to the SI ideology, we have supplied the plugin with the detailed documentation. You can call it from the Softimage Help menu.
As the name implies it converts clusters to weightmaps. Whats nice though is that it accepts all types of clusters (point,polygon,edge) and adds the ability to grow and/or smooth the resulting weightmap. Remember that you have to create the weightmap before you create the Icetree to make this work.
[..] Simply selects everything in the current selection based on a filter preset. Most common use would be to branch select a model and select all polygon meshes inside. There is a “Deselect All Using Filter” command in the select menu which does the exact opposite (no idea when you would need that) and a “Select All Using Filter” but no “Select all using Filter, based on the current selection”.
Mia_Material_Advanced is a shader phenomena which should solve most of your issues with the standard Softimage implementation of the Architectural Material, facilitate working with channels, plus add few additional nice features. Since I’ve spend quite some time investigating the whole topic, I thought it might be a good idea to describe the whole process on why I ended up writing my own spdl for the shader. [..]
Video. Testimonials from the si-community thread:
Wow, thanks! This is great. I use it a lot and this looks like a great improvement. Thanks for sharing! —ActionART
Thanks alot. This solves some major headaches I had with mia in the past. Especially the highlight problem. —elhemp
I don’t think there is an easy way to do this with the build-in topology compounds plus it has some other nice features:
supports both open and closed curves nice controls to interactively position, scale and rotate your copies on the curve copies will be evenly spaced along the curve the copies nicely align to the curve, you shouldn’t run into any problems with flipping normals on s-shaped curves. transfers UV’s
Another take on motiongraphic's currently most popular effect: emits particles and connects them with strands. This one is
pretty fast works both in a simulated and non-simulated environment two modes of stand creation: closest points & random turbulize and grow the strands
video from that page.
This compound is thought to be used in a non-simulated environment and the emitter mesh should ideally consist of quads only. The idea behind this compound was to quickly create coral like structures by emitting instances from polygon centers and scaling them according to the polygon they’ve been emited from. This helps to prevent instances from penetrating each other, and also results in a more natural, organic look [..]
This one is a bit techy, but proved useful to me. It takes a set or array of scalar values and spits out quantized values based on a quantization step. An image (hopefully) explains more than thousand words :)
here
This compound welds border points based on an input distance. Soft has a built-in command called Filter Points for this, but the compound can be useful for when you need to weld within an ICE tree.
here.
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this video's page: This compound turns an input polygon into stairs.
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-community discussion (Parametric equations/Topo Pack) / local backup
This plugin helps you cache point clouds, meshes and curves in a quick and efficient way [..]
Caching is now works on ICE. Work in the production environment showed me that standard caching via Cache Manager is not working for complex simulated pointclouds. Cache loads within the one object now. It's achieved by the disabling construction stack logic that allows you to save original simulation ice trees and get a cached version speed on a preview and render at the same time. It's means that your shader and settings of the point cloud will be applied to cache also. Added "Folder" button that opens cache folders of the selected objects. Video is now recording to png mov format. This is the smallest and best quality video format that is available. You can disable video recording now if you want to. Added samples checkbox for subframe sampling of the simulated point clouds. Default settings of the ppg can be changed in a SIQC_Defaults.py file
-community discussion / local backup
Based on Guillaume Laforge’s "Constrain To Particles" command that you can find in Softimage ICE -> Kinematics/Effects panel by default. I rewrote it a bit to simplify the process. Instalation: copy ConstraintToParticlesExtended.py plugin to your \Autodesk\Softimage_2012_SP1\Application\Plugins user folder. Now all you need to create nulls and constrain them is select some points on desired objects and run InstantiateNulls.py script
LK Lightning is a tool-set for the creation of non-simulated strand-dynamics with quite a few tools dedicated to the creation of lightning effects. LKL is made up of 35 ice-nodes and compounds which sort themselves into 5 different categories, Emission, Control, Splitting, Stopping and Styling. While it's interface is ICE, it doesn't require the user to have any knowledge of ICE whatsoever, which makes it very artist-friendly. Overall I've taken great care to make this as production and artist-friendly as possible. Everything is built so that it behaves very predictable and controlled, doesn't jump around or give the artist using it any "wtf"-moments. All parameters are animate-able and give you immediate feedback. No more enter parameters, press simulate, hate it and repeat. What you see is what you get.
here, new version here.
XSIBase discussion / -community discussion / mailing list @google groups / local backup
Motion Tools is a small collection of tools that aims to aid Motion Graphic work being created inside Softimage.
The idea is to create a workflow for the creation, distribution and animation of instances as intuitive as the ones found in comercial solutions. Since it is created ontop of ICE the tools have speed and combustibility considerably superior to similar solutions. This is still a WIP and there is much to be done still.
A video introduction from the author is available here and also here for v0.2 and here for v0.3
Built on V-Ray’s core platform of rendering speed, stability, and quality, V-Ray® for Autodesk® Softimage® is an advanced rendering solution for the VFX and animation industries. V-Ray for Softimage includes ICE support, efficient Global Illumination, versatile shaders, and much more. [..] (Cont'd on the product page)
Link to the online documentation. As a community effort, the thread "V-Ray for Softimage: Tutorials and Walkthrough" was set up on si-community.com as a means to gather community knowledge, starting with an indoor lighting video tutorial created by Oliver Weingarten.
here. See the si-community thread linked below for more details.
Exocortex ImplosiaFX enables advanced customizable fracturing/shattering as well as robust, fast and scalable CSG boolean operations. ImplosiaFX builds upon the powerful ICE Modeling framework introduced in Autodesk Softimage 2012 and is fully compatible with the rigid body simulation features of Exocortex Momentum.
The Exocortex Crate product suite is a set of professional grade, consistent and commercially supported Alembic plug-ins and tools that enable VFX studios and independent VFX professionals to standardize their tool chains around the Alembic file format as the core data interchange and automation format.
Keep Ref Keys (keeps only the keys on the target object for frames matching the source object's keyed frames) FCurve Interpolation (switches the interpolation of the selected object's transformation FCurves) Match All Transforms (Select the objects that you want to move — Run the script — When prompted, pick the target object that you want to match) Tracker Script/ICE Compound (ICE tracker that influences Nulls created and "glued" at selected points) Copy Animation (simplifies the process of copy/pasting animation from one object to another) Offset Keys (quickly move the keys in one direction or another using the current frame as a starting point)
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It's a very simple plugin but I find it very useful, so I decided to share it here. I called it mAligner. It basically aligns points, edges and objects. Aligns to global or local axis with the minimum selected value, maximum value, average value and specified value Aligns equidistant distance (local or global axis) Aligns to Reference Plane from polygon or edge Mirror position and rotation from the first selected object to the second one.
Support for align curves knots Align Object Centers. Instructions available on download page (scroll down there for English instructions).
backupHere’s an ICE compound that lets you have your (of course, unsimulated) points flow along a curve. The cheap trick is to wrap the points around the curve, so you have a neverending flow of particles- but you always have the same amount of points. Using the awesome modulo node is the way to do it and, as always, no big magic involved here. Rotation is linked to the timeline, so you can animate a constant roll and the usual turbulence nodes are in there, too. The compound has an output called PointonCurvePos, which lets you drive whatever value you wish along the curve. Click below for demo scene and compound, comment section is open for your thoughts… Enjoy!
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We import CAD data at work, and it often has issues with inverted normals. So I tried to make a compound that fixes the problem automatically.
here. (Note: Available version of the compound performs 10* faster than the version shown in the video)
backup[..] we export OBJ files out of Microstation, and it doubles every face.
I've attached the compound I use to fix it. Since I need it so often, I've added it to my menu. The performance is quite good. It removes all overlapping faces (not just doubled ones, also tripled, quadrupled... ones).
-community discussion / local backup
While creating my Iceland – Defender project I made several compounds to control the way objects are scattered in the scene. Nothing special, usualy just a few nodes combined into compounds with most common controls but I believe some people might find them useful. At the beginning I tried to make only one superscatter compound, but it became really huge so it was better to split it into several nodes… btw, I have almost 700 000 instances in that scene controled by these compounds while working on my old laptop. ICE is soo amazing… :)
[..] i tried to make the workflow more consistent and also added a toolbar for people who don't want to use ICE nodes. well, you can do basic stuff with the toolbar, but eventualy you will have to use ICE tree... (it would be possible to make that toolbar more powerful, but i'm really bad with python :) ) rhis is how it works now: first you scatter some objects (blue buttons), then you modify their atributes like size, shape, orientation... (green buttons) but usualy, you want to do those modifications based on some rules (red buttons) cool thing is that you can combine those rules as you want [..] (cont'd on vimeo page)
here. Video for 1.1 update available here
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Install addon. Restart softimage Activate and configure at File/Preferences/Custom Preferences/agGradientBackground
A video introduction from the author is available here on vimeo.com. backup
With that you can simply get a fast precomped preview of the Abient Occlusion in your scene through a lens shader (and with one click only).
you can turn it on and off. it doesn't need any additional performance when turned off, which is quite nice. [..] To use the script you need place the compound in the RTCompounds location and you also need to add (set WG_Path=\\yourpath\SI_WORKGROUP) to the softimage setenv.bat OR simply change the path in the embedded toolbar script on Line 5.
I know there are a bunch of good compound for doing extrusion of the curves already (I'm using a Power Extrude add-on, check it out), but here I have a few ones that solves some specific type of problems - first one is simply extrudes one side mesh that always faces to camera and second one is defines where is left and right. Also no repeat or while nodes is using, just ice logic, nothing fancy. Hope you find them useful, if not that's ok too
SI has a pivot transformations that can be keyed without using a Center operator. The awkward thing for me is that this is done by changing the parameters values from the ppg window and translation of the pivot happens relatively to local transformation matrix of the object. So I wrote this handy little script that allow you to just pick a position in space that would be a new pivot center of the current frame.
This is a renaming utility that allows you to rename multiple objects, add suffixes / prefixes, strip underscores, and search and replace.
This plugin is part of Eric's ET_Tools collection which he released here on github under an open source license. For a screenshot of an earlier version, have a look here on creativecrash.com. Version 2.10 adds the ability to add a prefix or suffix to existing object names (without changing the names themselves).
I took a stab at using the new schematic object model additions for the schematic view. Two new menu items in the Schematics View menu "Expand Positions" and "Collapse Positions". Also a custom command that you can use as well. Arguments that the command takes is a scalar value for the percentage to move the nodes from their average position and a boolean whether to move the child nodes or not.
This plugin is part of Eric's ET_Tools collection which he released here on github under an open source license. For a screenshot, see here on creativecrash.
I just posted my latest version of ET_AnimStore. Version two was totally reworked and now supports storing animation and more:
Database driven for stability Password protected to ensure no accidental deletions Now able to store animation New pose / animation organization (Projects, Model Group, Sets)
Poses aren't locked to 1 character Clean util to remove defunct poses Deletion hierarchy; delete a project, and model group and sets delete with it.
[..] This plug-in allows you to store poses for a character and use them at a later time. Please watch the video below and download the plug-in as well. Please give me your feedback as I'm still trying to develop this to be as universal as possible. Intro, Create DB, Store & Apply Pose, Store & Apply Anim
This plugin is part of Eric's ET_Tools collection which he released here on github under an open source license.
Here's a link to the script I have tooled around with: (dropbox link). It started off as Helge's script and I added some user functionality in. The zip file includes a sample scene. It's not polished and has RAM issues as Christian said. I keep meaning to re-write the XML component. I think it tries to load everything into RAM before writing any keyframes in AE and gets really bogged down. I have found that you can export stuff in smaller chunks or one element at a time and it still lines up in AE. I've done the Maya to AE(from Maya) before and it's nice that you can do it natively. ALthough, I think you would still want a script to setup the scene for you. By default it comes into AE as 1 unit = 1 pixel which is painful to work with. Several of the XSI->AE changes I made were in that area: Making what you are importing friendly to a normal AE comp.
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[..] This shader is intended for game developers in the first place - where the 'coolness effect' is always more important than physical correctness. That's why I've placed it in this section. In this release, it represents a 'single layer material' type. A material that combines a single set of textures (layer) diffuse/spec/normal etc and are usually applied to most of static assets in games. My guess is, that it covers about 90% of needs. It's an equivalent of this material I use in Unreal engine 3.
Lambert/Half-labert shading
Diffuse map/color Fresnel color Ambient color: blended with diffuse or blended with shading Specular reflections - added or multiplied with diffuse and 'ambient' specular
Ambient occlusion map Emissive/constant - masked or unmasked Bump map Normal and detail normal Parallax offset
Environment reflections- masked or unmasked Transparency - masked or unmasked Lightmap
[..] dynamically creates an ICE modeled grid and places it inside the camera frustum at a specified distance from the camera. At the same time it creates an ICE-based texture projection.
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[..] The brain child of Chris Covelli, Exocortex Species has been designed to meet the needs of production animators and TDs while simplifying the process of character creation.
Chris realized that the types of characters required in production can be viewed as variations of the fundamental human form. Thus Chris designed a system that starts with a high quality human proportional rig, either male or female,
which is then customized via a simple but powerful morphology blender to the unique character proportions required for your production. Eric Thivierge joined the project to apply his Softimage plugin experience to make the best product possible.
The resulting unique character form can then be converted, at the push of a button, to a high quality production rig that your animators will love working with. [..]
Species to UDK / Species to Unity
here by the author. Find more information on the author download page linked below (japanese - english translation by google here). Martin Yara's modified version of the script (which adds the option to modify rows only or columns only) is available in the xsibase discussion/local backup. Note that the script freezes the object's modeling stack before operating.
XSIBase discussion / local backup
test video by Tekano with 2 million particles.
here (New version available in the local backup doesn't require simulation) backup
here
Extruding along normal is available only in 2012 SAP
for operations that relies on SI units you drag in component's normal direction, for other ops (like point skirting ratio/bevel subdivisions) just drag across screen
subdivision highlighting is supported only for level 1 and only catmull-clark
J, L hotkeys change subdivision on extrude K hotkey is for repeating operation on highlighted component/subselection ENTER shows op PPG shift makes operations 10x slower
LMB is extruding, LMB and then RMB - changes inset ratio of extrusion MMB is beveling, , MMB and then RMB - changes bevel subdivisions RMB is insetting tool can also work in supra mode if you hotkey the tool
I've used it to model few production objects and it's pretty useful.
video on vimeo for a quick introduction
here
I'm hoping of you fine people has a script that will tag all the points on one poly mesh that are inside another poly mesh. I'm also hoping that you'll share said script...
[..] usage: define an attribute called "select" in your object's icetree (boolean per point, edge or polygon) > select object and run.
(sometimes you have to run it twice, in the second time it will work. not sure why, maybe it has to do with some attribute initialization thing). In your case the (very simple) logic would be a point in volume defining the attribute.(image follows)
-community discussion / local backupThis compound is in response to a thread on xsibase. You can add a particle attached to each object in models/instances.
Create a group containing the objects inside of the model. (ie. ObjectGroup) Create a group containing the model and instances. (ie. InstanceGroup).
I tested animating the position and rotation of the objects, model, and instances.
This addon allows to remote connect to Softimage and control in a similar way than Maya commandPort command. It has been created as a replacement for sIBL_GUI_XSI_Server addon for two main reasons:
The fact that sIBL_GUI_XSI_Server was a C# addon needing to be recompiled for each Autodesk Softimage version.
The need for a generic socket server that could be easily extended and modified because it's written in Python.
base version,
additional features of beta 3,
additional features of -community discussion / local backup
[..] This addon adds the most needed Curve Operators to Softimage, bringing it to a level of flexibility comparable to 3ds max. It does not make Softimage an "industrial strength" Curve modeller, like e.g. Rhino, but in many scenarios you won’t need another application for Curve editing any more.
Tools included: Attach Curves: attach one or many Curve(Lists) to the first in the selection. Blend Subcurves: connect Subcurves with a Segment (bridge) between every selected Curve Boundary pair.
Delete Subcurves: delete one or many Subcurves. Duplicate Subcurves: duplicate one or many Subcurves, with Translate x, y, z parameters.
Extract All Subcurves: “explode” a CurveList – every Subcurve becomes a Curve object. Invert (Sub)Curves: change curve direction. Like the factory tool, but with Subcurve support.
Log Curve Data: for debugging purposes. Logs (Sub)Curve details in a Script Editor. Points, Knot vector, degree, etc. Merge Subcurves: connect Subcurves by “welding” selected Boundary pairs (2 endpoints -> 1 midpoint).
Offset (Sub)Curves: draw an outline around selected (Sub)Curves. Open/Close (Sub)Curves: like the factory tool, but with a few more options and with Subcurve support.
Scissor Knots/Isopoints: cut Subcurve(s) in two or more pieces at selected Knots or Isopoints.
Curve Tools Panel: Custom PPG containing all Curve Tools plus options for Isopoint selection: Intersections and Subdivisions. Curve trims and booleans can be realized with it (although maybe not as comfortable as in 3ds max).
-community discussion / local backup
video presentation on YouTube shows...
A run through of the twelve geometry (polygon) primitives provided by the free addin "Essential Geo" for Softimage. These are mostly single-poly objects expected to be used as basic building blocks of more complex geometry and are well suited for extrusion. Most parameters can be animated and the responsiveness of C++ based code provides for fast feedback while you experiment with the settings. The geometry primitives include: Arc Capsule Fractal Ring Fractal Strip Gear Mesh (Ring)
Gear Strip Rounded Poly Rounded Rect Smooth Star Transform Strip Wave Strip
-community discussion / local backup Deform by Curve (Copy and) Deform by Strand Deform Strand by Wave Deform Curve by Wave
available.
Here is my experiment shader on how to create a rim light without using lights as a way to optimize the render and the process for the compositing step. It can be very useful to create a rimlight pass. You can create different rim lights: left, right, top, bottom, back, front and you can set different options like rotation, spread, smooth, fg contribution ... The shader works with the vector of the mesh and follows the camera movement.
XSIBase discussion / local backupThis tool can be used to Manage pass presets between different scenes Create groups from the scene selection — These groups are moved into the specific Pass and Partition.
video on vimeo. backup
