#"Difficult" software
My 2 cents:
After reading through the recent bundle of Impulse messages, I wanted
to offer a few comments from my own perspective. My qualifications? Meager,
but I do animation professionally (and make a living at it) primarily with
Imagine, and I also teach computer animation (2-D and 3-D) at the Univ. of
the Arts in Phila.
First off, re: Imagine and other "difficult" software– yes, the manual
needs a lot of work, but the tutorials coupled with S. Worley's book
provide a pretty good reference library. I see a bigger problem with
people WHINING about how hard it is to get results when they haven't
taken the time to understand what animation is and how 3-D rendering
works! It's the same misguided thinking that leads people to believe
buying a MIDI package will make them composers. Not if you don't
understand music to begin with! I would like some perspective from
anyone using SGI/Wavefront/Alias stuff to let people know (unless I'm
mistaken) that powerful software is a complex tool, and as such, one
shouldn't expect to find an "experience" gadget on screen. (one more
brief flame…) So before you scroll thru you file requester to call up
"glass" or "chrome", why not think about the properties of the material
you're using: how does it reflect light?, is it really transparent? (all
but the best optical glass reflects about 5% of the light hitting it),
your object is red, OK, but what kind of red?
I agree that tools should be as easy to use as possible, but the more
control one has, the more decisions you will have to make, and that means
more work. It's easy to get caught up in the better-faster-more way of
thinking, but step back and realize how amazing all this animation and
graphics software is… Computer animation as we know it is barely 12
years old (Jim Blinn's JPL animations were done in 1981). When I get
the upgrade itch (and it's always there), I try and remind myself what
Sculpt 3-D looked like way back when (4 years ago?).
So, work hard, study hard, *then* your animations will "play hard".
It ain't easy, but (unlike a decade ago) it ain't impossible, either.
I'll now bend over and grab my ankles, so you all can kick my butt….