LightWave better?
19 messages in this thread
Gary, PMJI…but did I see something of a thread about Kinnematics
Routines or was I dreaming? James M. Murphy
You may have, but Gary's just stepped out (of town) for a few days of
vacation. I'd try this again sometime next week.
Dynamics… from the same group, Positron, that have been
working on it for LightWave. Will require IPASr3 so it will be some
time in the future. They have also been talking about kinematics,
which really require dynamics as a base.
Keith, >> Dynamics… from the same group, Positron, that have been
working on it for LightWave. Will require IPASr3 so it will be some
time in the future. They have also been talking about kinematics,
which really require dynamics as a base. <<
This is very good news, You wouldn't happen to have any idea of the
time frame involved would you? I've just layed a one minute
animation to tape for an engineer. Very large AME Mechanical Drawings
averaged between 2 to 3 min. per field/frame shot…started wednesday
and just finished today. Anyway, where I was going with this
is….we had a discussion about kinematics and he went nuts just
thinking about the possibilities for his mechanical app's. Actually
I hadn't really thought about all the implications until he gave me
his engineers point of view.. Now I'm really excited about being
able to do/show this visa vis' 3D Studio animations. Keep me
informed and if they need a full blown mechanical engineer to Beta'
any of the software I certainly know of one! James M. Murphy
PMJI, but did you just imply that 3DS is going to support 3D inverse
Kinematics? Would this be through IPAS? Please do tell!
PMJI, Greg and Murph, but with IPAS3's ability to access virtually
*anything* the keyframer can do, all kinds of dynamics and kinematics
will be possible, as soon as the new SDK is released (hopefully in
the late November/early December timeframe, I understand) and someone
starts writing them. Gary has mentioned that he knows of a number of
folks who plan to jump on this stuff as soom as it is possible, so
time will tell. I think Gary also mentioned that it will be possible
to do much (if not all) the stuff that Wavefront's new packages can
do. We'll have to ask him when he gets back! This is not to mention
the keyframer's "Basic" scripting abilities to let us interact with
some procedures ourselves! -Alan (just can't wait for this stuff!)
I guess what I'm asking then is, is it *true* kinematics, i.e.- do
the objects really know that they are colliding, and would a
kinematic chain be visible in the keyframer that you could
interactivly manipulate. In other words, would the only type of
object manipulation possible be through an IPAS requester box, or
would you do right in the keyframer? The only thing I don't like
about IPAS is that I feel that in some instances it's not interactive
enough with the rest of the interface. BTW, what is SDK?
PMJI, but although the possibility exist for such an IPAS routine, it
is no doubt a year or more away from actual existence. The original
question was posed by me after I had a conversation with Gary on the
subject. We're currently checking the feasibility of such a routine,
but no-one seems to be currently working on such an entity, and if a
group decided to undertake the task, the sheer coding would evidently
be a monumental task to attempt.
This isn't my input, it's what Gary told me. Additionally, it appears
that to even start thinking about tackling kinematics/inverse
kinematics that an extremely strong dynamic/collision detection base
code would need to be established. Gary said that there was a group
working on a set of dynamics code for R3 but that it was a couple of
months away.
This would all seem to suggest that something like this would be
better as part of the software from the beginning, not an add on done
by a third party developer. I would personally like to see it as
part of the system interface.
I'm sure we'd all love to see it become a part of the program. Maybe
R4!!!! If not then maybe Tom or Dan will go totally nuts and do it as
an IPAS!
I, also, would like to see the collision/inverse kinematics, etc. be
part of the program, rather than a 3rd party add-on (which will also
cost another pretty penny… difficult for us out-on-the-street
types).
.. would like to see the collision/inverse kinematics, etc. be part of
the program, rather than a 3rd party add-on…
It would be nice to see all IPAS routines be included as part of 3DS.
I bet putting in everyone's favorite would drive the price up too
much though. I'd rather pay a small amount for the main engine and
add just the routines I need. (Imagine if AutoCAD tried to
anticipate everyone's needs – mechanical, architectural, electronic,
etc.)
I agree with you David. It's like the "high end" packages. Their
very modular, though the modules are more integrated than IPAS. I
haven't checked out too much R3 IPAS, though, so I'm sure I'll be
pleasantly surprised.
I guess I don't think all IPAS routines ought to be included in the
base program of 3DS and I'm sure other prople would have differing
opinions as to which ones ought to be, but, IMHO, being able to
animate characters is pretty basic and the currently built-in linking
makes the task easier than having a collection of totally loose
parts, but still very awkward. All of the other IPAS routines I've
heard of or seen seem to be very much an add-in kind of function. To
easily move a figure's extremity and not leave behind the rest of the
bod does not. As I say, I expect others hold differing views…
.. would like to see the collision/inverse kinematics, etc. be part of
the program, rather than a 3rd party add-on…
It would be nice to see all IPAS routines be included as part of 3DS.
I bet putting in everyone's favorite would drive the price up too
much though. I'd rather pay a small amount for the main engine and
add just the routines I need. (Imagine if AutoCAD tried to
anticipate everyone's needs – mechanical, architectural, electronic,
etc.)
PaulL pretty much said it all. I've found, BTW, that the level of
interactivity of an IPAS interface can be a function of how much
stuff the programmers wish to put into it. The more "code" bells and
whistles, the more buttons and numerical entries for specific
operations can be called. "SDK" just means the IPAS3 Software
Developers Kit.
Perhaps they (AutoDesk) should come out with some kind of standard for
IPAS interactivity. That would insure that all IPAS routines meet a
certain level of user interactivity, which would allow more time for
creating great imagry and lees time fooling with requesters!
A nice thought, Greg. I think maybe, though, I may miss that feeling
of discovery you get when you find ways to get effects from routines
that (seemingly) were designed to do something completely different,
or when you come up with something totally unexpected after doing a
lot of "requester fooling"<g>. Not that this ability would go away
with more interactivity, but I may not be quite so inclined to push
it as much as I do now-:) At any rate, I'm sure things will get more
interactive *and* functional as time goes on. As long as I get all
this stuff to mess with I'm pretty much a happy guy…
As long as I get all this stuff to mess with I'm pretty much a happy guy…<<
I know the feeling!
-GT