#IPAS Routines
20 messages in this thread
I have a slight gripe with the IPAS stuff you released. Oh, it's good, and
no doubt I'll purchase them all (collect them all! — number 5 in the
series!), but there is something that really bothers me about this (and
don't take this wrong — I think you guys, particularly Gary, are Gods for
whom I am not worthy, etc, etc.)
Some of the stuff, particularly the third disk, looks like it should be
intregal to 3D Studio — yet the person/persons responsible for upgrading
3D are offering it. In other words, it's as if Word Perfect was written by
someone who also wrote an add-in spell checker for Word Perfect — what
point would WP have to include that spell checker? (As a matter of fact,
there's a disincentive for you guys to include any of the IPAS routines you
offer as standard 3D features).
I think the concept of add-on IPAS is fine — my software product itself is
very similar in offering such third party support. But I also think the
trend in software is to be as fully featured as possible, and you shouldn't
have to think twice about including such a feature just because you already
wrote an IPAS routine that does the same thing (does this mean we'll never
see defocus, or glow inside of 3D Studio, for example?).
Gods? Maniacs maybe. Nerds definitely. But Gods? hmmm… I'll have to
ask my wife about that… (or maybe my mother… 🙂
Interesting question. It's obvious that no other animation system offers
the functionality of those IPAS routines internally. Some of them offer
various pieces, but I'm sure that those systems don't offer all of the core
3DS functionality. Especially for the price. The reality is that for us to
ship a product on a schedule, we can only put a limited number of features
in it. Technically, anything is possible, but our philosophy is to try to
get new releases out in a reasonable timeframe, and I think we did that
pretty well with the period between 3DSr1 and 3DSr2. We expect to put just
as much new functionality in 3DSr3, and we're going to likewise attempt to
get it out in a timely way. The IPAS stuff really provides wacky special
effects that only certain people need, whereas we try to build core
functionality that's more general.
– G
Thanks much for the reply. Yes, you are Gods, and don't let anyone tell
you otherwise (even your wife — ESPECIALLY your wife. Asking your wife to
tell you if you're wonderful is just… well, it's asking for trouble, for
sure). You're in that category because, for those of us mortals who
cannot, you can satisfy the dreams and wishes in a deep and complete
manner. Don't knock it — in a VERY limited way I am such a creature to
those who purchase MY software (but VERY limited, and with feet of clay).
I wasn't complaining so much as raising an issue because I do think that
some of the IPAS stuff (particularly, as I said, the DISK 3) IMHO should be
built in. Built-ins nearly are always more reliable (here I go on THAT
subject again) and have a better degree of integration with the rest of the
product.
In any case, I've seen some of the IPAS pictures and I'm sold, so if AD can
just ship me my 2.01 upgrade (and doesn't make my dealer and I go through
hoops) I'm in for the group. But don't let it stop you from adding some of
this stuff (or simliar) to release 3.
Hey Mike… you've definitely been staring at the computer too long!
You've forgotten the difference between "nerds" and "gods". (ok, I know
that we're ALL gods in the fractal sense… self-similarity and all that
😉
The discussion you raised about features is certainly interesting… We're
always working as hard as possible, and I'm sure that you'll find that
release 3 is just as much of a value as release 2 was (if not more, of
course).
Thanks for the feedback
– G
Mike,
Interesting question. Of course , one mans core routine, is another mans
special effect — only the designers of the code can really draw the line
but this is the perfect forum to suggest mid-course corrections or politely
disagree.
I have a similar beef about a program called Tapcis. There are bunches of
shareware add-ons that I don't buy on principle cause I think they ought to
be part of the main program. Still it gives Tapcis great flexability to be
all things to all people.
Look at the tremendous success AutoDesk has had concentrating on core
issues while an entire industry of 3rd party developers has grown up around
special interest AutoCad product. 3-D Studio , espeically the IPAS
extentions is in its infancy, once the developers kit becomes available to
outsiders it will be interesting to see if things catch fire .
Hey Gary, lets start a public wishlist file of IPAS routines for
commercial, shareware, and freebie authors to consult when considering what
stuff to add-on. I'm sure we've all got some cool IPAS fantasies and
practical applications ideas. You could keep the ASCII file in a DL updated
once a month or so adding new stuff, deleting whats been released, kind of
an ongoing computerized want list directory like the stores do for
weddings.
Bruce and ???? would like silver service pattern 4-B and an IPAS routine
that allows flocking, schooling, and collision avoidance behavioral
animation controls. See IPAS partical systems and papers by Craig Reynolds
for inspirations.
Bruce:
I'll add one that I was really hoping would be part of the product by now:
Animating a spotlight as the sun. You should be able to input time of day,
time of year, latitude, longitude, and daylight savings time or not. It
would either animate one full day of sunlight OR one year a a certain time
of day.
Any takers out there?
Greg
Sure.. Put me down for the sun IPAS routine. Also, instead of a day or a
year, you should be able to specify any time frame. A parameter like
minutes/frame should do the trick.
Also, I have a little IPAS wishlist of my own.
1) Skin. The ability to drape a "skin" over a group of seperated objects,
or seperated elemets of the same object. This would allow for seamless
animation of a human. Just create the positions in the Editor and morph
between them in the Keyframer. There should be a tension control for this,
for baggy/loose skin or tight skin where you can see the object's original
shapes.
2) Object detection. Don't know if this one is possible. Something to
scan the animation and make it so that it knows if something is solid. So,
if you want to have a car ram into a wall, it won't go through it. Or, as
I saw on some demo tape somewhere, a mushy sponge cylinder that drops and
lands on top of and perpendicular to a hard cylinder and bends over it as
it falls on it.
3) Wind and wave generation. Set a wind source or wave source, direction
and strength, start/stop times and have objects react to them, by blowing
or waving away form the source. The Ripple.PXP doesn't really do this,
since it just creates a constant ripple, not one that starts from the
middle and spreads across a calm surface.
4) Shaped light sources. This is necessary to accurately use long
fluorescent bulbs, or shaped light bulbs. The spherical ones don't always
cut it.
These are just off the top of my head and I'm sure I could come up with
more. I like the idea of keeping a list of these, just to keep enterprising
programmers busy. I may do some of these myself, once the developer's kit
becomes available.
Aaron
Aaron,
I've decided to volunteer to keep tally of the IPAS wishlist and I will
upload it as soon as I have a few more entries. Right now I have
suggestions from you, Greg Pyros, Bruce Goren and myself. As for shaped
lights you can always simulate a matte box as used in the movies and make
shapes to constrain the light (shadows should be on). Many of us have
learnt workarounds for these wishes although having the best tools would
make us more efficient. My wish is for inverse kinematics as used by
Softimage – this makes animation of complex hierchical linkages easier. For
example, you would move of humans hand to the desired position and the
forearm and upper arm would move and rotate appropriately. To do this in
3ds2 right now you have to move the upper arm, then the lower arm, then the
hand and usually repeat those steps many times to get the right
positioning. However, I am doubtful whether IPAS is currently powerful
enough to allow such control – more likely this will be a feature in 3ds
4.0 or so.
Thanks for keeping the IPAS wishlist, Martin! (and you're right… inverse
kinematics is beyond the scope of IPAS)
– G
No problemo, ese! Hey, I'm going to be right about one thing this year,
that's great – shooting for two next year <g>.
Good to see that this is getting organized. I think you're right about not
seeing the inverse kinematics until r4.0, or so. I don't think that it's
possible to use IPAS on anything after it's in the keyframer. I mean, what
kind of XP would it be? P, A? I can't see how it could be done with an
AXP. You'd need to write a custom one for each specific operation you'd
want to do; couldn't have just a general program that would work in every
case.
About the shaped lights, how exactly is this accomplished? How would I go
about making a cylindrical light bulb, like those long fluorescent bulbs.
The shadow it casts should be rectangular. I have never figured out a way
to do this, other than lining up a series of spotlights together. (Maybe
this can be done with GLOW.IXP???)
Aaron
Re: shaped lights.
I was suggesting you use a mask to shine the light through. The light would
basically shine through a hole in the geometry. To do this create a
rectangle in the 2d shaper and then another inside it which is the shape of
the light you want. Assign both shapes and loft them as a thin object.
Place this object between the spotlight and it's target – voila! the light
is blocked except where the rectangular hole is located. Remember that
shadows must be on and the analogy here is that you are masking the light.
Please experiment and let me know if you get the desired effect.
Martin,
Inverse kinematics would be a very useful addition and if anyone can come
up with a workable IPAS it would find a lot of uses.
On a project I was involved with recently we were trying to resolve the
position of free swimming underwater vehicles and control a manipulator
relative to the worksite in real time. This involved a very large budget
and the results were getting there as I left it. 3DS might have the links
to achieve this but not in real time, which required some very large boxes
of parallel processors. It could however provide a very useful tool for
planning and documetation of manipulator and robotic tasks.
Martin
I believe the 3ds keyframer would have to be redesigned or have major
additions to handle inverse kinematics, hence my prediction of release 4.0
and 1995 for that excellent capability. In the meantime there's always
Softimage if a client wents to shell out the 10's of thousands it costs.
Best wishes,
Martin Foster
The skinning process is something that's very doable with IPAS… If nobody
else does it, I've been thinking about how I could possibly get the time to
do it myself at some point next year. The wind process is also possible,
but tricky. Our explode.axp routine can simulate the effect of a strong
wind blowing things away, but not the subtle waving that you want.
Collision detection (a la Softimage method of detecting bounding boxes) is
also possible, between axp objects. However, shaped lights are not
possible with IPAS at this time. Martin's technique on shaping lights is
the best way to go right now.
– G
How would the collision detection work? Assign the AXP to each object
seperately, and then when they intersect in the keyframer, they would
actually react according to the AXP? That's a neat way to do it, never
thought of that.
The skinning process is a must have, I think. There's so many places it
can be used. No more visible joints. It would make morphing just about
anything so much easier. I guess there would have to be a parameter for #
of vertices. If the process was to optimize the number itself, odds are
that the numbers for different objects would be different.
Aaron
Collision detection would be special-cased, so that the axp knows how the
objects are built. You'd probably be limited to primitives and simple
convex objects. We do some of this with rain.axp… when the raindrops
"collide" with the floor plane, they splat out into puddle shapes. And
likewise with explode and disintegrate… but very special-cased, dealing
with the ground plane only.
– G
How about a ?XP that is a sort of scripting language. An IPAS program that
would let you program animation sequences. If anyone remembers the CAD-3D
of Tom Hudson's earlier days on the Atari ST, there was a product like this
called (I think?) Cyber-Script. It resembled the Forth language.
-Chris
Actually, Tom's script language was called Cyber Control, and it used the
GEM i/o pipeline as a desk accessory to talk to CAD-3D. It was extremely
useful, and we've had that functionality on our wish-list for awhile. Who
knows?
– G
Great idea to start an IPAS wishlist, Bruce. And it sounds like Martin's
just volunteered! Excellent.
– G
PS: The flocking routine would be extremely cool. I remember reading
Craig's paper a few years ago and thinking how much fun it would be.