![]() So that said, while many 3D software could create the assets in their own time and space vacuum, Softimage (in my opinion) was the only software that could’ve tackled this project given our specific time, resources, and budget as there were many close calls along the way. If we had to do this in Maya, we’d probably have to break up each variant into its own scene and have to figure out a way to merge all the scenes together that shared the same geometry. Render passes are used in housing and dungeons. Not only does it simplify the artist workflow by centralizing all their interaction to a few clicks, but it also allows assets to be packed into compact files for use in our engine. Render passes were used to re-dress environments to allow artists to create geometry once, then swap textures, shader settings, and other details many times for each variant of the environment. The details must remain a trade secret, but I just had to mention we used NURBS in all their unfinished glory to get meaningful work done with significant contributions to the end product. Also, NURBS, that’s right, NURBS surfaces were used to transfer face poses and clothing between characters. ![]() ![]() Under the hood the face editor drove the animation mixer to perform face pose blending so artists could see the animation in real time on their characters. This was achieved using many ‘object view’ embedded into the relational view. It was important to see the various components in context side-by-side for comparison while creating the content so consistency could be maintained. Relational views were used to create tools such as a face editor to view and animate faces for our player characters, and adjust face customizations to see how they’d appear in the game as each of our characters have multiple faces and other components which can plug in like a Mr. Often overlooked and understated, but Softimage scaling was incredibly powerful for controlling the squash and stretch scaling of deformers used in our envelopes to animate characters with cartoon whimsy and without ugly shearing often associated with other software. The SDK was used to write 500+ tools to assist artists to create their content include tools like ‘mimick’ which is a command similar to GATOR which can transfer attributes, but do so on select subcomponents instead of the entire object, along with other bells and whistles. Our particles were created and applied in Softimage, but simulated only in engine. What made these simple components really nice is they were general and could be re-targeted for many uses outside of their original intended purpose. Heavy use of custom properties, vertex colors, user normals, clusters, envelopes, UV spaces, and hardware (real time) shaders to customize and iterate on our content. We didn’t use ICE at all (but not for lack of trying, and we tested heavily), so this is a good example of what the fundamental toolset can do. Softimage was used for a heavy majority of the 3D artwork including characters, props, environments (other than the ground), buildings, dungeons, and everything inside of them. Majority of the content created in Softimage 7.5 which we used for roughly 5 years. Production started in 2005 using Softimage XSI v3.5 and launched with Softimage 2013 SP1 – all of it in 32 bit land. The first 30 days are free with initial purchase. If you haven’t tried the game yet, point your browser to and click on the shiny buttons. If you were part of the beta, let it be known significant improvements have been made since on all fronts. The game is now running smoothly in North America and Europe for all to see and experience. Wildstar officially launched last Friday night at midnight for early access, but opened up the flood gates today for everybody else. It’s been a long time coming, a relief, and refreshing to be able to refer to something I did in the current decade. ![]() Yay! My last completed project was my previous production –Barnyard the animated feature back in 2006. Well, it’s not actually ‘finished’ as it’s an online game which is continuously maintained, updated, and ongoing, but it’s now live and I can talk about it beyond generalizations. I don’t get to say this often, but I’ve finished a project using Softimage which all can see.
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