Software: what's happening at SIGGRAPH?

Post, July, 2003 by Ann Fisher

What a year for character animators. All the major software manufacturers have either just released or are launching new versions. All versions incorporate changes suggested by animators -- user friendly interfaces, more efficient workflow pipelines, more advanced functionality -- indeed, some versions are almost entirely the result of customer suggestions. Nearly all have two-tier price points to encourage a wider range of users; Kaydara has just done this for the first time with MotionBuilder.

And manufacturers are already working on the next versions of their software. If they haven't already, 3D animation software makers are cutting their turnaround time for new releases dramatically.

"Our release schedule is so aggressive now -- 3.5 launched at NAB just six months after our last release -- and it's very customer driven," says John Attard, product manager for Softimage\XSI, who uses his animator/boutique owner background to help optimize production pipelines from a creative point of view. "Softimage has a commitment to the industry and [with a new] release in six months, we're giving the industry software when it needs it. We're developing tools that you'll see the results of in two years. If you think about what drives a lot of companies, a movie comes out like The Matrix and everybody will start developing software that does things what Matrix does but by then it's too late. If you're that far behind the curve, that's bad. I'm working with customers to look at problems they're facing today for things that will be released in a couple of years time. We want to deliver technology when it's relevant. With a 12- to 18-month delivery schedule, that's not really going to be the case."

From NewTek which is premiering LightWave 3D V.8 at SIGGRAPH, the first major upgrade in two years: "We heard a lot from our users that they would be happy with smaller updates that came out over shorter amounts of time," says William Vaughn, LightWave evangelist, Adds Chuck Baker, director of corporate communications. "Between major upgrades we normally try to do a number of maintanence upgrades -- in this case there were four free to folks who own the software. But we are going to try to step up that schedule for major releases and upgrades."

Discreet 3DS Max product marketing manager/3D Dave Campbell says, "We are adopting a more aggressive delivery schedule. In the past we've tried a number of different approaches. Some companies like to say we'll do the most requested features... even if people don't necessarily use it. We actually work in tandem with a large group of users -- the user advisory board -- to talk about features and how, practically, they use them daily. What can we do to help improve your production pipeline right now and what things can we open up for you if you want to do some crazy custom coding for some unique functions?"

Side Effects Houdini does an annual customer survey through calls and interviews and also tries to anticipate where the industry is heading. Their new releases come out once a year. Alias\Wavefront Maya listens to customer feedback, then develops its 3D software, which "takes however long it takes. There's really no set time when releases have to come out -- 4.5 came out 14 to 16 months ago," says Robert Hoffman, senior Maya product manager.

What follows are highlights of the new 3D software packages at SIGGRAPH:

KAYDARA MOTIONBUILDER 5.0 (new at SIGGRAPH)

Platform: Windows, Macintosh

New Features: Streamlining. "A year ago we introduced the automatic rigging -- what we call the characterization process -- that allows animators to take a skeleton and bind it to a behavioral full body IK system. We also introduced a concept of full body and body parts in the software to facilitate and automate the keyframing process. With MotionBuilder 5.0. we're pushing this towards quadrapeds," says Laurent Ruel, MotionBuilder product manager. "We're improving also the bipeds. It will be more precise. It's giving you fingers and toes IK solving, and floor contact. It's adding more neck bones so you can do a dinosaur. We're pushing all this into the automatic control rig we have."

Storytelling timeline that integrates 3D animation with audio, video and camera shots. In FilmBox, Ruel says, Kaydara pioneered nonlinear animation with its motion blending tool. "We're now pushing it one step further bypassing the nonlinear animation and introducing storytelling. Animators will be able to do nonlinear animation not only by blending animation clips together, but they will also have the ability to alter the result non-destructively by incorporating more animation tracks or animation layers [as you would do using video or audio NLE]. In addition, we've added Character tracks. This enables the animator to use the full potential of our Character technology directly in the Storytelling timeline where the user can now mix animation, audio, video and constraints tracks and get the result in realtime. Moreover we added a Director's timeline, a second time base integrated with the Story timeline, giving the user the ability of creating and assembling camera shots with time discontinuity.