CG-Forum.com

由 aj » 13日 8月 2002年, 11:49

轉貼至 Digital Illusion Studio 作者 Rick Walia
http://www.digitalillusion.tv/Papers/De ... m#Modeling

我將較重要的地方翻了出來

"We can project a 40% decrease in production time..."

Introduction

"We can project a 40% decrease in production time, therefore giving us more time to provide our clients with the highest quality end product in a very reasonable timeframe."

I have gotten a lot of feedback on this quote, more particularly asking how I came about this 40% decrease statement. This paper will give you some insight on how I have come to the above conclusion.

Please note, this paper is not intended to be a software comparison to say one package is a better than the other. However, I will say where one package was a better artist tool for our production pipeline.

[請注意這篇文章並非比較軟體好壞之用只是說 "更適合本公司制作流程的工具軟體" ]

Maya is a wonderful package with many features just like XSI. However, in the end our artists adapted better to XSI.

[MAYA 是套很棒,擁有很多與XSI相似功能的堧體,不過最後我們的人員對於XSI的適應程度比較好 ]

Since we are production artists we have very little time to fiddle around with workarounds, we only have time to produce the highest quality artwork within the deadline set by our client. Sure there are workarounds that need to be done in XSI but they are few from what we have experienced.

It's important to understand that as a project manager, it's my duty to keep tabs on the production process including how long it takes to perform various tasks. This information is logged into our database and then reviewed at the end of the production cycle. This was a key player in determining how long it took us to perform a specific task in a particular software package.

Our final comparison was based on Maya 4.0 out of the box without any additional plugins/renderers and XSI 2.0, straight out of the box, no fancy Mel or VBScripts either. The default key mappings were used in this comparison as well.
[我們比較的堧體是MAYA 4.0, 都是未加任何外掛/MEL/VBSCRIPT 的原廠軟體. ]

Let's break it down by the 4 processes of a simple project.

Modeling
Animation
Shading & Lighting
Rendering

Additional Bonuses:
Render Passes
Net View
Synoptic View
Animation Mixer/Actions
Software Stability
Overall User Interface
Closing Notes & Final Conclusion

[我將文章分成以上幾部分]

Modeling
Polygon Modeling
This is an area that was decreased the least in production time. Since most of the modeling we do is poly based, there wasn't a dramatic difference in speed as both Maya and XSI have powerful polygon modeling tools. However with the intuitive UI in XSI we got around to the tools a little quicker.

[這部分我們減少的制作流程時間最不明顯基本上我們做的都是POLYGON的東西,而 XSI與MAYA都擁有很強的 POLYGON建模工具然而XSI直覺化的使用介面讓我們更快一點的找到想要的指令 ]

The symmetry button and reference planes were very useful as well, especially in character modeling.

[symmetry button and reference planes也很好用尤其在角色建模方面 ]

XSI's Geometry Approximation helped keep the scene light allowing for good performance in the viewport. It's just a matter of hitting the + or - sign on your keyboard to adjust the subdivisions.

[XSI's Geometry Approximation 能讓整個場景輕盈視窗上的操作效能更好.只要按鍵盤上的 + - 號就可以變更subdivision的等級 ]

Nurbs Modeling
If we were to use Nurbs frequently then perhaps this number would change as Maya has more advanced Nurbs modeling tools over XSI. However from our experience modeling with Nurbs in Maya is a lot of hassle since you have to keep rebuilding your surface, recheck the parameterization, add more spans, reduce spans, stitch surfaces together and finally deal with those nasty seams. In the end the default Maya renderer tessellates the Nurbs mesh. Hence the reason why we prefer polygons.

Note: It's possible that XSI's Nurbs tools have these same issues, as this may be the anatomy of Nurbs modeling.

[在MAYA的高階NUBRS工具中建構模型需要一再的rebuilding 物體 ,recheck 各項參數,加減 SPAN,STICH各個 NURBS的邊,還要注意煩人的接縫的問題,所以我們決定使用POLYGON. 注: XSI的 NURBS工具可能也有同樣的問題這可能就是 NURBS建模的天生結構]

Animation
Since we do a lot of character animation, XSI's animation tools were a major improvement over Maya.
[因為我們制作非常多的人物動畫 , XSI的動畫工具與MAYA相較有非常大的改進]

Character Rigs
From the start with the predefined character rigs we saved a day's work. Granted these predefined rigs may not be suited for every character but it covers the bulk of them.
[使用內建的骨架控制點我們節省很多時間. 雖然內建的骨架系統並不能符合所有的人物但對於大多數已經夠用]

FK/IK
With blended FK/IK and the ability to use the Softimage|3D solver is another bonus. The XSI solver is great too, but having the ability to choose between the two is even better.
[FK/IK 的混和使用功能與能夠使用Softimage|3D solver 是額外令人高興的地方. XSI solver 不錯,但能夠選擇兩者是更棒的]

Character Tools
Character controls is a breeze to setup in XSI, artists can set these up fairly quickly. Notice the keyword artists. If the TD or Developer is tied up on something else, the artists do not have to wait for someone to write them a fancy script to control the character.
[人物的控制相當容易 ,我們的"非 TD與Developer" (兩者皆是技術/程式方面之類的負責人)也能夠制作,不用等著別人寫script來為人物作控制.]

It been my personal observation that character animators prefer to animate the way they feel most comfortable, not the way the TD or Developer thinks they should animate. Why shouldn't the animator create his own tools/character controls?

Animation/Graph Editor
The Animation Editor can be opened from any property editor showing the function curve of that parameter. A simple right click and we can tweak just that curve!
[Animation Editor 可以在任何屬性控制視窗被打開 . 只要在參數上點右鍵我就可以輕松地調整 FCurve ]

The marked parameters feature was another great time saver allowing the artist to only set keys on the marked parameters. When opening the animation editor the artist is not bombarded with a trillion function curves, only the parameters he set keys on.
[marked parameters (被標記的參數) 是另一節省時間的功能.它能工作人員在打開 animation editor 的時候能專注在被標記的參數上而不是密密麻麻的FCurves.]

Yes I'm aware of character sets in Maya,..…too much work.....too many keyframes!

Animation Mixer/Trax Editor
Animation Mixer is a great toy to have. I say toy because I like playing with it. However don't be fooled by my terminology. The Animation Mixer in XSI is fantastic. I can't say much for the Trax editor in Maya, we never really used it much due to its lack of features.

We will use the Animation Mixer more and more on future projects. One area where we can save some additional time is in the 3D Animatic stage. If the director does not like the speed of a certain sequence, no problem, just move the clip and you're done. Not to mention all of the other features in there.
[我們在未來的案子會越來越常使用Animation Mixer. 在作 ANIMATICS(一種確定鏡頭/TIMING 的包含簡略3D人物/場景的影片)也能節省額外時間.如果導演不滿意某段的速度,只要移動 MIXER上面的 CLIP就能搞定.]

Shading & Lighting
Shading
It took very little time to get adjusted to the way XSI shades an object. But once we got past the initial learning curve, applying shaders to objects was a breeze.

Even though XSI does not have a central interface for all shaders in the scene like Maya's Hypershade, the render tree in XSI is just as powerful. Granted the central interface for shading in Maya is good for asset management, but we have our own proprietary software for that.
[適應XSI的SHADE設定方式要花點時間,但我們一過最初的學習曲線,SHADER的運用相當輕松. 雖然XSI沒有MAYA顯示全部 SHADER功能的 Hypershade,但XSI的RENDER TREE同樣很具威力. 我們承認MAYA對於SHADER的有效管理很棒,但我們有我們自制的管理堧體 ]

In the past I noticed artists were digging around the Hypershade too long looking for a shader to tweak. This process gets painfully slow when you have a scene with thousands of objects.

We have even experienced the Hypershade taking some time to load all the textures in the scene.
With XSI the artist can work solely on the one object and shader. No need to dig around hundreds of shader balls to find what he wants to tweak.

If I were to take a stopwatch and time how long it takes to dig around the Hypershade as opposed to selecting the object and hitting the render tree hotkey (7) in XSI, it would be a few seconds per object.
[之前我注意到成員總是在 Hypershade花費長時間去尋找要修改的SHADER,
這過程很慢尤其你的場景擁有數千個SHADER. 我如果有碼表去計算在Hypershade找SHADER的時間與在 XSI裡只要按 "7" 就可以在顯示在RENDER TREE 相較的話,尋找一次SHADER可以有數秒的差距]

Lighting
There isn't much time to be saved in the lighting process in XSI over Maya since 3D lights are 3D lights. Create a light adjust its parameters and test it in the render region.

Render Region
Even though this is part of rendering, the render region is always running when we are shading and lighting an object. This feature is far better than your standard IPR technology. The results are more accurate since Mental Ray renders everything right in the viewport. Softimage has had Mental Ray for a long time and I knew everything would be seamless.

One of the great features of the render region is the quality adjustment slider. During normal tweaks it's set to a low aliasing setting, if I want to see what the final result will look like, I don't need to render a full frame, just raise the slider to the max setting and it renders the image at a higher quality.
[RENDER REGION旁的調整拉把的高低可以彈性的算出符合需要的高/低品質的圖 ,不用算出整張圖而達到同樣效果]

Note: Mental Ray's scanline renderer appeared to be faster than the Maya renderer in our test applications.

[相較於MAYA IPR,RENDER REGION提供夠准確的算圖 ,MENTAL RAY在數年的SOFTIMAGE 歷史的演進已完全整合在軟體裡]
Rendering

We only experienced a small amount of decrease in production time with rendering for one reason. With Mental Ray we are taking advantage of Raytracing, Global Illumination and Final Gathering. Since these features take longer to render than your traditional scanline, it's natural to experience some lag in speed.
The key point to keep in mind is that since we saved all this time during the earlier stages of the production process, we now have this extra time to give to rendering. We have this extra time to further tune the scene for the best quality and optimize it for shorter render times.

[RENDER 方面有一點讓我們增加制作時的時間,因為Raytracing, Global Illumination and Final Gathering的功能需要較長的算圖時間. 但是我們在之前的流程已節省相當的時間所以我們有額外的時間在RENDER的品質上.]

We pretty much threw everything we possibly could at Mental Ray, no matter what we did, it still rendered the scene. We have had problems in this area with other rendering packages that contain high poly count. XSI's integration with Mental Ray is just….what's the word I'm looking for….Seamless!

[Mental Ray已經完全整合在XSI裡]

Additional Bonuses:

The bonus area was not part of our original comparison since we didn't pay too much attention on the time it took in the past but should be noted.

Render Passes
The render passes is a feature that I just cannot live without now. With just a few mouse clicks, I can have my diffuse, specular, reflection and shadow passes all set up. Not to mention if something didn't turn out as expected we just need to re-render that one pass. A major time saver!

[使用 RENDER PASSES的功能只要幾個鍵就可以分出 DIFFUSE/SPECULAR/...的 PASSES, 要修改只要重新REDNER該 PASS即可,節省非常多時間]

Net View
We will start using Net View more and more along side our asset management software since both are web based.

One of the key advantages I see in Net View is the ability to drag and drop from the Net View into the XSI viewport. It's a great graphical central management area for all of your project's assets.

[我覺得最主要的功能之一是使用NET VIEW的 drag and drop 拖放物件至視窗的功能. 對於物件的集中管理很有幫助]

A good example would be when a developer is writing a specialized script. There's no need for an artist to have to browse to a specific network drive, dig through a bunch of folders when he can have a hyperlink in the net view that point straight to that script.

[例如程式發展員可以將寫好的 SCRIPT 使用 NET VIEW的網頁超連結功能,不用讓成員在網路上的成堆資料夾中尋找]

Another good use of net view would be for digitized storyboards. If an artist needs to look at the storyboard again, all he has to do is pull it out of his net view and it's on his screen. I usually spill coffee on my paper storyboards.

Synoptic View
The synoptic view is an area that will be used on future projects as well to speed up the character animator's time. Since we are creating a 3D Animatic with the Animation Mixer, it would be cool if we saved the render regions of the approved character poses and then wired it up in the synoptic editor for later use in production.
This would be a great time saver since the animator does not have to repeatedly move the same IK handles or rotate joints when he's animating. After all, we did a lot of this grunt work in our 3D Animatic! Of course there's always tweaking to be done by the artist.
[在Synoptic View之中使用RENDER REGION的圖片在控制點或骨架上畫方塊或圈圈,之後ANIAMTOR只要在Synoptic View之中選取即可]

Animation Mixer/Actions
Saving character actions will prove to be a major timesaver as we progress throughout our projects. If I have a shot that calls for a character to backflip and I animated this same or similar motion four projects ago, all I have to do is pull this action right off my Net View.

[利用 SAVING ACTION的功能可以節省很多時間例如我可以將立即之前案子的ACTION經由NET VIEW 放到ANIMATION MIXER上]

Software Stability
Surprisingly enough, working in XSI was more stable than working in Maya.
We experienced much less crashes with XSI, especially since production artist by nature are very impatient and have a habit of clicking the mouse button repeatedly during calculations. No matter how fast we went, XSI just kept up with our pace.
[出乎意外的穩定.比MAYA還穩. 我們的當機經驗並不多,尤其成員們習慣在堧體的計算之中重復擊點滑鼠鍵.]

I have even increased the Subdivision steps, modified the shader and hit the play button during an intense calculation in the render region with final gathering turned on. Granted it took some time to recalculate the process, but it did not crash! Yes I was trying to break it, no such luck though.

Overall User Interface
The XSI user interface is fully customizable just like the Maya interface is.

The ability to mute viewports and give each object independent display control ( wireframe, shaded, textured) help to contribute to speed in the XSI viewport.

XSI has context sensitive right click menus and predefined keyboard shortcuts that helps productivity to be much greater. Selecting components in the XSI viewports is extremely fast, whether using the raycast tool or the grow selection function, we were sure to select exactly what we wanted very quickly.

[XSI和MAYA一樣擁有完全自訂工具列的能力. mute viewport凍結視窗的功能與每個物體擁有各自的顯示屬性功能讓我們的視窗互動更快.而XSI在物件上點右鍵的功能加上預設的熱鍵加速制作的速度. 而選取附屬物件非常的快,利用 raycast tool or the grow selection function能准確的選取我要的物件]

Note: As of this writing, the Maya playback of animation appeared to be slightly faster than XSI in a comparable scene. This is without the viewport muting and changing object display mode features in XSI.[在沒有使用凍結視窗與變換物體顯示模式的功能下,同等的場景MAYA的撥放速度較快]

Closing Notes

There's a lot to be said in favor of the XSI package, so much that I couldn't cover it all in this paper. This is not a sales brochure; you can get that at SIGGRAPH and all the other events.

Maya is a strong package as well, with a significant toolset for the aspiring 3D Artist.
I could never get into a debate over which is a better tool because it would be a never-ending battle. However for our production pipeline XSI is a sure winner.

[對於3D工作人員而言MAYA是套相當重要的強大堧體,我不想陷入哪一套較好的口水戰,然而 ,對於我們公司的工作流程而言,XSI是贏家. ]

Final Conclusion

XSI is like the Mohammed Ali of 3D packages; it's a champ that keeps coming back for more!

The above information has been provided as a result of Digital illusion Studios’ experience. Digital illusion Studios makes no claims to the validity of the information in this document. Digital illusion Studios can not be held responsible for loss of income, production time due to the inaccuracy of this document. To obtain factual information, it is advised you contact the software manufacturer directly.

[轉貼請說明來源]