Part I - Getting Started
Part II - Setting up Softimage

In our first blog, we discussed the initial steps required for building of our art pack. In part II, we will discuss how we set up our modeling environment and the gotchas we found along the way.

Create your own toolbar

Autodesk's Softimage is a fairly powerful modeling tool which seems to be very fast for making models. After making several models we found that we used the same set of functions over and over again. By taking these functions and placing them on a personalized toolbar, this allowed us to move even quicker in our modeling phase.

To create a toolbar, go to VIEW, then NEW CUSTOM TOOLBAR and a new window will appear. Next, right click the mouse button then select CUSTOMIZE TOOLBAR from the context menu. Another window will appear which provides you with a list of all the commands from Softimage which you can place on your new toolbar. If you can not see your toolbar window, then just move the Customize Toolbar window over some.

As most of the commands we want are modeling related, change the KEYWORD FILTER at the top of the Customize Toolbar to MODELING. To place a command from this filtered list, just drag and drop the command onto your new toolbar window. Here is a list of commands that we found we used over and over again:


- Add Edge Tool *
- Add Polygon *
- Bevel
- Bool Gen Difference
- Bool Gen Union
- Bridge Polygon
- Bridge Edges
- Dice Object
- Extrude Comp. Axis
- Weld Point
- Dissolve Clean

In addition to those command, we also added the following from the PRIMITIVE filter:

- Mesh Cube
- Mesh Cylinder
- Mesh Sphere

Note that the commands above we marked with an asterik (*) we eventually removed as we started memorizing the keyboard shortcut commands.

Once you have finished creating your new toolbar, the next step is to save it. Just right click on your toolbar window and select SAVE from the context menu. You can now close the Customize Toolbar window as you no longer need it.

The next time you open Softimage, your new toolbar may not be there. In that case, just go to the VIEW - TOOLBARS - YOUR_TOOLBAR_NAME on the main menu to show it.

Clean up the workspace of non-needed panels

The next step, we found which helped was to hide any panels we did not need for modeling. This is done by going to VIEW - OPTIONAL PANELS and unchecking any panels not needed. The only panels we kept checked was:

Main Shelf (has our new tools on it)
MCP

Bugs in Softimage

There appears to be two main methods to creating a model in Softimage; boolean approach and the extrude approach. With the boolean approach, you start with a cube and then use other meshes to delete parts of the original cube. For example, if you have a large cube, then you duplicate that cube (ctrl-alt-d), then you re-size that cube to be smaller than the original cube, then you select the base cube first, then the second cube, then do a boolean difference command. The result would be the original cube with a hole inside it the size of the second cube.

At first we really liked the boolean approach as it was much faster to build up complex shapes in our model. This technique works well until the model has too many holes in it already. We found that if you take a cube then do a boolean difference on that cube, Softimage would consistantly crash after about the 12 hole. We suggest you try this technique yourself to learn the limitations of about where the crash will occur.

An additional, flaw to using the boolean approach is it often leaves your model with several vertices which are not needed. Just use the Dissolve Clean and Weld Point Tool to clean them up.

The extruse method work OK, however, we found that anytime we extruded two adjacent polygons, the resulting extruded polygons were not connected inside. This results in extra vertices and faces which add to the models size which have no purpose.

Backup & Saving

Being a software developer for over 25 years, I have a habit of saving often. One time during a boolean difference approach, Softimage froze and I was force to restart it. I got in the habit of always saving (ctrl-s) just before doing a boolean difference and thought I was safe to pull up my saved copy. Wrong!

When I opened the save file, all the polygons where gone. At first I thought they were just hidden, but after a look at the model's explorer, it was confirmed that all was gone. The lesson we learned is to not only save and save often, but to make backups of the files periodically. Now we keep the Windows Explorer open all the time and do a quick cut (ctrl-c) & paste (ctrl-v) to create backup files. In addition, at the end of each day, we copy these files to a thumb drive. It is better to spend a little paranoid time backing up, then to lose an entire day's worth of work.


In our next blog we will discuss how we found reference photos, rotoscoping, and actually modeling.

Happy Modeling!