LukeP
Dougie0047
@LukeP Can you define "artist friendly"? What does that actually mean specifically to you?
Cheers
Great question. Realizing that my opinion might not be the most popular one and that there are other perspectives on this.
To me ‘artist friendly’ means:
- Intuitive UI
- Streamlined workflows or workflows that don’t change with every release :-)
- Mid-level features and building blocks that cater to the creative needs of artists, allowing for easy exploration of ideas without things getting overly technical or data-centric, at the same time offering ability to ‘deep dive’ for advanced users. In my opinion as a simple example - a user working with the clouds should not have to worry about converting to vdb from particles, then from polygons, activating vdbs, writing volume wrangles etc.
- Welcoming environment for new artists without sacrificing the depth and flexibility required for complex projects
- Documentation that holistically explains the software, explains the nodes and parameters, doesn’t reference outdated workflows (e.g. Rendering section still explains Mantra and many other legacy concepts)
- Nodes and especially parameters that are named in a humanoid-friendly way and also explained in that way
- Advanced parameters that are hidden under advanced options, in general, hide complexity. Make it accessible, but not at the forefront
- Examples that are up-to-date and simple enough to grasp core concepts
- Software that hides or clearly deprecates things that maybe aren’t that usable anymore
@LukeP - Thanks for the clarification. I like your reply, since often when these discussions take place not enough time is spent on actually defining what is being talked about.
So, in response I'll reply with two possible definitions of my own and some additional thoughts. By the way, sorry for the length of this post. I could go on and on about this but stopped it to not bore you guys too much.
The first definition I can think of would be a bit like this: "Artist friendly" means - direct access to data. This aligns fairly well with what you mention above. For me, in everyday terms that would translate to things like working directly in the viewport, "touching" what I want to modify etc. And this is where UI/UX look and feel comes into play in a significant way. I guess you could label that the 'ergonomics' of the program...
One note on mid-level tools - whilst I think I get what you mean: that you can effectively get further in exploring a given idea with less detail focused node building etc., it is not always so easy to achieve a good balance between speed, usability and function. I find that mid level tools quickly start to feel like "ueber tools" where there are simply too many buttons, tabs, folders to click on and wade through for what the thing is supposed to do. When you then add to this the fact that everybody and their uncle wants things done slightly differently I think it must be very difficult for developers to hit the mark that satisfies the most possible amount of people.
The second definition I've had in mind would go something like this: "Artist friendly" means - maximum access to creative power. I realise that is not a sentence a great wordsmith would construct... But, perhaps one can think of it as 'the biggest possible playground with the most powerful tools.' That way the 'friendliness' does not lie so much in the ergonimics but rather in that there is nothing in principle that stands in your way of creating whatever
you want. Again, in everyday terms, for me this means things like being able to construct a given output from the ground up, always having the option of fine control and to choose whether I want to use a conventional or a novel approach, and also always having the ability to explore a concept as far down the rabbit hole as I want to go (fyi - I am not saying that I am an expert at this, just that this is my mindset). Being able to do this is incredibly motivation for a lot of people, even if it is also hard. The cost of this would be that as you delve into the nitty gritty of the details you will have to learn a bunch of things that are not exactly what you look for but are nonetheless connected and necessary.
Personally, I think that in the second category SideFX/Houdini excels with it's procedural recipe approach. I mean, what houdini has to offer for a single dcc is kind of insane if you ask me. And, you may disagree, but I see signs that the good people at SideFX are trying to address the first category. I think you've already mentioned the new APEX/Animation context in that light, yes? Maybe the main question here is to do with time and resources, which are scarce, rather than a lack of responsiveness?
Again personally, I think I prefer the second category over the first if I must choose. I would of course like to both have my cake and eat it at the same time, but that is not always an option. I also think that various programs or even various aspects of the same program attracts different crowds. A bit like with children: the kids that like to role-play and make a game of things might prefer Playmobil whereas those kids that likes to build stuff wants Lego. I like to build things.
When it comes to ergonomics - the 'right' way to do character animation will be something very different to the 'right' way to do, say, procedural building generators, simply because the tasks are so very different. To marry those things within one applications must surely, for developers, sometimes feel like trying to fit a square peg through a round hole, and I honestly don't feel that sidefx is doing a terrible job at this. The software feels quite coherent to me. For the most part. Not to say they are perfect though. I could add a long wishlist of things I'd like to seen improved (for example I agree with your points on UI), but it would be a wishlist and not a list of demands.
Another thing that strikes me is the question of resources and where to allocate them. For every mid/higher level tool you make, like a new hda, you now have to not only support the atomic elements the tool consists of but also the tool as a whole. With this you sort of add ever more 'moving parts' to the system and therefore more things that can go wrong. This needs added support which means more resources spent on it. And I'm sure that Sidefx's resources whilst solid also have their limits, right? Do you as a company want to focus on rnd or on workflows? I guess you do both, but where exactly should the balancing point be? Difficult.
I guess what some of this boils down to is that the most possibly welcoming environment for newcomers by necessity sacrifices some of the depth and complexity and vice versa. If you bury the complexity in higher level tools it becomes more difficult to find it when you need it. And you might not even realise that it is there. Having said that I don't think that this a reason not to improve. Because, you know, how amazing would it be if I really could both have my cake and eat it?
Cheers,
Dag