3d Software Brain Trust

Coding
1

If you can see this, then you are probably someone who is fed up with the state of the 3D software industry and are ready to do something about it.

Doing what we are endeavouring will be massive, and difficult. But we have the opportunity to do what few have dreamed of and fewer still have done. We have the opportunity to be ‘heros,’ those people who come along at that moment when they are most needed. There is a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction in our industry and we can do something about it- how often is that really a possibility? To provide a near-revolutionary change for an industry. To do something that really matters to so many people, and to have a driving impact. It gets me excited, it makes me passionate.

It isn’t something that can or should be rushed, though. We have a pretty blank canvas, which is surely intimidating. We should start, though, by laying down some guiding principles, mostly ones which have already been discussed here. I’m too tired right now to rehash all of them right now- probably this weekend. I’d just like to get people’s thoughts on things while we have this blank canvas, here at the start of things.

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I think the first order of business should be to nail down our fundamentals. The goals of this software. We have to hash out ideas from a common starting point, or we’ll splinter - one group will go one way and some others will go another way.

Since we’re all games industry professionals, I say we use that as our starting point: a 3D app for game developers.

-R

3

Yes, a 3D app for game developers. Let’s narrow it down, let’s get a good product description. Let’s pretend we have the software already- let’s write up an overview and detailed description. For Max, there is an Overview, Highlights, and Detailed Features.

So let’s start writing our own description.

Oh and BTW, we need a temporary codename- My vote goes for NAAA, which stands for ‘not an autodesk app’

Overview:

Highlights:
Streamline your pipeline with NAAA, by providing a hub for all Digital Content Creation programs used in Games Development, and a springboard to interface with your 3D Engine.

Anyone with some scripting or programming knowledge can jump right into NAAA and start writing tools and plugins to speed their workflow and improve their pipeline. Developers can use a number of languages, including C# and Python, to code; and all work together seamlessly.

NAAA ships with all the modules needed establish the functionality and features of any mainstream 3D program, but its main power is extension by customers. NAAA is built on a handful of core modules- Rendering, Animation, Scripting, (any other core modules?), that are completely exposed to developers to interact with in infinite ways. Write entirely new controllers, graphical editors, surface types, objects, and tools. Or, take some existing code someone has already written, and build upon it by inheriting and interfacing with it; avoid rewriting code or even having to look at another developer’s source code, NAAA brings the benefits of completely OOP to the 3D software world.

NAAA’s standard modules include: Material System, a node-based material editor using NAAA’s standard or very easy-to-make custom nodes; Scripted Animation Controllers, a completely script-based methodology of making any animation controller, from IK to TCB, all code is completely exposed for creating new controllers with; Editor Suite, a number of .NET-based editors for materials, animation curves, and scene diagrams; Primitives, providing standard primitives and the ability to create new primitives (not just faux scripted primitive objects); and more.

NAAA’s user community is an active one, and is directly supported by the developers. Download new modules, and access the community directly, within NAAA itself. Certified Modules have been tested and approved by the community, and are stable and exposed and ready for use or extension; Uncertified Modules can range from a large but poorly exposed module that isn’t up to NAAA’s standards, to just small or simple (or not so simple) scripts; these are usually ready for use or investigation by the user.

NAAA is stable and lightweight. Crashes usually do not result in program crashes, and can be successfully debugged if the source is exposed, or silenced or reported if the source is not; this is because NAAA is modular and the core modules have been thoroughly tested. NAAA is lightweight enough that interacting with the program requires little overhead and the tool can become its own development platform; instead of creating a custom external application (yet another product to maintain) or coding something in engine (which can introduce bugs), both of which take hard-to-come-by programmer time, many tools can be written directly within NAAA: this insulates them from the changing technology and instability of a game engine, and provides much of the infrastructure an external editor, or even a game engine, often have no need otherwise to provide.

Detailed Features:

Keep going.