Pipeline

Minor Pipeline Tools- Change background of all viewports

The most common email I get from people who have visited this blog is inquiries about the dark color of the background in the screenshots. No it’s not a custom UI, I just have a custom menu with a bunch of stuff including two ridiculously simple scripts… one which cycles the background color in all viewports and one which sets them to this dark grey.

Its Your Friend, Dark Grey

I chose this color for a couple of reasons.

  • With a darker color, particles are much more visible, meaning I can display them as single pixels.
  • The color is dark but just light enough to easily see black wireframes.
  • Have you ever opened Softimage in a dark room full of people using Maya and Nuke? It’s like switching on a searchlight. The light grey color scheme of the Softimage UI is waaaay to bright.

These two little scripts go a long way towards my personal enjoyment of the software. I won’t bother to display them in the post (wordpress kills the formatting), but here’s a file for each…

setAllBackgroundColorsDkGrey

cycleAllBackgroundColor

Since we’re on the topic… Softimage needs a new UI. It’s elegant and functional in many ways, but dated. The light grey is glaring, the huge arrow button looks absurd to new artists, (they’re right) and I have a strong suspicion that it’s a major factor which keeps new artists from Softimage. Just my $0.02.

Leadership

Disney Animation is promoting the use of Partio, an open source particle library for use across various toolsets. You can find out moreĀ here.