ICE interoperability for Maya lets you send ICE effects data back and forth between Maya and Softimage. This lets you take advantage of the ICE (Interactive Creative Environment) node-based dataflow structure to create a vast range of effects for your Maya scenes, including point cloud fire and simulated geometry deformations.
For information about exchanging data between Maya and other Autodesk applications, see Send objects to Autodesk applications. For information about ICE simulations, see the Softimage Wiki:http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Interoperability_with_Maya.
Scene data can be exchanged between the applications regardless of whether it originates in Maya or Softimage. Objects, including polygon meshes, curves, cameras, and lights, can be created in either Maya or Softimage and exchanged between the applications.
For example, you can select the following things in Maya to send to Softimage:
When you send data back from Softimage to Maya, the following are sent:
A shading network consisting of materials and a ParticleSamplerInfo node is also created. This shading network lets you render your ICE effect in Maya as a Cloud or Blobby Surface Particle Render Type.
The following tables list the nParticle attributes that can be included in the nCache from Softimage, and the ICE attributes that they correspond to.
| Maya | Softimage |
|---|---|
| position | PointPosition |
| id | ID |
| rgbpp | Color (RGB channels) |
| opacityPP | Color (Alpha channel) |
| radiusPP | Size |
| mass | Mass |
| count | NbPoints |
You can choose which optional attributes you want included in the effect cache. To do this, in Softimage, select File > Send to Maya > Preferences. For more information, see the Softimage Wiki:http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Interoperability_with_Maya
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