Topic: EZX Drum Kit Graphics

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 16 total)

Replied September 25, 2017 at 02:07 #1998233

Miroslav
Participant

What’s nice is that they included the full EZX/SDX sample pack descriptions of all the various kits…which makes it easier to quickly see what’s available with each kit instead of going to the pull-down menus for each drum in the Drum window.
Thanks for that!

Of course, if you look at many of the descriptions…the pictures show the kits, and they are all unique, especially when you look at some of the classic/vintage kits…like in the Southern Soul or the Funkmasters…you see what the kits really look like…BUT…
…when you load them in SD3, for the EZX packs…you get the same, boring shiny black finish/color for all the EZX kits.

Your graphics designers could/should have used those pictures in the descriptions for inspiration in designing the EZX kit graphics.
Maybe for the next upgrade…please?

1
Thanked by: Ronnie Perez

Replied September 27, 2017 at 04:28 #1998350

Lee Shapiro
Participant

Michelangelo just finished his painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. A man walks in and admires it. His first comment is, “You missed a tiny spot there in the corner.”

I think my analogy speaks for itself. Rock on!

Replied September 27, 2017 at 17:51 #1998383

Miroslav
Participant

Nope…you missed on the analogy.
Point being…they took the time to redo the graphics to make the EZX kits show up in SD3…so why the decisions to make all the kits black…???
I’m sure the graphics people who did it have all their work files…and it would take very little time to at least change up the colors on the kits, and not much more effort to even make the finishes more realistic, same as they did on the SD3 kits.

For a flagship application that ain’t cheap…it would have been a normal expectation.
Some people have lower expectations…and that’s fine for them. Rock on.

1
Thanked by: Ronnie Perez

Replied September 28, 2017 at 09:35 #1998408

Henrik Ekblom
Participant

Well – that is not how it works unfortunately. We didn’t sit down and thought “it would be easy to do everything perfect, but let’s not do it for the fun of it” 🙂 I don’t know exactly how many 100s of drums we have sampled in the 35 ish EZX:s we have released – but to model each one of those in 3d takes lots (and lots, and lots) of time. It took our great graphic staff a huge amount of time and effort to accomplish what has been done.

If we had modeled every single drum of the EZX:s (which wasn’t even possible) – other areas of Superior Drummer 3 would have gotten less attention, meaning a less functional software – and that was a scenario we chose to avoid…

With that said – I understand that you guys would love this feature, we do too!

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

Replied September 28, 2017 at 09:43 #1998409

Ian Scott
Participant

Will the Evil drums SDX be getting an update to match the rest of the SDXs, I know it is not a Toontrack Product but I was just wondering.

Replied September 28, 2017 at 16:30 #1998631

Mark King
Participant

I’m quite happy the time was spent on the core SD3 functions. I think being able to use EZX drums is a bonus but not really part of the core of SD3.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

Replied September 28, 2017 at 17:53 #1998641

Miroslav
Participant

@Henrik said:
Well – that is not how it works unfortunately. We didn’t sit down and thought “it would be easy to do everything perfect, but let’s not do it for the fun of it” 🙂 I don’t know exactly how many 100s of drums we have sampled in the 35 ish EZX:s we have released – but to model each one of those in 3d takes lots (and lots, and lots) of time. It took our great graphic staff a huge amount of time and effort to accomplish what has been done.

If we had modeled every single drum of the EZX:s (which wasn’t even possible) – other areas of Superior Drummer 3 would have gotten less attention, meaning a less functional software – and that was a scenario we chose to avoid…

With that said – I understand that you guys would love this feature, we do too!

I’m talking about the color of all the kits being the same boring black.
Are you saying that to simply chose *a different color* for each of the EZX kit graphics, it was going to be that much harder and make more work…???
I find that hard to believe having done lots of graphics in my multimedia days.
It’s as simple as selecting a different color OTHER then black when you are creating the kits…and changing the colors shouldn’t require a complete remodel.
Making them all black seems like it was the easy way out…sorry.

@Mark King said:
I think being able to use EZX drums is a bonus but not really part of the core of SD3.

No…it’s not a “bonus”…it’s been part of the SD capability, so maintaining that in SD3 would be and was a real expectation for anyone looking to move to SD3 from SD2.
If SD3 was not able to use EZX packs…I’m not sure I would have rushed to upgrade. I was working fine with SD2.
Not having that capability in SD3 would have been a big drawback…because there are a lot of great EZX samples, and many people already have extensive EZX and SDX libraries.

Look…SD3 is a fantastic upgrade…but I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out some of the places where it could have been better designed….which is what a lot of folks are doing for other aspects of SD3. It’s the first version. I’m hoping that this feedback we provide will find its way into the next 3.2 version.

🙂

1
Thanked by: Ronnie Perez

Replied September 29, 2017 at 08:33 #1998672

Henrik Ekblom
Participant

@Miroslavl said:
…I don’t see anything wrong with pointing out some of the places where it could have been better designed….which is what a lot of folks are doing for other aspects of SD3. It’s the first version. I’m hoping that this feedback we provide will find its way into the next 3.2 version.
🙂

You are correct – these kinds of discussions are a big part of what Superior Drummer 3 will become in the future 🙂

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

1
Thanked by: juliankleiss

Replied September 30, 2017 at 01:52 #1998701

Lee Shapiro
Participant

All I’m saying is that instead of acknowledging the huge amount of time and effort that went into making SD3, it makes people sound ungrateful to ignore that achievement only to complain about the colors of EZX drumsets. I know if I was one of the engineers or designers that worked really hard in making one of the best drumming software programs to date, and read about a piddly complaint, I’d feel pretty unappreciated and a little bitter.

And as Henrik pointed out, to remodel 3D renderings of the drum sets, like they did with the SDX drums, would’ve taken time away from making SD3 the best possible drummer software. Plus it would have added weeks or months to the release date. IMHO, it’s just not that important. When you look at all the amazing features SD3 has to offer and post a complaint focusing on one of the minor cosmetic features that didn’t get done….I don’t know, for me, I’m enjoying the hell out of SD3 and all it’s new features, I didn’t even have time to notice old EZX drum sets, let alone their color schemes. It’s like complaining that you don’t like the color of the rug underneath the drum set. Again, just my opinion.

Replied October 1, 2017 at 05:54 #1998728

Miroslav
Participant

@Lee Shapiro said:
All I’m saying is that instead of acknowledging the huge amount of time and effort that went into making SD3, it makes people sound ungrateful to ignore that achievement only to complain about the colors of EZX drumsets. I know if I was one of the engineers or designers that worked really hard in making one of the best drumming software programs to date, and read about a piddly complaint, I’d feel pretty unappreciated and a little bitter.

I acknowledged the value/quality of SD3 when I bought it….and I’ve said it’s a fantastic upgrade already in this thread.
I’m not sure why you’re going on and on about why I brought this up…your one post, fine, but now you want to keep going on with it..???

I’m not happy that they chose to make all the EZX kits one color. I’m a customer, I can say that, can’t I?
It would have only required a choice of a different color for each kit design in the first place, *during the design process*…no “remodeling” needed.

I get it, some people don’t appreciate the visual aspects as much…they just focus on the sounds and the functionality…fine…but the fact that the designers already put a lot of time into the visuals, they knew visuals mattered, and that it added to the realism of SD3…they just could have carried it through to all the EZX kits too. That would have been the best they could have done…don’t you think?
As I scrolled through one EZX kit after another when first launching SD3 (and I have a bunch of EZX)…it was instantly obvious that they all had the same black finish……like they were all done from a single template over and over…unlike the SDX kits.

Yes, I would like to see that changed on a future revision…along with all the other things people here are not happy with for one reason or another.
The Graphic User Interface is important, maybe not as much as functionality, but better looking GUIs make a positive impression and people take notice. There’s another thread around here where someone said they didn’t like the overall dark color of the SD3 GUI…then there’s another thread where someone was saying the animation wasn’t working in an EZX pack…etc…so people do notice and care about visuals too.
Maybe you could hit up these other threads and also tell those people how you find their “visuals” complaints bothersome.

1
Thanked by: Ronnie Perez

Replied October 13, 2020 at 07:45 #2630901

MortalCoil
Participant

If changing the colors is such a simple addition then surely u can find some way to do it yourself. Maybe u can just design your own drum plugin which puts more emphasis on visuals and less on musical functionality. But seriously.. I understand your wishing for the better graphics. But they already make a product that provides what you want. If u were content using that product then why did u stop using it.

Replied February 23, 2021 at 21:42 #2711379

Ronnie Perez
Participant

No need to be rude. They clearly added graphics for a reason in the first place..

I agree with him, at least port in the same graphics from EZDrummer when you load an EZX. But those weird stock black drums was a weird approach.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: Mac OS X Tiger (10.4)

Replied February 23, 2021 at 21:43 #2711380

Ronnie Perez
Participant

I agree with you, man. Lazy GUI dev

Replied February 23, 2021 at 22:21 #2711394

Ronnie Perez
Participant

Your graphics team is gonna have to start thinking like game developers – each new drum designed, should be saved in a repository as a potential future asset. I was really hoping to see the Pop Punk drum skins in Superior Drummer, and I was greeted with some gray shells instead.

You don’t need to re-model every single thing you’ve made in the past – just save each drum model/texture somewhere, and when you’re doing Superior Drummer 7, way in the future, you can still have a cool Pop Punk EZX drum model to reuse in the future.

If I understood correctly, I’m guessing you didn’t 3D model the original graphics for EZDrummer EZXs? (maybe some kind of 2D graphics?) Forgive me if I sound thick by saying this, but people are still PAYING (myself included) to buy these old EZX expansions, and dedicated Toontrack users also have Superior Drummer. I understand it would take some time to put together a quick model for each drum, or to allocate some textures to match the EZDrummer graphics, but it adds that little bit of inspiration for us users. (I KNOW many very loud, squeaky wheels, will not agree and say it’s functionally irrelevant, but..) When I load up a cool-looking expansion, it adds to the inspiration – which is why you made the EZX graphics cool in the first place right?

We’re just saying, if us Toontrack users are going to be paying for these expansions (they’re not exactly cheap), maybe put a little time into giving it a fresh look when in Superior Drummer (which is the upgraded version).
Replied February 24, 2021 at 01:55 #2711475
Mart Evans
Participant
nvm
- The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Mart Evans.
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EZX Drum Kit Graphics

Superior Drummer 3 Help

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