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Interview With Helge Mathee
The great and talented XSI script writer and creator of the MindThink tools talks about his work.
September, 4th, 2003, by Bernard Lebel, Will Mendez
 |  | Helge Mathee
| | |  | MindThink Tools 2.0 can be downloaded for free.
|  | WaveXSI deformer of the MindThink Tools
| | |  | GreebleTool
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Tell us a bit about yourself
My name is Helge Mathee, I am 23 years old and live in Hamburg Germany. I am known as “laluneverte” in the 3D world. I am a student in the field of computer science (artificial intelligence) unfortunately, I am the founder of the “MindThink free software project” and the author of the MindThink Tools Collection for XSI. Being a quite logically thinking person I am much more a “toolmaker” than the creative chaotic.
I first started with 3D 3 and a half years ago using Autodesk’s Autocad R13 for some technical illustrations, I got interested in the field and started using Maxon’s Cinema 4D 7.3 and switched to XSI a year and a half ago. At the present moment I work as a freelancing “custom tools programmer” for several companies in Germany and in the U.K..
What can you tell us about the current state of the industry in Germany?
I only know the companies here in Hamburg and I think there’s not too much going on right now. But you never know,Maybe there’ll be some changes in the industry in the next few years. Fortunately there are not too many people in Germany who are able to do what I do, that’s what makes my life a bit easier.
How does it feel to know that a majority of the XSI Community use your tools and can’t live without them anymore?
Well – it’s okay. ;-) To be honest I am impressed of my server’s download statistics. The necessity of the tools is obvious, some tools are what I’d like to call “basic” features which are not part of the XSI package. That’s why most of the people need the toolset, Especially users switching from lightwave or 3dsmax that might miss some features in XSI. That’s why MT are that popular in my opinion. Softimage Japan has even contacted me and asked for permission to translate the tools into Japanese! that’s why I am trying to improve and expand the toolset as fast as possible: The enthusiasm and the overall feedback and appriciation of the XSI community.
Do you have preference in the language that you code in, if so why?
I don’t really have a preference in a special language. I got used to using VBScript but that’s only a habit. I like Jscript much more, but in VBScript there’s the great “eval” command which I use now and then and that maybe a reason for using VBScript more than other languages. For the most of the tools it didn’t matter which language was used. I am able to use VBScript, JScript, Perl, Python, C++ and Java because of my programming education,By the way the reason I started programming in XSI using VBScript is that there are sooo many examples and written scripts in that language in comparison to the other ones.
What language are the Mindthink tools written in, also tell us how you came up with the idea for the Mindthink tools.
The Mindthink tools are written in VBScript, Visual Basic and a little of C++.
The idea for the Mindthink tools emerged out of a growing collection of little helper scripts on my hdd. I created many tools for the improvement of my personal workflow. I like the RCTools popup very much, that’s why I asked Mr. RC for the code of the popup and created my own one. The idea was to put some essential tools together in one command using one hotkey. It should be quite fast and easy to use.
Some of the tools included in Mindthink came from user suggestions. How are you able to code and implement them at such a fast pace?
Well – at first I have to say that most of the tools were created because of user suggestions. I am not keen on too many 3D-packages that’s why I don’t know the features of other platforms that well.
I am used to working quite fast because of the tests at university, which are limited to 45 minutes. They don’t have anything to do with 3D unfortunately, But you can learn to speed up the process of creating programs by a quite a comprehensive concept. Moreover this is my third year in 3D-programming and that’s what makes me quite experienced.
Will you implement Kaboom and other SI3D tools missing in XSI if time permits?
Yes, as always, Actually I don’t know in which piece of my spare time, but Yes I plan to do so.
What kind of tool or plugin would you program if you had a huge amount of time to work on it?
A completely new toolset for nurbs. Something must change in XSI’s nurbs tools… well, I started this experiment by creating an improved ExtrusionAlongCurve.
Another thing which might take a huge amount of time will be to erase every entry of my buglist. ;-) I am working on this for the 2.01 update.
Is it easy to code plugins for XSI?
This is different concerning to the complexity of the plugin. I specialized in the field of topology-editing using scripted operators and scripts. Creating plugins in this special field is easy for me. I started coding shaders three months ago. That’s much more difficult for me.
Generally speaking it’s quite easy to create tools for XSI, if you’re familiar with the SDK. You have to be familiar with object-models too. Moreover you have to be able to understand logical processes,be capable of the basics of vector-math, and you must not be too chaotic.
A comment that comes up everytime you publish something is "Softimage should offer you a job". However, you once said that you wouldn't want to work for Softimage. Why is that?
That has nothing to do with Softimage at all, more with bigger companies in general. In bigger companies you are more limited to the things you can do best, in small companies you have to know every part of the software, because you work as an allrounder. I am not too experienced with animating, lighting and texturing, that’s why I want to work in a company which offers the possibility to work in my field, but to learn something in the other fields. Moreover there are the XSI wishlists, which represent a very big amount of work for the programmers – that’s why I am quite frightened of a job in the development at Softimage.
If I was hired by Softimage, I’d like to work as a special projects’ supporter.
Are you looking to be a TD in a big facility later in your career?
As I Stated, not at the moment. But later on, well, I don’t know there is a big maybe. The contract I am dreaming of would allow me to visit a 3D school for the first two or three years and working for a company in the rest of the time. After being educated well enough I would work fulltime for the sponsor company. Technical Director sounds great, we’ll see what’ll happen – I am open minded for every kind of suggestion.
In the long term, what kind of challenges do you think await you, or you would like to take on?
I want to achieve that my name sounds heavy and cool. So if someone mentions “Mathee” everybody will hold on the breath. ;-) To be honest: I’d like to develop something really new, something special. I don’t know what, and if I knew, I wouldn’t tell it to an interviewer. Creating an effect called by the author would be great, something comparable to “Perlin” noise for example. I’m not sure yet, maybe I’ll be not that arrogant in two or three years. Stay tuned!
Thanks for the interview.
Related Links:
Mindthink.de
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