the jungle drums
Andi Farhall
Isn't it the case that there has been no real development of any of the three packages in years, excepting perhaps ice? It can't simply be that maya will be the only software that people will end up using, there has to be a next generation surely as things evolve. If not, then an unsuported product is just as much use as a supported but unevolved one, right?
I know lots of places that use soft, some of them exclusively so how long can they carry on with an unsupported product? There must be years of life left in soft and if places like MPC really are using ICE for crowd stuff then this has to add to it's life expectancy.
I'm not against learning a new package whatsoever, but it has to be an improvement on what i've been using until now, and as somebody who spends all day in either ICE or the render region and render passes i have to say maya seems a backwards step, and if it is a backwards step then maya has room for improvement or even replacement perhaps.
They could call it Maxsi perhaps. I would learn that...
or will we be left in a stagnatting software pool simply because a few large studios are now backed into a corner?
A>
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------------------------------------------------------------From: cgc...@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:37:12 +0100
Subject: Re: the jungle drums
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Stefan Andersson
adrian wyer
i see amazing work done with Soft on a variety of websites, by many talented artists...
there are things you can do in ICE that you would struggle to do any other way (especially if you're a human and not a Houdini double dome!)
Soft is a GREAT package, (possibly the BEST all round 3D app) with the most loyal and inventive userbase
Autodesk would be IDIOTS to put it out to pasture, and i can't help feeling that many would simply move to modo/cinema4D/blender rather than jump backwards to maya
this is a time when we as a community really need to make some noise and show the 'man' that we love our software, and want to keep it!!
my 2c
From:
softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stefan Andersson
Sent: 19 June 2013 12:15
To:
soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: the jungle drums
In the whole I think we should be happy that Softimage is still alive. The ever shrinking user base and the none existent new talent base… well… I think we can just face the fact that it's not going to be "the year of Softimage" this year either. I'm a bit surprised actually that Autodesk is still keeping it alive, though I'm happy that there are still people willing to put their souls into it.
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3345 / Virus Database: 3199/6422 - Release Date: 06/18/13
Stefan Andersson
i see amazing work done with Soft on a variety of websites, by many talented artists...
there are things you can do in ICE that you would struggle to do any other way (especially if you're a human and not a Houdini double dome!)
Soft is a GREAT package, (possibly the BEST all round 3D app) with the most loyal and inventive userbase
Autodesk would be IDIOTS to put it out to pasture, and i can't help feeling that many would simply move to modo/cinema4D/blender rather than jump backwards to maya
this is a time when we as a community really need to make some noise and show the 'man' that we love our software, and want to keep it!!
my 2c
adrian wyer
which is acceptable, being part of the suite, like mudbox
it means the old farts like us can keep using it for what its good at (everything) and the new kids can use it for what it's best at (ICE)
a
From:
softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stefan Andersson
Sent: 19 June 2013 12:47
To:
soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: the jungle drums
On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:28 PM, adrian wyer wrote:
Simon Reeves
Marc-Andre Carbonneau
In a post about NVidia and Star Trek on CGSociety the article mentions that Pixomondo did a staggering 300 shots with 3DSMAX for the movie… First I sprayed my coffee all over my monitor and then wondered why they wanted to suffer so much? Or perhaps its me, nah, I don’t think so.
How can you make so many shots with something that doesn’t even have reference models and that its viewport doesn’t support more than 2 rigged characters?
Ref : http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/star_trek_into_darkness
Stefan Kubicek
> In a post about NVidia and Star Trek on CGSociety the article mentions that Pixomondo did a staggering 300 shots with 3DSMAX for the movie... First I sprayed my coffee all over my monitor and then wondered why they wanted to suffer so much? Or perhaps its me, nah, I don't think so.
>
> Ref : http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/star_trek_into_darkness
>
>
>
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Simon Reeves
> Sent: 19 juin 2013 08:01
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: the jungle drums
>
> Well on a nice note I convinced the guys at work to use soft on our last job and they are very much enjoying it. But then again they used max before (and it was killing me.....) We had very long shots, with loaaads of cache from max, and a lot of passes (lots of hero objects per shot) and that would have been a nightmare in max..
>
> I thought the same about if soft was discontiuned, I could happily still use it for years without updates.. Mostly anyway.
>
>
> Simon Reeves
> London, UK
> www.simonreeves.com<http://www.simonreeves.com>
>
> On 19 June 2013 12:53, adrian wyer <adria...@fluid-pictures.com<mailto:adria...@fluid-pictures.com>> wrote:
> which is acceptable, being part of the suite, like mudbox
>
> it means the old farts like us can keep using it for what its good at (everything) and the new kids can use it for what it's best at (ICE)
>
> a
>
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:28 PM, adrian wyer wrote:
>
> i see amazing work done with Soft on a variety of websites, by many talented artists...
>
> there are things you can do in ICE that you would struggle to do any other way (especially if you're a human and not a Houdini double dome!)
>
> Soft is a GREAT package, (possibly the BEST all round 3D app) with the most loyal and inventive userbase
>
> Autodesk would be IDIOTS to put it out to pasture, and i can't help feeling that many would simply move to modo/cinema4D/blender rather than jump backwards to maya
>
> this is a time when we as a community really need to make some noise and show the 'man' that we love our software, and want to keep it!!
>
> my 2c
>
>
> /s
>
>
> Stefan Andersson | Digital Janitor
> cell UK: +44-7513792996
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> No virus found in this message.
>
>
---------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek ste...@keyvis.at
---------------------------------------------
keyvis digital imagery
Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
Phone: +43 (0) 699 12614231
www.keyvis.at
-- This email and its attachments are --
-- confidential and for the recipient only --
Eugen Sares
But the next release, 2015, will be the one that shows the real attitude of Autodesk.
My number one: extensibility and customizability. SDK, ToolsSDK, UI, ICE.
Helps everybody right now, and if Softimage gets cut some day, it could more easily kept alive by the community for any time needed.
Progress has been made (e.g. custom primitives), but still there's still much to do.
At the time being, there's little to no activity in the beta forum, and the mood is somewhat low. Might be the heat cooking brains (although it's always hot in Singapore...), some introspection and planning going on after the release, whatever. I'm looking forward to any official word, though. Mr. Tutino-Galletti?
Am 19.06.2013 13:46, schrieb Stefan Andersson:
On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:28 PM, adrian wyer wrote:
i see amazing work done with Soft on a variety of websites, by many talented artists...
�
there are things you can do in ICE that you would struggle to do any other way (especially if you're a human and not a Houdini double dome!)
�
Soft is a GREAT package, (possibly the BEST all round 3D app) with the most loyal and inventive userbase
�
Autodesk would be IDIOTS to put it out to pasture, and i can't help feeling that many would simply move to modo/cinema4D/blender rather than jump backwards to maya
�
this is a time when we as a community really need to make some noise and show the 'man' that we love our software, and want to keep it!!
�
my 2c
I agree with you Adrian, but it's hard to promote the software to the people who has the money when you are struggling with finding people. I all for giving Softimage a "helping hand", but when you are in a startup phase�. It's almost dumb to put your money on Softimage.�It's going to be a piece of Software that you use for special things.�
/s
Eugen Sares
> Max had Reference Models (they call it XRefs) long before Soft or Maya
> did. It had a lot of things "first" (e.g. non-linear animation,
> compositing), but most of these features suffered from bad usability
> and were never improved.
>
far as the eye can see...
No... in Softimage, features rarely get improved, too, but at least they
are usable in the first place... ;]
Let's declare this thread to the usual sarcasm-landfill... ;D
Jordi Bares
Sent from my iPhone
Adam Seeley
I've been thinking about getting into Houdini, I was wondering what the comparison would be.
Adam.
From: Jordi Bares <jordi...@gmail.com>
To: "soft...@listproc.autodesk.com" <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Cc: "<soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>" <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 17:35
Tim Leydecker
I�ve seen one of the sequences done in 3dsMax by the lighting guys
sitting next to me in Pixomondo Berlin.
Talented folks having loads of revisions plus some extra time for
yet another round of rinse, repeat, then loop at the end.
They were really happy with the notes the director gave them,
very precise and detailed always touching the bigger picture
and also giving some info about the context and backround of
a specific shot.
I guess in such a case you could pull it off in Blender, too.
Personally, I hate to use 3dsMax. No, that�s not fair.
FumeFx, VRay and shotgun make it digestible.
Cheers,
tim
P.S. There was talk about the next.gen �berautodesk app some time
ago. Maybe that�s what the drums are saying, Mayxsi 1.0 is ready
to show a startup screen but they can�t decide which bugs to
incorporate first and forever?
On 19.06.2013 14:39, Marc-Andre Carbonneau wrote:
> In a post about NVidia and Star Trek on CGSociety the article mentions that Pixomondo did a staggering 300 shots with 3DSMAX for the movie� First I sprayed my coffee all over my
> monitor and then wondered why they wanted to suffer so much? Or perhaps its me, nah, I don�t think so.
>
> How can you make so many shots with something that doesn�t even have reference models and that its viewport doesn�t support more than 2 rigged characters?
>
> Ref : http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/star_trek_into_darkness
>
> *From:*softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Simon Reeves
> *Sent:* 19 juin 2013 08:01
> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: the jungle drums
> Well on a nice note I convinced the guys at work to use soft on our last job and they are very much enjoying it. But then again they used max before (and it was killing me.....) We
> had very long shots, with loaaads of cache from max, and a lot of passes (lots of hero objects per shot) and that would have been a nightmare in max..
>
> I thought the same about if soft was discontiuned, I could happily still use it for years without updates.. Mostly anyway.
>
>
>
> Simon Reeves
>
> London, UK
>
> /www.simonreeves.com <http://www.simonreeves.com>/
> On 19 June 2013 12:53, adrian wyer <adria...@fluid-pictures.com <mailto:adria...@fluid-pictures.com>> wrote:
>
> which is acceptable, being part of the suite, like mudbox
>
> it means the old farts like us can keep using it for what its good at (everything) and the new kids can use it for what it's best at (ICE)
>
> a
>
>
> *From:*softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com> [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com
> <mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com>] *On Behalf Of *Stefan Andersson
> *Sent:* 19 June 2013 12:47
>
>
> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
> *Subject:* Re: the jungle drums
> On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:28 PM, adrian wyer wrote:
>
> i see amazing work done with Soft on a variety of websites, by many talented artists...
>
> there are things you can do in ICE that you would struggle to do any other way (especially if you're a human and not a Houdini double dome!)
>
> Soft is a GREAT package, (possibly the BEST all round 3D app) with the most loyal and inventive userbase
>
> Autodesk would be IDIOTS to put it out to pasture, and i can't help feeling that many would simply move to modo/cinema4D/blender rather than jump backwards to maya
>
> this is a time when we as a community really need to make some noise and show the 'man' that we love our software, and want to keep it!!
>
> my 2c
>
> I agree with you Adrian, but it's hard to promote the software to the people who has the money when you are struggling with finding people. I all for giving Softimage a "helping
>
> /s
>
> *Stefan Andersson | **/Digital Janitor/*
> blog <http://sanders3d.wordpress.com/> | showreel <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVb8yvxZcss> | twitter <http://twitter.com/sanders3d> | LinkedIn
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanders3d> | Instagram <http://instagram.com/sanders3d_>
>
> No virus found in this message.
Paul Griswold
Regarding Pixomondo/Star Trek.
I´ve seen one of the sequences done in 3dsMax by the lighting guys
sitting next to me in Pixomondo Berlin.
Talented folks having loads of revisions plus some extra time for
yet another round of rinse, repeat, then loop at the end.
They were really happy with the notes the director gave them,
very precise and detailed always touching the bigger picture
and also giving some info about the context and backround of
a specific shot.
I guess in such a case you could pull it off in Blender, too.
Personally, I hate to use 3dsMax. No, that´s not fair.
FumeFx, VRay and shotgun make it digestible.
Cheers,
tim
P.S. There was talk about the next.gen überautodesk app some time
ago. Maybe that´s what the drums are saying, Mayxsi 1.0 is ready
to show a startup screen but they can´t decide which bugs to
incorporate first and forever?
On 19.06.2013 14:39, Marc-Andre Carbonneau wrote:
In a post about NVidia and Star Trek on CGSociety the article mentions that Pixomondo did a staggering 300 shots with 3DSMAX for the movie… First I sprayed my coffee all over my
monitor and then wondered why they wanted to suffer so much? Or perhaps its me, nah, I don’t think so.
How can you make so many shots with something that doesn’t even have reference models and that its viewport doesn’t support more than 2 rigged characters?
Ref : http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/star_trek_into_darkness
*From:*softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Simon Reeves
*Sent:* 19 juin 2013 08:01
*To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
*Subject:* Re: the jungle drums
Well on a nice note I convinced the guys at work to use soft on our last job and they are very much enjoying it. But then again they used max before (and it was killing me.....) We
had very long shots, with loaaads of cache from max, and a lot of passes (lots of hero objects per shot) and that would have been a nightmare in max..
I thought the same about if soft was discontiuned, I could happily still use it for years without updates.. Mostly anyway.
Simon Reeves
London, UK
/si...@simonreeves.com <mailto:si...@simonreeves.com>/
/www.simonreeves.com <http://www.simonreeves.com>/
On 19 June 2013 12:53, adrian wyer <adrian.wyer@fluid-pictures.com <mailto:adrian.wyer@fluid-pictures.com>> wrote:
which is acceptable, being part of the suite, like mudbox
it means the old farts like us can keep using it for what its good at (everything) and the new kids can use it for what it's best at (ICE)
a
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:*softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com> [mailto:softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:softimage-bounces@listproc.autodesk.com>] *On Behalf Of *Stefan Andersson
*Sent:* 19 June 2013 12:47
*To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
*Subject:* Re: the jungle drumsI agree with you Adrian, but it's hard to promote the software to the people who has the money when you are struggling with finding people. I all for giving Softimage a "helping
On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:28 PM, adrian wyer wrote:
i see amazing work done with Soft on a variety of websites, by many talented artists...
there are things you can do in ICE that you would struggle to do any other way (especially if you're a human and not a Houdini double dome!)
Soft is a GREAT package, (possibly the BEST all round 3D app) with the most loyal and inventive userbase
Autodesk would be IDIOTS to put it out to pasture, and i can't help feeling that many would simply move to modo/cinema4D/blender rather than jump backwards to maya
this is a time when we as a community really need to make some noise and show the 'man' that we love our software, and want to keep it!!
my 2c
hand", but when you are in a startup phase…. It's almost dumb to put your money on Softimage. It's going to be a piece of Software that you use for special things.
Matt Lind
So where are these jungle drums pounding?
In the case of Softimage the development team has undergone a complete replacement and they’ve only been in charge for one shortened release cycle. Not enough information to extrapolate over the long term. But when you look at it from a business perspective of Autodesk global, it doesn’t make much sense to hire a brand new (larger?) development team in another country only to slowly kill a product. I’m not claiming there will be any revolutionary overhauls to the application due to legacy issues, but I wouldn’t sell it short either. I think you’ll see development continue in areas that will best round out the application to fill in the voids that have been complained about for years that don’t disturb the foundation of the application. Some of those developments can still be significant.
As for the bigger picture, I don’t see Autodesk maintaining 3 separate applications indefinitely. It’s too costly to manage like-features across the applications and maintain 3 separate development teams. While simple to moderate features could be managed across applications, the more complex ones would be a money pit as you’d spend more time and energy to create the result than the benefit that any user would derive. It runs the risk of splintering a customer base as effort to assimilate all the products takes away from progress resulting in unhappy customers. FBX anyone?
If you had asked me back in 2008 what the grand plan was, I would say to develop a new application from scratch while using the existing products as cover and provide revenue stream to hold the fort. Long term it makes much more sense to have a single application as all development efforts could be focused, and headcounts to support one application is almost always less than for 3 applications resulting in cost savings. It would allow for faster iteration and development too. For those of us who were around in the mid 1990’s, we experienced the headaches of watching Softimage, Alias|Wavefront, Side FX, and Kinetics all revamp their products while continuing to develop their mainstays. It was fun to watch in anticipation, but not so fun to deal with the lack of progress and continual roadblocks in the course of everyday production as workarounds became the norm than the exception.
What we’re experiencing now looks familiar to me, but not familiar enough to convince me another product is on the drawing boards. However, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that were the case as its not something you announce until significant prototypes have been completed successfully. What we saw in the mid 1990’s is it took roughly 3-4 years to build a new application core from scratch and v1.0 wasn’t really usable in production. Each application didn’t hit a usable stride until about v3.0 of each product respectively. That’s a statement that it takes 6 years of active development to replace a product. Flash forward to today and it will likely take longer due to the emerging secondary markets and complexities needed to address them from an application.
Long story short, I don’t know if a single broad application to cover all markets makes sense anymore as the complexity to build such a thing would be enormous. It certainly makes sense to have a general 3D application that covers maybe 80% of the daily stuff while other smaller targeted applications are built off as extensions to fill certain niches. If you look in production, that’s how most pipelines are built. Each production step uses one or more applications depending on the need. What would streamline it all is if they all talked to each other in a common protocol. I think that’s what Autodesk is attempting with FBX and the separate products, but the difference is there is no central platform to build from, it’s more or less a series of bridges to different lands. Some will say Maya is the platform, but I don’t think that would work simply because all the other applications would have to be retrofitted with that in mind. That’s obviously not going to happen.
Matt
Jordi Bares
Sent from my iPhone
Tim Leydecker
I probably meant to say "I�ve seen them do it" since
I was not affiliated with Star Trek especially not as
a sequence lead but worked in the lighting dept next
to the guys while working on the After Earth project.
I wouldn�t want to give the wrong impression.
That said, I still don�t like 3dsMax too much but
sometimes, there is no choice if you want a job.
Cheers,
tim
Angus Davidson
Sent: 20 June 2013 08:00 AM
To: Adam Seeley; soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Cc: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
|