Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
Jason Brynford-Jones
Market share and growth:
When a company has a good share of any market they are eventually faced with growth issues. And growth is key to a public company's stock price (it is never enough to simply make the same revenue every year)
There are basically three options for growth in this situation:
1 Continue with your current offerings and go after the rest of the market share
2 Raise prices to grow revenue
3 Sell more products to your current user base
Breakdown - let's examine these options:
1 Continue as is. This is easy to do - everything is already in place. However any growth will be small. To gain more market share one could consider making some significant changes to existing offerings. This costs a lot and will still only return a small growth opportunity.
2 Raising prices is a simple solution. Though this would not be well received nor would it help maintaining being competitive. Also does that mean price rises happen every time you need growth? I think not.
3 Sell more products to existing customers. This sounds simple but what else can be sold? In Autodesk's case they have a large number of products which are applicable to the 3d market - they could also make new ones. However simply trying to sell additional products to the same customers is not easy - if it were, it would have already happened.
Growth Strategy:
So Autodesk, has taken a leaf out of Adobe's book and made a Suite of products at the same time improving interop (which is crucial to success)
Given Maya and Max have the largest install base of Autodesk's entertainment products, make a Suite for them to maximize growth potential (or flip that for Japan where Softimage has a large install base).
Tweak the value proposition:
After a couple of Suite combination iterations the biggest selling point of the Suite is now Softimage. Over time adding more products to the Suite helps maintains the value proposition.
Marketing:
Now the biggest selling points of Softimage are ICE and Face Robot. Trying to market the whole product is really hard when there is overlap between the products. Too many features is also harder to remember for Sales people - and for marketing to craft a clear message.
For sure Autodesk could do more marketing and events for Softimage. They could articulate the vision better and clear up some confusion and doubt. I think this will change with the Suite being the focus. We will see more air time for Softimage as it will be a big factor in the value proposition.
Training:
Do you know that for all students and facilities there is the Education Suite - which has all the products in one package? Maya, 3ds Max, Softimage, Mudbox and MotionBuilder. For sure. the job market can influence their decisions (as well as what product was used for their favorite film/game), but sill this exposure is amazing.
What does this all mean for Softimage?:
Well the irony is that if every Max and Maya user buys a suite, Softimage will actually have the highest seat count of all the products.
Does this mean Autodesk will eventually kill Softimage? If Softimage is the driving force behind a Suite - why would they? It simply does not make sense.
Conclusions:
Softimage is here to stay
Suites are the future.
The marketing message will change.
Softimage seats will grow.
Jason "Chinny" Brynford-Jones
Softimage Product Manager
john clausing
From: Jason Brynford-Jones <Jason.Bryn...@autodesk.com>
To: "soft...@listproc.autodesk.com" <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 2:52 PM
Subject: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
Gene Crucean
[Gene Crucean] - [VFX & CG Supervisor/Generalist]
** Freelance for hire **
~~ This email address is ONLY my email for lists. If you want to send a personal email to me and do not know my main email address, please use my website's contact form. www.genecrucean.com. Thanks. ~~
Eric Thivierge
--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com
David Barosin
Are we saying that we won't be able to buy softimage without a suite and is the reciprocal going to be true for max and maya users?
Hang in there we're rooting for you.
Andy Moorer
Remember, Adobe invests a huge amount of resources towards development and marketing despite having virtually complete coverage of their market. The reason for this is twofold:
- Competition. Any company which rests on their laurels after cornering their market is doomed to be supplanted by a newcomer, which can come out of nowhere, leapfrogging the technology and outshining the existing marketing.
- Growing the market once the market share has been cornered... By increasing the capabilities of your applications, new markets will emerge and existing markets will gain more users. Simpler versions (ex Adobe elements) can also be spawned off to appeal to hobbyists and prosumers who might not otherwise be in the market.
Multiple applications appealing to the same market (internal competition) can be an excellent way to keep dominance of market share. Softimage's value to autodesk is not only from it's sales, it is also valuable in that it's user base is under the AD umbrella instead of splitting off and possibly empowering a competitor.
Adobe seems to follow that same formula, for instance many of their applications have huge overlaps in basic functionality but entirely different user bases. Adobe markets and develops each application aggressively, and in fact seems to increase their efforts on the applications with less sales - the applications which have a greater potential to reach new customers.
Under that way of thinking, AD would be wise to redouble efforts to promote and develop the packages with less market share, because they have more room to grow and in doing so can interest and excite new users into the market.
Anyway, thanks for the open outreach. Softimage is stronger and more exciting than it's ever been, and I think it has generated huge interest in potential new users of late. Keep it up. :)
Eric Turman
-=T=-
Meng-Yang Lu
ADSK trades at 38.60 right now. When would be a good time to buy Chinny? Hello? Still there? :P
-Lu
Jason Brynford-Jones
From: David Barosin
...Adobe offers a suite at a much reduced cost and you always have the option to buy each package a la carte.
>>>Same for Autodesk - I think you can even upgrade to the Premium Suite for something like $1500. meaning you are adding Soft, Mudbox and MotionBuilder for only $1500 which is a no-brainer
Are we saying that we won't be able to buy softimage without a suite and is the reciprocal going to be true for max and maya users?
>>> no, you will still be able to buy any individual product - but the price to get the Suite will be most appealing.
________________________________
From: john clausing
i wonder about "support"? isn't reducing the "support" staff one way to increase revenue? surely autodesk has noticed that it employs overlapping disciplines given its 3 major products.
>>> Reducing staff is normally only done when times are bad (IE sales are going down) and then only as a last resort. And times are not bad at Autodesk. Reducing staff does not promote growth it only effects the bottom line. And like raising prices, you can't do it every year as a growth strategy.
unfortunately, i find myself wondering if the odd man out will be softimage due to the obvious decrease in overhead should a development team be deleted.
>>> I am sorry I don't really understand what you are saying here. We are not deleting development, quite the opposite - we have expanded the team and are still hiring.
ma...@glassworks.co.uk
continued developement of softimage is still on the cards at Autodesk.
However, I still believe that a key component to the growth on any
software package is the end user, and the experience they have using and,
probably more importantly, learning the software. This is the biggest
problem with softimage at the moment. There's not enough training
material. ICE is a fantastic tool, but for an artist coming over from ,say
MAX, it can easily be judged a tool for tech heads. Autodesk needs to
invest in it's training material, tutorials, videos, example scenes, these
should all ship with the package. The end user shouldn't be expected to
buy even the most basic training from a third party. Remember there's a
free trial of the software at Autodesk.com, but there's no free trial of
the third party training.
my 2 cents,
m@
Matt Morris
Chris Marshall
Stefan Andersson
> Well the irony is that if every Max and Maya user buys a suite, Softimage will actually have the highest seat count of all the products.
Just as Toxik is the largest compositing software out there, as it
comes with every Softimage, 3dsmax, maya license sold... and
MatchMover owns the tracking market.
Seats doesn't mean jack shit if people don't use it.
Here is how I see it.
Autodesk wants to own the market, nothing strange with that (would be
weird if you wanted to be the smallest player...)
Autodesk has SideFX as a target.
Autodesk will promote Softimage as a Houdini replacement.
Autodesk will promote Softimage as a simulation package.
am I wrong?
regards
stefan
--
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Creative Director
Mad Crew
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mail: ste...@madcrew.se
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Octavian Ureche
houdini based, and won''t be switching anytime soon (read ever as the
software is solid, efficient, smart and completely multiplatform).
Even old time xsi studios are adding it to the pipeline instead of
going all ice.
Can we not taste the irony in that?
Stephan Haitz
could be recognized as some sort of sell out of an not so important thing.
And if you don�t know Softimage this is fortified when you go to the
Autodesk Website. Maya & Max are well promoted, but you have to dig
around to find Softimage itself and related stuff. Same thing on nearly
all marketing channels: Print Advertising: Max & Maya, mess &
exhibitions: same thing.
If nobody promotes the strength auf Softimage other than the hype things
like ICE & Lagoa etc. nobody will have a closer look at Softimage for
general use. Cause everybody has enought to do to be up to date with
his/her Main Software, so you only will use another package if there
could be a big advantage.
In the actual "Digital Production" (German 3D Mag) at one place they
talk about the integration of mental ray into Cinema4D. And whiche
packages do you think they talk about where mental ray was integrated
long times before? No! It is not Softimage, it is Max& Maya. Not very
important but it makes another bit of the puzzle.
Ok, sorry, getting a bit offtopic...
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Stephan Haitz
3D-Animation und Compositing
Hauptstra�e 57, 77652 Offenburg
Telefon: 0781 / 203 64 51
Mobil: 0049 (0)178 322 41 94
Mail: ha...@trickpix.de
Web: www.trickpix.de
Steffen Dünner
I think it is nice that Softimage is put into the Suites. But this also could be recognized as some sort of sell out of an not so important thing.
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Daniel H
I respect Houdini, but it's too expensive, too difficult to use, requires raw scripting to do anything of substance, and even a newbie to SI can get better dynamics out of ICE in less time with much less hassle. And some of you want to gripe about SI training being thin, well take a dive into Houdini and let us know how many tutorials you find in contrast.
-Daniel
Daniel H
Actually there has been a very large push of both commercial and community driven Softimage training that has notably appeared within the last year. A Twitter account can really help in staying informed: http://twitter.com/#!/search/softimage
i3DTutorials just finished an upcoming training series on Lagoa Multiphysics and it should be out soon http://twitter.com/#!/i3DTutorials
Digital-Tutors came out with 2 new courses for SI yesterday:
Softimage Render Tree Reference Library: Illumination Nodes http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=62
Softimage Render Tree Reference Library: Texture Nodes http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=60
Ola Madsen continues to faithfully post his 3D World tutorials on the Caffeine Abuse blog. Here's a recent one for Procedural Orange Skin:
http://caffeineabuse.blogspot.com/2011/06/procedural-orange-skin.html
Within the last 8 months Paul Smith (the Zombie) cranked out 56 videos on SI:
http://vimeo.com/user4895541
Guillaume Laforge punched out 15 cool videos on ICE Modeling:
http://www.screencast.com/users/STBLAIR/folders/ICE%20Modeling
Autodesk recently put up some nice videos on ICE Modeling as well:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SoftimageHowTos?feature=mhee#g/c/B69E2282F6B130FC
Helge Mathee (the guy who never sleeps) and Exocortex have been steadily pushing out Momentum tutorials and updates. By the way, here's a Tech Preview for Momentum 2.5 with the new Create Fracture utility: http://vimeo.com/25813920
Stephen Blair (the one man army) cranked out 24 support and tutorial videos for SI within the last 3 months on his Vimeo channel:
http://vimeo.com/user595557/videos
It's easy to observe that Softimage training is trending up at a fast rate, which speaks to its rapidly increasing user base.
-Daniel
Graham Bell
..but this type of thing does concern me and I will look into this. If we have a reseller who is actually suggesting that because Softimage has been added to a Suite that it’s abandonware, then frankly that is not on. Especially when I/we have been telling resellers quite the opposite.
Graham
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Steffen Dünner
Sent: 01 July 2011 16:25
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
2011/7/1 Stephan Haitz <ha...@trickpix.de<mailto:ha...@trickpix.de>>
Meng-Yang Lu
I agree that 1) Softimage is awesome. 2) I can do a lot of things better than Houdini and faster 3) The community is the best.
However, just do this. www.sidefx.com vs. http://usa.autodesk.com/ 3DS Max....mhhmmmm.... Maya..... REVIT F$%KING ARCHITECHTURE??? WTF!
Softimage community aside from Japan is very much a little bubble. Sadly, in order for Softimage to gain the mass popularity, it needs to find it's way into a large facility doing big vfx work. I know that some people on the list do stuff that make the big screen, but I'm really referring to the shops that get the bulk of the shots. And in a lot of ways, Softimage isn't on the tip of the brain when it comes to this kind of work. At least not now...
Bash Houdini all you want, but it's almost synonymous with FX jobs. Learn it, beat your head in, claw for every scrap of info, and you pretty much have a job anywhere here in LA. Softimage still has gaps in the FX arsenal that needs to be covered. Volumes?? This stuff is JUST beginning to be dev'ed by Mootz and Holger but very well established in Houdini. There's work to be done for sure and I'm sure Softimage has the team to do it.
If Softimage's future is to replace Houdini, it's going to have to be multi-platform. Get that stuff good. And secondly, it needs a rendering solution that can beat Mantra. Distributed farm meshing and voxel rendering when it gets it would be sweet too. All the particles slinging and pretty ICE easiness don't mean jack if I can't render it. The FX are only gonna get bigger guys, not smaller.
Look at it this way. It's not like we got 3 feet left in the finish line to win this race. We have a looooooooong ways to go. But don't sit here in the bubble and ignore the strengths of our competition. As Sun Tzu put it, "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril."
Sorry for the long post...
-Lu
Gene Crucean
Softimage community aside from Japan is very much a little bubble. Sadly, in order for Softimage to gain the mass popularity, it needs to find it's way into a large facility doing big vfx work.
Graham Bell
However, just do this. www.sidefx.com<http://www.sidefx.com> vs. http://usa.autodesk.com/ 3DS Max....mhhmmmm.... Maya..... REVIT F$%KING ARCHITECHTURE??? WTF!
This isn't really a fair comparison because Autodesk and SideFX, although software companies are very similar but also very different.
Autodesk have a range of great products, covering many industries, Architectural, Engineering, Construction, Manufacturing, Educations, Govenment, Automotive, Transport, etc, etc. Out of all the products, the ones listed on the front page perhaps give the best snapshot of the Autodesk folio and the industries Autodesk cover. Products like Alias Design, Civil Navisworks, Moldflow, Flame, Motionbuilder aren't listed on the main pages either, but they are no lesser product in quality or importance. The front page is just the main entrance to Autodesk and gives an overall impression of what we do, before people go further and find what they might be looking for. Look at Adobe's site, they do a similar thing.
Maurice has posted about the websites before, we really should move on from the whole 'Softimage on the front page of Autodesk.com thing' :)
On Houdini, having used it myself in the past, I'm very much an admirer of it, but holey moley you need the chops to use it :) (pardon the pun, it's been a long day, lol)
Andy Jones
the Houdini/XSI comparison you simply can't ignore the fact that
Softimage is a viable package for bread and butter cg work, as well as
FX, where Houdini is less so (if only in terms of the expense of the
software and talent, and the learning curve). One of Softimage's best
features has always been its lighting, and we are fortunate enough to
be yet again in a position of dominance with renderer integration with
SItoA. Competing with Houdini in effects is a bit like trying to
outrun someone when you own a car and they don't. You still want to
be the fastest runner, but if you really need to beat them, just get
in your car.
I feel strongly that the future (and present, for some) of rendering
involves fully aggregated scenes, not separate passes of different
scene components. You need that big fiery explosion to sit next to
your cg car when you render it. Otherwise you have to think about how
to cheat it, and thinking costs time and money. There's a reason why
Sony built Katana -- they needed to aggregate scenes for
lighting/render, and Maya isn't good at it.
If nothing changes, Maya, Max, Softimage and Houdini are all about to
become "plugins" for Katana/Nuke. Once that happens, the force that
has kept studios in Maya since its takeover will start to diminish,
and the barrier to incorporating new applications into pipelines will
wane. If Autodesk wants to protect their investment, they should be
looking to get scene aggregation, lighting/rendering, and comp
integrated into at least one of the 3D packages. The smart choice is
to put it in the package with the best effects capabilities, since
that's the last piece of the vfx puzzle before the bake-down to
images, and the most difficult to send to a separate aggregation tool.
(i.e., how do you export a heavy ICE instance scene to Maya? To the
extent that you can, it's a complex thing with a lot of moving parts).
That's my opinion on the matter. I've never actually seen Katana, so
correct me if I'm way off in my assumptions about it.
In terms of implementation, my brainstorm on what I would do is this:
1) Help push Alembic as far as it will go in every package, as that
will be the backbone of aggregation.
2) Push cross-package scene handoff as far as it can go for cases
where baked caches aren't suitable. With ICE Kinematics, there's no
good reason why rigged characters shouldn't be able to be imported
from Maya and Max.
3) Make shading work more like an external property that can be edited
and overridden all the way to the end of the pipeline. I.e., it needs
to be editable at the beginning of the pipeline, and the same shader
needs to be able to be edited/overridden within the aggregated scene.
For example, the shader could be referenced with an id (which could be
a filename or database entry, for example). When the scene is
aggregated, the shading can't be buried inside the Alembic files or
washed out of existence by them. Do this in a way such that object
IDs/tags can potentially be used to examine the shader from a comp,
and send specific tweaks backwards into the 3D pipeline from comp, so
that when a compositor wants a specular parameter increased, they can
actually do something about it. Make it a standard that other 3rd
party apps at the beginning of the pipeline (ZBrush, Modo, etc) can
feed into. Leverage native shader formats from the renderers
themselves, and allow hooks for custom parsers.
4) Fix the render tree and its sister editors in the other packages to
properly support multiple renderers simultaneously. My asset needs to
know how to render itself in whatever renderer I might need to render
it in later. For example, Arnold most of the time, Mental Ray when
Arnold doesn't have a feature I need yet, or Renderman when I'm
handing it off to our Vancouver facility that uses Renderman.
Auto-conversion from one renderer to another needs to be a button in
the editor, OR a callback that happens when I export, and the renderer
doesn't see a shader for itself. Not just the latter.
5) Create an optional command line callback for executing comps from
the render region, etc. I.e., facilitate studios in piping our
renders through a precomp.
6) Although it's been considered before, I would re-examine the
prospect of going cross-platform with Softimage, and potentially
re-releasing it as the "next new thing" with some cosmetic tweaks.
And if you did all of the above properly, that would not be a sham.
Without knowing the code, I can't comment on whether it would be
cost-effective even after all that, but if Soft were really going to
be Autodesk's way of making Katana look like an obsolete piece of
over-complicated big studio pipeline pushing the convergence of 3D and
2D in the exact wrong direction, that might change the equation from
where it's been in the past.
Meanwhile,
7) Keep pushing ICE.
8) Add something to fill the gap with iterative L-system type
simulations, and integrate it beautifully with ICE, so that each
execution step can take full advantage of multi-threading. I.e., we
need a way to break out into something that's a little more code-like
in its execution (potentially just code...) that executes as part of
ICE. Sort of a generic context-sensitive scop. Then we'd need some
wrappers for the obvious things (trees, lightning, fractal geo, etc).
9) Everything that seems like a good idea.
I suppose this is getting OT, but I think the initial post naturally
begs the question of where it's all going, assuming the suites have
the stated effect we're all hoping for. FWIW, XSI is slowly creeping
into our (now pretty big) shop as we speak. And it's happening in a
very passive manner, just the way it's being described. I.e., our
software dept in LA is actively trying to avoid it, and our office in
NY isn't trying to push it on them, but the suites and the need for
globalization (i.e., a universal platform in all locations) are slowly
moving it forward. Once it's there, they just need to be given a good
reason to use it, and I can come back from the underworld. (They are
heavy Houdini/Maya, currently).
> Sorry for the long post...
>
> -Lu
No worries, mate :)
- Andy
Piotrek Marczak
Bash Houdini all you want, but it's almost synonymous with FX jobs. Learn it, beat your head in, claw for every scrap of info, and you pretty much have a job anywhere here in LA.
James De Colling
perspective
here in japan, softimage is doing OK..not great by any means, most
studios are still Maya or Max and its switching over more every day.
we have some seats of Soft at our office, but no one wants to use it
except me, all the maya guys are thinking Modo is the new hotness and
are wanting to learn that now, even though many of the tools in modo
exist in Soft. the problem i see with soft these days is that it no
longer seems to care about the games market, Modo, Maya, Max, 3DCoat,
Mudbox etc ALL have far more useful viewports than softimage now.
Modelling tools is another area softimage has stagnated, there just
doesnt seem to be any will to develop new tools, even if that
development is just copy/pasting from Max and Maya...its all ICE this,
Lagoa that...99% of people in games dont care about ice and softimage
is putting itself firmly in the Houdini "FX tool only" category.
i'd like to think its rather telling, when you have free access to
softimage...and would still prefer to buy another copy of Modo, that
something is wrong. product development, marketing, training
material...Luxology, a company far smaller than AD...seem to be doing
far more.
I cant even recommend Softimage for new titles anymore, as no artists
want to learn it, but more importantly, the other products have
eclipsed it.
james,
James Bradford
games as well. Actions speak a lot louder than words and every single
release of Softimage since 08 has been almost %100 about ICE. If
Softimage still has intentions to be a complete, out of the box
solution then it would be good to see evidence of that again just as
Max and Maya continue to. I think ICE is great, but it being the sole
focus of Softimage is causing anyone but a technical artist to abandon
the package.
Andy Moorer
If you are a softimage studio of more than three artists and you don't have someone looking at how ICE can give you a leg up you're missing out on a lot of power. Frankly, there still aren't that many of us really pushing ICE as far as it can go yet. Use this list and ask for specific modeling tools in ICE and there's a good chance another user may be able to get something made for you before the devs can get to it.
But your point is well taken. The viewport needing love effects previs as well, and it's important that when Softimage extolls the virtues of ice they make it clear that one of the most important things about ice is that it lets the TDs in the community extend the software and share powerful tools with every user.
Game artists using soft, get your TDs and the rest of us making tools for your needs, ICE belongs to you too, and it can do a lot more than just VFX.
James De Colling
Ice is all well and good, but for my guys I would need to be able to show them how it would speed up this day to day workflow, ie, model and map a car or charachter, you mentioned rigging, but those rigs need to be able to be interopeble with the engines. I would love to know if there are people using ice for basic asset creation, and how they are implementing it.
Bradley Gabe
André Adam
ICE kinematics are only useful for rather smallish bits and pieces like little volume preservation ops (still based on bones!), that can be baked down onto the skeleton during export. (We usually don't bake point-based effects, though we eventually have some fancy point-based effects live during runtime.) Flat hierachies held together by cool ICE rigging ops, as it was promoted as the next cool thing during release of the ICE rigging toolset, don't survive outside of Softimage...
Really sorry, so far I also don't see ICE becoming the swiss army knife of game dev. Finally do something about the out of the box modeling and texturing tools instead, to get them up to standard, or even better one level higher.
-André
Mirko Jankovic
That is why there is so much flame around, when only 1 part of application is developed and that part is used just to plug it and send to Max and Maya... you can see where all paranoia (or reasonable fear?) is coming from.
Are there any plans at all, at least some working hours in developing dedicated or planned to other parts of SI, modeling, viewport, or even improving character animation part even more?
Max
First of all, thanks Chinny for the insight and the usefull point of view about market and how Softimage is doing now, that post really help the userbase as Eric said.
I think Softimage is a great product, i'm a freelancer and i had the luck to pick a softwtware i felt comfy and i wanted to use, as i said many times
we are saying pretty much at only ICE development since v 7.0 when it came out, and this is great in terms of ICE itself, but it is also bad in terms of the whole package when
you put it in comparison with other 3d tools.
If for example 3ds Max had only Krakatoa everyone wouldnt really mind at it, and that is because its just one thing, i strongly believe that Softimage needs to be updated in other things. Recently there was some threads and discussions about this, and it seemed that the road taken by Softimage was giving the users the toolsets to produce other tools.
Like we give you ICE, now create your own modeling tools.
While this might be a fun time and a learning experience for people skilled at math/vector/ICE in general, it is really something a normal artist without those knowledges cant touch and cant benefit, if not waiting and waiting for someone release that particular tool.
The fact that almost every other aspect of Softimage is stagnant and never updates in years is to me a bad thing. You are forcing a product to be considered only as ICE and this is an extreme shame because Softimage have a giant potential in every other aspect.
I think ICE doesnt have benefit to do simple and small tasks, it does the difference when you use it for complicated things, for example if i have to connect 5 nodes that are nested and inside them there are other 30 nodes to produce a sweep effect..well that is not really fast as pushing 1 button in the "Deform" panel right?
In the end, dont think things will change, Softimage will just be ICE-centric forever, you are gonna lose more potential users because of this, of course you might gain some, the difference will be how many you are gonna get vs how many you are gonna lose.
And i'm not sure who will win. Regarding Freelancing most people take a look at Modo because it is in continue development and do things that you never will be able to do in softimage even if that package costs less than half price.
ICE is brilliant and absolutely stunning, it is a great tech and it is so powerfull, but since it came out Softimage was always related to it, feels like the name itself is Softimage-ICE, forgetting the other amazing thing it had, and with a few effort and updates in other sections of the package it would really be a game changer and it wouldnt harm you for sure to update more things but ICE.
Max
Graham Bell
As Chinnys says, there's a lot of product overlap and personally for me it's a fight not worth picking, that's not to say I still don't want continued fixed and enhancements :). For me, I look at the pipeline and process. For example, most game artists will have to retopologise their meshes and many use Topogun and/or 3D-coat for this in addition to still using Max or Maya. Both are fine packages with some great tools. Could ICE modelling be used for this instead? Maybe it could? Could it be part of the existing workflow? Maybe?
But people will cry, Softimage is more than just package for doing tools, you can model, animate, texture, render, etc, etc. And yes that's absolutely right but as we're on the subject so can Houdini. Houdini can do all of those things, but many people use it for FX work, but they don't see it as any less of a package though and they use it along side other packages as well. This is the way productions and pipelines are now, multiple apps. Suites make sense for us and also customers.
Graham
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of André Adam
Sent: 02 July 2011 09:05
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
Exactly the point. Many people who do commercials or film and rave about how ICE tweaks their every-day workflows don't see that it does not apply to a games pipeline. Our assets do not live in Softimage, they live within the game engine, a fierce place, where every triangle is highly optimized and manually put into the right place. Proceduralism is not done in the 3d app, baked and put into the game, the game is doing the procedural structures live, eg dynamically tesselating an editor-generated landscapes during runtime.
ICE kinematics are only useful for rather smallish bits and pieces like little volume preservation ops (still based on bones!), that can be baked down onto the skeleton during export. (We usually don't bake point-based effects, though we eventually have some fancy point-based effects live during runtime.) Flat hierachies held together by cool ICE rigging ops, as it was promoted as the next cool thing during release of the ICE rigging toolset, don't survive outside of Softimage...
Really sorry, so far I also don't see ICE becoming the swiss army knife of game dev. Finally do something about the out of the box modeling and texturing tools instead, to get them up to standard, or even better one level higher.
-André
On 02.07.2011 05:55, James De Colling wrote:
Ice is all well and good, but for my guys I would need to be able to show them how it would speed up this day to day workflow, ie, model and map a car or charachter, you mentioned rigging, but those rigs need to be able to be interopeble with the engines. I would love to know if there are people using ice for basic asset creation, and how they are implementing it.
On Jul 2, 2011 12:35 PM, "Andy Moorer" <andym...@gmail.com<mailto:andym...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> That's a reasonable concern. But as a technical artist and ICE guy, I do get frustrated that people tend to see it as a VFX rollout, when there is so much it could offer to the game industry.... Streamlining workflow and pipeline, almost entirely unexplored potential for all kinds of rigging coolness, and now that we have modeling capabilities in ice all sorts of possibilities are out there. Procedural asset creation. Customized user-made modeling tools. Texture and uv tools, and so on.
>
> If you are a softimage studio of more than three artists and you don't have someone looking at how ICE can give you a leg up you're missing out on a lot of power. Frankly, there still aren't that many of us really pushing ICE as far as it can go yet. Use this list and ask for specific modeling tools in ICE and there's a good chance another user may be able to get something made for you before the devs can get to it.
>
> But your point is well taken. The viewport needing love effects previs as well, and it's important that when Softimage extolls the virtues of ice they make it clear that one of the most important things about ice is that it lets the TDs in the community extend the software and share powerful tools with every user.
>
> Game artists using soft, get your TDs and the rest of us making tools for your needs, ICE belongs to you too, and it can do a lot more than just VFX.
>
james.d...@gmail.com
"As Chinnys says, there's a lot of product overlap and personally for me it's a fight not worth picking"
Guillaume Laforge
Luc-Eric Rousseau
The suggestion that Softimage needs to fight back Modo in Japan is interesting, but that's not the feedback I've seen. The Japanese clients are the top priority - some have hundreds of seats. The top requests are all about SDK enhancements, shader installation and other issues, data management, etc, which Softimage is continuously delivering. There is modeling stuff, like the weight editor and texture editor enhancements in 2012. But largely it's all about pipeline, data management, performance, and animation stuff. People want us to fix and enhance the stuff that is already there, and deal with large number of assets. There are also custom development contracts going on and private branches with some of the larger clients, the team is not out of touch with Japan.
james.d...@gmail.com
james,
John Richard Sanchez
John Richard Sanchez
www.johnrichardsanchez.com
André Adam
share, I am talking about preventing the left-over userbase from
abandoning this ship. This reply of yours is a pretty disastrous message
to any games studio still using Softimage.
Though I would very much like us all being in a position to discuss
strategies of gaining market share in the games biz instead.
On 02.07.2011 14:32, Graham Bell wrote:
> I'm with Brad, Softimage/ICE is a swiss army knife and could easily work in games. Modelling and texturing is real bread and butter work in games, but a lot of this work is done in Max or Maya. Improving these tools in Softimage would be of course great, but let's be realistic, if the guys in Montreal did that, would we expect a die-hard Max modeller to see the light and switch - I'm not sure. After all, why would he want to, he knows Max and has used it for years, why should he? And this isn't where problems occur in games production and a lot of this grunt work gets outsourced anyway.
>
> As Chinnys says, there's a lot of product overlap and personally for me it's a fight not worth picking, that's not to say I still don't want continued fixed and enhancements :). For me, I look at the pipeline and process. For example, most game artists will have to retopologise their meshes and many use Topogun and/or 3D-coat for this in addition to still using Max or Maya. Both are fine packages with some great tools. Could ICE modelling be used for this instead? Maybe it could? Could it be part of the existing workflow? Maybe?
>
> But people will cry, Softimage is more than just package for doing tools, you can model, animate, texture, render, etc, etc. And yes that's absolutely right but as we're on the subject so can Houdini. Houdini can do all of those things, but many people use it for FX work, but they don't see it as any less of a package though and they use it along side other packages as well. This is the way productions and pipelines are now, multiple apps. Suites make sense for us and also customers.
>
> Graham
>
>
>
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andr� Adam
> Sent: 02 July 2011 09:05
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
>
> Exactly the point. Many people who do commercials or film and rave about how ICE tweaks their every-day workflows don't see that it does not apply to a games pipeline. Our assets do not live in Softimage, they live within the game engine, a fierce place, where every triangle is highly optimized and manually put into the right place. Proceduralism is not done in the 3d app, baked and put into the game, the game is doing the procedural structures live, eg dynamically tesselating an editor-generated landscapes during runtime.
> ICE kinematics are only useful for rather smallish bits and pieces like little volume preservation ops (still based on bones!), that can be baked down onto the skeleton during export. (We usually don't bake point-based effects, though we eventually have some fancy point-based effects live during runtime.) Flat hierachies held together by cool ICE rigging ops, as it was promoted as the next cool thing during release of the ICE rigging toolset, don't survive outside of Softimage...
> Really sorry, so far I also don't see ICE becoming the swiss army knife of game dev. Finally do something about the out of the box modeling and texturing tools instead, to get them up to standard, or even better one level higher.
>
> -Andr�
Stephan Haidacher
> But people will cry, Softimage is more than just package for doing tools, you can model, animate, texture, render, etc, etc. And yes that's absolutely right but as we're on the subject so can Houdini. Houdini can do all of those things, but many people use it for FX work, but they don't see it as any less of a package though and they use it along side other packages as well. This is the way productions and pipelines are now, multiple apps. Suites make sense for us and also customers.
well houdini has always been an TD/FX app (even Prism was known to have
a great particle system) so this comparison doesnt work imo. softimage wasnt
a fx tool until ICE came (jeez, SI|3d was one of the worst fx apps back
then), so your clientbase are primarily artists who loved SI for its
intuitive, fast
workflow (modeler/animator but i think mostly generalists).
houdini worked hard on being more intuitive the last years, but never
forgot their core business (FX) and updated/fixed/improved issues there
as well.
i cant remember when the last modeling tool was added or improved in SI.
or the last time "Hair" was updated? i know you can do it all with ICE
(if you
have the compounds/knowledge/time/will), but still a lot people use
"hair" because its fast and easy.
--stephan
Graham Bell
Many don't want to switch their core 3D package from what they already use and know, but they are interested in Softimage and some have already moved to Suites
-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of André Adam
Sent: 02 July 2011 18:00
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
You completely missed the point. I am not talking about gaining market share, I am talking about preventing the left-over userbase from abandoning this ship. This reply of yours is a pretty disastrous message to any games studio still using Softimage.
Though I would very much like us all being in a position to discuss strategies of gaining market share in the games biz instead.
On 02.07.2011 14:32, Graham Bell wrote:
> I'm with Brad, Softimage/ICE is a swiss army knife and could easily work in games. Modelling and texturing is real bread and butter work in games, but a lot of this work is done in Max or Maya. Improving these tools in Softimage would be of course great, but let's be realistic, if the guys in Montreal did that, would we expect a die-hard Max modeller to see the light and switch - I'm not sure. After all, why would he want to, he knows Max and has used it for years, why should he? And this isn't where problems occur in games production and a lot of this grunt work gets outsourced anyway.
>
> As Chinnys says, there's a lot of product overlap and personally for me it's a fight not worth picking, that's not to say I still don't want continued fixed and enhancements :). For me, I look at the pipeline and process. For example, most game artists will have to retopologise their meshes and many use Topogun and/or 3D-coat for this in addition to still using Max or Maya. Both are fine packages with some great tools. Could ICE modelling be used for this instead? Maybe it could? Could it be part of the existing workflow? Maybe?
>
> But people will cry, Softimage is more than just package for doing tools, you can model, animate, texture, render, etc, etc. And yes that's absolutely right but as we're on the subject so can Houdini. Houdini can do all of those things, but many people use it for FX work, but they don't see it as any less of a package though and they use it along side other packages as well. This is the way productions and pipelines are now, multiple apps. Suites make sense for us and also customers.
>
> Graham
>
>
>
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of André Adam
> Sent: 02 July 2011 09:05
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
>
> Exactly the point. Many people who do commercials or film and rave about how ICE tweaks their every-day workflows don't see that it does not apply to a games pipeline. Our assets do not live in Softimage, they live within the game engine, a fierce place, where every triangle is highly optimized and manually put into the right place. Proceduralism is not done in the 3d app, baked and put into the game, the game is doing the procedural structures live, eg dynamically tesselating an editor-generated landscapes during runtime.
> ICE kinematics are only useful for rather smallish bits and pieces like little volume preservation ops (still based on bones!), that can be baked down onto the skeleton during export. (We usually don't bake point-based effects, though we eventually have some fancy point-based effects live during runtime.) Flat hierachies held together by cool ICE rigging ops, as it was promoted as the next cool thing during release of the ICE rigging toolset, don't survive outside of Softimage...
> Really sorry, so far I also don't see ICE becoming the swiss army knife of game dev. Finally do something about the out of the box modeling and texturing tools instead, to get them up to standard, or even better one level higher.
>
> -André
Gene Crucean
Improving these tools in Softimage would be of course great, but let's be realistic, if the guys in Montreal did that, would we expect a die-hard Max modeller to see the light and switch - I'm not sure. After all, why would he want to, he knows Max and has used it for years, why should he?
Gene Crucean - VFX & CG Supervisor / Generalist
Gene Crucean
Thomas Helzle
the only problem with all that is, that it is completely centred
around things I don't care about a bit as a user.
I'm not using XSI so that Autodesk can grow even more fat or Photoshop
so that Adobe can impress shareholders.
And I'm so very happy that I've sold Final Cut Studio early this year,
now that Apple is doing those unbelievable stunts with Final Cut Pro
X.
I will not buy anything from a company like Apple in the foreseeable future.
I'm so fed up with big companies not being able to see their own toes
anymore for all the fat they've grown.
ICE is absolutely brilliant, but everything else seems to rather
stagnate or even degrade since version 7.
If XSI's future is big pipelines,
code-a-usable-extrude-in-ICE-yourself and needing external renderers
to get anything decent, I guess it's usefulness for me is over.
Talking only with TDs isn't the best way to get a real picture of your users.
You need infantry too ;-)
Will I buy a suite to get decent modelling tools?
Nope Sire!
Will I invest in overpriced external renderers so I don't need to use
the Demented Ray?
Not if I can help it.
Will I renew my subscription this year?
I don't think so, but you're welcome to convince me otherwise.
Cheers and Carpe Diem :-)
Thomas Helzle
Ciaran Moloney
I was actually thinking that it's a very good time to be a Softimage freelancer. From my totally naive observation on both sides of the Atlantic, the problem is not a lack of Softimage freelance work. Rather it's of studios experiencing some difficulty in finding enough people for all the jobs. I'll let wiser heads debate the causes and effects of that situation. Perhaps we're a dwindling pool of talent and the good times will be short lived?
I was really happy with my decision, like you to ditch Maya back in school and go with the Soft-side. I honestly don't think I'd be enjoying the work as much as I do if I'd stayed with the Maya crowd (but maybe I'd have been a better programmer!). But for the moment, If I were to seriously get down with another application, it would be for the right job not for a lack of Soft jobs. I hope Autodesk pushes Soft enough to allow that to continue.
I'm surprised to hear about Cinema4D. I don't think I've ever seen a copy of it in the wild - is it really so popular?
Regarding modeling improvements - weren't the new modeling tools in Maya and Max essentially integrations of 3rd party plugins? Perhaps I'm way off on that, but if that was the case, I won't be loosing any sleep waiting for Autodesk to rejuvenate the modeling toolset in Soft. So, who wants to write that killer modeling plugin (the tools are all in place now)?
I just wanted to contribute something semi-positive from the POV of a generalist freelancer.
Ciaran
Ciaran Moloney
Ciaran
Paul Griswold
Graham Bell
As Chinny has correctly said, pushing the whole product can be hard when there is overlap between the products. I wasn't writing off peoples comments and saying it's pointless not to address certain features and tools, namely modelling. I want to see improvements as well.
But it's hard fight to win going up against some Max users in this area alone and convincing them that they would and could benefit from adopting and using Softimage, when they believe they have something pretty good already. And that's not my assumption, this is what I see and hear from users.
I agree that we need to do more to show that Softimage and ICE is not just about FX work and we are trying to do this.
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Gene Crucean
Sent: 02 July 2011 19:11
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
Graham that email was a little bit of a downer. I'm not gonna lie. I'm 100% in agreement with Brad also. I use ICE for soooo much more than just FX type stuff, even though recently I have been doing the coolest work I've ever done with ICE, Lagoa and Arnold. But at the same time, you must realize that most of the user base is not tech savvy enough to use ICE like this (like you and Brad are describing). I consider myself a pretty smart guy and a nice blend of art/tech. I also think I'm on the upper side of the scale when it comes to artists with tech smarts... but I even struggle with ICE sometimes. A LOT of the time to be honest. I'm always bugging people like Alan Jones, Thiago and Mootz for random help. Those guys are not the norm. So please do us all a favor and don't assume that people will just whip up a game pipeline tool in ICE at the drop of a hat... because it's so flexible. It is! But it's just not that easy for 98% of the industry.
If that is a huge selling point for you guys, then what I recommend is for AD to start doing a little bit of the leg work yourselves (hey it's soo easy, don't sweat how long it will take), and show people what can be done with ICE. Not just creating the platform itself and saying go. Having said that, 2012 is a huge step forward in this area. Nice work guys. Keep it going!!!!! The only problem is that those things are pretty much completely geared for FX work.
When did you guys implement most of the current modeling tools? v4? What year was that released in? It's a required aspect of Softimage that must be updated. While I value your opinion, you must understand that you are IN there, I am OUT here. "Here" is where the money and production realities come from. The modeling tools we have are excellent, but there are just too few of them. Period.
Improving these tools in Softimage would be of course great, but let's be realistic, if the guys in Montreal did that, would we expect a die-hard Max modeller to see the light and switch - I'm not sure. After all, why would he want to, he knows Max and has used it for years, why should he?
Because now on top of all the awesomeness of ICE, they would have the rest of the package be up to par with Modo's / * tools. This would make the entire package more appealing would it not?
These users have valid complaints. Don't just write them off and say it would be pointless to update the tools in Soft because well... somebody has already made that tool. Oh and hey, we also own that application. Go buy a seat.
... just trying to get a point across. We're all friends here right?
On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 5:32 AM, Graham Bell <Graha...@autodesk.com<mailto:Graha...@autodesk.com>> wrote:
I'm with Brad, Softimage/ICE is a swiss army knife and could easily work in games. Modelling and texturing is real bread and butter work in games, but a lot of this work is done in Max or Maya. Improving these tools in Softimage would be of course great, but let's be realistic, if the guys in Montreal did that, would we expect a die-hard Max modeller to see the light and switch - I'm not sure. After all, why would he want to, he knows Max and has used it for years, why should he? And this isn't where problems occur in games production and a lot of this grunt work gets outsourced anyway.
As Chinnys says, there's a lot of product overlap and personally for me it's a fight not worth picking, that's not to say I still don't want continued fixed and enhancements :). For me, I look at the pipeline and process. For example, most game artists will have to retopologise their meshes and many use Topogun and/or 3D-coat for this in addition to still using Max or Maya. Both are fine packages with some great tools. Could ICE modelling be used for this instead? Maybe it could? Could it be part of the existing workflow? Maybe?
But people will cry, Softimage is more than just package for doing tools, you can model, animate, texture, render, etc, etc. And yes that's absolutely right but as we're on the subject so can Houdini. Houdini can do all of those things, but many people use it for FX work, but they don't see it as any less of a package though and they use it along side other packages as well. This is the way productions and pipelines are now, multiple apps. Suites make sense for us and also customers.
Graham
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com> [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com>] On Behalf Of André Adam
Sent: 02 July 2011 09:05
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
Exactly the point. Many people who do commercials or film and rave about how ICE tweaks their every-day workflows don't see that it does not apply to a games pipeline. Our assets do not live in Softimage, they live within the game engine, a fierce place, where every triangle is highly optimized and manually put into the right place. Proceduralism is not done in the 3d app, baked and put into the game, the game is doing the procedural structures live, eg dynamically tesselating an editor-generated landscapes during runtime.
ICE kinematics are only useful for rather smallish bits and pieces like little volume preservation ops (still based on bones!), that can be baked down onto the skeleton during export. (We usually don't bake point-based effects, though we eventually have some fancy point-based effects live during runtime.) Flat hierachies held together by cool ICE rigging ops, as it was promoted as the next cool thing during release of the ICE rigging toolset, don't survive outside of Softimage...
Really sorry, so far I also don't see ICE becoming the swiss army knife of game dev. Finally do something about the out of the box modeling and texturing tools instead, to get them up to standard, or even better one level higher.
-André
On 02.07.2011 05:55, James De Colling wrote:
Ice is all well and good, but for my guys I would need to be able to show them how it would speed up this day to day workflow, ie, model and map a car or charachter, you mentioned rigging, but those rigs need to be able to be interopeble with the engines. I would love to know if there are people using ice for basic asset creation, and how they are implementing it.
On Jul 2, 2011 12:35 PM, "Andy Moorer" <andym...@gmail.com<mailto:andym...@gmail.com><mailto:andym...@gmail.com<mailto:andym...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
>
> That's a reasonable concern. But as a technical artist and ICE guy, I do get frustrated that people tend to see it as a VFX rollout, when there is so much it could offer to the game industry.... Streamlining workflow and pipeline, almost entirely unexplored potential for all kinds of rigging coolness, and now that we have modeling capabilities in ice all sorts of possibilities are out there. Procedural asset creation. Customized user-made modeling tools. Texture and uv tools, and so on.
>
> If you are a softimage studio of more than three artists and you don't have someone looking at how ICE can give you a leg up you're missing out on a lot of power. Frankly, there still aren't that many of us really pushing ICE as far as it can go yet. Use this list and ask for specific modeling tools in ICE and there's a good chance another user may be able to get something made for you before the devs can get to it.
>
> But your point is well taken. The viewport needing love effects previs as well, and it's important that when Softimage extolls the virtues of ice they make it clear that one of the most important things about ice is that it lets the TDs in the community extend the software and share powerful tools with every user.
>
> Game artists using soft, get your TDs and the rest of us making tools for your needs, ICE belongs to you too, and it can do a lot more than just VFX.
>
~~ This email address is ONLY my email for lists. If you want to send a personal email to me and do not know my main email address, please use my website's contact form. www.genecrucean.com<http://www.genecrucean.com>. Thanks. ~~
Max
single thing that migth sell Softimage, what i think is that we are happy with
Softimage, we as user know how good ICE is and we fully understand that AD cant
really push Softimage vs 3ds MAX in rendering or modeling.
We are just saying okay ICE is fantastic and keep pushing it to get more seats
and sell more but dont forget the userbase you already have, and to those
people modeling rendering texturing rigging UV and everything is important, not
only ICE.
It seems to me that your focus is on what is important to 3ds max and Maya
users to embrace Softimage, while you are kinda forgetting the already
Softimage users since years.
Dont think we ask much, see Softimage as VFX ICE tool only is quite
depressing, not having Mental Ray fully integrated is quite depressing, not
having updated modeling tool is depressing too, so on and so forth, i guess you
guys got the point.
I'm glad if AD keeps going with ICE, but i honestly would like to see
something else targeted to users that use Softimage at 360°, not only as a
pipeline product because its been years really we dont see some real updates in
other fields thats not ICE.
Max
Ahmidou Lyazidi
I also agree - if it's so easy to build tools in ICE, why not start building a bunch of them at AD and include them with Soft or release them as an SP? How about slowly replacing/enhancing existing tools with ICE versions - so the menus are the same, but an ICE tree is just built when you call the tool? That way the tweakers & TDs can have their hearts filled with joy as they dig into thing, and those of us who are less technically inclined can occasionally tinker, but otherwise enjoy a faster set of tools?
For example, the stock "rig from guide" rig - why not convert that to an ICE version? I saw that Paul "Pooby" Smith had made an ICE kinematics demo - have you watched it? He gives up because it's too complicated, too confusing, and too much work. I think Paul is a pretty bright chap, so when he's giving up it should send a message that maybe there should be a simplified method available.
I disagree, it's not that hard, I have myself an ICE rig project sleeping (you can see it on my Vimeo page), I just never found the time to finish and release it :\
Ahmidou Lyazidi
Director | TD | CG artist
http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
David Barosin
Yes ICE is very friendly to TD's and TD's make the non techincal people very happy by providing them with great tools. If Softimage provides a strong toolset for development you end up with all the great things Eric Mootz, Thiago, Helge, Brad, Holger, Amaan, Alan and many others have created. It's a bit of a food chain. ICE is a very appealing and it empowers many more people than the standard c++ SDK can from other packages.
I remember one of the points to ICE was to empower the customers with and easy development environment. Softimage has done that. There are a lot less people twiddling their thumbs waiting for Softimage to make them a new plug-in. That is huge. We could probably benefit by pausing and reflecting on that.
The one big thing that I do miss and thought was a brilliant ideas was being able to upload and share ICE compound on a community site right in Soft.(yea for rray.de) The biggest asset is the Softimage Community. I'm pretty thrilled with what I have now in the software. I think it's easier now for good things to come. Look at GEAR for rigging. UV mapping has had a nice improvement with unfolding and relaxing. Guillaume just showed a nice demo of ICE and UV control.
I don't know what the future really is with Autodesk but Softimage has seen some of the most robust development and additions under their watch. Yes it would be great to have a big public show of affection from Autodesk rather than feel like the kept user base. As long as they keep this good thing going I can only think more users will come around. Look at how must attention Soft has without any heavy promo.
Richard Perry
Andy Moorer
Individual artists and small shops use max for some stunning work, and many larger game companies still do. But they are also paying a price for it, I've talked with TDs at a number of game studios who despair over pipelines built around max, because it just doesn't scale well. I mean no offense, but some of the assets I see come out of small shops, often using max and which have great art skills are also almost tragically unsophisticated and need a lot of clean up.
I think it's good news that 80% of the Softimage dev team is on non-ice improvements to the software, and I hope individual non-technical game artists can perceive the huge benefits to modern software which is extensible and can be used to build robust custom solutions. Many of the recent improvements may not pertain to a single task you can envision yourself doing, but anyone who has worked at a studio with a truly smooth and sophisticated pipeline should be able to relate to how much it can improve an artist's life.
That said, it's fair to want Softimage to keep up with the feature sets of the other packages... I think a lot of the work that's gone into making Softimage a good development platform is beginning to pay dividends. Notice how soft's development has picked up in pace over the last two years? I have great hope that the devs can leverage the under-the-hood improvements they've focused on and give you guys some exciting stuff. Soft badly needed some VFX love, and they delivered big time. Let's hope the game industry gets some goodies under the tree in upcoming releases.
Maybe one thing worth doing is to describe some of the tools you most wish were in soft. There are a lot of smart people on this list (I'm not one of them) and you never know when you might catch their interest, which is basically what happened with VFX and soft. Squeak, wheels.
Andy Moorer
I'm in the camp with Gene, but a much less technical user.
And the viewport needs some major love. Look at Lightwave's new Viper viewport for a nice example of what's happening with non-AD packages.
I also agree - if it's so easy to build tools in ICE, why not start building a bunch of them at AD and include them with Soft or release them as an SP? How about slowly replacing/enhancing existing tools with ICE versions - so the menus are the same, but an ICE tree is just built when you call the tool?
The suite idea is appealing, but only if I can get a suite without Maya or Max. So Softimage, Mudbox, MatchMover & Toxic as a bundle (but that's if they're going to continue developing ALL of those).
André Adam
Along these lines, it also is often stated that the beauty of ICE is that we can take someone elses compounds and customize that effect to our needs if we don't like it. True. But for most of the basic toolset I just don't have the time to do that. I can't take Guillaume's attempt at SwimUVs and spend the time to make it the tool we need. (Our requirements are more complex than what's there currently, I have outlined that in a previous thread. And I somehow feel that our idea of that tool would be awfully complicated to achieve in ICE.)
-André
Oh, and, eh, sorry, we have one of the least capable UV toolsets in the whole industry. Really.
Votch
which we are all stumbling over. I also haven't read the entire thread
so forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been covered
or If I'm way off-base.
Many are quick to point out that Softimage "needs" to be adopted by
larger studios in order to gain popularity. At the same time many are
frustrated with the increased technical direction the software has
taken. Well, it's this new technical direction that offers the
greatest incentive for large studios to adopt Softimage. The main
reason Houdini and Maya are so popular with large studios is technical
flexibility and their ability to directly implement new features and
workflows that the software didn't ship with. I know for certain that
it's this limitation that is keeping modo out of a few large shops.
Over the last couple of releases Autodesk has performed all sorts of
major surgery under the hood in Softimage to open the doors to
customization.
- ICE Kinematics
- ICE Modeling
- A complete re-write of the shader interface (SPDL-less shaders)
- Complete rendering overhaul (better 3rd party render integration)
- Interactive tool SDK (openGL customization)
- Gigapoly core enhancements.
ICE is very obvious and on the surface but all the others are a big
deal and this type of development is the hardest to do because the
benefits are not realized immediately. Only TD's care about the ITSDK
but I suspect the Softimage dev team will take advantage of this new
feature as well. I'm only speculating but I imagine the UI gizmos MAX
has had for years are now a bit easier to implement in Softimage.
Sure, now that we have these tools we can build the new features
ourselves but I hope Autodesk added these tools so that they can make
their lives a bit easier. It took a couple of releases to get to this
point and now I can only imagine what is possible considering that the
internal developers have such a firm foundation to build upon.
We've all been begging for years for added flexible and customization
in Softimage that retains the richness and elegance the Softimage
workflow was built on. I feel Autodesk got the message. It's also
possible that they've been planning this the whole time and I've only
just got a caught onto the master plan. I don't care either way
because they've now done it. Just look at the complete proliferation
of new tools that have come out of the Softimage Community. Lagoa,
Momentum, Sitoa, Just to name a few. It's incredible how productive
our niche community is. And as Luc-Eric pointed out, many shops are
doing internal development that we (the community) may never get to
see outside of a Siggraph presentation. This all adds up to a bright
future.
Which brings me to a point I don't often talk about out loud.
Softimage is my secret weapon.
I work at a small shop, and I don't really want the big studios to
adopt Softimage. I'd much rather have a legion of boutiques and
small/mid sized shops kicking out great work in a super tight
community. If the big shops get smart and capitalize on Softimage
then I lose the best weapon in my tool shed. Sure I'd have a dozen
places to work and could live in Sunny Los Angeles. Oh, I also don't
want to compete with thousands of drones for a handful of positions
where the highlight of the day is re-writing out a dozen brick-maps
(again) in a 500 person assembly line. I know the big shops are
adopting raytracers and generalist workflows but really they are just
catching up to working the way we have for a long time.
I'm so pumped everyday when I go to work and create stuff using tools
that I like. And don't underestimate how important "liking" your tools
is. Talk to any oil painter or fine wood worker. There is a massive
difference between poor tools and good tools and it's not always based
on industry dominance or price. Simply put, good tools make you happy
and that is a powerful quality to have in a workplace. The big shops
literally don't know how good we've got it in Softimage.
Instead of Softimage gaining market share through adoption at the big
facilities I'd much rather see Softimage based shops grow into a large
shops and implement modern workflows. Heck even throw a little Maya
and Max into the mix. But show them how it's done Softimage style.
OK, that's all a bit selfish but I hope you get my point.
It's up to us to use and exploit these new features that Autodesk is
implementing. The same logic Meng-Yang Lu said about Houdini applies
to ICE. Learn it, claw your way through it, and show the world what
you can do with it. It will make you a better artist, open up job
opportunities, and help the Softimage popularity vote.
Now I really need to put my money where my mouth is and dig into this
ICE Modeling thing that everybody is talking about :P
-Votch
Sent from my iPad
Paul Griswold
I'm in the camp with Gene, but a much less technical user.Wait a minute Paul, didn't I see a bunch of awesome videos you made doing neat stuff with ICE? I'd say you're pretty capable technically. :)
Luc-Eric Rousseau
Just fyi: toxik and match movers are not part of the suite story, they are bundled with the apps themselves.
Also, people are not buying a suite with Softimage only to get Mudbox cheaper. Softimage is only in the more expensive Premium suite, and the only reason to get that one is specifically to get Softimage. Softimage is not thrown in for free in any suite.
Matt Morris
Meng-Yang Lu
Andy Moorer
> Softimage is my secret weapon too!
Same here. And I'm busier now more than ever because a surprising number of very admirable studios are hiring ICE guys, where before they might have used Houdini.
> I feel like Softimage should have a similar message like, "Softimage makes 3D fun and fast."
I love this.
> And that's something I think is a powerful message to convey especially when kids are writing mel scripts, fighting per particle expressions, and struggling with corrupt render layers. Just like Houdini's message now is "Learn Houdini, get job in film." The whole part about learning Houdini is difficult and it being unwieldy is completely ignored.
Yes, win over the students and you win over an entire generation of artists. One of the best ways to do this is get your neat-but-unseen tests, personal projects and captures out where people can see them.
Vimeo has had a huge impact on Softimage - every cool test and breakdown there is an ad for Softimage and a chance for people to get excited to try it out. The Softimage groups on vimeo are showing steady and significant growth, it's where Thiagos viral Lagoa tests were first posted, and where students can be impressed and learn that Softimage can be their secret weapon, too. Want to see growth? Post!
Matt Lind
Guillaume Laforge
Raffaele Fragapane
That said, the part Guillame quotes has me puzzled too :)
I don't think there was a time when Soft had a lower market penetration (percentage wise) in Soft's history than 2003-2005. Ever.
Between XSI 2 and foundation with 4 the XSI market was bleeding users daily, Weta's big maya push happened, ILM started moving away denying Soft that last "but ILM uses it" bullet, and the economy of our industry was still reeling from the 9/11 consequences at the beginning of that period.
If anything those were the darkest years to be an XSI user in anything but a few commercial facilities in London and maybe two or three places in the States.
Matt Lind
>> I don't think there was a time when Soft had a lower market penetration
>> (percentage wise) in Soft's history than 2003-2005. Ever.
Depends on your point of reference.
Here in the USA there were significantly more openings in 2002-2004 than
there are today as a number of places hadn't updated their pipelines to be
built around Maya yet. If I had to find another Softimage job today, I'm
not sure I could. With Max and Maya I can visit several studios in the same
office complex from my current employer. To get the same number of XSI
opportunities, I'd have to expand the ring to at least 1,000 miles radius.
Back in 2001-2004 the USA was in a recession. Not as bad as the current
recession, but a recession nonetheless. There were also more job
opportunities using XSI. Despite both conditions being better than today,
students still chose Maya deeming it too risky to try XSI. The point being
that students are very willing to voice opinions on politics and hold
demonstrations to promote change, but when it comes to the bottom line they
make the same conservative choices as their peers because they realize they
are at the mercy of the establishment to make a living. Paying off a
$40,000 student loan and putting food on the table is more important than
having their choice of software on the job (for most). That's one reason
why a student driven approach will not work.
Matt
Gene Crucean
Peace, love and VFX
Gene Crucean - VFX & CG Supervisor / Generalist
** Freelance for hire **
Bradley Gabe
Graham D Clark
Softimage is my secret weapon.
Sure I'd have a dozen
places to work and could live in Sunny Los Angeles.
Graham D Clark,
phone: why-attempt, S3D work phone: why-I-stereo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamclark
Olivier Jeannel
Envoyé de mon iPhone
Stefan Andersson
is that Autodesk only cares about "seats", and as long as the "seats"
number is high, they are happy. But... seats doesn't actually tell you
if it's used or not.
It's kind of sad to see that Softimage is turning into a Simulation
Plugin for 3dsmax and Maya. People can argue that it isn't, but the
reality tells you otherwise. Everyone that I've spoken to that bought
the Suites thing is just doing it to get hold of ICE and export the
simulation into Maya. And they don't even touch anything else inside
Softimage.
Anyhow... a rather pointless discussion. Chinny can tell us that all
is well 4-5 times a year. But the fact is that the userbase (and by
that I mean people that are actually using it) isn't growing that
much. I might sound like a bitter old man, but I have invested a lot
of time and energy into getting people to learn Softimage. But to no
end. And these days I rather point them towards something else
instead. And that has NOTHING to do with how capable the application
is, Softimage is still a rock solid application.
I folded a while back, it's not worth to trying to fight it. Once in a
while I try and convince people about the the "light in the tunnel",
but... it's always goes back to being a niche product and too few
users. We have interns that has never even heard about Softimage until
they get here.
over and out
stefan andersson
--
Stefan Andersson
Creative Director
Mad Crew
Roddargatan 8
116 20 Stockholm
SWEDEN
reel: http://vimeo.com/21972066
mail: ste...@madcrew.se
phone: +46 (0)8 668 27 13
cell: +46 (0)73 626 8850
web: http://www.madcrew.se
Thomas Le Calvé
Hi List,
I must be over optimistic, but even though I'm a one man shop, I think Softimage did the right thing by focusing on the development of a strong mid-low level framework..
Still, from what I read, and from my own experience with Softimage, most of my dev time is spent doing high-level ppgs/command/event to handle the underlying complexity and try to secure the scene.
Result is that while I can build "My Super Secret Tool" in a few days, it would take weeks or months to make this thing releasable to Other users, just because I would have to lock many aspect of Softimage to avoid a user destroying the tool or some scene object the tool needs.
So here's my 2ct :
- Task #1 for AD is to provide developers (including the non CPP compliant one like me) a EASY way to hide and lock assets and compounds..
...
The "wide-open-source" nature of xsi can do harm to Softimage devs themselves : Remember how much time it took them just to make a proper shaderball in xsi ? I know this is trivial, but the previous attempt, was just a scene hack, and a sdk demo : a proof of concept. The shaderball became a part of softimage the day they figure out a way to have a model at the application level that couldn't be modified accidentally by a user or a script.
The open source nature of compounds is a dream for TDs and technical guys like me, but it needs a way to be securely encapsulated before someone like me even try to release any of his tools.
- Again, without a strong encapsulation framework, Softimage & ICE won't grow beyond prototyping and private development.
This is not bad, I love it, but don't expect too many new users (a user is Not a TD, he needs a tool, not a framework)...
...
BTW : Am I the only one that had to script a rough "Compound to Sdpl" tool just because parsing a compound is Much slower than parsing a sdpl ? Loading a scene with spdl based material take a few second vs minutes with compound based materials (and I'm not even talking about the time it takes to connect to a compound vs a "hard coded" shader, be it spdl, mia or whatever...) Encapsulation is more than secrecy, sometimes performance is concerned too.
The same applies to ICE trees... So, I would love to be able to export a Locked/Precompiled version of a compound without having to rewrite it with CPP...
...
I see many third parties on other package release (and sell) plugins that could be made in ICE in a few weeks (ie. itoosoft.com) but everyone build and use his own, and don't even bother making a release because they have to make some cash for every single hour spend with softimage, so why give away your "secret weapon" for free ? (I know it sound egoist/pathetic but that's life)
In the end, I don't care if a tool comes from AD or a 3rd Party, but I'm sure there is a huge number of tools that just can't be released because the dev has No Way to be sure his tool will work on another user installation..
...
Sorry for being long, but a first post gather many of its author's thoughts !
Thomas Le Calvé
ps. Because you don't "know" me doesn't mean I don't "know" you : I read much more than I write ;)
pps. English is not my mother tongue...
Guillaume Laforge
peter boeykens
> Graham D Clark,
Luc-Eric Rousseau
>
> The open source nature of compounds is a dream for TDs and technical guys like me, but it needs a way to be securely encapsulated before someone like me even try to release any of his tools.
>
how does private compound (which are encrypted) not address this?
It's good enough for our current ICE third parties...
Szabolcs Matefy
Octavian Ureche
Luc-Eric Rousseau
shipped at the beginning of 2002. XSI 3.0 was just beginning to ship
to clients in January 2003. XSI 4.0 was relased in the last part of
2004.
Thomas Le Calvé
You are right, I didn't try that, you should market this capability ! (and make an equivalent for shader compounds)
But I don't think it's enough because many typical Softimage workflow rely on scene objects (ie. get data), and there is no way to secure those objects.
We can make a model and use it as a pseudo-private scope for our plugins, but it's impossible to make them really private (ala shaderball.emdl).
Imagine this model contain some objects that Need to be in a partition controlled by the plugin, what if the user makes a new pass ? the plugin will fail on this new pass. So I have to write an event just to handle this situation. What if the user call a custom command that clean the scene ? Do I have to make an event for any possible case ? It's impossible !
I think (I am sure) that a way to make private models that are Not in the scene scope could be a great relief for some 3rd parties (even though it could be dangerous, but any custom development is anyway)
For now the solution may be to use locks, but then Softimage will prompt the user on any failure to modify those objects from outside of the plugin/IceTree, not very slick...
Hiding and making objects uninspectable is the only workaround I've found, but a simple script can screw them all...
I haven't used Houdini, but it seems one can make "private assets" just to adress that.
What do you think ? How did SI did for the shaderball ? This is the kind of integration that should be possible for a 3rd party, after all, it's just a emdl in a "private pass" with some kind of scripted link to the scene no ?
Thomas Le Calvé
2011/7/4 Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com>
Graham Bell
-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Octavian Ureche
Sent: 04 July 2011 14:20
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Softimage at Autodesk - an observation
Andy Moorer
I see many third parties on other package release (and sell) plugins that could be made in ICE in a few weeks (ie. itoosoft.com) but everyone build and use his own,
In the end, I don't care if a tool comes from AD or a 3rd Party, but I'm sure there is a huge number of tools that just can't be released because the dev has No Way to be sure his tool will work on another user installation..
Thomas Le Calvé
Yes, itoo's tool look great, and can be done in ICE "easily"..
But I've read their manual and it seems the plugin makes internal copy of the scene objects (to prepare standins, to use freezed references to avoid recomputation and dead links etc). So an Ice equivalent will be more prompt to break I think.
...
Scripting PPGs isn't fun, sure !
The same path is laid for the new viewport sdk, it looks great, but requires CPP (something I will have to learn but it will take time)..
A clever ice tree could build gizmo, but will need some scene object and custom events : it's too easy to break..
A clever Command+iceTree[+Event] could build custom tool with ice, but connection time will be slow with any non-trivial compound... (I will test to see if making a compound private adress this)
...
Am i the only one that think a way to handle private data And X3DObjects in the scene could help some 3rd party to get on board ? without having to be a CPP God having all the softimage framework in his head... Even seasoned developers should be happy to just tag a model as Private and be sure that SI won't destroy it because another plugin don't like your model's name !
Thomas Le Calvé
2011/7/4 Andy Moorer <andym...@gmail.com>
Michal Doniec
downstairs ;)
--
----------
Michal
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec
Ctedin
Christopher Tedin
David Gallagher
Nice. I always make sure our students at AnimSchool know I do all my aesthetic facial rigging work in Softimage!:
www.animschool.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDN1qZPzasw
Softimage workflow is part of the reason why Blue Sky characters look as good as they do for the last few films!
Chris Marshall
enthusiasm for the software, and he's willing to come on this list to
let us know it's still being developed and has a long term roadmap,
personally that's all I need to stick with it.
--
Chris Marshall
Mint Motion Limited
029 2002 5762
07730 533 115
www.mintmotion.co.uk
Andy Jones
Nice. I always make sure our students at AnimSchool know I do all my aesthetic facial rigging work in Softimage!:
www.animschool.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDN1qZPzasw
Softimage workflow is part of the reason why Blue Sky characters look as good as they do for the last few films!
On 7/4/2011 2:11 PM, Ctedin wrote:
Paul Smith
Gene Crucean
Robert Chapman
Gene Crucean
Serguei Kalentchouk
Personally I'm trilled to be able to run XSI anytime I want now that
it's part of the Suite, but honestly I have to close it as fast as I
opened it and launch Maya to start doing my work.
While in theory having those seats available to everyone is great, it
does not translate in XSI being used in production.
Working with assets across different software is perhaps the biggest
investment of pipeline time for any project. The out of the box tools
that come with all these packages simply do not scale to even a mid
sized production, especially once to throw in some custom
requirements. I'm placing a lot of hope in Alembic to make our lives
easier in this area but right now it's not there yet. So when you
propose to use XSI to solve a certain problem this becomes a huge
issue that no one wants to tackle.
I think if XSI is to make it to a big production it will be up to an
individual sup somewhere to make a decision to go with it and to take
on the responsibilities for the risks involved!
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Robert Chapman <tekan...@gmail.com> wrote:
--
Technical Director @ Digital Domain
Matt Lind
What makes you think it would be nearly free? Linux and OSX are completely different operating systems. OSX is a modified BSD Unix whereas Linux is a ground up rewrite, or attempt at, a new UNIX. Just because they have command lines using the same commands doesn’t mean they’re the same under the hood where all the rewiring would need to take place to make an OSX version of Softimage.
I obviously don’t work for Softimage, but I’ve been around the block enough times to know that the MainWin issue isn’t trivial to resolve in the way you’re asking.
Also keep in mind each additional operating system added to the arsenal puts more onus on development and QA to maintain the product. That could include the need to hire more people. Seeing how the staff could already use more bodies, if people are going to be added I’d rather they be added to development where they could focus on some of the truly core issues such as fixing the construction history, improving realtime shader performance, or improving the overall core to better handle scenes with large quantities of objects. These affect everything I do every day all day.
Softimage needs to focus on issues that are hindering it’s ability to compete as a complete solution. An OSX variant isn’t one of those issues.
Matt
Gene Crucean
Darrin Hofmeyr
I was wondering if GEAR 1.1.0 is supported (works) in 2012 or not as yet.
I am having interesting behaviours with it in 2012.
Repro steps in Softimage 2012 SP1 64 bit on Linux FC12
Import model from GEAR samples - man_rig.emdl
Save Scene - <name>
New Scene
Open Scene - <name>
Softimage Crashes
but...
Import REFERENCE model from Gear samples - man_rig.emdl
Save Scene - <name>
New Scene
Open Scene - <name>
Softimage works fine!
Then if you make the Reference model local, save and re-open ---> CRASH
Import model in 2011 (reference or local) save scene and re-open --> Fine
Open same scene in 2012 ---> Fine
Version up and re-open in 2012 ---> CRASH
Any ideas where to start problem solving this strange behaviour, the fact that it "works" with reference models but not with a local version.
-- Darrin Hofmeyr Animation Supervisor BlackGinger +27 21 4881188
Matt Lind
That is irrelevant. It’s the data that counts.
Matt Lind
That is irrelevant. It’s the data that counts.
(hit send button too soon - damn fat fingers):
Being employed as a games developer who develops MMORPGs for online subscription, I am on windows because the target platform is the PC. I need to be as close to the target platform as possible. Windows may not be the most elegant, but it gets the job done and suits our needs. I use windows at home because most of what I do is online where choice of OS really isn’t all that important, and all my hobby applications are windows only. I purchased my last computer based on compatibility with Linux, so it’s not like I’m attached to windows. I rarely work at home because I don’t want the stresses of production to invade my private safe haven. I may start Android development as a hobby later this year, but I can do that on Windows too.
The only significant reason to use Linux would be for network and IO intensive tasks such as rendering on a renderfarm as you need that extra performance to handle the capacity. Linux would also be useful for scripting at the OS level to manage users and automate tasks. Outside of that, it’s personal preference. Applications and support outside of core business tasks are still lacking as it’s not the easiest to set up and maintain.
I don’t use OSX by choice. I don’t need a micrometer thick laptop with 6-bit color LCD at twice the cost which requires I drive to a store to do menial things such as replace a battery. I do admire some of the things Apple has done, but I generally don’t subscribe to pop culture trends which is what they cater too. I don’t see Apple moving into the business space in any significant degree, and as a result, don’t see much point in investing in an OSX based infrastructure. Not saying OSX based solutions couldn’t be useful here or there, but I prefer to look at the bigger picture and aim towards that solution. I’m sure most users would prefer the same approach to developing softimage with their limited resources.
With hardware continually advancing, and software getting smarter in ways that change production workflow to be more efficient, the incentive for a client side Linux or OSX solution for production is migrating towards a matter of preference, not need. In our case, we make a very sophisticated MMO with very complex relationships between our assets and gameplay. But from a production point of view, our workflow has gotten simpler because the tools have gotten smarter. We apply significant amounts of metadata to aid tools so users aren’t burdened. Our biggest bottleneck/issue is the ability to view and edit data at the micro level in exactly the way we need to edit it, and have those edits remain ‘durable’ for the long term (eg: 10 years+). For that, choice of operating system will not make any difference, it’s the data that counts.
Thomas Le Calvé
Also keep in mind each additional operating system added to the arsenal puts more onus on development and QA to maintain the product. That could include the need to hire more people.
Softimage needs to focus on issues that are hindering it’s ability to compete as a complete solution. An OSX variant isn’t one of those issues.
Daniel H
Re: Houdini replacement: Again, I respect Houdini... but I'm perfectly fine with Softimage as a Houdini replacement. I'm good with it. I'm down with it. I will be at peace. I will find a chill space. I will sleep at night. I will arise rested.
-Daniel