Thanks Autodesk.

[Andy Moorer]

Once again, Autodesk marketing has deemed Softimage to be "out of the picture."  They are pretty much flat out saying their "future" does not include XSI, treating it like a legacy item that contains ICE, when it's mentioned at all.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=15367897&siteID=123112

"This is the dawn of a new era of Digital Entertainment Creation, and it's fueled by the 2011 releases of Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Autodesk® Maya®."

Can we get any more clear than this? I know Mark and Chinny have had a lot to say about the hard work that's being done on XSI, and the progress of development etc. But let's get real here. 

Autodesk. Is. Not. Marketing. XSI. 

As far as their marketing focus is concerned, XSI is only a footnote in their projected glorious future of 3d, conspicuously dropped among taglines like "because you can't live in the past and hope to create the future." I've been making commercials for decades, and I don't think it's unreasonable to read this as no good news for XSI's future. 

But even if it doesn't telegraph a lack of seriousness about developing XSI, it without a doubt indicates a decision to drop XSI as a percieved/projected equal to Maya and Max. And this has a consequence on the Softimage community. Fewer newcomers will adopt XSI as a result. Fewer clients will be willing to trust their jobs to XSI-based workflows. And so on. We've been over this.

So, explain to me that I'm wrong and that XSI's future is rosy again? I don't want to be out here beating the doom-drum. I accept that good people are working as hard as they can to make XSI, a package we all love, a better and better software. But this is ridiculous. Am I supposed to sit in the back of the bus and not complain about this?

[Eric Turman]

<sigh> do we *really* have to go here again?

Its been covered ad nauseam recently...no matter what you chose, max or maya you get softimage...how is that a bad thing?

--
-=T=-

[Eric Thivierge]

Yes if you want to talk about this same topic, please look for the
thread that was from maybe a week ago. No need to start another one to
rehash everything.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Eric Thivierge]

To add,

I think at this point it's safe to say... if you don't like Autodesk
and don't like what they are doing with Softimage and think that there
is no future using Softimage or other AD products, then please jump
ship and go hop on board with lightwave, houdini, or blender. (Blender
has ICE now too!)

The sooner the better. The less people not being productive and
encouraging to the developers the better. Why would people want to
work on a project that so few are supporting.

I'm not a fan of Autodesk at all. I'm fully supportive of the
Softimage crew though.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Robert Chapman]

well presonally I was somewhat placated last time by the encouraging words from Chinny and fellow coworkers that Autodesk IS serious about the future of Softimage, this latest marketing page though, to me, is a swift kick in the nuts for any confidences  that were restored. Andy does have very valid points - where is Softimage in the future of Autodesk Entertainment content creation exactly?  from initial viewing of this material it looks like it is completely sidelined by Max & Maya and not worthy of its status as a complete production package.  The studio where I work only uses Softimage for its entire 3D pipeline , how else are we meant to interpret this - our product that we rely on for the last 15 years or so is now relegated to a sidekick companion to some other software that most of us in our studio have never used? what happens if one of our Directors or Producers see this page and start asking where is Softimage and why are we not using Maya? 

and actually you seem to be misinformed, Softimage enters the stage *only* if you purchase the PREMIUM entertainment suite, it does not come as default with Max or Maya suites.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=13420613&siteID=123112

[Eric Turman]

How is this a kick in the nards? Like it or not the fact is that most studios & their pipelines out there are entrenched in Max or Maya. Many may want ICE but most are not going to jump ship to Softimage to get it. But for a little bit more than they are paying now they can get Softimage and keep their core tools. Softimage gets exposed to new people who wouldn't see/try it.  Its a win win situation.

--
-=T=-

[Michael Clarke]

Sent from my iPhone

Michael Clarke

Blue C Studios

[Robert Chapman]

well its a matter of perception, Ive always seen Softimage as superior to Max or Maya in regards to getting all things done in the wonderful world of 3D, its still a shocker that Autodesk marketing seems to think otherwise. IMO it should belong on the same front page as Max / Maya, simple as that.

Of course I appreciate the reality of the numbers of seats in other studios, and your argument is a good one, but here in London, UK there are still plenty Softimage seats wondering why their beloved software has been relegated to the bottom division when it used to be in the premiership...    I'm not trying to bring the hate, just wanted to say that Andy had some valid points and sentiments that I agree with.

[Gene Crucean]

Eric,

After getting Soft in the studios hands for a while with these uber packages... why would a they ever being in that situation switch over to Softimage when AD doesn't "appear" to care about a product? What incentive do they have if the product "appears" to be going the way of the dodo?

--
[Gene Crucean] - [VFX & CG Supervisor/Generalist]
** Freelance for hire **

[Eric Thivierge]

Why would AD care if those studios switched to Softimage? They are
still making money keeping Maya as the studio's main package. I don't
think there is any motivation for AD to try to switch studios to
Softimage. At this point its just about getting it plopped into PART
of the pipeline.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Gene Crucean]

That's pretty much my point

[Gene Crucean]

...Reduced to a plugin.

And from my pov, that's not acceptable.

[Eric Turman]

Autodesk would care if studios switched to Softimage if it brought them extra money. Which is exactly what it would do whether they bought the advantage pack or decided to switch wholesale after trying Softimage. Quelling the objections of the bean-counters & Max & Maya fanboys entrenched in their thinking and getting Softimage into a more artists hands is a good thing any way you cut it.

Companion package..."that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" -Shakespeare

--
-=T=-

[Adam Seeley]

Only if you pay the extra $1,500 to have Soft in the "Premium" pack, it's not a freebie.

A.

________________________________

--
-=T=-

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.851 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3065 - Release Date: 08/26/10 07:34:00

[Eric Turman]

Exactly my point...more money for Autodesk hence the incentive to push the advantage pack. A big reason to buy it if your studio is entrenched in Max or Maya is to be able to get the power of ICE. Completely switching packages in any studio is not a trivial matter. The risk perceived by management is significant and retraining is costly both in training and available talent. I see the position taken not as one of weakness but one utilizing Soft's strengths to play nice with Maya and Max and do thing for them that would be intractable to do without ICE.

When bludgeoning someone over the head repeatedly fails to persuade someone to your thinking, you must try another way ;) "if you can't beat them, join them"

-=Eric

--
-=T=-

[Michael Clarke]

My thoughts exactly.

How would AD benefit from having customers simply make a lateral move
within their own product line? Why would AD want anyone to move away
from MAX or Maya? This is the downside to having one company own all
the marbles.

I sympathize with the viewpoint that SI has been reduced to a red
headed stepchild, but look at it this way �

If AD includes Softimage in premium suites and therefore increases
sales of that particular product offering, does that not translate
into at least some additional revenue for Softimage in addition to
licenses of SOFT alone? And if ICE begins to really fulfill its
potential (LAGOA could be just a start) and more users are motivated
to incorporate it into their pipelines, is that not a positive factor
for the development of Softimage?

Whether or not Softimage is marketed as a standalone product equal to
the other offerings or a part of a suite is secondary. The real
concerns are that the parent company sees benefit in continuing its
development, and that the user base grows enough to attract third
party developers to create new tools.

>>>>>> it's fueled by the 2011 releases of Autodesk� 3ds Max� and
>>>>>> Autodesk� Maya�."

Michael Clarke
Blue C Studios

[Ponthieux, Joey]

So which situation do you think would encourage studios or artists to
pay the extra $1500(or whatever) premium above the $5840 price tag?.....

1. Softimage is marketed heavily as an equal at the same tier as Max and
Maya, with an option to bundle Soft in the Creation suite?

or

2. Softimage is barely marketed except as an addon to the Creation suite
because of ICE?.

Which situation suggests more value for the Premium cost?
Which situation suggests to potential buyers, here is something you must
have, and you'll get this incredible product at a terrific price?
Which situation says "we really want you to try this product! Its a
great product!"
Which situation says "we really believe that this product will make a
difference in your pipeline, because we really believe in the product!"

Joey Ponthieux

____________________________________________________________
Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and
do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

Eric Turman wrote:
> Exactly my point...more money for Autodesk hence the incentive to push
> the advantage pack. A big reason to buy it if your studio is
> entrenched in Max or Maya is to be able to get the power of ICE.
> Completely switching packages in any studio is not a trivial matter.
> The risk perceived by management is significant and retraining is
> costly both in training and available talent. I see the position taken
> not as one of weakness but one utilizing Soft's strengths to play nice
> with Maya and Max and do thing for them that would be intractable to
> do without ICE.
>
> When bludgeoning someone over the head repeatedly fails to persuade
> someone to your thinking, you must try another way ;) "if you can't
> beat them, join them"
>
> -=Eric
>
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Adam Seeley
> <adam....@primefocusworld.com

> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com>

[Eric Turman]

>>So which situation do you think would encourage studios or artists to pay the extra $1500(or whatever) premium above the $5840 price tag?.....

3. The situation where they see that they can gain the benifits of an aspect of Softimage in studios that wouldn't have touched it with a 10 foot pole even if it were pooping solid gold magical Labrador puppies; because their mentality is: "we've always used Max & Maya and change scares us" but I'll try the green eggs and ham since its only $1500. ;)

--
-=T=-

[Gene Crucean]

How would AD benefit from having customers simply make a lateral move within their own product line?

I would think that a suit would look at the bigger longer term aspect of it all. Rather than the short term lets stick another plugin into this really freaking old code and sell it again. But hey, that's just me.

I guess one of these days we will find out how far banking on the old code gets them.

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Michael Clarke <m...@bluecstudios.com> wrote:

My thoughts exactly.

How would AD benefit from having customers simply make a lateral move within their own product line? Why would AD want anyone to move away from MAX or Maya? This is the downside to having one company own all the marbles.

I sympathize with the viewpoint that SI has been reduced to a red headed stepchild, but look at it this way —

it's fueled by the 2011 releases of Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Autodesk® Maya®."

--
-=T=-

--
-=T=-

[Michael Clarke]

No argument to the logic of going with a more modern core as opposed to piling new crap on old code; but from the standpoint of studios, making a move away from Max or Maya is not that easy, even if it's to a better product. Bottom line here is that the suites just MIGHT introduce this better package to a much broader base.

[Jon Shelley]

I agree with Andy.

 

Ok yes (premium package)  gets Softimage  into studios hands but if you market it as a add on/companion the perceived VALUE is just that and obviously that is the way Autodesk want to market this product.

[Gideon Klindt]

I understand both points- the "Trojan horse effect", and the "but it's just as good if not better than" reasoning. I'm counting on the marketing wiz kids at AD to some how merge the two in something that is more attractive to both fronts. So far it's a bit of a Frankenstein approach IMHO. It will probably get the job done...as elegant as it could/should be...maybe not.

It is true however that an SI license garners more cash than an Max license or a "silver" Maya license, but who knows, maybe (as it sometimes appears) their development of Max and Maya (or lack there of) is less expensive than SI...so maybe it's a wash in that sense.

Also- if they told everyone using Max and Maya the truth, that Softimage is in most regards superior (ok so I'm a bit biased), how would those larger user bases feel? Autodesk probably would rather upset 1/10 of the users and just dog SI in the marketing department instead.

It is a little sad that SI doesn't even get the "me too" treatment, but I guess if everyone here is to be believed people don't change their pipelines quickly (how long did the average transition from SI|3D to Alias Maya take?)...so we need to exercise some patience. I do have a question for all of those people that think this is the only way to market SI to studios though- how long do we wait for the current marketing tactic to work before we decide that it isn't working? Two, three, five, ten years? When does marketing genius look like marketing flop to you?

If those studios are so hooked on Maya or Max, how would it hurt to put SI up as a alternative anyway- other than offending a few of their fan base? Is it going to make them even less likely to try SI than the current "buddy system" scheme? Don't get me wrong, I think packaging it physically together with the others IS brilliant...but the lack of respective words to follow along is something I often question the wisdom of.

While at the end of the day, as long as SI is going strong "under the hood" I could almost care less if SI is front and center, but to pretend it's completely un-consequential is to pretend this is the ideal solution and stick your head in the sand IMHO. After all, Maya didn't become the dominate software just by it's virtues alone- it had some serious, well thought out, multi-pronged marketing muscle, exercised at the right time, to become the number one "must have" package.

That said- the people who just flame it up with their "AD hates SI and it's trying to kill it" statements are kind of...well past the point of speculation IMHO when everything OTHER than marketing points the other way. Besides, a good SI user, by virtue of how they found SI in the first place, probably isn't very effected by marketing to begin with!

--
Gideon D. Klindt
gideonklindt.com

[Eric Turman]

Well stated :)

--
-=T=-

[Gene Crucean]

I wonder how many studios will even bother with these uber packages. Making a lot of this conversation pointless I guess.

[Andy Moorer]

I know it's not a popular topic. Or a fun topic. But it's an important one. And this is an appropriate place for it. If you don't desire to read it, ignore the threads.

I'll say it again. How they market the software matters.

Even if the software continues to be developed, if studios can't find talent, the software will eventually wither and die.

If clients don't recognize it as a viable tool, studios will be forced to use other software, and again, xsi will wither and die.

Including it buried in a bundle is nice, but is unlikely to result in widespread adoption of xsi as a core tool.

Xsi may survive as a 'niche' tool, but so does lightwave, and sketchup... I'm in the feature film industry, and my clients are producers who often base their judgements on perceptions which are significantly affected by Autodesk's marketing. Meaning their marketing is affecting my business in a very tangible manner.

Again, to put it crudely... Am I supposed to shut up, lie back and take it? Because some of you don't like seeing the topic come up?

(shrug) I'm enough of a professional that changing software doesn't phase me, but I dislike being forced to abandon a favorite tool simply because some business droids have decided my future doesn't include XSI.

If it doesn't bother you, that's fine. But personally, I believe that Autodesk is being disingenuous. On one hand they are encouraging XSI users and telling us in forums how they are developing as fast as ever, and on the other they are marketing largely as if XSI doesn't exist.

That doesn't work for me.

And since this topic is potentially rather vital to the XSI community I encourage those of you who don't share the same concerns I do to kindly put up with the complaining by simply moving on to other threads - it may be an annoyance, but then again maybe it is important for Autodesk to be aware that they have paying customers who have real, legitimate and ongoing concerns.

[Andy Moorer]

I should follow this up with a disclaimer. :) Those who know me personally know that this isn't an attempt at any kind of flame war. I like xsi, I like my fellow artists, and I like Autodesk and the many good people who work there. 

I am just trying to be blunt and direct about an issue that is, in very real ways, affecting my business. My studio is being forced to choose Maya over xsi again and again, not because of any technical issue but because of client perceptions and difficulty in recruiting xsi trained talent. 

This stuff needs to be said, in the community public.  

Autodesk's marketing stance is, for my studio, a very real influence on our bottom line, and it's one of a number of factors preventing us from using xsi to any great extent on the 6-8 major motion pictures we are involved with every year. 

[Jon Shelley]

Well said Andy...couldn't agree more.

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com
[mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andy Moorer

Sent: Friday, 27 August 2010 12:54 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Thanks Autodesk.

[Guy Rabiller]

Andy, I fully agree with you.

Albeit this was obvious as soon as Autodesk bought Softimage. The only
reason to buy a company like Softimage was to get all the patents that
come along, not the software itself.

So now they can move on and work on the next-gen software(s) that will
replace Maya, Max and XSI in a few years.

Like for SI3D, XSI, I mean 'Softimage' now.., will be maintained and
developped only because some companies are still using it, not in the
search for new clients, and this, until nobody will use it anymore.

Undermarketing it is a good way to make it die quietly, slowly, but surely.

There is the ICE problem though. They fill find a way to implement ICE
in the other ones, to make it less obvious XSI has this advantage.

All this was obvious since day 1. Wake up guys.

Cheers,
Guy.
--
guy rabiller | radfac founder / ceo

[Graham D Clark]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Eric Thivierge <ethiv...@gmail.com> wrote:

The sooner the better. The less people not being productive and
encouraging to the developers the better. 

How is telling Andy, who decides to have his many artists use Softimage, has been using it for 15 years, contributes here and on vimeo, and is doing the top level advanced ICE work in his spare time, to switch to another app, being productive?

--
Graham D Clark,
phone:  why-attempt, S3D work phone: why-I-stereo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamclark

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Glad to see you're still alive Guy :)

And you know, I almost wish that would happen.

It got so ****ing tiring to follow mutliple applications, fight your way through thick and thin to have XSI or Houdini or 3Delight or Arnold and whatnot adopted over other apps just because of a market penetration problem (and I can guarantee in our case marketing has nothing to do with the difficulties, old dogs refusing to learn new tricks do, and that's been the case for 80% of time, and God knows if I haven't gone against the grain in enough shops using and maintaining Soft products).

It's tiring to deal with architectures that are a mixed bag and have partially or completely obsolesced away from the reality of production years ago, and seeing them jolted from year to year uselessly, in the hope that we'll mistake the spasms for signs of life in otherwise dead platforms (MEL? I Mean come the **** on! How is it even possible that that thing still exists? Or the Hypergraph as an editor, Or COM and mainwin for that matter).

I'd welcome a rebuild, a well thought out one, designed close to the client solution

One that features a decent Qt foundation for the UI, effort on maintenance and documentation for the API concentrated on one valid product instead of three sets of documentation and SDKs that never really excel across the board, ICE inspired core design and manipulation of graphs, and all the IPs now scattered all over the place under the same umbrella.

Right now this choice of options is becoming silly and brings very little to the table compared to the losses of spreading efforts and brains so thin and wide, and if the only way to see Softimage quality and usability widely adopted means changing the name of something, bring it on.

Somehow, though, I doubt that's what will happen. I also doubt they are going to kill Soft as a stand-alone product anytime in the next year or two (past that, who knows?), and I wouldn't be all that surprised if at one point they realized another of their product is EOLed, and decide to fill that gap by pushing Soft out of this niche they are creating and into a wider market.

Will that happen? With the current (perceived) push by Petit and other AD heads towards this ideal of an "editorial based pipeline" I somehow doubt it, and if it will happen I'm afraid the result will take its lessons from max and toxik (it doesn't matter how many times AD fails blatantly at their comp and 2D solutions, they still don't want to let go of the discreet style BS), and not from Maya, XSI and Houdini.

That said, the moment enough of XSI has moved to ICE, and it becomes an architecture first and foremost and not a tool, and ICE will do a better job of allowing graph control and threading over mutliple sequences rather than just inside one, I'd say go for it.

Rip the guts out of Maya, leave the Qt foundation and the SDK bits we've been missing for a lifetime now, dump ICE in there and the three or four strong XSI editors, and I'll buy it, whether it's called Maya, XSI, Softimage or Shirley.

I don't think that made that much sense, but WTH, I needed to get it off my chest :p

[Gene Crucean]

Well said Andy. I 110% agree with you and it's nice to know I'm not the only one with these thoughts.

[Tim]

I totally agree!But question is can we change something?

Sent from my iPhone

[Michal Doniec]

On 26/08/2010 22:06, Eric Turman wrote:
> >>So which situation do you think would encourage studios or artists
> to pay the extra $1500(or whatever) premium above the $5840 price
> tag?.....

> 3. The situation where they see that they can gain the benifits of an
> aspect of Softimage in studios that wouldn't have touched it with a 10
> foot pole even if it were pooping solid gold magical Labrador puppies;
> because their mentality is: "we've always used Max & Maya and change
> scares us" but I'll try the green eggs and ham since its only $1500. ;)
>

From my humble observation, lots small to mid size shops could switch
to Softimage relatively easy (I switched one or two in the past myself),
trouble is that lots of high level decision making TD people don't want
to switch. Simply, they don't want to learn anything new, no matter how
beneficial it would be and/or they just don't want to know and don't
care about anything besides Maya. Keeping management happy with what
they have is relatively easy, as they don't really know what particular
software can do, so they can be presented with whatever particular lead
TD version of truth is ;).

Latest AD marketing policy doesn't really help in this situation.

[Eric Turman]

Right Michal. Its not that the switch is difficult...I was instrumental in switching the shop where I'm at currently. The owner was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the first Softimage project went compared to the nightmare that it had become with Maya. And at how quickly everyone was able to start using Softimage.

The problem is not that it is difficult to swich, as I stated before, its a matter of *perception* of sthe dangers of switching (no matter how much you tell them otherwise) and people in power being Max & Maya fanboys and uninterested in switching even when you show them cool things that Softimage can do to make their lives so much easier. That is the most frustrating point; and I've had to fight against it for years now. Even before there was XSI--before I migrated into feature film and commercial--years ago when I was in games, Softimage|3D was a hard sell with all the Max fanboys. The Max & Maya fanboys get very paranoid, not to mention downright politically mean and subversive, if they perceive that you are trying to take their security blanket--max/maya--away from them.(since much of the time its all they have ever used.)

I have to agree with Raffael "Rip the guts out of Maya, leave the Qt foundation and the SDK bits we've been missing for a lifetime now, dump ICE in there and the three or four strong XSI editors, and I'll buy it, whether it's called Maya, XSI, Softimage or Shirley."  & please don't forget keeping Maya's much better OGL performance (the animators will be quick to remind you about that  over, and over again :-/  )

Andy, you make do a very good point with your last email. Well, hopefully Autodesk *will* listen to that and augment their marketing stance. I think the trojan horse is critical in mitigating the fanboy effect but it is true that Softimage could benefit from a marketing blitz like Maya had 10+ years ago with "A world gone Maya" ...."A world gone Soft"....hmmm no has to be something else ;)

--
-=T=-

[Eric Thivierge]

Because its one less person not being encouraging and supporting the
product and believing the developers when they say that development is
still going strong. I don't want people to switch but if people are so
hell bent on it being the end of days for Softimage, they should get
on with it already and move to a different package.

Seems like people just want to complain about it and keep stirring up
these threads after the previous version of the same type of thread
just dies down and just rehash what has already been hashed out.
Squeaky wheel gets the oil but I'm not sure that the Soft community is
big enough to make that loud of a squeak to AD.

Honestly I think we need to wait a few weeks / a month like Chinny
suggested to see how it plays out marketing wise.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Gideon Klindt]

I agree, as long as it is a totally new arch that builds on the likes
of our new standards of usability and extensibility (aka we have come
a long way in 3D software form and function in the last 10 years) then
I do not care what the name is. The fact is, the only sane way this
would happen is to developed either a new app, or revamp SI, call it
something new, and slowly phase out, at least in perception, all
three.

I will however 100% switch away to XYZ if MAX is in anyway the roll
model. Yeah fume fx this and that- reliance on so many plugs is the
antithsis of SI and what I have come to love about SI and a handful of
other apps.

How many of these crusty die hards would jump ship if forced into one
app? Probably very few. I hope AD does it and puts the industry out of
it's misery...

--
Gideon D. Klindt
gideonklindt.com

[Andy Moorer]

You aren't getting where I'm coming from I think Eric. I do support xsi, and believe the developers when they say development is going strong. This isn't about the pace of development. It's not about running around predicting the end of xsi (though I believe that is a real possibility in a 4-5 year timeframe.)

It's about Autodesk taking a marketing stance which hurts my bottom line as an XSI user and actively contradicts the efforts of many here to encourage others to seriously adopt xsi as a central tool in their pipeline.

I have a hard time accepting that just being quiet and hoping for the best is going to do much. I'm not sure that talking about it here will do much either, but I've found many of the replies so far to be insightful and helpful as I struggle with the fact that my studio, which has been a core supporter of xsi for decades, is being slowly forced to drop XSI as a tool.

Heck, there's only one other xsi-using studio left that we regularly share assets with, Aaron Sim's folks - it's getting impossible to justify using XSI except for minor work, and that spreads thin our expertise. If we spend all day in front of Maya it becomes hard to be prepared to do any deeper work in xsi even if we convince a client to be ok with our using it.

I used ICE for some stuff on Green Lantern and a few other recent projects, but the bulk of our work was entirely Maya, same goes with avatar, iron man 2, terminator transformers etc etc. We do enough important work on big projects that I'd hope our 'wheel squeaking' gets at least considered. But I can't honestly say that we're getting to use XSI on much of the higher profile work we do.

This is in a studio where every artist knows and likes xsi, many would prefer to use it, every seat has xsi, and at considerable effort and expense our entire arsenal of tools is maintained across xsi and Maya alike. I would like nothing better to just go heads down with xsi and not worry about this stuff, but I can't. I'm almost certainly going to have to cull the bulk of our use of xsi from the studio this year, and it makes me sick.

That's not good, and Autodesk's marketing is making the client/industry perception of xsi worse, not better. Hence, my screaming. ;)

But perhaps this thread will do some good, reaching some important ears or encouraging other autodesk customers to air their concerns to autodesk, etc. If nothing else, I have found some comfort in hearing that others share my concern, and in getting insight from other xsi users about the topic in general.

Keep creating, gang.

- AM

[Gene Crucean]

Eric (Thivierge), I know Andy personally and trust me he's not like you are probably imagining. He loves Soft just as I do. But it's hard for us to remain quiet over things like this when it's having a noticeable effect on your life. We bitch because we care. Honestly.

In regard to the general comment "but the people behind SI keep saying that it's going strong so I feel much better now". All I have to say about that is... prove it. Talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.

Saying it is doing well behind closed doors means zero to me = Talk is cheap.
What they are doing with all of this marketing = Actions.


I also for the most part agree with Raf. As long as it was a legitimate step in the RIGHT direction. But I honestly don't see AD creating some uber app now. Not after seeing them go through all the hassle of implementing that full blown Qt interface. I think it's obvious where they see their future going. And it has a lot of old shitty code.

[Alan Fregtman]

It's hard to prove it when you're under a NDA. Funny these threads
don't tend to pop up right around the time new versions are released
publicly, eh? :p

[Meng-Yang Lu]

Andy, you keep fighting buddy!

We have a similar issue here at the Mill LA (I know you Mill folks are on the list so don't fire me just yet).  Even with the software at the ready, being a minority trying to sway the user to try something that will make their life easier is neigh impossible.  However, I also feel like there's only a handful of people who are assigned complex shots in which tools like ICE or Houdini shines at accomplishing.  The pain isn't fairly shared.

Personally, I feel that every op on the box should at least go through the pain of doing FX in Maya.  That's not the case.  Someone, usually me, is there to build a rig, script some junky mess, and that's the crud that gets reused over and over again.  The other option is that we hire some high-end houdini guy and they end up doing the work and we have to trust them completely for delivery. 

I'm more than happy to support the team in Maya just because I love everyone here.  I do wish from time to time that people would meet me half way, open a new app, and play with a handful of sliders on a system I can easy make changes to.  The unfamiliarity is so paralysing that people fail to see there's no difference in me handing off an FX rig that has 3 parameters to dial vs. an FX rig in ICE or houdini that has 3 parameters to dial.  You still only play with 3 sliders dammit, but that could mean hours saved on my end for the setup.   

I mean, we strongly advocate Softimage in our other two studios, but here, it's not so much.  I wouldn't even say we're switching!  Softimage is well-dev'ed internally, we have licenses, we've done jobs with great results using ICE here in LA, we have 3D ops that want to use it, but for some reason, it's not sticking.  And I strongly believe it's because here in LA, the perception is that Maya isn't going anywhere and the future of Softimage is uncertain. 

Yeah, that sucks.  Hearts and minds, people.  Hearts and minds. 

Your frustrated TD,

-Lu

[Eric Turman]

I thought I was getting where you were coming from, Andy. as I had finished up my prior email with:

"

Andy, you make do a very good point with your last email. Well, hopefully Autodesk *will* listen to that and augment their marketing stance. I think the trojan horse is critical in mitigating the fanboy effect but it is true that Softimage could benefit from a marketing blitz like Maya had 10+ years ago with "A world gone Maya" ...."A world gone Soft"....hmmm no has to be something else ;)

"

This last email of yours is even more level headed. You have obviously had different experiences with artists. Me, I have worked in a number of shops where I had a hard time to get them to even consider touching Softimage. At least your artists want to use it. The artists that I work with now like it and were open to trying it, but that has not always been the case (hence my green eggs and ham analogy.)

--
-=T=-

[Adam Seeley]

 

It'll be interesting to see if Softimage headlines at all when the next version comes out with Lagoa.  Considering that Lagoa broke out of the CG world and into the mainstream it'd be a crying shame if there wasn't some sort of fuss made.  It's the kind of thing directors and producers would have seen and if you can say, "well here's the software that did THAT", they may be interested.

 

I'm assuming that's why the Premium packages aren't available yet. When the next version of Softimage comes out it will make an extremely attractive extra with it's own USP (apart from normal ICE of course).

 

Maybe we'll have a fairytale ending and Softerelli will go to the ball and show the ugly sisters up. Autodesk being the wicked stepmother and all that, geddit.  ... Friday... need drink.

 

Adam.

 

Clean the dishes Softerelli, sweep the floor Softerelli, simulate soot coming out of the chimney Softerelli.....

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Alan Fregtman
Sent: 27 August 2010 17:16
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Thanks Autodesk.

 

It's hard to prove it when you're under a NDA. Funny these threads

[Eric Turman]

Softerelli...Complete Awesomeness, Adam =)

--
-=T=-

[Alan Fregtman]

Awesome analogy! :)

[Eric Thivierge]

I don't have anything against him. I am just saying that even if we haven't seen much action from AD I still take Chinnys word. Again if we can't trust him and what he says about dev and sales who can we trust? Some marketing dude that we havent known for the number of years we have known Chinny.

Honestly, what would be a good enough step for AD to take to meet your concerns, short of killing off max and Maya. Just seems nothing will be good enough....

On Aug 27, 2010 12:10 PM, "Gene Crucean" <emailgene...@gmail.com> wrote:

Eric (Thivierge), I know Andy personally and trust me he's not like you are probably imagining. He loves Soft just as I do. But it's hard for us to remain quiet over things like this when it's having a noticeable effect on your life. We bitch because we care. Honestly.

In regard to the general comment "but the people behind SI keep saying that it's going strong so I feel much better now". All I have to say about that is... prove it. Talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.

Saying it is doing well behind closed doors means zero to me = Talk is cheap.
What they are doing with all of this marketing = Actions.


I also for the most part agree with Raf. As long as it was a legitimate step in the RIGHT direction. But I honestly don't see AD creating some uber app now. Not after seeing them go through all the hassle of implementing that full blown Qt interface. I think it's obvious where they see their future going. And it has a lot of old shitty code.

On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 7:51 AM, Andy Moorer <andym...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> You aren't getti...

[Czarek Kwasny]

Couldn't agree more. ;)

On 8/27/2010 7:52 PM, Eric Turman wrote:
> Softerelli...Complete Awesomeness, Adam =)

--
Czarek Kwasny
http://czarekkwasny.com/

[Andy Moorer]

There are a lot of good folks at Autodesk, and I certainly am willing to accept that there is likely an initiative to make a next-gen uber package (I'd be horrified if there wasn't, in fact.) If that's the case, though, why not market xsi, Maya and max as equals, until the "next thing" is ready for unveiling? That way you avoid pissing off a segment of your future user base if nothing else.

I'd also like to point out that the most effective way to shut down this kind of complaining is first to stop treating xsi like a dead end offshoot product and second to get a few key xsi users under nda and assured something better is coming along.  (me me hint hint mee... )

Seriously though there are a number of people on this list (not YT) whom everyone would accept hearing from something like: "they showed me what they're up to, I can't tell you about it, but it's awesome."

But one way or another, Autodesk, could you please at least mention xsi in the same breath as Maya and Max?

Haven't the people who stayed to become Autodesk employees and who are undoubtedly working very hard every day at least deserving of that basic recognition? 

Or the customers who have stayed loyal to a tool as it's gone through such a difficult evolution, most of whom are also customers of a number of other Autodesk products? Were not asking for anything that I can see doing Autodesk anything but good, after all. 

[Andy Moorer]

No biggie Eric, the best discussions involve disagreement, none of this is personal or anything. We're just operating at different portions of the spectrum, at the moment my studio is in a space where public opinion and marketing has a disproportionate and unfortunate effect on our day-to-day decision making.

> Again if we can't trust him and what he says about dev and sales who can we trust?
>

I'd feel better if they had put Chinny up in front of a mixed audience, say at Siggraph, but instead xsi, Mark, and Chinny, were noticeably kept largely out of the public eye. (Wasn't the electronic theatre best in show short made in xsi? Would it have killed autodesk to mention that on the floor now and again? Or to give Chinny and Mark the mike for a while?)

Trust is built or lost on what a company does. Chinny and the rest of the XSI team could well be mushrooms for all I know, powerless to effect AD's business decision making, or themselves mislead. I hear what Chinny has been saying in a semi-public venue like this list, but how do I reconcile that with what Autodesk is saying as a whole, and their rather conspicuous effort to downplay xsi? Again and again?

It's not about my being a fan of xsi, it's about my responsibility to my studio to do my best to understand and predict trends and to keep us on top of an evolving industry.

We've stuck with softimage since before the pre-xsi days, but in the end we are a business and I have to have viable arguments for our continued investment in xsi, that investment being measured in maintaining expertise, tools and pipeline. Owning the software is the least of it, we're glad it's bundled along but if it's going to become an afterthought for Autodesk that has real, measurable consequences for us that translates into dollars in the most immediate sense? How do I argue to invest in good stuff we want to support like moot and exocortex's tools, in-house development time for xsi, etc...when we can't get our clients to accept xsi as a top tier tool?

Anyway, I'm done, thanks for a lively discussion and have a great weekend all.
>

[Eric Thivierge]

I don't take this stuff personally and I do know we're going to butt heads on stuff. No sweat discussion is good. Better for some than others on certain topics.

I do want to mention that Chinny wasn't at Siggraph this year at all. Probably why we didn't see or hear from him.

Have a good one.

[Jason Brynford-Jones]

I begged not to go. I had major construction happening on my house AND I did not want to do yet another Siggraph (it would have been 14 in a row)

I have to thank my boss for not forcing me to go

Chin

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Eric Thivierge
Sent: Friday, 27 August, 2010 4:41 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Thanks Autodesk.

[Ponthieux, Joey]

It was my 15th in a row. 19 total since 1988. Funny thing about that is
after all these years I've come to learn that most people I know who
don't like, are neutral about, or just don't care to go to Siggraph are
those who have had to work at Sig year after year, especially in the
exhibition. The folks who love Sig are those who get to set their own
schedule, do their own thing, see what they want when they want etc etc.

It would be appropriate that a special thanks is in order to all those
folks who have to work the event and don't get the opportunity to see it
the way we do. Without them we wouldn't get to enjoy Sig.

So....thank ya Chinny....I hope you enjoyed the week off!

Joey Ponthieux
NCI Information Systems Inc.
NASA Langley Research Center
____________________________________________________________
Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and
do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

Jason Brynford-Jones wrote:
>
> I begged not to go. I had major construction happening on my house
> AND I did not want to do yet another Siggraph (it would have been 14
> in a row)
>
>
>
> I have to thank my boss for not forcing me to go
>
>
>
> Chin
>
>
>

> *From:* softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com
> [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Eric
> Thivierge
> *Sent:* Friday, 27 August, 2010 4:41 PM
> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: Thanks Autodesk.

[Eric Turman]

I've always wanted to go, but never have been able to because of conflicting projects/priorities.  The closest thing I've been able to do was CADCAM back in 1992 and NAB in 96.

--
-=T=-

[Darren Macpherson]

[

Gesh, I'd like to go at least just once!  Tell your boss I'll go in you place next year Chinny,  they can even dress me up in some awful character suit and pass me off as Softimage marketing mascot for all I care ;-)

--

darren macpherson | 3d artist | +2772 355 0924 | www.darrenmacpherson.com | dar...@darrenmacpherson.com | skype: darren.macpherson

[Carl Callewaert - Fundi3D]

I share the same vision.

c

[Helge Mathee]

http://www.vimeo.com/14506477

This is just a very, very early preview. I am planning to release the first version of this free tool sometime next week.

The reason I post this here is, since a lot of you have experience with vfx, what are the things you need as features when destroying surfaces? Do you have any ideas coming from other solutions like houdini etc...?

I would like some input to push the addon to be more useful and more applicable.

Cheers,

Helge

PS: Aside from the "Thanks Autodesk" thread, and being a former Autodesk employee,
I can say that the marketing doesn't have to tell the same story as what is going on inside
with the development of the product, and I am trying hard with free addons to increase
the usability in other areas... I enjoy using ICE as a platform in production alot, and,
whatever will  happen, I am sure we will be able to move to whatever new solution might
come up smoothly.

[Vladimir Jankijevic]

Well, I'm speechless!!!! You are feeding the community since so many years with top notch tools and contributing so much to Softimage as a product. I'm impressed and thankful!

I would love to give some inputs after a first test of the tool.

I'm really appreciating what you do for all of us! BIG WHOOP WHOOP!

Vladi

--
---------------------------------------
Vladimir Jankijevic
Technical Direction

Elefant Studios AG
Lessingstrasse 15
CH-8002 Zürich

+41 44 500 48 20

www.elefantstudios.ch
---------------------------------------

[John Richard Sanchez]

I guess the bottom line is that there seems to be a disconnect between the development of the product ( from what we hear from chinny , mark and Jen)  and the marketing of the product. 

--
John Richard Sanchez
www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Sam Cuttriss]

ah, thats going te be marvelous helge.
thanks so much,

hopefully ive done my last manual hand shatter job ever.

will it automatically generate normals derived from the parent object?
with hard edges on the shatters? or is that using regular
discontinuity angle?
will shattered edges automatically receive an alternative material/
offset uv/ cluster/ weightmap? or perhaps be extracted as a separate
object, so we can effortlessly add bump or normal maps to the
shattered surfaces?
having a weightmap generated on the shattered face at shatter time
enables smaller dist and debris to be emitted, not necessarily
accurate non intersecting chunks, but attractive seasoning that
improves the look significantly. if the weightmap intensity is
proportional to the force of impact, the speed and amount of emitted
particles can be modulated nicely.

will there be an option to clump chunks together and have them further
disintegrate with later impacts (maybe hand activated or triggered by
force of impact?)

i have been hand breaking objects with odd shapes and the new boolean command.
converting them to ridgid bodies (convex hull to keep things interactive)
then rewiring all the touching objects together using ridgid fixed constraints.
i can then hand animate off the rigid constraints as parts fail and
pieces collide.
it gives a great deal of control and is very directable, but a huge
amount of work to assemble.

im not expecting you to implement all of this on top of what is
already a massive step forward, but leaving it open for us to add
these kind of features to it will be great.

thanks again.
_sam

[John Richard Sanchez]

Beautiful!!

[Joe Williamsen]

Man, that is super-stupid - LOL

Looks great Helge - looking forward to being able to test it.  It'd be great to not have to go back into Lightwave to do a decent shatter....  Do you forsee the ability to interactively shatter one element based on collision with another element?  For example, a spaceship crashing into a road would puncture the road then rip a gouge through it.  I guess I'm asking if you're anticipating anything like some of the shatter solutions for MAX (the name of the plugin escapes me)?

Whatever you do, I certainly appreciate the open source tools :)

[Vincent Fortin]

By the look of it, shattering interactively is as easy as adding particles to the cloud wherever you need it...

You keep pushing the limits of the tools, Helge, great job! And slick design too :-)

[Alan Fregtman]

That plugin would be Rayfire, I believe. :)

[Alan Fregtman]

Amazing as always, Helge! =D

Have you thought about something that can use strands to define
cut-lines for shattering geo? Imagine, if you will, a frozen lake...
you grow ICE strands from a null somewhere. As the strands grow
outwards and flow over the surface, they "cut" the geo, causing
fractures.

I think it could be a pretty cool idea.

-- Alan

On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Helge Mathee <helge....@gmx.net> wrote:

[Helge Mathee]

Hey Alan,

the addon includes a couple of other cutting tools, one of them,
believe it or not, is exactly doing that. :)

Cheers.

[Alan Fregtman]

<3 you. :D

[Andy Moorer]

This is wonderful helge. Thanks much, it will fill a critical gap for vfx in xsi.

Sent from my iPhone

[Darren Macpherson]

Wow Helge!  This looks Awesome!  Thank you so much for creating these plugins, thank you and Studio Nest for releasing them for free to the public, it is really generous of you. 

Do you guys want feed back on the plugins you develop?  What is the best way to give you guys feed back and I info on how we've found them in a production?

Thank you once again

Darren

--

darren macpherson | 3d artist | +2772 355 0924 | www.darrenmacpherson.com | dar...@darrenmacpherson.com | skype: darren.macpherson

[Helge Mathee]

Feel free to email me personally, or use the forums on the opensource area on
www.studionestbarcelona.com. I prefer email though.

And yes, please give feedback if you have any.

[Adam Seeley]

Hi Helge,

Sooperb, I love the interactivity and just read about the Strand capability, outstanding.

As far as suggestions go:
Obviously there's the collision capability difference between Softimage RBD's and ICE rbds, although an ICE RBD solution was created for irregular polygons.

I don't know what the practicalities are of using that ICE RBD solution, but it sounds very attractive. The added bonus with Voronoi shatters is that all the fragments are Convex only so should simulate pretty fast (I think that's the case).

Thanks, it'll be nice not to have to go via Max.

Adam.

________________________________

http://www.vimeo.com/14506477

Cheers,

Helge

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.851 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3065 - Release Date: 08/28/10 07:34:00

[Kris Rivel]

Ugh...I grow so tired of this battle.  I've all but given up and will enjoy the last few years of what I think is Softimage's existence before it is surely picked apart and its best parts spit into plugins for Max and Maya or something new.  I've fought this battle for so long (for those who know me over the years)...someone once called me the "church of xsi"...lol.  But the writing is on the wall.  I appreciate all the fantastic work that has been put into Softimage and the work that continues to be put into it but I really don't think it will be around for more than 4 more years..its just not realistic.

I for one hope that it does fade...but that the powerful but abysmal Max and Maya do as well...all three get absorbed into a completely new tool.  I'd rather see them all go and rise from the ashes as something new...like the Constructicons in Transformers turning into Devastator or something.

Its great that its included in these big packages but I don't think its going to suddenly become more popular or become a necessary tool in everyone's pipeline.  Places who already used it will continue to use it (but less due to artist shortage) and places who don't, probably won't ever touch it.  Its an effective marketing tactic on Autodesk's part.  I don't know if its deliberate or not but it will surely make it more obscure since there's virtually no marketing or mention of it anywhere.

As a business owner, I find myself doing less and less of the actual work these days.  I'm privileged to have some great people on board for projects from time to time like Eric but my roster of available talent is small and forever shrinking.  Most have permanent gigs, moved away, left the industry or moved to other software.  So it does upset me to a degree since it effects my business as others have mentioned.  But I can't change the situation.  I just need to learn to deal with it...make the best of what I have, the time I have and the talented people left around who know it well.

I've been saying it for years but Softimage's situation was really just unfortunate.  Maya made its entrance at the most perfect time in the industry....ever.  Max was already established and available everywhere...paid for or not.  Maya came out right when the cg/vfx industry was exploding.  XSI was too late onto the scene and could never catch up...despite its advantages.  Its been playing catch up in terms of numbers forever.  There will never be a "golden age" like that again so no software will ever have the same opportunity.

Autodesk will slowly absorb it into its other software and either go the lame Adobe route and just nudge Max and Maya along at a snails pace forever..never really overhauling anything...or give us something complete new that incorporates everything.  I hope for the latter.

Kris

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Talk of self fulfilling prophecies...
The amount of talent has considerably expanded, not shrunk, in my experience, as has the availability and interest in Soft of 3rd party development and external solutions.

I heard the same exact crap back with Houdini around H5 times, and then 6.5-8 times when CORE flunked their project. Yet, for a software that -is- niche driven and quite an investment to learn, it's been going steadily up for years.

Nothing prevents the same from happening for Soft with ICE around (and in fact is already happening), except that Soft also brings a lot more than Houdini ever did to the table. Sure, Houdini had clearer (but less reaching) marketing, but I don't think that's enough to offset the much bigger potential of Soft and ICE.

I'm just as tired as anybody of that fight, but all this doom and gloom, when all the sign point towards the opposite, isn't doing anything to help the situation. I'd welcome a rewrite, and that would be the new golden age for a 3Dapp (because lets face it, LW, Houdini or anything else would be very unlikely to make the same in-roads into AD market that Maya did in Soft's back in 98-01), but I'd very much like it not to be one that takes too many pages from the maya book, or any at all from MAX's, which looks like it can be self-sustaining for the next century or two anyway.

[x...@colorshopvfx.dk]

Awesome tool as always Helge :) and very generous of you to choose to make
it available for free.

Regarding ideas, I think it would be very useful to have an option for
user defined shattering patterns, like drawing splines og using a bitmap
to define where an object is supposed to shatter.

Cheers
Morten Bartholdy
3D Lead/VFX Supervisor

[Claudio Pavan]

Hi guys was wondering if anyone could send me in the right direction for creating a shader that looks like the images attached.
I love the white volume cracks that you see through the surface.

Would it be possible?

Thanks in advance.

[Rob Wuijster]

Hi Claudio,

I faked this effect in the last job rendering ice cubes, with some simple distorted grids inside, and basic shading with gradients on the grids. Looked very convincing in combination with the ice shader setup.

Not sure if this would work on a large flat surface like this though...

rob

\/-------------\/----------------\/

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
Version: 9.0.851 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3101 - Release Date: 08/29/10 20:34:00

[Claudio Pavan]

Not a bad idea at all.... will look into that thank you !

[Robert Chapman]

yup this looks fantastic Helge,  my only addition for feature request, if it hasnt been mentioned already, or if its possible with this system, would be the ability to spread the effect over time , a Progressive shatter that grows would cover a lot of eventualities.

Regards,

Rob   

[Sam J. Bowling]

That was Awesome! I only wish I had it about 2 years ago when I had to do a lot of shattering work.

The only thing I'm really curious about at the moment is if it will allow you to have a different surface for the inside polygons.

--
Sam J. Bowling

[tak...@earthlink.net]

Helge -

Looks pretty awesome!  Thanks as always for all the awesome tools you've been releasing.

One thing that might be useful would be if there was a polygon cluster containing all the outer faces and one with all the interior ones so they could be textured differently (like a watermelon for example).

Rock on,

-T

-----Original Message-----
From: Helge Mathee
Sent: Aug 28, 2010 3:45 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: studioNEST Shattering

[Duncan Greenwood]

While you're at it you may as well make poly clusters for each shattered piece too.

It's good that there's people like you around.

:)

Duncan

[Helge Mathee]

Thanks all. we will be taking all ideas into consideration.

For sure for later shading workflow things like weightmaps, uvs, clusters etc have to work properly,
though I doubt this will all work with the first release.

Just as a sidenote, since Steven Caron has been bringing this up,
we will also release a plugin soon that implements bullet physics for Softimage.

This will then also properly work with procedurally generated meshes
like the shattered ones. The physics together with the shatter will be a proper solution
I think.

-H

[Sebastian Kowalski]

WOHA! 

good news

kuesschen aus hamburg wa

[Marc Brinkley]

Nice stuff. Wish I had these 3 years ago.

 

Having done some destruction stuff in the past for games the two bigger issues that we dealt with were:

 

Material propagation

UV (all UV sets) propagation

 

This meant we would have a fully textured object that we would then destruct into chunks. In that process we needed to carry over the materials from the original object to the shattered pieces including the newly created internal/capped geometry.

 

Additionally we needed to transfer the UVs from the original objects to the new created shattered pieces for both the surface and put new UVs on the new internal faces.

 

We were using Booleans/GATOR for some of that (and some additional magic) but it was slow and painstaking work. I really like the speed that you have there if you can get this to work with materials and UVs…that would be pretty great.

 

Amazing work!

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

Marc Brinkley

Microsoft Game Studios

PROJECT NATAL

marc.brinkley [at] microsoft.com

[Steven Caron]

i would imagine the inclusion of some of these features would slow the system to down considerably! but supporting it as an optional feature would still be worth it, ie. the deciding factor between you doing the job or not.

s

[David Rivera]

Hello, I´ve seen the log line in softimage go to red , green and bold formatted text
sometimes when a user is doing certain things. I was wondering if it was possible
to bold comments and color them on the log line from a synoptic page?
I am working in javascript and I got this piece of code I´d like to format
as bold and green:

logmessage ("hello world")

I searched in the SDK, as "log formatting, log syntax" but nothing returned.
I´m sure this is easy for someone with programming background on softimage.

Thanks.

David.

[David Rivera]

If this is done exactly like in the video, I won´t have to learn cinema´s shatter tool. :)
Ice is power.

---

From: Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com>
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Sent: Mon, August 30, 2010 12:43:59 PM
Subject: Re: studioNEST Shattering

[Eric Thivierge]

No you can't specify the font formatting of logmessage().

The 2nd argument that logmessage() takes i the severity. Depending on
that argument value it sets the color accordingly. Green only happens
from my experience with Pick Sessions. Red for Errors and Orange for
Warning message.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com

[David Rivera]

Thank you Eric. I thought since the syno editor was able to pickup
js , it could (probably) pick up css formatting of displayed text.
Just an idea.

---

From: Eric Thivierge <ethiv...@gmail.com>
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Sent: Mon, August 30, 2010 12:56:43 PM
Subject: Re: Formatting LOG comments from synoptic as colored & bold?

[Maurice Patel]

Hello Andy

First I apologize for not responding earlier but I was out of the office until now. Of course Softimage is not part of this campaign. You are referring to an upgrade campaign for 3ds max and Maya legacy customers. How would you expect Softimage to be promoted here? We are not going to launch a campaign to upgrade Max and Maya customers to Softimage. The reason we are investing in this campaign is because there is a very large pool of users running old versions of max and maya. Softimage on the other hand does not have a large pool of legacy customers since the majority of users remain current. Therefore investing in an upgrade campaign does not make sense. Look at the site again -read the reports. You'll see that this is not focused on new users or expanding markets but upgrading customers running releases that are 3 years old. Now if Softimage customers were not so diligent in remaining current and a significant number were still running Softimage 6.0 then we'd be running a Softimage campaign too.

maurice patel
Entertainment Industry Manager
Autodesk

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Andy Moorer
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 12:38 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Thanks Autodesk.

Once again, Autodesk marketing has deemed Softimage to be "out of the picture." They are pretty much flat out saying their "future" does not include XSI, treating it like a legacy item that contains ICE, when it's mentioned at all.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=15367897&siteID=123112

"This is the dawn of a new era of Digital Entertainment Creation, and it's fueled by the 2011 releases of Autodesk(r) 3ds Max(r) and Autodesk(r) Maya(r)."

Can we get any more clear than this? I know Mark and Chinny have had a lot to say about the hard work that's being done on XSI, and the progress of development etc. But let's get real here.

Autodesk. Is. Not. Marketing. XSI.

As far as their marketing focus is concerned, XSI is only a footnote in their projected glorious future of 3d, conspicuously dropped among taglines like "because you can't live in the past and hope to create the future." I've been making commercials for decades, and I don't think it's unreasonable to read this as no good news for XSI's future.

But even if it doesn't telegraph a lack of seriousness about developing XSI, it without a doubt indicates a decision to drop XSI as a percieved/projected equal to Maya and Max. And this has a consequence on the Softimage community. Fewer newcomers will adopt XSI as a result. Fewer clients will be willing to trust their jobs to XSI-based workflows. And so on. We've been over this.

So, explain to me that I'm wrong and that XSI's future is rosy again? I don't want to be out here beating the doom-drum. I accept that good people are working as hard as they can to make XSI, a package we all love, a better and better software. But this is ridiculous. Am I supposed to sit in the back of the bus and not complain about this?

[Tim]

One question.What about the new users?

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 31, 2010, at 12:18 AM, Maurice Patel
<mauric...@autodesk.com> wrote:

> Hello Andy
>
> First I apologize for not responding earlier but I was out of the
> office until now. Of course Softimage is not part of this campaign.
> You are referring to an upgrade campaign for 3ds max and Maya legacy
> customers. How would you expect Softimage to be promoted here? We
> are not going to launch a campaign to upgrade Max and Maya customers
> to Softimage. The reason we are investing in this campaign is
> because there is a very large pool of users running old versions of
> max and maya. Softimage on the other hand does not have a large pool
> of legacy customers since the majority of users remain current.
> Therefore investing in an upgrade campaign does not make sense. Look
> at the site again -read the reports. You'll see that this is not
> focused on new users or expanding markets but upgrading customers
> running releases that are 3 years old. Now if Softimage customers
> were not so diligent in remaining current and a significant number
> were still running Softimage 6.0 then we'd be running a Softimage
> campaign too.
>
>
> maurice patel
> Entertainment Industry Manager
> Autodesk
>
>

> <winmail.dat>

[Maurice Patel]

Hi Tim,

We do not have marketing campaigns targeting new users running at the moment for any of our products other than Smoke for Mac OSX. For Softimage, 3ds Max and Maya our main initiatives for acquiring new users are through educational initiatives. We have been rapidly expanding availability of Softimage product (and curriculum) as well as introducing new long-term student licensing. This is a far more effective strategy.

maurice

[Jens Lindgren]

Hi Adam!

I would really like to know some more about that ICE RBD solution for irregular polygons.
Are u saying there's a way to do actual shape collisions?

Great to hear from Helge again. You're doing an amazing work!
Really looking forward to Bullet integration in ICE :)

Jens.

Sent from my iPhone

> <winmail.dat>

[Sam J. Bowling]

I've decided that it's time to start learning a new scripting language to
convert my old VBS scripts to because some of them are extremely slow, but
I'm not sure if I should learn Python or Jscript. At a quick glance it
looks like Jscript is easier to learn, but it seems to have some issues
with Arrays and possibly other things. On the other hand, Python seems to
be more powerful but also seems to have a lot of version issues (from what
I've seen here on the list) and looks like it could be more difficult to learn.

What I'm really looking for is the one that's going to give me the least
amount of headaches in the long run and not be too complicated because I'm
not a programmer.

Also having good documentation and support/examples would be a huge bonus.
And if anyone can maybe give me some tips, web links or other information
to help me get my VBS scripts converted that would be a huge help.

Thanks.

--
Sam J. Bowling

[Gene Crucean]

Python.

Nothing against jscript... but coming from vbs and not sounding like you are ever going to go as far as c, I think it's the obvious choice. Not to mention the whole industry has finally adopted one language to rule them all ;)

--
[Gene Crucean] - [VFX & CG Supervisor/Generalist]
** Freelance for hire **

[Fabricio Chamon]

Hey, thanks a lot for another amazing tool Helge!

Never worked with bullet before, but I`m curious about the rbd
constraints. If I can recall siggraph`s 2012 presentation, they said
that bullet had a robust solver, but for some reason the guys had to
build their own constraint rigs to get that nice results.

Of course in this case we could build particle constraint compounds
right inside ICE, but how is it going to be interpreted in bullet ? or
will it have the same performance as some built in constraint system ?

sorry if I`m asking ahead of time. Just dreaming lots of possibilities here...

Fabricio

[Eric Thivierge]

Python. It's a lot more simplistic with its syntax. Granted there have
been a few hiccups as of late (2011 SP1 looking at Windows registry
for pre-packaged python) but there aren't many issues you'll really
have to deal with aside from just learning Python.

It may also help you if you need to use it with other programs like
Gene mentioned.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
Technical Director
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Sam J. Bowling]

Thanks guys. I was just looking around and found some good beginner Python
tutorials on Youtube and it looks a lot simpler that I had thought it would
be. All the Jscript tutorials seem to be web bases and not nearly as useful
as the Python tutorials.

--
Sam J. Bowling

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Right now the only downside to Python is that pyWin's interface to COM (the thingy creating XSI compliant COM objects to handle talking to the API) is a bit on the slow side, so for performance critical things like operators where you might need to create objects often (say create a new vector at every iteration of a loop) it might not be ideal. In that case though, it's hard to beat VBS anyway, and none of the scripting languages will ever be a scratch on C++ performance wise.

In every other regard, elegance, availability, the eco system around the language, learning material and all, Python hands down.
Learning JS to supplement VBS makes no sense, the differences would be almost exclusively cosmetic, where Python considerably extends the amount of possibilities at hand.

[Sam J. Bowling]

So you are saying that VBS would be fastest for creating objects? I thought
I heard JScript was faster than VBS somewhere. Anyway, Python is looking
very interesting and pretty easy and I found some real nice and simple
tutorials that have already got me started in converting some of my
scripts. If I feel comfortable enough after learning Python I just might
(but probably wont) dig our my old copy of VisualC++ I've had for about 6
years and give that another shot.

Thanks for the advice.

--
Sam J. Bowling

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Yes, as would be JS, since they are both MS languages with a rather direct pipe to COM. Bear in mind it's SDK objects I'm talking about, not in-scene objects.
I don't know where JS would be faster, but in general given VBS just-as-direct bridge to COM, the support for XSI friendly variants and safe arrays (which requrie work-arounds in JS) I seriously doubt in actual case JS would score points over VBS on anything but form.

All that said, there's so much about Python that is great that one can get over that slowness most of the time, and if you're working on a performance critical task, 9 times out of 10 chances are there's an efficient library for Python that deals with parts of it that will be compiled and optimized, and the remaining 10% of the cases you should really go for C++ anyway and bite the platform dependency bullet.

If you decide at some point to pick up some C++ you might need to do a bit more than dusting off an old VS box, but luckily these days everything you need can be legally obtained for free :)

[Andy Moorer]

Hi Maurice, thanks for replying...

Perhaps I am mistaken then, and can expect to see XSI receive some front-and-center marketing soon? If so, I think it would be appreciated by many here, certainly myself.

Not only would AD's giving xsi some marketing love have some short-term sales benefit, but it would also have significant return in the sense that ICE and XSI are some of Autodesk's most exciting procedural tools on offer, and stack up nicely against competitive products like mograph and houdini. ICE has enough potential to change the industry in so many positive ways (and shows so well) that I've been quite surprised when I don't see it trumpeted at venues like siggraph.

And we are moving into an exciting period now where enough people are getting comfortable enough in ICE to create a critical mass of new techniques and ideas. With some mind-blowing results, which reach wide and varied audiences.

Communities like the vimeo ice group have a lot of exciting new stuff, a steadily growing membership, and serious interest is being generated among people who aren't (yet) autodesk customers... Or even 3d artists. ICE is now reaching a lot of people who were formerly making generative graphics in processing, academics, students, independent artists, and the like.

That's the result largely of grassroots efforts and sharing, much of it by the folks here on this list.

Help us reach even more people.

An xsi marketing push would also demonstrate Autodesk's pride in having xsi among their offerings, something many of us here would be pleased to see demonstrated.

I promise to be the first one clapping and cheering Autodesk when it happens.

Any push AD gives to encourage people to see XSI as the powerful tool it is - an equal not only to Maya and Max but an alternative for users of C4d and Houdini - will undoubtedly get a lot of recognition from folks here and result in a lot of goodwill.

I DO appreciate the fact that you and others at AD have made real efforts not to be strangers on the list, even when guys like me are stirring the waters.

That's appreciated. Keep dropping in!

But all that said, there definitely remains a perception on my part that Autodesk has chosen not to put XSI forward as an equal to Maya and Max... Prove that perception wrong and I'll be the happiest guy here. And I'll gleefully poke fun at myself for crying wolf, while being as publicly appreciative towards AD as I have been vocal about my concern. Applauding is much more fun than complaining. :)

- AM

On Aug 30, 2010, at 5:18 PM, Maurice Patel <mauric...@autodesk.com> wrote:

> Hello Andy
>
> First I apologize for not responding earlier but I was out of the office until now. Of course Softimage is not part of this campaign. You are referring to an upgrade campaign for 3ds max and Maya legacy customers. How would you expect Softimage to be promoted here?....