A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

[Greg Punchatz]

Hello Autodesk,

My name is Greg Punchatz , Senior Creative Director at Janimation. I have a proposal, or call it a counter offer on the proper way to retire Softimage.

First off, if you don't know who I am, I feel like I have been part of the Softimage team since the beginning of Sumatra testing. I spent countless hours creating content on my own time and letting Softimage use my personal work as the sample scenes that make up a good deal of the Softimage library. Because of this relationship I have many, many very dear friends from all eras of Softimage. From the very top to the bottom of Softimage, I was always welcomed as one of the family.

Our company, Janimation, was instrumental in helping promote XSI from its earliest days from being its first customer demo at the XSI launch party. To its final days giving Avid and Autodesk permission to use our work for promoting Softimage launches. We did this because we truly believe it is the best software on the planet for what we do.... and that's commercial work. Softimage is lighter on its feet out of the box for the kind of work the post production world is doing today in commercials. I don't know a single CG supervisor that knows each package equally that would rather take a commercial through a single package other than XSI.

That being said, I believe Autodesk needs to be working on a completely new 3d software package. I would hope that is the plan. I also understand that if you are working towards moving us all to one package, Softimage by market share alone is the logical one to first retire as it creates the least income.

So if it's time has truly come (even though I believe it is the most complete out-of-the-box 3-D solution you provide currently) I think there is a more elegant... let's say, a kinder gentler way for Softimage to be put into retirement. You can continue to benefit from our subscription support while we have enough time to move our existing pipeline to somthing else.

Please consider keepinng the current small development team you already have for FOUR more years.

With a single focus on these three things: opening up the SDK,

working with 3rd party folk,

and fixing long outstanding low-level requests.

It's nothing but a win-win situation, you still get our money, and we get to evalute Maya along the way. It's going to take a lot more than two years for a lot of us to be able to make a tranistion completely.

I'm not sure if Autodesk realizes this, but while the team in Singapore was not making giant leaps technologically, they were on their way to leaving Softimage in a much better state. They need a bit more time than you are giving them.

At the end of the four years, we can at least consider staying in the Autodesk family because they listened to the users....gave us pleanty of heads up of its EOL, and did thier darndest to make sure the last version of softimage is the best version ever...XSI deserves that....we deserve that ... and quite frankly I deserve that.

Sincerely

Greg Punchatz

Senior Creative Director at Janimation ...

[Sebastien Sterling]

Doesn't seem unreasonable, considering their motivations apparently are not competitively or economically driven. If anything it's just a lot of Money for minimal development.

[Sylvain Lebeau]

yup!!!!...

Hat's off to this one too!!

btw!!  i remember being so inspired about those goldish sea dragons you guys did a while back!!..Cant remember the project.. Maybe with phoenix tools for the ocean.....?.... ;-)

long live Janimation!

sly

Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>

VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics

mail to: s...@shedmtl.com

[Greg Punchatz]

Well Sylvain the Shed works inspires me now! The Sea serpents were for spykids 2.. that was a blast! We got mentioned in a review from Roger Ebert for that, good times!

[Sylvain Lebeau]

Ohhh yeah!!! right!!! 

and thanks for you kind words Greg! 

Hard times ahead for sure!

Best ANALogy with Maya...   It's like having a new girlfriend that dont like sex...  at all......

sly

Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>

VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics

mail to: s...@shedmtl.com

[Sebastien Sterling]

Analogy for maya...

Feels more like herpes, passed on by that person you thought you could trust but who jumped ship, leaving you with the sores... forever.

Too, on the nose ? :P

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Maya is actually OK with sex, it's just that when you actually use it  the sheer amount of times you'l tell it to go F*** itself it, understandably, chooses to remain a wanker of a software.

[Sylvain Lebeau]

hahahahhhaahhaha

Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>

VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics

mail to: s...@shedmtl.com

On Mar 10, 2014, at 11:27 PM, Sebastien Sterling <sebastien...@gmail.com> wrote:

Analogy for maya...

Feels more like herpes, passed on by that person you thought you could trust but who jumped ship, leaving you with the sores... forever.

Too, on the nose ? :P

On 11 March 2014 03:20, Sylvain Lebeau <s...@shedmtl.com> wrote:

Ohhh yeah!!! right!!! 

and thanks for you kind words Greg! 

Hard times ahead for sure!

Best ANALogy with Maya...   It's like having a new girlfriend that dont like sex...  at all......

sly

Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>

<am.png>

VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics

mail to: s...@shedmtl.com

[Sylvain Lebeau]

;-) love it

Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>

VFX Curriculum 03: Compositing Basics

mail to: s...@shedmtl.com

[Dan Yargici]

Great suggestion Greg!

DAN

[Mário Domingos]

Greg, can I post your letter on Facebook?

—
Sent from Mailbox for iPhone

[Chris Vienneau]

Hi Greg,



Do you have any more info on what you mean by long standing low level requests and can you list the top 10 third parties you would like me to reach out to follow up with? Or is there anyone on the list who is a third party developer that can elaborate? For the SDK it is a really tough battle as it was just not part of the core of the original development but I can get a definitive answer.



cv/



________________________________
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Mário Domingos [mdoming...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 5:03 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

Greg, can I post your letter on Facebook?
—

Sent from Mailbox<https://www.dropbox.com/mailbox> for iPhone

[Eugen Sares]

I'm not quite among the top 10 3rd party developers (wrote a couple of topology operators though for curve editing and extrusions, with the classic SDK), but allow me:

 

The operator SDK has the limitation of not allowing to write to clusters/cluster properties. Therefore it's not possible to write custom operators that are as far reaching / have the same capabilities as the factory ones. This limit surfaces when you try to write topology changing operators.

(ICE, btw., is not a replacement for writing classic operators, because it is 'wrapped' in an operator itself.)

There's more, but this is surely one major restriction.

 

Would be ironic if this would be fixed after all...

 

Thanks,

Eugen

 

 

 

------ Originalnachricht ------

Von: "Chris Vienneau" <chris.v...@autodesk.com>

An: "soft...@listproc.autodesk.com" <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>

Gesendet: 11.03.2014 10:19:41

Betreff: RE: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

 

Hi Greg,

 

Do you have any more info on what you mean by long standing low level requests and can you list the top 10 third parties you would like me to reach out to follow up with? Or is there anyone on the list who is a third party developer that can elaborate? For the SDK it is a really tough battle as it was just not part of the core of the original development but I can get a definitive answer.

 

cv/

 

---

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Mário Domingos [mdoming...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 5:03 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

Greg, can I post your letter on Facebook?

—
Sent from Mailbox for iPhone

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 2:49 AM, Greg Punchatz <gr...@janimation.com> wrote:

Hello Autodesk,

My name is Greg Punchatz , Senior Creative Director at Janimation. I have a proposal, or call it a counter offer on the proper way to retire Softimage.

First off, if you don't know who I am, I feel like I have been part of the Softimage team since the beginning of Sumatra testing. I spent countless hours creating content on my own time and letting Softimage use my personal work as the sample scenes that make up a good deal of the Softimage library. Because of this relationship I have many, many very dear friends from all eras of Softimage. From the very top to the bottom of Softimage, I was always welcomed as one of the family.

Our company, Janimation, was instrumental in helping promote XSI from its earliest days from being its first customer demo at the XSI launch party. To its final days giving Avid and Autodesk permission to use our work for promoting Softimage launches. We did this because we truly believe it is the best software on the planet for what we do.... and that's commercial work. Softimage is lighter on its feet out of the box for the kind of work the post production world is doing today in commercials. I don't know a single CG supervisor that knows each package equally that would rather take a commercial through a single package other than XSI.

That being said, I believe Autodesk needs to be working on a completely new 3d software package. I would hope that is the plan. I also understand that if you are working towards moving us all to one package, Softimage by market share alone is the logical one to first retire as it creates the least income.

So if it's time has truly come (even though I believe it is the most complete out-of-the-box 3-D solution you provide currently) I think there is a more elegant... let's say, a kinder gentler way for Softimage to be put into retirement. You can continue to benefit from our subscription support while we have enough time to move our existing pipeline to somthing else.

Please consider keepinng the current small development team you already have for FOUR more years.

With a single focus on these three things: opening up the SDK,

working with 3rd party folk,

and fixing long outstanding low-level requests.

It's nothing but a win-win situation, you still get our money, and we get to evalute Maya along the way. It's going to take a lot more than two years for a lot of us to be able to make a tranistion completely.

I'm not sure if Autodesk realizes this, but while the team in Singapore was not making giant leaps technologically, they were on their way to leaving Softimage in a much better state. They need a bit more time than you are giving them.

At the end of the four years, we can at least consider staying in the Autodesk family because they listened to the users....gave us pleanty of heads up of its EOL, and did thier darndest to make sure the last version of softimage is the best version ever...XSI deserves that.....we deserve that ... and quite frankly I deserve that.

Sincerely

Greg Punchatz

Senior Creative Director at Janimation ...

---

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[Alastair Hearsum]

Good idea

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 867290000)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.

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[Martin Chatterjee]

Yeah, +1 from my side as well.

-M

--
       Martin Chatterjee
 
[ Freelance Technical Director ]
[   http://www.chatterjee.de   ]

[ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ] 

[Doeke Wartena]

I doubt autodesk improves sdk. It will mean people can stay longer with softimage. Which is less sells on maya and max.

And in the end it's all about money... :(

For the rest nice letter, i really like the big letters are coming.

[pet...@skynet.be]

Hi Greg,

this is pretty much along the lines of what I’ve been thinking.

 

Retiring Softimage as announced is way too abrupt and disruptive. While not a big success in the market place, it has it’s place, is very much alive and  in good shape.

Yes, we would all love to see some huge development and commercial efforts put into Softimage to make it ready to take on another decade and really compete in the market place, but that’s not going to happen, and we can hardly expect this from Autodesk – I think most of us have accepted that.

But keeping the software on life support as it has for the past few years should be an acceptable compromise.

It has more than 2 years of life left, and should be perfectly usable until a next generation offering comes along.

 

Migrating to other current software, from Autodesk or the competition just doesn’t appeal. If it did, we’d be there already. We are not blind fools who don’t know any better.

As a freelancer I have been in a wide variety of productions, of all sizes, in several countries, in several industries. I’ve seen many multi software productions, and have personally touched upon Maya, Lightwave and Modo in production, each on more than one occasion, and have furthermore been confronted with Max in production repeatedly. Coming from Poweranimator in the past, I really wanted to like Maya, and I have looked into it several times over the past 15 years. And I know I disliked XSI in the very beginning.

But there is no helping it - it truly is a next generation software, built up from a fresh start and carefully thought out and groomed into an efficient, elegant, usable whole that is much more than the sum of it’s parts.

I’ll abandon it for a better offering, but Maya, as popular and widely spread and industry standard as it is, is not it.

No amount of AD representatives saying it is superior is going to make it so. No amount of copying tools from Softimage into Maya is going to turn this around. It has mostly become a platform to run proprietary tools on, just as Max is a platform for running 3rd party tools. If that’s not what you are looking for, then it’s not your solution. (and Modo and Houdini are better suited alternatives)

 

That is the situation most remaining Softimage users are confronted with I think. They have deliberately chosen Softimage as their homebase, against all odds, mostly because out of the box it just works and fills most of their needs. It is friendly to artists as well as the more technically savvy – it adapts itself well to any industry, any scale of production, from a single individual to triple digit seats and anywhere in between – and can be used without the need for custom development, while allowing for it where desired.

ICE was just the icing on the cake to put it in this unique position in the industry but it is by no means the only worthwhile bit - something that seems to elude Autodesk if their presentation of things is to be judged. Softimage is perhaps not the absolute best in any discipline when compared to all other (specialized) software out there – but is comfortably above average in every discipline and thus uniquely equipped for multidisciplinary productions.

No other software out there offers a comparable experience. This is why there is this loyal user base – despite the slowing pace of development, a bleak outlook, a total lack of marketing and commercial efforts and a constant push and pull from the competition.

As has been mentioned, Softimage studios and productions often punch well above their weight – and the software allows productions to grow, from small to large scale, from startup to established studio, as well as evolve into new directions when the opportunity or need arises. It gives the company and individual an edge to fend in a difficult marketplace – and taking that tool away is pretty much a frontal assault to those who have made their livelihood around it.

 

So, Autodesk have decided to kick the ant’s nest, hoping the ants would swarm to this piece of candy Maya they are holding up.

It’s kind of obvious: taking away Softimage developers, putting them on Bifrost, presenting it as a mix of Naiad and ICE, and then retiring ICE (because in AD marketing speak that’s all Softimage is) in order to pave the way for Bifrost’s release – offering a free (duh) path to Maya.  I’m sure there will be fancy powerpoint graphs of Softimage users flocking to Bifrost/Maya, which the board and stockholders will adore.

Well, I guess some ants will stay put while others flock to Maya, Houdini and Modo in equal parts and the rest will scatter elsewhere.

Surely, a more graceful solution exists – one where the larger part of the ant colony migrates to a new anthill when it’s ready for moving in. But that requires a little more forward thinking.

If Autodesk bought Softimage to get a hold of it’s userbase, then surely it’s premature to disrupt it now – rather than migrate it to something that is actually appealing.

 

Peter Boeykens

freelance

[Dan Yargici]

BRILLIANT post.

Perfectly articulated Peter, well done!

DAN

[Jean-Louis Billard]

Hi all,

I’d like to chime in if I may.

I run a very small company in Brussels called Digital Golem that’s been around for almost 8 years, and our pipeline is essentially Softimage->Arnold->Nuke, with a bit of ZBrush thrown in for good measure.

One of the biggest reasons we are able to be competitive in this tough market is thanks to Softimage being a fully rounded and mature package offering a complete toolset for our needs. 

I started using SI3D 20 years ago, (working mostly in London, as well as being a Softimage certified trainer) and the same artist-friendly philosophy that was the driving force behind the development of SI3D was equally apparent in the next-gen XSI, and then some. I have yet to see another 3D package offer so much of a toolset in such an efficient way.

I can honestly say that I would *never* have ventured into setting up a company (with all the blood, sweat & tears involved) were it not for Softimage.

So the issue I’m confronted with now is that as a small company I have absolutely no other viable option that will not involve large sums of cash to be spent in re-tooling and re-pipelining, or a serious drop in efficiency, and quality, while we re-train. Also I cannot afford to employ an R&D team just to make things work.  It is an extremely demoralising situation.

Now, no one here is under the illusion that Softimage hasn’t got its share of problems, and as Luc-Eric explained, there are issues right at the core of Softimage that will be close to impossible to resolve and will become showstoppers in future development. So ultimately we *will* need something new, but right now nothing comes close to replacing Softimage, and if something does turn up in 2 years time, we would need another 12-24 months for the transition.

SO, all this to say that I strongly support Greg’s suggestion to give Softimage another 4 years of life, and to add my voice to the many that are hoping to sway Autodesk into finding a better solution.

Cheers,

Jean-Louis

Jean-Louis Billard

Digital Golem

BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563

UK: +44 (0) 7973 660 119

jean-...@digitalgolem.com

http://www.digitalgolem.com/

53 Rue Gustave Huberti

1030 Brussels

[Chris Marshall]

I totally agree 100% with everything that's been said here.

On 11 March 2014 12:04, Jean-Louis Billard <jean-...@photon3.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I’d like to chime in if I may.

I run a very small company in Brussels called Digital Golem that’s been around for almost 8 years, and our pipeline is essentially Softimage->Arnold->Nuke, with a bit of ZBrush thrown in for good measure.

One of the biggest reasons we are able to be competitive in this tough market is thanks to Softimage being a fully rounded and mature package offering a complete toolset for our needs. 

I started using SI3D 20 years ago, (working mostly in London, as well as being a Softimage certified trainer) and the same artist-friendly philosophy that was the driving force behind the development of SI3D was equally apparent in the next-gen XSI, and then some. I have yet to see another 3D package offer so much of a toolset in such an efficient way.

I can honestly say that I would *never* have ventured into setting up a company (with all the blood, sweat & tears involved) were it not for Softimage.

So the issue I’m confronted with now is that as a small company I have absolutely no other viable option that will not involve large sums of cash to be spent in re-tooling and re-pipelining, or a serious drop in efficiency, and quality, while we re-train. Also I cannot afford to employ an R&D team just to make things work.  It is an extremely demoralising situation.

Now, no one here is under the illusion that Softimage hasn’t got its share of problems, and as Luc-Eric explained, there are issues right at the core of Softimage that will be close to impossible to resolve and will become showstoppers in future development. So ultimately we *will* need something new, but right now nothing comes close to replacing Softimage, and if something does turn up in 2 years time, we would need another 12-24 months for the transition.

SO, all this to say that I strongly support Greg’s suggestion to give Softimage another 4 years of life, and to add my voice to the many that are hoping to sway Autodesk into finding a better solution.

Cheers,

Jean-Louis

Jean-Louis Billard

Digital Golem

BE: +32 (0) 484 263 563

UK: +44 (0) 7973 660 119

jean-...@digitalgolem.com

http://www.digitalgolem.com/

53 Rue Gustave Huberti

1030 Brussels

On 11 Mar 2014, at 03:49, Greg Punchatz <gr...@janimation.com> wrote:

Hello Autodesk,

My name is Greg Punchatz , Senior Creative Director at Janimation. I have a proposal, or call it a counter offer on the proper way to retire Softimage.

--

Chris Marshall

Mint Motion Limited

029 20 37 27 57

07730 533 115

www.mintmotion.co.uk

[Matt Lowery]

As a colleague of mine pointed out this morning, Autodesk should have told it's Softimage users what it needs to keep Softimage going. Admittedly that could be a bitter pill... "We need to double the cost of maintenance to keep softimage going!"  Or "We need to double the price of new license sales". They could make Softimage Autodesk's elite premium offering. At least give that approach a few years and if it doesn't make financial sense after that then fair enough, at least they tried.

I can't help thinking that the Softimage user base would be happier with an increase in price over a retirement of the app.

[adrian wyer]

outstanding and level headed, another excellent post that no-one at autodesk will bother to read.....

 

can we repost/retweet this?

 

the more well thought out, eloquent reasons we can publicly share, demonstrating why autodesk should rethink their position, the better

 

a

 

---

[Alastair Hearsum]

Hi Peter

Very well put. Absolutely spot on.

For me as an animation orientated generalist it is a great package which allows a host of low level built-in tools to be used together to create something that , as you put it, is greater than the some of the parts; a greatly underestimated aspect of the software. The other greatly underestimated aspect is the interface and general interaction, and I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but it really is great.
ICE has never been my personal area of expertise but it is for a few of the guys here and they do amazing stuff with it. I think it is a little more than the icing on the cake and its been pressed into service in all manner of ways here.

I agree, there is no obvious candidate screaming "use-me". There is a vacuum here for something "next generation". I used the example of Henry and Flame in my open letter as a situation where it was plain that Flame really was the next big step forward. Our CEO Hector Macleod was an early adopter back in the early 90s when he setup and ran Click3x in New York with a Flame. I don't see an equivalent 3d package today. Houdini and Modo have their advocates and we hear words of intent about making these better in the areas that they are deficient. We also hear about bifrost but to hijack your analogy i would say this would be the icing on Maya's slightly stale cake. We need a new cake baked with fresh ingredients.

I would personally like a longer period of transition.

Alastair

Alastair Hearsum

Head of 3d

33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 867290000)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.

DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Company. If you are not the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If this transmission is received in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message from your system.

[Emilio Hernandez]

Yes.  Bring back Softimage until ADSK really comes with something better, and most important:  That we are convinced that it IS BETTER.

We will migrate because of self conviction, not because we were ripped off.

Meanwhile.... the more time is passing.  The more clients you are loosing...

Something to think twice on this very bad decision.

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[pet...@skynet.be]

why now, I’m sure those few people from Autodesk we have been seeing here the last week will read what we have to say if we do so in a constructive way.

 

of course, retweet, repost all you want.

and do pay those few Softimage users in London a visit to get them to speak up as well!

[pet...@skynet.be]

thanks for speaking up Jean-Louis.

Digital Golem is certainly one of those Softimage studios punching well above their weight.

 

 

From: Emilio Hernandez

Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 1:29 PM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

 

[Sebastien Sterling]

I never new Digital Golem was a Softy house, or i would have been round last year :)

[Greg Punchatz]

"Greg, can I post your letter on Facebook?" PLEASE!

[rs3d]

Very well Jean-Louis...exactly what i think...it's not only at a studio level,at the individual level also! we all made a significant efort to learn a this software,our tool..we have to master so many crafts inside 3d itself,character animation,lighting,materials,scripting...that alone is a huge task..and these applications like XSI,MAYA,etc are incredibly complex.Every day i learn new stuff..

I'm 44...2 twin kids,work alone...and work in a industry that is constantly moving,at a fast pace...this event as just made my life even more challenging...i don't need this..

 

Rui

---

Este email está liivre de vírus e malware porque a proteção avast! Antivirus está ativa.

[pet...@skynet.be]

From: Alastair Hearsum

Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 1:24 PM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

 

> Hi Peter
> Very well put. Absolutely spot on. ...

 

Thanks Alastair,

> I would personally like a longer period of transition.
> Alastair

 

And somewhere appealing to migrate to I’m sure.

Having added Maya to your pipe in the past and moving away from it again, and being forcefully led there now.

Not a pleasant situation – and not helpful running your business.

[Francisco Criado]

Aleready posted on facebook and linkedin. Maybe with Glassworks and Janimation letters, some any other influent companies would like to support? the mill? shed? whiskytree? animal logic? come on guys!

F.

[Greg Punchatz]

Chris V..

For me it would be different than some other folks,  but these are the things that would ease my transition.

1. Ptex support

2. Udim support

3.Remove the current HQ viewport and port the max or maya version if possible.

4. More robust cluster support..from API to render passes.

5.Multi threaded scene IO to tessellate scenes for render engines.

6. full bone support in FBX... we will need to move things one day and this would make a huge difference... or maybe even add a Maya Ik solver for soft so we can share data better....

Those are my tops... I would love to hear other peoples take what core issues that could enable 3rd party folk to do more with the software.

My fave dev folks are

Mootz

Pooby

excortex

Solid Angle

Redshift

Ask these guys what they need to keep XSI fresh for a few years to come.

Thanks for listening...

[Francisco Criado]

It would be nice if it posted on autodesk area too, like the one from Alastair, so we can share that link.

F.

[Greg Punchatz]

Done

[Paul Griswold]

I sincerely hope people from Autodesk are reading these letters because I think it describes the situation perfectly.  

If ADSK had just unveiled some amazing, next-generation DCC that combined all the good parts of Max, Maya and Softimage into one amazing package, I don't think you'd see nearly as many complaints or objections.  But that didn't happen, so people are looking to what they feel are BETTER alternatives to what ADSK is offering.

This entire situation was absolutely horribly conceived and executed.  Rather than stubbornly standing by what is now clearly a bad decision, ADSK could gain a lot of good faith & credibility by actually listening to their customers.

-Paul

[Morten Bartholdy]

To you Peter, Greg and Alastair - thank you for expressing our (my) sentiments so thoroughly and eloquently in public. I hope the waves you and the userbase make will have some impact and make an impression at Autodesk where it matters.

As we go through the listing of why we use Softimage and how to migrate to other platforms, especially Maya, it becomes more and more clear how bad and ill timed this decision to scrub Softimage is. I can't help think it has been made on executive level in San Rafael against or not at all paying attention to advice from those that have taken care of Softimage through these last years.

 

Morten Bartholdy

A very troubled Softimage user

[Emilio Hernandez]

Exactly Paul.  I believe that all of we were first attracted to Softimage becuase we believed in it.  Not because we were forced to use it or learn it.  It was into that process of knowing Softimage, that we got in love with it.

If only ADSK would understand this...   They should first deliver something real better than Softimage and let us to start playing with it,  knowing it and eventually fall in love with it.  As we did with Softimage at first place.

Taking Softimage away in the way they did is nothing worse than drag your clients into a software that the ones like me, who had the chance to go in deep with it (Maya) definitiveley is not an option.  At least the way Maya is right now compared to Softimage.

The "migration" will be nothing more than a temporary event that will assure the Softimage users that Maya is not an option for them.  Then, they will start to look for other options that will turn into the following

1. Look for a couple of softwares to have something similar as you had before in Softimage (Modo-Blender/Houdini) solution

2. Keep using Softimage as long as there is OS that will keep running it.

3. Eventually when someone nails a new "Softimage"  we will go for it.

It is not because at some point when you fill your Maya with scripts here and there, maybe you will have a more "proficient" tool.   Simply is becuase how is Maya structured from its foundation that the worklfow and time efficiency is slower than Softimage.  Yes at the end you can get to the same result.  But a much later time that you are used to and with pitfalls in the path.

This is something that I strongly believe that ADSK never saw coming.

Actually their explanations about the reasons for killing Softimage lack of credibility.  Sounds logical at first, but when you dig a liitle bit more it is nothing but absurd with all my respect.

I cannot believe that holding a team of 8 devs in Asia to simple fix bugs, or minor improvements, were really driving Autodesk away to get focused into develop something new...  I would have bought more the "financial situation" or that Softimage was making them "lose money".

Anyway.  If Autodesk want to cut looses on this one, the best that they can do.  Is bring back Softimage, keep the devs to fix bugs and open the SDK.  As much of us have stated.  That is less descent thing they can do to revert some damage of the catastrophical way they have handle this, whatever is the true reason they killed Softimage.

Cheers!

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Morten Bartholdy]

Actually I would like to extend my thanks to all of those who have voiced their concerns this way. 

Morten

[Morten Bartholdy]

Thank you for listening Chris!

 

 

I am sure Greg wouldn't mind me adding to this, so here is a short list of 3rd party devs you could reach out to:

 

- Eric Mootz, Mootzoid.com - in...@mootzoid.com

 

- Helge Mathee or Paul Doyle, Fabric Engine - in...@fabricengine.com

 

- Holger Scönberger, Binary Alchemy - ma...@binaryalchemy.de

 

- Ben Houston, Exocortex -    info@exocortex

 

- Marcos Fajardo, Solid Angle - mar...@solidangle.com

 

- Redshift -  in...@redshift3d.com

- Leonard Koch -   -  LKPl...@gmail.com

 

There are more, which others will likely mention, but these are the major ones that come to mind.

 

 

Morten Bartholdy

VFX Supervisor

Gimmickvfx.com

Den 11. marts 2014 kl. 10:19 skrev Chris Vienneau <chris.v...@autodesk.com>:

> Hi Greg,
>
>
>
> Do you have any more info on what you mean by long standing low level requests and can you list the top 10 third parties you would like me to reach out to follow up with? Or is there anyone on the list who is a third party developer that can elaborate? For the SDK it is a really tough battle as it was just not part of the core of the original development but I can get a definitive answer.
>
>
>
> cv/
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Mário Domingos [mdoming...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 5:03 AM
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

>
> Greg, can I post your letter on Facebook?

> —
> Sent from Mailbox<https://www.dropbox.com/mailbox> for iPhone

[Doeke Wartena]

Opening the sdk will mean less of a reason to switch to another product so i don't think it will happen cause ADSK prefers you buy "cough cough" maya.

[Sebastien Sterling]

Whisky tree might have a guy or two ? given the stuff they have been putting out, surely Blur too, the guys at Hybrid ? and of course their might be some developers on the Asian market ?

[Sebastien Sterling]

They have already stated that their decision was not motivated by cost or competition. they have nothing to loose by opening the SDK to a few if not all third party Dev's and extending the shelf life buy a couple of years so people get an adequate chance to affect subsequent transitions.

[Greg Punchatz]

Doeke, IMHO sending soft out to pasture VS to the glue factory is the best PR move AD could make. Doing that would actually make a huge difference if we decide to stick with AD... and eventually move to Maya or even better a whole new app they are building behind closed doors (I hope).

[Mirko Jankovic]

you really think that they are building something new when they said that they an;t even focus in supporting what they got so far and killing Softimage so that they can provide better for max and maya?

How does completely new app that requires couple years of investment before gaining any profit fits AD profile???

It doesn't. They are killing Si even if it makes any profit at all, making new application that wouldn't give anything back for years.. hardly AD way.

[Emilio Hernandez]

I've hear a rumor that Autodesk is in area 51 taking notes from a superior intelligence...

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Greg Punchatz]

I don't think that WAS the plan.... but things change..... Lets say I have a pretty good record at reading the Tea leaves.... The thing is they CANT tell us .... even if they wanted to.

There are some smart and not so smart folks up at AD.... but after trying to add to the maya code base for all this time I am pretty sure that they know it's busting at the seams as we do... if not more. If making a new product lets them be able to create new competitive tech more quickly and less expensively they would be silly not to invest in a new platform.

[phil harbath]

from all the things luceric said here and on the community I thought he was pretty clear the next gen tool was Maya.

 

From: Greg Punchatz

Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 3:06 PM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: A more graceful retirement - my counter offer

 

[Rob Chapman]

Imo there is no money to be made on  one giant 'doitall' application any more. if anything ADSK seem to be moving away from the pro market and more towards consumer level apps on the cloud. Including 3d printing and behance networks

[Doeke Wartena]

"Doeke, IMHO sending soft out to pasture VS to the glue factory is the best PR move AD could make. Doing that would actually make a huge difference if we decide to stick with AD... and eventually move to Maya or even better a whole new app they are building behind closed doors (I hope)."

I didn't look at it that way. Yes, it will be very good for the band between SI users and AD. But i think the SI community is to small for them to give a fuck.

"I've hear a rumor that Autodesk is in area 51 taking notes from a superior intelligence..."

I've hear a rumor that the superior intelligence is a monkey with a learning disorder...

[Eric Turman]

Propoganda

--




-=T=-

[Jason S]

+1 .. Indeed very Fair, Balanced & spot-on letter! Kudos!

I would also very much agree with the "last request" points you put forth,
(particularly the multi-threaded scene translations bit, and well.. all of them lol)
and I'm sure a few more (not that many) could be added (should be as short as possible).

And while that may be very reasonable in all accounts,
I would also add that a majority of these things would surely be the very first areas that would be addressed by 3rd party devs, if the concerned sections were made accessible.

Meaning that your suggested 4 years could very well be made to be considerably shorter,
as the work involved in "Opening up" the SDK, is "but" (relatively speaking) a task of making accessible,
and consequently equally reduces the implications of the request(s).

While perhaps there may be some exceptions to that,
the mentionned multi-threaded scene translations could be one of those (I dont know)

But the following from Eugene I think is a fine request example of what part could be made acessible

On 03/11/14 5:43, Eugen Sares wrote:
 
The operator SDK has the limitation of not allowing to write to clusters/cluster properties.
 
Therefore it's not possible to write custom operators that are as far reaching / have the same capabilities as the factory ones.
 
This limit surfaces when you try to write topology changing operators.
 

(ICE, btw., is not a replacement for writing classic operators, because it is 'wrapped' in an operator itself.)

There's more, but this is surely one major restriction.

 
So perhaps that list could be split in -- SDK Access & actual Final Feature Request.

My 2c Thx!

[Greg Punchatz]

He DID say that.... but I have not seen a single soul say that from AD in the last four months.... maybe I missed it....

Or maybe they are rewriting the codebase of maya...stll going to call it maya .. but are clearing out the cobwebs.. who knows.. I just know need something better than Maya's current state of spaghetti code .

---

Greg Punchatz

Sr. Creative Director
Janimation
214.823.7760
www.janimation.com

[Srecko Micic]

What is confusing me is that AD says that they need to continue work on inventions, they need devs to focus more on that. But lets be honest here, if you look Maya development in last few releases, they did not invent much (except Duncan work on nucleus and Viewport 2.0) but they were just buying technologies, like Naiad, Nex (modeling toolset), now they added Unfold.... Were are those AD inventions at all, Skyline? AFAIK same situation is with 3dsMax, entire Graphite modeling toolset is some 3dsMax plugin (do not know name) they bought. If they started something like Fabric, well I would understand that.

--
Micic Srecko
-------------------
Mail:
srecko...@gmail.com
Skype:srecko.micic
-------------------
3D/Graphic Portfolio:
http://www.coroflot.com/SreckoM

[olivier jeannel]

I don't see AD as a chalenger. I mean AD producing a new revolutionnary 3d software would be like creating their own threat. They would be competiting themselves. How could they sell it ? Will they say to their clients, "now you can drop Maya, we just made the ultimate 3d software" ?
This just won't happen.
Stagnation and digestion is the way to go.
Everybody with the same software, a big fat one, a standart, it will be just  like "fate".

We're the rebellion now.

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 1:50 PM, Mirko Jankovic <mirkoj....@gmail.com> wrote:

you really think that they are building something new when they said that they an;t even focus in supporting what they got so far and killing Softimage so that they can provide better for max and maya?

How does completely new app that requires couple years of investment before gaining any profit fits AD profile???

It doesn't. They are killing Si even if it makes any profit at all, making new application that wouldn't give anything back for years.. hardly AD way.

 

--




-=T=-

[Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]]

Maya? Next gen tool? In the same sentence? …. Maybe in Y2K

 

--

Joey Ponthieux

__________________________________________________

Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not

represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

[Jordi Bares]

When you have a monopoly or close to there is zero need to innovate, that is a fact.

Jordi Bares

jordi...@gmail.com

[Jordi Bares]

The viewport cube

Jordi Bares

jordi...@gmail.com

[Emilio Hernandez]

If they were really aming for true innovation and experimenting the app that should be killed is Maya.  That is the one that actually is drainning all of Autodesk resources into trying to make it float against competition.  The one that is the buggiest with crashes here and there...

Who is going to believe that a small dev team of 8 people in Asia are the ones that they need for getting focused and innovative into the nextgen software....  and that Softimage was the stone in their path to make things happen....

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Emilio Hernandez]

You can fool one all of the time.

You can fool everyone one time.

But you cannot fool everyone all of the time.

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Bk]

Hi I'm Paul Smith,
If you don't know me, I'm an ICE enthusiast, having made around 150 or so tutorials on Vimeo.
I also did the Greg Mutt blue hippy cats avatar review thing that went viral a few years ago.

Now, this may seem like a hopelessly naive plan to many if not all of of you. However, I was thinking that what strength we do have as a group is the ability to make amazing imagery.
I'm just wondering whether we could together, pull off a 1 min or so, film that expresses how we feel, done in a beautiful way that would be hard to ignore. I am pretty confident that between the lot of us, we could do something that would both highlight our cause, show AD what Softimage can do, and in the very least, embarrass them at killing it, and be a great tribute to Softimage and it's community.

I know it would be hard to coordinate and agree on but I think it's doable.

I certainly would be willing to put in some time.

Any thoughts?

Paul

[Artur Woźniak]

Awesome idea.

Artur 

[Bk]

Sorry I meant to start a new topic for this.

[Perry Harovas]

I would be willing to put in some time, and I think it is an excellent idea Paul.

--

Perry Harovas
203-448-7206
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com

-24 years experience
-Co-Author of "Mastering Maya"
-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

[Francisco Criado]

if i can help in anything, count me in!

F.

[Paul Griswold]

I'd be in just for a chance to work with an amazing talent like you Pooby!

Add me to the list and let me know how I can help.

-Paul

—
Sent from Mailbox for iPad

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 7:24 PM, Bk <pa...@bustykelp.com> wrote:

[Bk]

Just to add a bit. The media love stories like this. With some interesting visual they can link to.
Even if nobody cares about the cause, simply the fact that a bunch of professional people from around the globe got together to make a protest film is enough to make a decent article.
I can imagine the media angle being something like 'the software that made Jurassic park is to be made extinct. They revived the dinosaurs but can these boffins now revive their beloved software'
(which I know is not strictly accurate as that wasn't xsi but still)

[Eugene Flormata]

I've always enjoyed your videos pooby! I'm only on 2013 but I'd like to help out if i could!

[Emilio Hernandez]

I am in!

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Christian Lattuada]

YES, Paul, let's do it.

Open a new thread.

.........:.........
Christian Lattuada

[Jason S]

+1  Would be willing to chip-in!

Also, while it would clearly be beneficial to have a peice specifically for that,
how about a "well put together" editing of Softimage.TV Material?
(witth each Company's Logos/autor Name clearly watermarked)

[Bk]

Wow I thought you'll all just label me a naive fool. Thanks for the positive responses!

Ok, This isn't the best start, but how do I open a new thread? I've not done that before. 

[Sebastien Sterling]

My modelling skills are at your service Sir Smith.

"You wave my Sword !"

[Rob Chapman]

this, as far as I am aware inside a gmail client running on win7 *is* a new thread...

[Dan Pejril]

Hi Paul,

I am definitely on board with this idea.
Especially since it is because of your videos I was even able to
initially make heads or tails out of ICE.
Thank you so much for taking the time to create those tutorials. I'm not
sure if you know how much of an impact you've had on others, but I can
sincerely say you've helped me get to the point of creating imagery and
tools, in ICE, I never thought I would be capable of.
Thank you!

--
Dan Pejril
Upbeat Unique Entertainment
www.UpbeatUnique.com

[Francisco Criado]

someone with a good dslr should have to be recording its screen with this email now, for later making of on how and when this started ;)

[Bk]

Thanks hugely ! 

I guess if we stand a chance of pulling this off, we'd need to work out how many people we have in each discipline and make an idea that's feasible with the available resources. It would be good to know what everyone does. 

I'm a generalist with a leaning toward characters and have access to mocap.

Let's see where we are in the morning.  I have to sleep now.

Paul 

[Jason S]

a gem of an idea  ^_^

[Rob Chapman]

oh and heartily agree its a great idea yes, but logistically so difficult to organise :)

willing to put some time in  for sure, ICE FX artist/TD, Softimage user for EIGHTEEN YEARS

btw on a similar vein did you see the incentive that Oliver already started called http://www.3dwillneverbethesame.com/ ? 

On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 12:24 AM, Bk <pa...@bustykelp.com> wrote:

Hi I'm Paul Smith,

[Christian Lattuada]

I'm a generalist too.

But let's talk tomorrow.

I look forward to see how many will join.

.........:.........
Christian Lattuada

[David Saber]

I'm definitely on the side of those with a fighting spirit.
I'm willing to invest the free time I (try to) have to help you.
This project needs a forum on its own, where you could announce tasks to
be done and people would pick them up and work on them.
See you then,
David

[Jason S]

On 03/11/14 20:17, David Saber wrote:

This project needs a forum on its own, where you could announce tasks to be done and people would pick them up and work on them.

Indeed!

[Sebastien Sterling]

I'm a Modeller, prefer characters but Multi-purpose.

I think it would be good for this effort to focus around a character, it makes it easier for an audience to identify, they're are some beautiful ICE showcases out there, but they remain abstract, and whilst we can appreciate the ingenuity, we will need to focus it around structures and conventions they can understand, like a Disney Fantasia piece all be it a 1 min one.

[Artur Woźniak]

and a script to begin with?

[Francisco Criado]

i'm generalist too, con also do compositing.

[Greg Punchatz]

I am in..

I would be happy to edit it all together into a cohesive  piece . Put music to it etc....

Hey Dallas softimage peeps,  l can help you get your story told as well just give me a shout.

I would love to interview people that I know that worked with soft for only a short time that wanted to take their game studios all soft after working with us,  but changed their plans as soon as AD bought them. They talked for years on what a pain Maya was and how soft could make their lives way easier...but the AD rep advised against it.....

Step up to the plate people...worse case scenario... we tried.  To quote one of my musical heroes ...

"If they take our chances, we'll create our own" -Mike Peters

[Jason S]

Ditto Generalist/comp/matte paintings

[Artur Woźniak]

Holy crap. 

this could work. 

Artur

[Emilio Hernandez]

3D generalist, character->modeling, rigging.  mid ICE level.

Comp, editing and VFX here ready for battle.

-------------------------------------------------------
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.

[Eugene Flormata]

generalist, I'd prefer to animate something though. I never get to do that enough at work.
someone make a google spreadsheet for everyone to use?

[Sebastien Sterling]

I can afford to through some time into a storyboard/animatic tomorrow. just for tests :P

[Artur Woźniak]

3D Generalist, non-character animation, rendering, some nuke, VFX 

[Jason S]

I wouldn't necessarily call it a "fight" but more of a "plea"

[javier gonzalez]

I think that is better make something like "Life after Pi", documentary gender to explain what is hapening and what the comunity wants, also with random interviews to studios and relevant peoples. 2cents

[Sebastien Sterling]

We can make both.

[Jason S]

Could make both as one.

[Artur Woźniak]

Yeah, like the movie and making off.

Artur

[Bk]

Cant sleep.

That's a good idea too. Making something like that would be a valid and rational response and not entirely unexpected. Why not start it? It's doesnt have to be an either/or.

This idea is a bit 'crazy' and as such I believe would gather wider media attention as there is more of a story and angle.

[Emilio Hernandez]

We need a writer for a start.

[Sebastien Sterling]

If the Piece can be made, then the making off will follow :P, I'm just exited for the opportunity to play with My/our favourite toy :)

[Perry Harovas]

A few things:

1) I am a generalist, but have good modeling skills and lighting/rendering skills.

    I am also a Nuke user, and could help composite.

2) Happy to also lend my story for the "Life afterXSI" doc of being a longtime Maya user, who co-authored the first book about Maya 

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Maya-Complete-Perry-Harovas/dp/0782125212

back in 1999, but chose to switch to Softimage.  Now, being forced to chose between moving back to Maya or moving on, I am going to move on (unless we can save Soft!) 

to a new uncharted software app. Which won't be easy considering I am 46 yrs. old and have 24 years of all types of software floating around in amongst the cobwebs in my head!

3) Dan Pejril and I are actually right across the hall from each other, and can at least lend some consistency to our part, whatever that part is, since we are physically in the same location.

4) We are located on the a East Coast, and it might be a good idea to get our time zones on that spreadsheet, so we know when people are available as well as what they are able to contribute.

5) I have a bunch of students who started learning both Maya and Softimage only 3 months ago (having never used any 3D software before) and were REALLY upset when they heard

that they would possibly be forced to use Maya. They all said how much Softimage was more of an Artist tool, cleaner, more stable, better organized, more flexible, easier to understand, etc.

Perhaps their POV might be valuable for the "Life after XSI" thing?

--

Perry Harovas
203-448-7206
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com

-24 years experience
-Co-Author of "Mastering Maya"
-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)