Preserving the History of Softimage — Looking for Contributors
Matteo Migliorini
Hello everyone,
Over the past months, I have been documenting the history of Softimage in what I hope will become the first comprehensive historical book dedicated to the software.
This is not intended to be a technical manual, nor a nostalgic "Softimage was the best" book.
Instead, my goal is to document the people, ideas, innovations and events that shaped Softimage, as well as the lasting influence it has had on visual effects, animation, game development and modern computer graphics.
To help make this historical record as accurate and complete as possible, I'm looking to connect with people who were part of that journey, including:
Former Softimage developers and engineers
Product managers
Technical Directors
Artists who used Softimage in production
Beta testers
Trainers and educators
Members of XSIBase, SI Community and other historical communities
Anyone with interesting stories, memories or historical material related to Softimage
I'm also searching for historical material that could help preserve this important part of computer graphics history, including:
Photographs from SIGGRAPH, NAB, GDC and other industry events
Pictures of Softimage booths, presentations and product launches
User Group meetings, workshops and training sessions
Behind-the-scenes photographs from studios using Softimage
Historical brochures, flyers, posters and promotional material
Conference badges, giveaways and other memorabilia
I'm equally interested in artwork created with Softimage throughout its history.
Whether it's personal projects, student work, demo reel shots, production stills, portfolio images, making-of material, screenshots or other examples of work created with Softimage, they all help tell the story of the artists who used the software.
If you own photographs, artwork or historical material and would be willing to let me reproduce it in the book, I would be honoured to include it (with your permission), and full credit will always be given.
Many of these photographs, artworks and personal archives exist only in private collections. My hope is to help preserve them, and the stories behind them, before they are lost.
Whether you contributed to the software itself or simply created something with it, your story is part of Softimage's history.
If you think you can help, or if you know someone who might, I would be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you for helping preserve an important chapter in the history of computer graphics.
Matteo
Matt Lind
project. You may want to talk to them so as to not repeat what they've
already done.
Rejean was one of the principle developers of Softimage|3D's Actor
module and other systems, and later a program manager for XSI. Marc
Petit was in charge of integrating mental ray and later headed R+D to
get 'Sumatra' (XSI) to market. Together they're putting together the
story of Softimage as their tenures started when founder Daniel Langlois
was still running the company. The interesting part of the story is
what happened before Microsoft entered the picture as that's what
established the culture. The company was pretty small back then, so the
ability to get ahold of people/things to tell that story is very
limited, and a few of those people have already passed on.
As for me, I can contribute as an artist/educator/beta tester/forum
member/etc.
Matt
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Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
Matt.Lind(at)Mantom.net
Matteo Migliorini
Rejean Gagne and Marc Petit are you in this mailing list?
Matteo
davids...@gmail.com
Hello there
I would be glad to help, I was an artist, freelancer.
See you soon,
David
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