Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!

[Greg Punchatz]

 As I find out more and more about what is going on behind the scenes at at AD in regards to Softimage (plus all the others) the more and more angry I get.  And frankly the more I want my support money back, seriously.

This has been a huge bait and switch scam....  I feel like I have been consistently lied to about the future of Soft, there is even a video of a "product manager of the week"  telling me the future of Softimage is good on the Autodesk site.  Buyers remorse is one thing, but frankly no one has been honest with us about where all of this was headed, in fact I would say that I was deliberately lied to by the PR machine that is AD. The video of Daniel Tutino talking about the future of softimage is a prime example of AD misleading us. What's  sad if you watch the video, he is acting like a really bad liar .  ( I have the video downloaded just in case I need it to back up my case against AD.)

 First off I wish I would have NEVER bought a suite... I did not want a single dollar of mine going to support Maya, but apparently if you jumped on the suite bandwagon your money went toward a bazzilion Maya developers,  even if you checked "softimage is my main interest"  in the AD suite surveys.  I wanted a Softimage branded suite for that very reason.  Now from what I gather soft has less developers than my hand has fingers, and Maya has over a hundred??  WTF are all those developers working on, really? 100 devs working under the bad management of AD guys cant even compete with 15 devs working at an under funded Softimage run by Avid .

 I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised.  Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums.... Do the powers that be at AD still think putting everything into one app makes sense?? There is a reason why niche products do a better job at niche work :)

I would be happy with if AD made an attempt at a next gen app, I would give that a shot....but I passed on Maya for a reason. 

I paid my support so Softimage could be developed further....not so AD could put a nail in its coffin.

Feeling like I just got robbed... is there something we can do as a group to get our voices heard?  Anyone know any good lawyers that will work for next years support money ;)

--

---

Greg Punchatz

Sr. Creative Director
Janimation
214.823.7760
www.janimation.com

[Sebastien Sterling]

... batch move to modo ?

I doubt luxologic will lead us to the promised land just yet :(

you are right about mudbox

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz <gr...@janimation.com> wrote:
> I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using
> in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars
> because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying
> Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums....

I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied
to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be
built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's
designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need
to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from
scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted
time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with
manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been
about using the same tools and UI in all modules..

[Massimo Galluzzo]

The problem in my opinion is that people keep paying Autodesk subscription, giving them the chance to keep going this slackery and non-development of everything basically.

Untill people will give them money they will do whatever they want without caring about users and clients. This is what happened those years.

 

Softimage didnt get a solid development since ICE introduction that was 7.5. There are ridicolous problems that still arent fixed. 3d Packages come with a render engine that is utterly outdated (yet we pay the price for it), not integrated fully, with poorly implemented features, and completely outdated workflow.  We pay money on top of other money for releases that arent worth the money we spend on them. And even if Luxology isnt the promised land, at least they develop their software.

 

Again, things will change when people stop buying useless suites and outrageus overpriced subscriptions. I share your frustration and disappointment as i’m in the same boat, but i didnt give them the satisfaction to steal my money with trash useless suites and dropped my subscription untill i see a REAL development and future for Softimage.

 

Thats what people should do, see if they keep threating clients and users like that then.

 

my humble 2 cents.

[Sebastien Sterling]

I agree on all points Mass, but seriously every softimage user could switch tomorrow to blender, and i doubt it would make much of an impact to AD. maya has the industry in a head lock, companies are contented to pay for the right to rent maya, its gotten to the point where they don't even need to develop new additions or upgrades each year, in fact i know a fair few people who would be  content paying AD not to change anything from version to version as each release is usually a nightmare of shoddy bugs regression and performance drops. meanwhile AD lazily Vacuums up all the third party stuff and repackages it as new features.

[Greg Punchatz]

I was just reading between the lines...

I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way...

Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, "so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most?"

Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly .

Sent from my iPhone

[Emilio Hernandez]

How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD?

2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz <gr...@janimation.com>

--

[Greg Punchatz]

 You're absolutely correct, I made the mistake of thinking that by paying my support I was supporting Softimage. 

 I think I would've had better luck putting that money towards winning the lottery so I could buy back Softimage from Autodesk.

Buying into the suite was my biggest mistake... I was happy to pay for people to be working on Softimage because that is the program I use out of the suite.

Sent from my iPhone

[Matt Lind]

Let’s review the past:

 

In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me.  I would say north of $300 million USD.  Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative.

 

In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft – mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers.

 

In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company.  The DS stuff remained with Avid.

 

Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million.  But I’m sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more.

 

At this point you’d be paying for a name…..one which many people mispronounce.

 

 

Matt

[Emilio Hernandez]

Hmmm but Softimage DS came out when it was already Microsoft as I remember.  Eddie was the comp from Softimage and Toonz for 2D cell animation at the moment Microsoft acquired it.  Unless of course DS was in development which I don't know, at the moment Microsoft bought it.

As many of you I never felt in home with AD as I felt in those good old days.  Even with Avid that was trying to do: I don't know what...

I stopped paying my suscription since 2013.  I was waiting to see the new incredible team that it was said to bring new blood to Softimage.  But all I can see is AD adding more corpse parts to the Frankenstein that is Maya.

And new Softimage wizkids that as far as I read here, don't know how to properly increment a version number with no backward compatibility.  Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2.

Something I have never seen before in Softimage.

Better tools have been developed by the SI Community by far.

Just wondering...  If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... 

$10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon...

2013/7/30 Matt Lind <ml...@carbinestudios.com>

--

[Eric Thivierge]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:18 PM, Emilio Hernandez <emi...@e-roja.com> wrote:

Just wondering...  If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... 

$10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon...

I think you over estimate the amount of SI users...

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

[Raffaele Fragapane]

I think back then MS mostly invested to have something to leverage NT as a workstation platform.
I don't think satellite or offset markets were of any interest, or at least not as much as having a high prestige brand to requalify a major investment and break into an entire market segment that they knew would have grown and led to others (and time proved them right for a while, before NT 3.5.1 they were the cheap-arse consumer mass diffused thing, after NT and despite the win95 blunders they were projected to new heights).

Avid defintely went all in for a big DS scare, and the 3D side of things was kind of this thing they didn't quite know how to deal with.

--
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

[Greg Punchatz]

I don't think we should be too hard on Chris and the rest of the development team in Singapore, I just think they've been dealt a very bad hand.

  I think it was a mistake letting Softimage development leave Montréal, as all the people that really know the code inside and out are there.  I really do hope the new team surprises me, Chris seems to be earnest in his want to create a good product for us. I just hope the people above him empower him to create some great features for us... I would not want to walk in his shoes right now. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Eric Thivierge]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:40 PM, Greg Punchatz <gr...@janimation.com> wrote:

Chris seems to be earnest in his want to create a good product for us

Not to disrespect Chris but he's not a dev. He's in Q.A. AFAIK. He can want to do amazing things but I don't want to hear this stuff from him. I want some direct talk from the person in charge. Who is that again? Can we get an email address / phone number please?

[Ahmidou Lyazidi]

2013/7/31 Emilio Hernandez <emi...@e-roja.com>

Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2.

Something I have never seen before in Softimage.

This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute

-----------------------------------------------
Ahmidou Lyazidi
Director | TD | CG artist
http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
http://www.cappuccino-films.com

[Eric Thivierge]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:42 PM, Eric Thivierge <ethiv...@gmail.com> wrote:

Who is that again? Can we get an email address / phone number please?

To pull a Brad, I remembered Graham posted the name Chris Bradshaw the other day. If we use a bit of logic as to how most AD email addresses go, maybe chris.b...@autodesk.com will be the correct one. Anyone care to toss something at it and see if it sticks?

[Ahmidou Lyazidi]

Exactly, the problem is not coming from the dev team but more from the product manager/designer and how AD have to deal with 3 apps doing almost the same thing.

-----------------------------------------------
Ahmidou Lyazidi
Director | TD | CG artist
http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
http://www.cappuccino-films.com

2013/7/31 Eric Thivierge <ethiv...@gmail.com>

[Matt Lind]

Originally known as ‘Softimage Digital Studio’ and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage’s attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment.  The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN).  The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. 

 

After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer.  Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid’s horrible customer service and old code base.  Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later.

 

As for Sumatra…..the intention was to share the same core as DS and also integrate ‘Twister’ (special interactive version of mental ray).  However it was later discovered that was not possible if the products were to all exist and be competitive.  So, Sumatra was split off onto its own core and somewhat rushed because it was 1998 and very late to market, and chasing the then newly released Maya 1.0.  That is partly why some features are not as well integrated as others.  For example, why animation edits do not log in the script editor.  The other stuff you’ll have to ask one of the former developers.

--

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Chris might be a bit too high up.

Soft got two "new" product manager/designer who have been kinda absent.

Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess.

I think he did introduce himself on the list... maybe. At some point. Or it was possibly another list, and another Daniel. I don't know.

Don't bash on Chris (Chia) though, the guy has been consistently doing more than a lot of other people in the face of some really rude response. You can argue it might or might not be his job to, but you gain nothing from alienating him (or Luc-Eric, or Graham) from the list.

[Emilio Hernandez]

This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute

Like render engines except MR I guess...  Exocortex, Eric Mootz's, etc...  I will wait and see... I hope at least this SDK changes will lead us to better and new features.

One thing I can say is that at least I've seen more good stuff made with Softimage, like the chimp add, Zambezia, and Johnny Walker's Bruce Lee although this last one was shared in the pipeline with Maya. 

2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi <ahmid...@gmail.com>

--

[Emilio Hernandez]

Thanks for the update Matt.   I bought one DS when it came out on the Intergraph platform and it was rock solid.  I feel old... My first Softimage 3D workstation was a TDZ-310 with Dual Pentium Pro at 150Mhz... hahaha.  State of the art machine those days.

2013/7/30 Raffaele Fragapane <raffsx...@googlemail.com>

--

[Eric Thivierge]

Not sure if directed at me Raf but I did add that first bit about "not to disrespect Chris...". I was pointing out basically what you said. He's being the most vocal when it should be someone else who is giving us most of our information.

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

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane
<raffsx...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Chris might be a bit too high up.
> Soft got two "new" product manager/designer who have been kinda absent.
>
> Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more
> or less, I guess.

the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory

[Raffaele Fragapane]

OOOOK... that wasn't very long lived.

Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy.

[Steven Caron]

wow, changed again?

*written with my thumbs

On Jul 30, 2013, at 7:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>

[Emilio Hernandez]

OOOOK... that wasn't very long lived.

Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy.

Hahahaha

2013/7/30 Raffaele Fragapane <raffsx...@googlemail.com>

--

[Gustavo Eggert Boehs]

what a mess :/

[Eric Thivierge]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com> wrote:

the Softimage product manager is Cory.  Daniel no longer works for Cory

Oh for fucks sake! Seriously!?!?! That's it I vote for Chris Chia.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Matt Lind <ml...@carbinestudios.com> wrote:

Originally known as ‘Softimage Digital Studio’ and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage’s attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment.  The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN).  The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. 

 

After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer.  Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid’s horrible customer service and old code base.  Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later.

Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet.  The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead.

I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS.  What weird things to just drop here as facts.

The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. 

[Massimo Galluzzo]

Made my day LoL (night actually)

 

From: Raffaele Fragapane

Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 4:34 AM

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

Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

 

[Matt Lind]

They are facts Luc-Eric.  Digging up the data is a bit difficult due to the archived nature, but here is a link to show I’m not blowing smoke:

 

Discreet logic vs. Softimage (search for ‘softimage’ in the text)

http://tinyurl.com/munclsx

 

I *think* I have a hard copy at home with the settlement decided at $200M CDN.  It was settled about the same time Microsoft acquired Softimage.  I once heard Microsoft decided to settle just to be rid of the problem and paid them off.

 

As for the Avid folks, I know at least Mike Stojda left Avid to head up the DS project at Softimage and a few devs did too.

 

 

Matt

 

 

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:39 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!

 

 

 

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Matt Lind <ml...@carbinestudios.com> wrote:

[Steven Caron]

i seem to remember what matt has listed, not from matt either, about microsoft wanting to take out the competing OS, irix.

[Sylvain Lebeau]

cough.... you remember me with my past rants i am sure.

I've tried to calm down...

Just bought 5 more Softimage seats today. Growing the user base is the best thing to do to make share holders go in the direction we all want.  But we are such a small army alltogheter. We are the inglorious basterds of the 3D industry unfortunatly. But in the film, they kinda win!!  :-)  wich is not what is going to happen to us... i think. 

Chris, Luc-Eric, Stefan and your team in singapore..... just dont give up! I think you really do a great job at trying to support such a passionate and intimate micro user base.

I am still quite happy with the bug fixes list from 2014. Even tough I ranted about the camera sequencer....  And also i am amazed about the responsiveness for our problem we've had here with accessing the ICE data attributes and the fixes to the SDK leading to SP2. This was fast and i felt at home again.

Autodesk, do what apple did when releasing OSX.  A major cut.  They started on fresh new modern foundations.  I am ready to asbsorb the cost of our pipeline tools rewrite if you come with a master app bringing togheter the power of the big 3s.  It's the only way out.

Merge the Fu** all of your patents togheter in this next gen uber app. It is the only way to keep up against the others. The foundry are comming hardcore and they will integrate Modo with Katana, Mari and Nuke.  Also, Side effects are a good bunch of listening passionate fellows too. Thoses guys really strive for something new and refreshing. You cannot sit laid back on maya, xsi and max and hope to make your trimestrial performance in terms of incomes for years to come. You are rellying on too old technologies in my opinion. That's what will not only bring softimage to it's knees, but all of your grandpa 3d apps. Something is really happening out there, and you seem's to only put the meal to the microwave oven.

The only thing we all miss, is the real will for innovation, passion and devotion at Autodesk. Something that is very present everywhere around.  Best exemple is blender..... open source....free...... WAKE UP.!!!

Are we at the Stalingrad battle for 3D market supremacy? Of course we are! And Autodesk is way behind so far for the lead.


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>

[Raffaele Fragapane]

@Matt: I think Soft was sold to MS for a lot less than 300. Tempted to say less than half that. Mostly I remember MS making a good profit, and I was around and not long after that joined Avid. MS -> Avid is the one that scratched close to 300M I think.

@Luc-Eric

Matt has better memory than you in this case :)

REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- SOFTIMAGE and Discreet Logic, Inc. announced today they have settled a dispute over the ownership and distribution rights to the image-processing software FLAME.  Under the terms of the settlement, both companies have agreed that Discreet Logic is the owner of FLAME and that Discreet Logic will continue to distribute FLAME.  The parties have agreed to keep the terms of the agreement confidential, and no further information will be released.
    SOFTIMAGE develops, markets and supports a fully integrated family of interactive software tools that enables designers and animators to create high-quality, photo-realistic 2-D and 3-D imagery.  In June 1994, SOFTIMAGE became a fully owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation.
    NOTE:  Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. SOFTIMAGE is a registered trademark of SOFTIMAGE, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation.
    -0-                         10/12/94
    /CONTACT:  Press Only:  Leslie Kesselring or Lisa MacKenzie of Waggener Edstrom, 503-699-0856/
    (MSFT)

And I would argue the most common interpretation of MS buying Soft wasn't cool rubbing off, that was considered a nice side effect at best, but more wedging into highly scaling/highly performing focused markets in a non-corporate way, and graphics were picked as the venue for that. See NT 3.5.1

That's what I heard most of the time from most of the well informed people who've operated at the necessary altitude to hazard a guess.

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com> wrote:

Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet.  The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead.

I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS.  What weird things to just drop here as facts.

The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. 

[Emilio Hernandez]

The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them.

This is more the story I know.  So they develop with Intergraph the first NT based workstation with Open GL for 3D, featuring Softimage 3D.  I bought the TDZ-310 for $21,000 if I can remember well.  The Indigo loaded with Softimage was around $35,000 If my memory does not fail me...  DS was shipped with Interstorage and in a Studio Z.  When Avid bought Softimage the DS system changed to an IBM.  And in fact Avid DS never performed as good as the Softimage DS 2.0.

But hey, we were talking about buying Softimage from AD...

2013/7/30 Luc-Eric Rousseau <luce...@gmail.com>

--

[Sylvain Lebeau]

fun facts folks….i admit….

how about what's comming up next?….

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>

[Raffaele Fragapane]

You mean Bifrost? :p

[Ahmidou Lyazidi]

Nah, maya FX! ;)

-----------------------------------------------
Ahmidou Lyazidi
Director | TD | CG artist
http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
http://www.cappuccino-films.com

2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane <raffsx...@googlemail.com>

[Emilio Hernandez]

Softimaya...

2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi <ahmid...@gmail.com>

--

[Sylvain Lebeau]

naaaann …

SoftiMayaMudFBXmax

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>

[Gustavo Eggert Boehs]

...MoBuCad123456d?

2013/7/31 Sylvain Lebeau <s...@shedmtl.com>

--
Gustavo E Boehs
http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/blog

[Gustavo Eggert Boehs]

oh yeah 360cloudadvantagepack, almost forgot :D

2013/7/31 Gustavo Eggert Boehs <gust...@gmail.com>

[Sylvain Lebeau]

Ahhhh common gang….. am i the only one that think's we need to reset the whole thing? …  

Softimage had a 2 gigs maximum size for a scene……. it is now 4 gigs…… and we've already hit that mark here…… 

giga polygon core? ..  Is this next gen?  

pffff

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>

[Emilio Hernandez]

So let's call it "The Sausage 3D".

2013/7/30 Sylvain Lebeau <s...@shedmtl.com>

--

[Angus Davidson]

Have been having this fun little debate off and on with Luc eric for a while now. Mostly on the si community forums. Firstly while we dont always agree I have a tremendous amount of respect for both him , Graham and recently Chris who are really do a great job of trying to hold things together. ( I also add the Singapore team in this as they have been given a hospital pass of note)

The problem they are facing boils down to the following.

What they have in the code base (even if parts of it have have fairly major updates) is a very old foundation. this means that there is always issues with either how fast you can work with stuff, or even if you can work with stuff, You are in effect always constrained by the lowest common denominator. They just cannot hope to compete with the other industry players who are at the moment out doing them in pretty much every way except hoovering up subscriptions. They just cant hope to keep on buying up little firms doing cool stuff and hope it will keep things going forever.

As I posted before I think how they have handled Naiad technically has been right (PR wise was a disater) What I hope they are doing is keeping their new tech acquisitions in a way that can plug into any app. This allows them the freedom to be working on a new one app to rule the all. If they are not doing this with that intent they are well and truely shafted. 

They need as Sylvain pointed out the radical shift like Apple (did with mac os x) had the balls to do. I personally think they need to go further then just the app and really work on where the app runs as well. Accelerated Driver support for the quadro cards has been abysmal. My ponkey donk games card  kicks my quadros ass in pretty much every aspect except cost.

Their other main problem is perception. Right now they have a very big problem with people questioning whether ADSK is still valid and worth their subscription fees. For pretty much everyone I personally know and from what I can see quite a few folks on the list has dropped their subscription (or is in the process of for next year). I will also most likely not be renewing our EDU sub next year. I know they are forced to hide behind bureaucratic BS of not releasing roadmaps. However if they dont tell folks exactly what is happening they wont need one as all of their customers would have left. A breakdown of where our subs go for one would be great.

While the SI people are some of the most amazing passionate about their software I have had the honor of knowing. More and more of them are getting tired of being treated like mushrooms. 

---

From: Sylvain Lebeau [s...@shedmtl.com]
Sent: 31 July 2013 04:57 AM

--

This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.

[Sylvain Lebeau]

hmmmmmmm il like sausages!!!! …… 

with hot mustard!!

:-)

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>

[Raffaele Fragapane]

I think it's worth pointing out that Bifrost wasn't a PR disaster (handling of Naiad post acquisition possibly a bit), one disgruntled max fanboi went off on a rant afyer a few videos for a tech demo were shown hosted in Maya for a technology that's not even dependent on Maya to begin with past using it as a host app.

It wasn't supposed to go anywhere, it wasn't supposed to do much, but disgruntled noobs will go to extremes to create a storm in a glass of water (the guy from max underground has been spamming that article that he's updating with links to AD employee comments in several spots on CGS and other websites, trying to fish for hits I guess).

You can find a long list of PR disasters, and a long list of issues with AD, their software, and how the two relate. The response to Bifrost though is so completely out of proportion and non-sensical it really boggles the mind.

It's like if you showed your clients a test for a separate personal project behind closed doors to lure them in and then found out they wrote an angry dissertation and had it published on Variety with misquotings and interpretations stated as facts the day after.

Go for it, have a go and give them feedback. But for now I suggest you ignore the whole bifrost debacle, it's degenerated beyond belief.

If I was anybody involved on AD's side in this by now I'd probably be furious, and I doubt they can do much about it since the rep backlash if they asked the website to can the article would be horrible. They tried to stem it by commenting in there, but since they're the bad guys they can't win it, and people are re-interpreting every post again and again.

[Ludovick Michaud]

For those really wondering

Microsoft bought Softimage in 1994 from Daniel Langlois for $130 mil 

Then Avid bought Softimage in 1998 from Microsoft for $285 mil 

Finally Autodesk bought Softimage in 2008 from Avid for $35 mil (the 3D part only)

With that in mind.

Microsoft primary goals where to bring the 3D platform to the windows world, they had a feeling this 3D thing was gonna be big and they wanted their share of the os platform. Also if they made the move smart by creating new toys such as DS that they could actually make a profit. With that said Microsoft never shipped Softimage XSI, AVID did. Goes to prove the point that Microsoft didn't really care about Softimage more than they cared about my above statement.

Finally AVID, as many of you stated earlier in this thread and other thread, didn't have a freaking clue about 3D and what to do with it. They cared much more about DS than they cared about anything else. Trust me I was there when we created a suite in DS that was doing basic 3D. Such an interesting time. Of course that never saw the light of day. (thank to whatever gods out there). 

Autodesk, I believe, don't really care about which is which. They sell Maya more than any other 3D platform because it's where the money comes the most from and where they get the biggest marketing from (think all the making of out there, how many are max or Softimage compare to Maya?) 

Autodesk is following the simple marketing pattern of any products. Softimage, Max and Maya are simply smarties, m&m. Just like those product its supply and demands. And I believe Sylvain is absolutely right, as long as they're will be plenty of people spending their hard earned money (just like you Greg) I don't believe it'll ever be a waste. They'll keep supporting it even if it means to have a team of 15 peoples developing on it (@Greg, I didn't know you had that many fingers on your hands). 

Eventually even if all three products failed in some weird way because Houdini, Modo and Blender took over. Like many of you claimed in other thread it's only 3% of their profits. 

At this point guys as many of you know all these three apps have their pros and cons. I know for a fact that Maya is probably the only software out there used as a container for software/TD developing solutions for it. At one of the last company I worked for, I have it for a fact that at least 10 major facilities only use Maya as a Container to write their own tools and most often then none the users barely use the tools offered with Maya. They have a better pyQt options for creating meshes or for animating. 

Max, well I have to say, I have seen in the past 3 years folks that can use a 3D app like I've never seen anyone do. They were FAST and FURIOUS. Why? because of all those plugins built for the app. Were the results better or worst, nah it's all based on the user who creates the asset or the explosion. To be honest though I still hated my time with Max, but I can say with certainty that I understand why it's still so widely used, especially in the game industry. 

Softimage, oh dear Softimage 2.66 Creative environment. My first time ever on an IRIX system. That purple and gray modeling module that opened up for the first time on my screen. Wow I still remember that day. Really though, in the end Softimage is between Max and Maya. Although Stronger than Maya by miles. Softimage is still closed compare to Houdini or Maya. See how complexed it used to be to share between apps until Autodesk came into the picture. But they offer the best solutions on so many levels (animation, mixer, passes, ICE, arguably polygonal modeling...) and to this day I still always want to find in other apps the simple deform by curve that Softimage has since almost day one. I remember teaching this class of veterans and this young lady spent 15 min trying to explain to me that they had to write a basic form of curve deform in Maya. I couldn't get it because I couldn't believe Maya (oh the powerful and all mighty Maya) didn't have such a feature. She wanted to know if such incredible feature could be written for Softimage. After figuring out what she was talking about and showing her the tool and it's incredible features she still wanted to know if I could write a curve deform tool in Softimage...

My point to all this, each app have their strengths and weaknesses. A Uber app, I don't believe in that, you loose too much by doing so, think about the development cycles (I've lived the dev cycle of an app written from ground up for 3D, it's not pretty), think about how many of us will simply walk next door and start using Modo and Houdini or even just plain blender (great app btw, not trying to sound condescending here). It doesn't make sense in any marketing point of view. The why I believe after 5 years we still haven't heard anything concrete about a Uber app. Ok plenty of rumors, but nothing real or solid. 

What make sense is history, Max was the first 3D app based on a previous 3D app (autocad and 3ds), Maya even if they had bullshit modeling, power animator as their foundation for animation when it first came out and to this day still the worst rendering engine. They came out first and marketing went NUTS giving it away to all the schools that were ready to listen and that were amazed by Bingo (who wasn't at the time). From there you built a user based bigger than anything else around and it cost them big. Look how many times they were floating around between buyers or different owners. But hey they still stand. Not so much because they are so good but rather because anyone that has over 10 years of experience is either a user of a dead software (Softimage creative environment) or Maya. And most companies out there have huge amount of money invested in Maya. Softimage in the other hand as far as history goes, Microsoft used it to bring 3D to the world of windows and held it back to inflate it's value along with a 2D options for editing/conforming. Hence the huge sales tag. When Softimage came out. The only real customer I saw where the Softimage ones that were still holding true to an amazing invention. Unfortunately at that point at least 1/3 of the old softies were gone already to a Maya ruled world. 

That's marketing for you. @Greg, no you didn't waste your money. As Sylvain stated, you're doing the right thing even though it doesn't feel that way. @the rest of this phenomenal list. Hang in there guys, it's hard I know but no matter what, even if support died tomorrow on Softimage, I have full confidence that most of you will hang to your copies as long as you can and that someone will most likely buy the code and keep it's life. I'd really hate to see the work of incredible talents go to nothingness and I truly believe that Softimage will keep strong. See what NAD is doing, not only are they one of the strongest school around in Canada. They're expending to other cities, continents around the world. And guess what they teach; primarily Softimage. If that doesn't say anything I don't know what else. When I hear that folks like Sylvain buy 5 more seats, I feel good about our future because I know that he's not the only one.  

Don't give up just yet. There is still fight in all of us obviously. Whether they mentioned us at Siggraph or not, really doesn't matter anyway. Frankly what's Siggraph for anymore. Students and folks like me looking for work? I was at Sig 1998 (my first one) and man has this thing gone down since then and even then folks were saying how it had come down from it's origins back in 1998, it is after all an ACM convention. 

And as much as Luc-Eric still speaks up, he believe as much as most of us do that Softimage isn't dead just yet. Nor will it really ever die. Daniel Langlois created an amazing world back then and it's up to us to keep it up by using it every day and empowering folks like Thiago and Marcos and others spending so much time and energy creating amazing tools/software/plugins working though Softimage and making it a much more powerful platform everyday. 

My rant for more than 2 cents. 

Good night folks.

Ludo

[Szabolcs Matefy]

Exactly how many developers Softimage really has?

 

I doubt if Mudbox will be implemented in Maya, but who knows what AD is planning. It is sure the Softimage is not on their hot topic list.

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Greg Punchatz
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 12:23 AM
To: Softimage List
Subject: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

 

 As I find out more and more about what is going on behind the scenes at at AD in regards to Softimage (plus all the others) the more and more angry I get.  And frankly the more I want my support money back, seriously.

This has been a huge bait and switch scam....  I feel like I have been consistently lied to about the future of Soft, there is even a video of a "product manager of the week"  telling me the future of Softimage is good on the Autodesk site.  Buyers remorse is one thing, but frankly no one has been honest with us about where all of this was headed, in fact I would say that I was deliberately lied to by the PR machine that is AD. The video of Daniel Tutino talking about the future of softimage is a prime example of AD misleading us. What's  sad if you watch the video, he is acting like a really bad liar .  ( I have the video downloaded just in case I need it to back up my case against AD.)

 First off I wish I would have NEVER bought a suite... I did not want a single dollar of mine going to support Maya, but apparently if you jumped on the suite bandwagon your money went toward a bazzilion Maya developers,  even if you checked "softimage is my main interest"  in the AD suite surveys.  I wanted a Softimage branded suite for that very reason.  Now from what I gather soft has less developers than my hand has fingers, and Maya has over a hundred??  WTF are all those developers working on, really? 100 devs working under the bad management of AD guys cant even compete with 15 devs working at an under funded Softimage run by Avid .

 I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised.  Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums.... Do the powers that be at AD still think putting everything into one app makes sense?? There is a reason why niche products do a better job at niche work :)

I would be happy with if AD made an attempt at a next gen app, I would give that a shot....but I passed on Maya for a reason. 

I paid my support so Softimage could be developed further....not so AD could put a nail in its coffin.

Feeling like I just got robbed... is there something we can do as a group to get our voices heard?  Anyone know any good lawyers that will work for next years support money ;)

--

---

Greg Punchatz

Sr. Creative Director
Janimation
214.823.7760
www.janimation.com

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Last time I heard a definite figure it was 12, later on I heard a not-as-reliable 14.

I'd say between 10-15 actual developers sounds like the realistic ballpark (without management etc).

Don't think Maya has hundreds though :)

I think currently one of the largest, if not the largest, permanently staffed (so exclude temp contractors and third parties) might actually be C4D's.

[Jordi Bares]

I could safely say that since the acquisition it has been a downhill experience and I can only think on blaming AD management, whoever the decision makers are now let's make sure we keep an eye on them as it is very likely they will f*ck everything else they touch.

Strategic thinking only, nothing personal.

Jordi Bares

jordi...@gmail.com

[Jordi Bares]

I meant "wherever the decision makers are now.." or course.

Jordi Bares

jordi...@gmail.com

[Oliver Weingarten]

This IS ridicules...what a mess!!

And yes...this hand full of fixes over the past two years were not worth 1800 Euro. There would be so many things that need an upgrade...
But for now there is no alternative to Soft right now.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Ahmidou Lyazidi <ahmid...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Nah, maya FX! ;)

hey, could you please stop posting stuff like like this? When I
switched the maya team I said I joined the Maya FX team. That's the
name of the team that handles simluation and nucleus, etc, like saying
this other guy's title "software developer, Maya Rendering" or "team
leader, Softimage UI". When you saw my title on linked in as "project
leader - compositing" did you really think there was going to be a
product called "Compositing"? dumb.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

This thread is a gift that keeps on giving.

It's now officially got better than Dexter season 2 and is just about near catching up to Breaking Bad.

If AD should take anything from it it's probably not so much the hate and the mis-trust (although there is such a thing as getting a hint :) ), it's probably that they're at that point where they really, really need more transparency and clearer comm channels.

It takes hundreds of threads and e-mails, public and private, to barely form a very fuzzy picture of what is going on.

While small companies and start-ups have to face the problem of client insecurity (as a client can you promise me you will exist in six months?), the large ones would do well to remember they are confusing. Asterix in Rome, Gilliam's Brazil confusing :)

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

Ice³

--

Joey

__________________________________________________

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

represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sylvain Lebeau

Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 12:20 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

[Tim Crowson]

This thread is simultaneously awesome and horrendous. I need anti-depressants....

-Tim

--

 

 

[Sebastien Sterling]

http://area.autodesk.com/mayaleapplugin

Meanwile ! Yay ! Warning ! its like a sick parody of kinect for maya so not for the faint hearted !, i wonder if any user money went into this, or if some resourceful little dude just cooked it up by himself?

"Give your users the ability to imagine, design, and create in true 3D space."

[Daniel Brassard]

Madness????

This is Sparta! [kicks the AD messenger into the deep well]

[Cristobal Infante]

"get busy living or get busy dying" see you guys in Zihuatanejo

[Jon Swindells]

just as i was getting some work done too.

damn you!

On 31 July 2013 23:42, Cristobal Infante <cgc...@gmail.com> wrote:

"get busy living or get busy dying" see you guys in Zihuatanejo

--
Jon Swindells
squ...@gmail.com

[Mirko Jankovic]

leap thing may look cool.. for first coupe minutes.. let me see you holding your hands up in the air for longer than 15 minutes alone.. not to mention couple hours...

completely useless waste of time and money if you ask me

[Raffaele Fragapane]

When you look at how easy it is to produce controlled and interesting frequencies with your hand (things such as a beat, accel/decel etc.) an 80 bucks device that can sample 10 sources accurately at 200hz is very, very far from useless :)

Yes, fatigue onset would make it a silly thing to orbit the camera with for 8-12 hrs a day, but it's not like that's all you need to do is it? Surely there are things you only have to do a few minutes every hour or more that could use a sampling like that.

Currently we have some things that translate well through hardware interfaces, and some things that translate poorly, or not at all. Additional input for something as natural as gestures is definitely something animators want, they probably just don't know they do quite yet.

I know I've discussed this with some (animators) 10 years ago and a precise, cheap, on-desk hand capture device was a wet dream. When one comes out, everybody goes luddite?! Curse you animators!

BTW writing something to use these devices, when they have a good SDK, is actually very, very easy. The data acquisition side of things is never a problem if the SDK is good.

[Rares Halmagean]

Neat. I'm all for improving the interface between user and app but as a modeler, sculptor and texture artist I can see myself getting some serious hand fatigue with this. There needs to be some feedback to be of any long term use.

--
Rares Halmagean
___________________________________
visual development and 3d character & content creation.
rarebrush.com

[Emilio Hernandez]

An interface for putting the model in the UI just as I picture in my mind, will be neat!

2013/7/31 Rares Halmagean <ra...@rarebrush.com>

--

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Tactile feedback for 80 bucks might be a long way to come :).

There was a pressure based feedback piece at Siggraph this year that was interesting, but while pulse feedback (bursts of air pressure) is relatively easy and cheap to come up with, a continued feedback like the feeling of manipulating something solid, or even a high density fluid, in free space has a ton of conceptual unsolved problems (hands interference for one, one hand in front of another on the line of emission alone would send the feedback to the back of one hand instead of the fingers of the other).

Wouldn't hold my breath for that.

I think it shortsighted to ignore gesture feedback as irrelevant without force feedback though. The iPhone proved that much a few years ago :p

[Pingo van der Brinkloev]

omfg I'm switching right now! So if I pour a glass of beer into the keyboard I'm gonna get a realtime Bifrost flooding sim :)

[Jon Swindells]

Way back when (xsi 7 had just been released) i coded a xsi interface for my behringer mixer. going from a static mouse driven facial animation setup to something with

tactile and physical feedback (behringer had automated faders) was a huge leap forward for immersion in the scene and it sped the workflow up immensely.

had a long break from cg/coding and i was quite shocked at the lack of any kind of hardware implementation for animators. i couldn't' even find a simple xsi plug for a webcam veiwport.

i see masses of improvements for modelling/texturing and rendering workflows but the animation part seems to have been missed (or i've missed it).

there's a lot to be said for any device that gets your hands out of the ui and i'd love to see what can be done with such a simple and cheap device. might even splash out on one myself

   

On 1 August 2013 00:44, Raffaele Fragapane <raffsx...@googlemail.com> wrote:

When you look at how easy it is to produce controlled and interesting frequencies with your hand (things such as a beat, accel/decel etc.) an 80 bucks device that can sample 10 sources accurately at 200hz is very, very far from useless :)

Yes, fatigue onset would make it a silly thing to orbit the camera with for 8-12 hrs a day, but it's not like that's all you need to do is it? Surely there are things you only have to do a few minutes every hour or more that could use a sampling like that.

Currently we have some things that translate well through hardware interfaces, and some things that translate poorly, or not at all. Additional input for something as natural as gestures is definitely something animators want, they probably just don't know they do quite yet.

I know I've discussed this with some (animators) 10 years ago and a precise, cheap, on-desk hand capture device was a wet dream. When one comes out, everybody goes luddite?! Curse you animators!

BTW writing something to use these devices, when they have a good SDK, is actually very, very easy. The data acquisition side of things is never a problem if the SDK is good.

--
Jon Swindells
squ...@gmail.com

[Paul Doyle]

I got a Leap just so I can gesture to go through slides and other NI stuff that's quite mundane but useful (and cool as anything in my book). I think there are some fascinating possibilities for using the leap for animating/capturing with gestures. The fidelity of a mouse/tablet is often needed, but there are areas where gestures might be preferable (not just for fingers). It's still very early days for NI - I won't be satisfied until I can get all Minority Report without the haptics. Then watch my soul die as I use it for powerpoint.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Where is the like button?

[Rares Halmagean]

Oh I think it may be useful for non fine motor tasks, just not drawing, sculpting, and similar tasks. And you do have to touch the iphone to manipulate, therefore feedback, or is there an app I don' t know about that allows the same without touching the screen (:/?

You make some good point about the state of the art in gesture manipulation. Shooting in the dark but I think maybe it's safe to say we'll have a market viable brainwave application manipulator before a hand gesture solution.

[Cesar Saez]

Have you guys seen this review?
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/hands-on-with-the-leap-motion-controller-cool-but-frustrating-as-hell/

[Steven Caron]

i am a bit biased but check these guys out...

http://www.threegear.com/

i know one of the devs, he is ILM alum, very talented. best part about them they are purely software and can work with various hardware configs... including the proven kinect

[Sebastien Sterling]

Afraid we are at odds again Raff :) i just can't see it, it seems gimmicky as all hell. a glorified web browser. there is a kind of uncanny valley effect when it comes to motion controls and user interaction, the closer you try to bring the technology to 1:1 user interaction the more unsettling the feedback.

I'm sure at some stage we'll breach that paradigm, however this clearly, desperately isn't it. at best its an interesting little tech demo, at any rate knee jerk statements like :

              "Give your users the ability to imagine, design, and create in "TRUE" 3D space."

This is clearly yet another example of AD's thumb eluding the pulse of its user base; its the kind of statement you expect to see on a kinect box, not on a highly specialised DCC app

[Raffaele Fragapane]

IMO it is a matter of "not seeing it" here, yes. It's a sampling device that allows to sample things that you can control in an extremely intuitive manner that you simply had no access to before (your hands and the amazing motion they can produce that no tacticle feedback interface or servo could ever have a hope to emulate, PARTICULARLY not at 200Hz).

I'm not talking about the AD plugin or how they sell it, I'm talking about the general idea of free space sampling on your desk for 80 bucks.

I heard similar "can't see it" arguments about finger based, capacito-resistive tracking on screen being ridiculous and never as good as a pen, because you would get view obstruction, time ago.

In layman terms that was people with a rigid view of HID, UIs and GUIs saying the iPhone would have never worked and that pen inputs like the old win CE phones would have made a come back.

Time will tell :)

I'm looking forward to switching tabs in my browser while sitting back comfortably by waving a hand :)

[Ahmidou Lyazidi]

I remember that "MAYA FX" was also used to define the whole simulation toolset.
Anyway, I'm sorry if I hurt you,It wasn't meant to and It was definitely not directed to you or someone at all.

Now to come back to Greg's feeling and about the regular AD bashing and climate on this list since the acquisition,
if there is something to blame, it's how AD pushed Softimage in a corner and didn't treat it as equal as it's brother apps.

When you have a product that is well installed and another that have a great potential, you generally focus

your communication efforts on the latest. Instead it's almost invisible, has been pushed in suites as a "companion" and reduced to ICE.
At some points, Softimage was very popular for commercials where you need

work very fast, that could have been something pushed, but today and it has been said many time on the list,

people barely even know SI is still here, or even what it is...

From the outside, it just look like AD didn't know what to do with his new toy, and still don't.

Too bad there never was a step made in that direction(communication and visibility) but words.

-----------------------------------------------
Ahmidou Lyazidi
Director | TD | CG artist
http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos
http://www.cappuccino-films.com

[Morten Bartholdy]

They probably pull straws at AD every two weeks to see who has to wear that hat for a while...

 

MB

 

Den 31. juli 2013 kl. 04:34 skrev Raffaele Fragapane <raffsx...@googlemail.com>:

OOOOK... that wasn't very long lived.

Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy.

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau < luce...@gmail.com > wrote:

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane
< raffsx...@googlemail.com > wrote:
> Chris might be a bit too high up.
> Soft got two "new" product manager/designer who have been kinda absent.
>
> Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more
> or less, I guess.

the Softimage product manager is Cory.  Daniel no longer works for Cory

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 4:21 AM, Morten Bartholdy <x...@colorshopvfx.dk> wrote:
> They probably pull straws at AD every two weeks to see who has to wear that
> hat for a while...

it's not that bad.. as far as I know, it's just back to Cory (who took
over after chinny left) full time instead of part-time...

[Raffaele Fragapane]

It might help to defuse things a bit though if things were clearer, as we will tend to assume the worst if uninformed. There is some knee jerk, but from outside the view isn't quite as clear as it is from where you stand Luc-Eric.

Is this a reshuffle and Daniel has just been offset elsewhere, or was someone on Soft actually cut off? Former wouldn't be as bad if Cory will be able to be a full time PM this time around (is he on this list? I actually like the guy). Latter might be more discouraging.

[Morten Bartholdy]

 

 

When Chinny was around no one here were in doubt what was going on at Softimage and who was in charge - he was very vocal and made sure we were in the loop regarding development (as far as was possible outside the company). Nowadays, we don't even know who is in charge, excepth because you tell us - why don't we have Cory introducing himself and explaining on this list what is going on so all the speculation could be put to rest??

Morten

[Andy Moorer]

I recall watching my grandfather work for hours on end silversmithing, using both hands to manipulate 3d objects with gestures both coarse and fine.

All of these demos tend to forget to take a few minutes to look at how artisans who actually use their hands with real life 3d objects avoid fatigue. They don't stretch their arms out towards a screen.

People have spent endless hours manipulating stuff using both hands since the first time we slapped a couple of flint rocks together, but after a single lifetime of manipulating a computer mouse we can't conceive of working all day using 10 fingers lol.

I believe the ancient technique to avoid fatigue is called "propping the elbows." We have a "manipulation space" where we can comfortably perform gestures in 3d space for hours on end, it is where the averaged normal of one's chest and face intersect, and is often where we find one's magazine, cellphone, vinyl toy under inspection, or lunch. The major concern for future computing may not be fatigue but competition for use of this limited and precious volume. ;)

[Greg Maguire]

Well articulated Andy. Presses 'Like' button.

--

Greg Maguire | Inlifesize
Mobile: +44 7512 361462 | Phone: +44 2890 204739
gr...@inlifesize.com | www.inlifesize.com

[Paul Griswold]

I have 2 Leap controllers at the moment.  I'd thought about offering to lend one of them out to anyone who might be able to develop something for Softimage with them.

They're really accurate, but there's just nothing available that's useful to me.

-Paul

[John Richard Sanchez]

My Maya/ Softimage creation suite subscription expires on Monday. Should I renew? :)

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Jason Stambollian]

To me the similarity in situations between  Avid getting DS and AD getting SI
strikes me as both astonishing and unsurprising at the same time. (like a paradox)

(like huuge industry standard holding conglomerates, absorbing smaller perhaps intimidating and potentially gamechanging counterparts )

But after a decade+, DS is still (not so minimally) supported,  (DS V11 Features)
while the few DS users (far fewer than SI) have been complaining about exposure and anticipating "the end" since Day 1  of the 'not so new anymore' "regime".

 

Not that  could make it easier to consider getting stripped, assimilated and minimized as a "good thing" for any absorbed entity,

and of course there is lots of room for SI to be far less "un-prioritized" without putting a dent, if not expand sacred revenue streams.

 

 

But in the case of SI, it's not by chance that it can be this much supported by it's own userbase.

General mutual support, but also SI users coming-up with things that are nothing short of full blown features..

 

From in-viewport motion path editing driving SRT curves, to easy yet advanced auto-rig creation tools,

plus a constantly growing a-rray ;) of nifty tiny to quite elaborate ICE things that can do real things.

 

This level of support is perhaps in reaction to any possible & relative arrested development from upstairs,

but "not by chance" because for instance, somehow 3DS will always remain 3DS until it would be superseded by something else.

(without implying 3DS being at-all "bad", having it's own strengths and niches)

 

But even after several years and several new (some very good) features in these perhaps more mainstream solutions,
to this day (in 2013), anyone having experienced xSI (without access to coding departments ) in the heat of all sorts of VFX production contexts,
either tend to stick to it, or whish these other solutions were somehow more like it in a variety of (very much core) aspects,

and that is highly unlikely to change until something relatively revolutionary comes along.
(NOTE: no comment about how some solutions may have been made to me more common)

As many of you here would surely agree,
I think it mostly has to do with how it can *quite inherently* be as consistent, straightforward, & predictable.
how complexity is made simple,
or the particular balance ratio of artist/technical wherewithal requirements to get things working, nice & get things *done*
while remaining just as "friendly" for those that can be more technically literate or inclined.

Making the problem solving process of "3D" not so much of a pain if not actually easy, if not actually fun

while giving very good likelihoods of having your experiments, hunches, shots in the dark or whatever you happen to be cooking, be fruitful.
(the everything working with everythingness)

Like making "what you had in mind", or making "original" or making otherwise "cool" more accessible,
or like pushing the limit of what is actually possible within given time/resource limits.

In any event, I think SI developers really weren't kidding when they called-it "next-gen" : )
and that AD might want to consider that a <<true-er>> "SoftimaYa"

might be something that could more likely come out from  scratch, as opposed to merely adding (yet) more on top 
(of something that may have been already well on the "overcomplicated" side for a considerable range of project scales, almost from the start).

Nevertheless, saying that "the bar is high" for a new thing coming along would definatly be an understatement!

Thanks & Tip of the hat to you! : )

 

 

 

 

 

[Vladimir Jankijevic]

so that's where all your subscription money goes to: http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/extensionmaya

cheers everybody :P

[Eugen Sares]

Same for max:
http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/extension3dsmax

Wait, wasn't there a 3rd 3D application among those?

[Steffen Dünner]

2013/8/8 Eugen Sares <sof...@mail.sprit.org>

Wait, wasn't there a 3rd 3D application among those?

Yes, this: http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/extensionmudbox :(

Cheers

Steffen
--

PGP-ID(RSA): 0xD6E0CE93

Fingerprint: 879F 572C FEE4 9DE5 53A8 3C1C 22A9 C8DE D6E0 CE93

[Stephen Davidson]

I think I can shed light on where Autodesk is going, as far as Softimage is concerned.

Go to Google and search for "Autodesk Softimage".

What is the first paid search result? 

This is the one that Autodesk marketing paid Google money to display.

There is your answer.

--

Best Regards,
  Stephen P. Davidson 
       (954) 552-7956
    sdav...@3Danimationmagic.com

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

                                                                             - Arthur C. Clarke

[Angus Davidson]

For those of us who dont seem to get the paid results could you copy and paste ?

;)

---

From: Stephen Davidson [magi...@bellsouth.net]
Sent: 08 August 2013 06:20 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.

[Eric Turman]

>.<   Bleh: 

"

Ad related to Autodesk Softimage

1. Autodesk® Maya® 2014 - Autodesk.com

   www.autodesk.com/Maya
   Try The New, Upgraded Version Of Maya®. Download A Free Trial Today!
2. "

--




-=T=-

[Mirko Jankovic]

Autodesk Softimage visual effects and 3D game development software enables artists to create stunning character animation and visual effects.

Yes game development and they haven;t even try to make good connection to most popular game engines as well....

But they trying so hard to kill SI and it still doesn;t help says something how good actualy itis, after all updates given to Maya and still hard to push people from SI to it.. he

[Angus Davidson]

Well that explains a few things. ;(

---

From: Eric Turman [i.ani...@gmail.com]
Sent: 08 August 2013 06:35 PM

[Rob Wuijster]

i get this:

Advertentie met betrekking tot Autodesk Softimage

Softimage‎0297 591 413

www.aaadisplay.com/soft-image‎

Softimage: kwaliteit, licht & snel. Bekijk nu onze Prijslijst online!‎

Not sure to laugh or cry a little :-\

Rob

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

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2013.0.3392 / Virus Database: 3209/6558 - Release Date: 08/07/13

[Rares Halmagean]

Wow. Just wow. So anyone interested in checking out softimage and does a quick search would get a diversion like this from AD. Very telling.

[Rares Halmagean]

To be fair though, I think it's safe to assume most people would simply search 'softimage' which does put softimage at the top of the page.

[Matt Lind]

Bosley hair transplants?  What am I missing……besides hair?

 

 

Matt

 

 

 

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Davidson
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2013 9:21 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my moneyback!

 

I think I can shed light on where Autodesk is going, as far as Softimage is concerned.

[Gene Crucean]

I honestly don't know how anyone could just let AD do this to them and just roll over and switch to another AD product. We've been bitching about this for years now and the writing is definitely on the wall. This is Banksy level shit...

Houdini

Modo

Blender

C4D

etc...

... just sayin'

--

-Gene

www.genecrucean.com

[Gene Crucean]

I mean hey... we got FBX 2014 support!! What else do we need.

--

-Gene

www.genecrucean.com

[Jon Swindells]

I suggest you be a bit more gentle with AD. they must be feeling the pinch if they go begging for money from Blender :P

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQ-WgwkCEAAaAas.png

--
Jon Swindells
squ...@gmail.com