date:20140326

Those are the 3rd party libraries that means so much expense to shot down
Softimage???

Well, take those out from Softimage and we will talk to those guys to buy
separate licenses.

I believe we can make a deal with them as they will continue to recieve
money, and maybe they will be interested in further development.

Shave and a hair cut for Softimage?



---
Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.


2014-03-26 4:09 GMT-06:00 Rob Chapman tekano@gmail.com:

 Softimage Advanced...?   :)


 On 26 March 2014 08:37, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za wrote:

  I would be quite happy with a softimage without those techs.

  ;)

  or Softimage, here are the big things that are third party libraries
 that are part of the commercial offering:


 * Mental ray

 * Syflex

 * Shave and a hair cut

 * Physx

 * Lagoa

  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.

Re: Oculus Rift

2014-03-26 Thread Francisco Criado

If through fb, this arrives to the masses is better for our work, don't you
think? what better than OR helmet being bought by lot of people.
Maybe i'm missing some point here.
F.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:

Farmville 3d ;) Oh the Horror !

It really depends if this deal makes the Oculus Rift easily affordable
then its a good deal. Jon says it addresses some scaling issues which I am
assuming to be getting it ready for mass distribution.

From: Doeke Wartena
clankil...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','clankil...@gmail.com');

Reply-To:
softimage@listproc.autodesk.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','softimage@listproc.autodesk.com');
softimage@listproc.autodesk.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','softimage@listproc.autodesk.com');

Date: Wednesday 26 March 2014 at 10:26 AM
To:
softimage@listproc.autodesk.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','softimage@listproc.autodesk.com');
softimage@listproc.autodesk.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','softimage@listproc.autodesk.com');

Subject: Re: Oculus Rift

a man not FB :(
They probably fuck it up in some way to make more money.

2014-03-26 7:01 GMT+01:00 Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com:

that is one big f***k! really
if FB buy this I will ignore completly and wait for something else.

get ready for VR FB and FB games in VR full of adds crap...

I sooo hate that crapbook...

morning before coffee not good

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

On 3/25/2014 6:09 PM, Paul Doyle wrote:

yes, I'm gutted. What a shitty way to treat all the people that funded the
kickstarter with Luckey's vision of a completely open VR platform. We'll
probably still continue with the Fabric extension as even if we eventually
change to a different VR system a lot of the work will remain valid.

Meh.

On 25 March 2014 18:59, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

guys, have you checked news? wtf!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion

2014-03-20 22:41 GMT-03:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com:

We saw it and are excited :)

On 20 March 2014 21:33, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com
wrote:

Lack of programming knowledge (working on that) made me hire a freelance
progammer for an idea i would like to make it work, but here in Argentina
is quite difficult to find experienced coders involved in 3d or vfx. As you
said Paul, there are a lot of possibilities for mixing different kind of
tech available to all that would provide better tools for vfx artists and
supervisors.

On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

So far, everything we thought would be amazing has already been thought of
(which is great imo - I love the movement behind the OR):
http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/

It's nice to see how many people are pushing on this - I'm hopeful that
some of them will jump on the free license of Fabric a

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.

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread David Saber

Why not selling XSI to RedShift? That way the default renderer would be 
RedShift instead of MentalRay...


On 2014-03-26 11:35, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
Those are the 3rd party libraries that means so much expense to shot 
down Softimage???


Well, take those out from Softimage and we will talk to those guys to 
buy separate licenses.

Re: ot: visual scripting

2014-03-26 Thread Francisco Criado

Nicolas,
exactly what i thought when i saw it, would it be posible to use it for
procedural modeling or geo deformers for example? i never used udk just
learning unity, but i' ll begin to put more attention on unreal since this
blueprint stuff and the cleaner ui. Found that the material editor was very
similar to softimage workflow too :)
If you could briefly explain what is possible with blueprint current
tools compared to ice would be nice!
thanks,
F.


On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:

 They improved the good old Kismet A LOT!

 I'm porting some of my stuff from UDK to UE4 and stuff that you
 previously had to script are available through nodes, which is great!

 I'm currently checking how much geometry manipulation is possible using
 Blueprint nodes ( vertex editing, clusters, polys, ala ICE ), but right now
 there aren't so many options...
 Anyway its really fun to use :)


 2014-03-26 4:12 GMT+01:00 Francisco Criado 
 malcriad...@gmail.comjavascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','malcriad...@gmail.com');
 :

 Guys have you checked blueprint on unreal engine 4? very interesting for
 realtime!
 thay have cleaned the awfull ui udk used to have.

 F.

Re: Oculus Rift

Mark Zuckerberg is already pointing out Facebook's acquisition of
Instagram as an example of how the company is getting experience buying
properties and allowing them to continue to operate independently.
Zuckerberg called out virtual reality as one of the computing platforms of
the future -- following desktops and mobile -- and yes, talked about
building Facebook's advertising into it. *Specifically, he talked about the
potential of a virtual communication network, buying virtual goods, and
down the line, advertising.*

On 26 March 2014 06:48, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

If through fb, this arrives to the masses is better for our work, don't
you think? what better than OR helmet being bought by lot of people.
Maybe i'm missing some point here.
F.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:

Farmville 3d ;) Oh the Horror !

From: Doeke Wartena clankil...@gmail.com
Reply-To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Date: Wednesday 26 March 2014 at 10:26 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Oculus Rift

a man not FB :(
They probably fuck it up in some way to make more money.

2014-03-26 7:01 GMT+01:00 Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com:

that is one big f***k! really
if FB buy this I will ignore completly and wait for something else.

get ready for VR FB and FB games in VR full of adds crap...

I sooo hate that crapbook...

morning before coffee not good

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

On 3/25/2014 6:09 PM, Paul Doyle wrote:

Meh.

On 25 March 2014 18:59, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

guys, have you checked news? wtf!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion

2014-03-20 22:41 GMT-03:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com:

We saw it and are excited :)

On 20 March 2014 21:33, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com
wrote:

Lack of programming knowledge (working on that) made me hire a freelance
progammer for an idea i would like to make it work, but here in Argentina
is quite difficult to find experienced coders involved in 3d or vfx. As you
said Paul, there are a lot of possibilities for mixing different kind of
tech available to all that would provide better tools for vfx artists and
supervisors.

On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

So far, everything we thought would be amazing has already been thought
of (which is great imo - I love the movement behind the OR):
http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/

It's nice to see how many people are pushing on this - I'm hopeful that
some of them will jump on the free license of Fabric a

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.

Re: Oculus Rift

2014-03-26 Thread Francisco Criado

If fb today represents a part of your mixed virtual/real life in a 2d
plane, it means with OR adquisition, maybe, some second life style network?
but second life never had the success as expected...
F.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

Mark Zuckerberg is already pointing out Facebook's acquisition of
Instagram as an example of how the company is getting experience buying
properties and allowing them to continue to operate independently.
Zuckerberg called out virtual reality as one of the computing platforms of
the future -- following desktops and mobile -- and yes, talked about
building Facebook's advertising into it. *Specifically, he talked about
the potential of a virtual communication network, buying virtual goods, and
down the line, advertising.*

On 26 March 2014 06:48, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

If through fb, this arrives to the masses is better for our work, don't
you think? what better than OR helmet being bought by lot of people.
Maybe i'm missing some point here.
F.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:

Farmville 3d ;) Oh the Horror !

a man not FB :(
They probably fuck it up in some way to make more money.

2014-03-26 7:01 GMT+01:00 Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com:

that is one big f***k! really
if FB buy this I will ignore completly and wait for something else.

get ready for VR FB and FB games in VR full of adds crap...

I sooo hate that crapbook...

morning before coffee not good

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

On 3/25/2014 6:09 PM, Paul Doyle wrote:

yes, I'm gutted. What a shitty way to treat all the people that funded the
kickstarter with Luckey's vision of a completely open VR platform. We'll
probably still continue with the Fabric extension as even if we eventually
change to a different VR system a lot of the work will remain valid.

Meh.

On 25 March 2014 18:59, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

guys, have you checked news? wtf!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion

2014-03-20 22:41 GMT-03:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com:

We saw it and are excited :)

On 20 March 2014 21:33, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Helge! have you seen the new rift dev kit? they
have positional tracking now :) Quite str

Re: Oculus Rift

I have a feeling these kind of deals will have their ultimate impact on 
the whole Kickstarter business.

Why would I want to invest in some small company through Kickstarter,
when they use that money as a basis for a big sellout at some point in 
the near future?

Or is that too cynical?

Greetz
Leendert

--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: Oculus Rift

There are three main issues with it.

Firstly, raising money for OR via kickstarter and selling people on a dream
of an open VR platform. I don't think anyone is surprised that they took
$2b, but it still pisses people off as they that feel their money was used
to drive valuation for a facebook purchase. It's all well and good saying
'well they received DK1', but the point of getting DK1 was to build things
for the open consumer version of the OR.

That brings up the second point. The openness of OR will go away - you can
see from Zuckerberg's comments that their intent is around advertising
(rivetting stuff). This suggests fb will become pervasive in what you can
build for the OR and what requirements get introduced. Instead of an open
hardware initiative that allowed you to do whatever you wanted, we're going
to see that getting compromised.

Finally - Facebook are patent happy and are likely to go after competitors
in the VR space. This is going to limit the ability of competitors to come
into the market, and will stifle innovation. This is the way things go in
technology now.

However - John Carmack seems to be suggesting that OR would have hit
scaling problems without this deal. Manufacturing costs a lot of money and
$75m plus DK orders wouldn't have allowed them to do anything beyond off
the shelf components - so maybe this will end up with a better consumer
unit at the end of it.

If it's not open and the drive is no longer towards games then a lot of the
original backers and developers are going to jump ship (and already are).
The upside to this is that there is now room for a competitor to come in -
we might see Valve change their mind and introduce a consumer version of
their VR stuff. However, they'll have to build a new team and it's going to
take a long time - and they might get sued.

On 26 March 2014 07:12, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

Mark Zuckerberg is already pointing out Facebook's acquisition of
Instagram as an example of how the company is getting experience buying
properties and allowing them to continue to operate independently.
Zuckerberg called out virtual reality as one of the computing platforms of
the future -- following desktops and mobile -- and yes, talked about
building Facebook's advertising into it. *Specifically, he talked about
the potential of a virtual communication network, buying virtual goods, and
down the line, advertising.*

On 26 March 2014 06:48, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

If through fb, this arrives to the masses is better for our work, don't
you think? what better than OR helmet being bought by lot of people.
Maybe i'm missing some point here.
F.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.za
wrote:

Farmville 3d ;) Oh the Horror !

a man not FB :(
They probably fuck it up in some way to make more money.

2014-03-26 7:01 GMT+01:00 Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.com:

that is one big f***k! really
if FB buy this I will ignore completly and wait for something else.

get ready for VR FB and FB games in VR full of adds crap...

I sooo hate that crapbook...

morning before coffee not good

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rares Halmagean ra...@rarebrush.comwrote:

On 3/25/2014 6:09 PM, Paul Doyle wrote:

Meh.

On 25 March 2014 18:59, Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com wrote:

guys, have you checked news? wtf!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion

2014-03-20 22:41 GMT-03:00 Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com:

We saw it and are excited :)

On 20 March

Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

Oh god, only 5?  Well, off the top of my head.


Hypershade vs. Rendertree w/Compounds.  This one is a no brainer, they 
Hypershade is the same limited interface from early Maya releases.  While 
Soft’s Rendertree has input ports listed on each node, that are collapsible if 
you don’t want to see them, Maya tucks all that into a very 
inconvenient/convoluted connection editor pop-up that doesn’t even show data 
types for outputs and inputs.  Completely missing compounds, etc. etc., the 
Hypershade is dated and simply bad.


Little things, like pulling down a menu, and shift clicking display flags 
without having to constantly dive back into the menu or tear it off.


Little things, like one hotkey for parenting that depending on which mouse 
button you use, determines whether you set your selection as a child or the 
parent.


Sticky keys.  (aka like in photoshop when you alt-click to sample a color while 
painting, once you let go of alt, your are back to the paint brush without 
having to press ‘b’ again.


Sensible, brilliantly thought out defaults for hotkeys and menu/interface.  I’d 
add to this to get rid of the stupid messy shelf system and spacebar menu 
altogether (or at least make sure the interface is great with the shelves 
hidden).  The big problem with Maya and Max is always that each seat is 
customized.  I can’t work fluently off a default Maya install and if I sit at 
your desk your customizations aren’t going to be the same as mine, I always 
have to start by loading extra tools, making custom shelves, setting custom 
hotkeys, etc. etc..  I don’t even want to have to load a custom user file.  
With softimage, I can sit at any machine, make sure it’s set to the system 
defaults which it usually is, and every tool is where it should be with great 
hotkeys.



These ones are important to me but there are so many more.  It’s a shame that 
Autodesk, sometime over he last 6+ years, didn’t tackle Humanize Maya first 
before EOL’ing Softimage, if they are serious about this now however, they have 
a lot of hard work ahead of themselves.  I’m hopeful but sadly not confident, 
though I do know they have good devs over at AD, hopefully they will get the go 
ahead to work their magic, if so they might just pull this and more off.

Re: Oculus Rift

I should add - this doesn't affect our intention to develop for OR. It just
doesn't have the same sparkle around it - I'm sure I'll get over it once we
start seeing some cool stuff come together.


On 26 March 2014 07:21, Leendert A. Hartog hirazib...@live.nl wrote:

 I have a feeling these kind of deals will have their ultimate impact on
 the whole Kickstarter business.
 Why would I want to invest in some small company through Kickstarter,
 when they use that money as a basis for a big sellout at some point in the
 near future?
 Or is that too cynical?

 Greetz
 Leendert

 --

 Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist
 AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: Oculus Rift

Also, credit to Palmer for staying on /r/oculus and responding to people:
http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey

If the things he is saying stay true then it could be a good thing. I
really hope it doesn't hurt VR.


On 26 March 2014 07:31, Paul Doyle technove...@gmail.com wrote:

 I should add - this doesn't affect our intention to develop for OR. It
 just doesn't have the same sparkle around it - I'm sure I'll get over it
 once we start seeing some cool stuff come together.


 On 26 March 2014 07:21, Leendert A. Hartog hirazib...@live.nl wrote:

 I have a feeling these kind of deals will have their ultimate impact on
 the whole Kickstarter business.
 Why would I want to invest in some small company through Kickstarter,
 when they use that money as a basis for a big sellout at some point in
 the near future?
 Or is that too cynical?

 Greetz
 Leendert

 --

 Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist
 AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

Sorry Eugene who are you quoting? I haven't seen that email.

They are two different functions

The period key is Repeat. Repeat the last command. Just like Maya

The middle click is to repeat the last command executed under that menu or
button.
Ex, create a cube by going to Primitive, PolyMesh, Cube.
Now middle click Primitive to create a Cube again and again and again. That
last command you executed under the Primitive button will be remembered
forever in that session. The same with all SI button-menus.

While I like this MMB repeat function, but I don't see how it could be
implemented in Maya without having to heavily change its interface.

Martin



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Eugene Flormata eug...@flormata.comwrote:

 Can someone elaborate the middle click for repeat action? Is that default?
 I've always had to press period.


 I agree with everyone else's opinions.
 Out of all if them though I think Maya's fcurves are the most annoying.

 Also being able to paint objects in the viewport as different render
 methods. So mix wireframe/ solid / texture that's handy.

Re: ot: visual scripting

2014-03-26 Thread Nicolas Esposito

Hi Francisco,

Yes, material editor is very familiar if you use Softimage, and you have
the ability to manipulate lots of values in order to change the material
during runtime, and so on...very very very helpfull

Regarding blueprints yes, you can generate/modify geometry ( UE4 Tools
Demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcxA_xYnHZ8 @7.22 ), but
regarding the same functionalities as ICE, as it is right now it'll be more
understanding how to combine functions in order to get the desired result,
rather then script your own...
Basically I'll do the same way I use ICE, start small, then add stuff to
the tree in order to achieve the goal.

I'm doing some experiments with tension maps, I already have a solution to
simulate that in UE4 ( not the same way I did in ICE but something similar
) but I would love to apply the same concept using Blueprints, but first I
need to check if I can access easily mesh components attributes.

Main problem that I see right now is that if you want to access mesh
properties and change them in realtime I think that is going to have a huge
impact on performance, while in Softimage ( and any other DCC ) you don't
need to worry about FPS dropping :)


2014-03-26 11:56 GMT+01:00 Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com:

 Nicolas,
 exactly what i thought when i saw it, would it be posible to use it for
 procedural modeling or geo deformers for example? i never used udk just
 learning unity, but i' ll begin to put more attention on unreal since this
 blueprint stuff and the cleaner ui. Found that the material editor was very
 similar to softimage workflow too :)
 If you could briefly explain what is possible with blueprint current
 tools compared to ice would be nice!
 thanks,
 F.


 On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:

 They improved the good old Kismet A LOT!

 I'm porting some of my stuff from UDK to UE4 and stuff that you
 previously had to script are available through nodes, which is great!

 I'm currently checking how much geometry manipulation is possible using
 Blueprint nodes ( vertex editing, clusters, polys, ala ICE ), but right now
 there aren't so many options...
 Anyway its really fun to use :)


 2014-03-26 4:12 GMT+01:00 Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com:

 Guys have you checked blueprint on unreal engine 4? very interesting for
 realtime!
 thay have cleaned the awfull ui udk used to have.

 F.

Re: Oculus Rift

Well. Right after an acquisition people tend to spin things rather 
positively...


--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: Oculus Rift

Sure :) But the important post he makes is this one:

We have not gotten into all the details yet, but a lot of the news is
coming. The key points:

1) We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone
industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of
dollars. More news soon.

2) We can afford to hire everyone we need, the best people that fit into
our culture of excellence in all aspects.

3) We can make huge investments in content. More news soon.


On 26 March 2014 07:43, Leendert A. Hartog hirazib...@live.nl wrote:

 Well. Right after an acquisition people tend to spin things rather
 positively...


 --

 Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist
 AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: Oculus Rift

What I am saying is one should take statements right after an 
acquisition with more than a pinch of salt.
Feel free to look up the acquisition press release for the Softimage 
acquisition by Autodesk.
Petit added: “I’d like to reiterate that we plan to maintain and grow 
the Softimage product line.

(http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?linkID=14271589id=12103372siteID=123112)
Oh, how it grew... Which isn't meant as another dig at Autodesk BTW, 
just meant to prove a point.


Greetz
Leendert
AKA Hirazi Blue

--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

I don't see a problem having each seat customized and I think the easy
customization  (Ctrl+Shift+click to add a button) of the Maya Shelf has
always been a nice thing.

I've always heavily customized my Softimage to move my hand as little as
possible to avoid time loss and wrist pain, even customizing it depending
on the project sometimes. SI keyboard hotkeys aren't perfect, in fact, I
dislike them, but SI|3D were even worst.

The problem with Maya is that it doesn't have multiple Keyboard Maps that
you can switch to in a second. It doesn't have a Workgroup that can install
in an instant the same plugins and share them in your lan.

In SI i can go to my colleague PC, load my keymap, load my Workgroup (or
shared wg) and work almost like if I were in my PC.

The workflow in Maya is with Hotbox and marking menus. If you can get used
to them it will speed up your workflow. If you can't you'll struggle with
its clumsy hotkeys unless you customize them.


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 8:16 PM, sku...@gmail.com wrote:

  The big problem with Maya and Max is always that each seat is
 customized.  I can't work fluently off a default Maya install and if I sit
 at your desk your customizations aren't going to be the same as mine, I
 always have to start by loading extra tools, making custom shelves, setting
 custom hotkeys, etc. etc..  I don't even want to have to load a custom user
 file.  With softimage, I can sit at any machine, make sure it's set to the
 system defaults which it usually is, and every tool is where it should be
 with great hotkeys.

 These ones are important to me but there are so many more.  It's a shame
 that Autodesk, sometime over he last 6+ years, didn't tackle Humanize Maya
 first before EOL'ing Softimage, if they are serious about this now however,
 they have a lot of hard work ahead of themselves.  I'm hopeful but sadly
 not confident, though I do know they have good devs over at AD, hopefully
 they will get the go ahead to work their magic, if so they might just pull
 this and more off.

Re: Oculus Rift

Can we not make this thread about the Soft EOL? Just one thread would be
nice.

The situation is completely different here and what he's saying is true -
producing hardware with $75m + change was going to be a big compromise vs
what is possible with significant funding. This should also mean a
reduction in the price of CV1, which should lead to wider adoption.
Adoption of what exactly is a bit of a concern - if they're allowed to stay
focused on what they've been doing, it could end up being interesting.

I'm unimpressed with what has happened to the kickstarters and I think they
should be offered refunds. But the reality of this deal is that facebook
_could_ screw it up, or they could turn OR into something phenomenal - I'll
wait for some more public info before condemning them outright.

I'd be a lot happier if Valve got in the ring with something genuinely open
now though.


On 26 March 2014 07:56, Leendert A. Hartog hirazib...@live.nl wrote:

 What I am saying is one should take statements right after an acquisition
 with more than a pinch of salt.
 Feel free to look up the acquisition press release for the Softimage
 acquisition by Autodesk.
 Petit added: I'd like to reiterate that we plan to maintain and grow the
 Softimage product line.
 (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?linkID=14271589;
 id=12103372siteID=123112)
 Oh, how it grew... Which isn't meant as another dig at Autodesk BTW, just
 meant to prove a point.

 Greetz
 Leendert
 AKA Hirazi Blue


 --

 Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist
 AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Brent McPherson

 I guess what the issue (at least for me) is, is that while you are
 correct that Autodesk did talk about moving development to Singapore,
 Autodesk did NOT say that the product was in a state of minimal development.

Perry,

At the time Softimage was moved to Singapore the team out there was about the 
same size as the Montreal team and there was a year of overlap and Montreal 
devs (including me) went to Singapore to train that team. Hardly what you would 
call minimal development.

It is ridiculous to think a company would devote this kind of effort to shut 
the product down. If Autodesk's intention was to shut Softimage down they could 
have easily done that on day one.

In this case I think the explanation you have been given fits perfectly. The 
market has changed. ME leadership has changed. In response the decision makers 
have decided to refocus the efforts around existing products that have a much 
larger market share than Softimage. Too much product overlap is not healthy for 
any company long term.

I spent a lot of my career working on Softimage and it was a great experience 
thanks to my colleague and everyone on this list.  However, I've seen the 
numbers and I can't really argue with the decision on that basis.

We can continue to argue how we got to this point but that doesn't seem very 
productive but I will vouch for the fact it wasn't all a bed of roses under 
Avid's tenure.
--
Brent

attachment: winmail.dat

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

I'm just guessing, but cutting down all the 3rd party and Autodesk property
things used in Maya/Max isn't a easy task. It would require personal, time
and money to do it. And for what? to please a few some SI users for free?

Never gonna happen.

Selling Softimage or even part of it to another company so they can compete
against Autodesk?

Never gonna happen.

RedShift ?! Come on !
As amazing as the beta is, they don't even have a finished product yet.

So let's try to be a little more realistic, please.

The fact that they don't even want to sell us licenses at full price, makes
this open source discussion just a waste of time. They just want to erase
SI from the face of the earth as soon as possible so we could all use Maya.
They don't care how much that will affect you as long as they can expand
Maya's market share.

If one only thinks about profit, it isn't a bad move I guess. Announcing
EOL and stop selling licenses in 3 weeks (or less in some places) is just
too rushed. $10K per seat isn't a simple decision for some people like me,
but I know, you (AD) just don't care.


Martin




On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:50 PM, David Saber davidsa...@sfr.fr wrote:

 Why not selling XSI to RedShift? That way the default renderer would be
 RedShift instead of MentalRay...


 On 2014-03-26 11:35, Emilio Hernandez wrote:

 Those are the 3rd party libraries that means so much expense to shot down
 Softimage???

 Well, take those out from Softimage and we will talk to those guys to buy
 separate licenses.

Re: Oculus Rift


Paul Doyle schreef op 26-3-2014 13:08:
Can we not make this thread about the Soft EOL? Just one thread would 
be nice.


Again: only meant as an example (we can all relate to) :D

--

Leendert A. Hartog – Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue – Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

Other option will be pay per Softimage sold license to the 3rd party
library owners.

Autodesk will still earn money from new Softimage seats and those guys will
get their money as well.  Besides us still have Softimage.

So far the answers of the reasons to bring down Softimage are:

1.  We want to focuse in new innovative and creative tools.  AKA Maya and
MAX
2. Softimage had no enough revenue to keep 3rd party libraries
3. There are inherent costs for keep packaging Softimage with Maya/MAX
4. We wanted the engineers of Softimage to put them to work in other areas.

Quick analysis for making viable to keep Softimage alive as it is and still
mean revenue for Autodesk.

1. There is no more people putting a single hour into writing a single line
of additional code for Softimage.   Cost $0
2. We need to keep paying IP to the 3rd party libraries.   Get an agreement
with them and pay them on a per sold Softimage license basis.  I don't
believe they will say No are you crazy!.  After EOL they will not recieve
a penny.

From prices i have found in the internet:
MR license $220
Lagoa, don't know how much about how much will Thiago charge if he was
selling Lagoa separately,  but comparing to other like Mootzoid let's say
$150
Syflex. $200 from their site
Physix: Don't the price but lets say another $200

Sub Total: $770

3. I don't know what your cost for packaging Softimage into the exe but it
is a single operation. But you already packaged Softiamge 2015 for delivery
so future cost $0
4. Additional storage at the server that will hold a larger exe file.   1.5
gigs additional storage for Softiamge exe delivery.  Average cloud storage
unlimited $108.  I guess your cost is lower, but let's

So.

Cost
Devs  Support  $0 USD
3rd party libraries $770 USD commercial price (I think you have a better
price)
Delivery and storage $ 110 (rounding) USD per year.

Let's add for something I am missing about your costs, another $500
administrative, coffee, cookies, etc, per license. Even that *nobody* will
be working in Softimage.  But let's add something...

I don't what Fix Cost will you assign to a Software that is only held on
your on-line sales system, but really I will say it is near $0, after all
we have $500 for coffee and cookies.

Softimage license price:
$ 3,145 USD

Gross Income $3,145  per license sold.
--
Sales Cost $0
--
Inherent Costs $770
Indirect Costs $500
RD $ 0
Fix Cost $0
--
Net Income before Taxes $1,875

Taxes around $562
-
Net Income after Taxes $ 1,300 (rounded)

So, again why is this not possible?

You keep your devs and resources (except for the on-line host to keep
Softimage into the system for purchase and download), into your new
innovative and creative affairs.  You pay the 3rd party libraries on a per
sold license basis.  You still make money out of a EOL Software,  and we
are happy.

When the time comes and we are convinced that Maya/MAX are a better option
to switch our pipelines, and workflows, and no one else in the world is
using Softimage because you are succesful,  no one will say nothing when
Softimage suddenly dissappears from your system.

There is always a workaround if you really want to get things working...

But all I hear is NO, NO, NO.  Without any will to keep this small user
base.  Autodesk rather prefers that we start migrating to other
brands/solutions.

At least a Ok guys I will bring this to the board, commitee or whatever,
to evaluate it.  You are very valuable to us and we will do our best to
keep you.

But no everything is NO, this are our reasons and that's it!

Just saying

---
Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.


2014-03-26 6:25 GMT-06:00 Martin Yara furik...@gmail.com:

 I'm just guessing, but cutting down all the 3rd party and Autodesk
 property things used in Maya/Max isn't a easy task. It would require
 personal, time and money to do it. And for what? to please a few some SI
 users for free?

 Never gonna happen.

 Selling Softimage or even part of it to another company so they can
 compete against Autodesk?

 Never gonna happen.

 RedShift ?! Come on !
 As amazing as the beta is, they don't even have a finished product yet.

 So let's try to be a little more realistic, please.

 The fact that they don't even want to sell us licenses at full price,
 makes this open source discussion just a waste of time. They just want to
 erase SI from the face of the earth as soon as possible so we could all use
 Maya. They don't care how much that will affect you as long as they can
 expand Maya's market share.

 If one only thinks about profit, it isn't a bad move I guess. Announcing
 EOL and stop selling licenses in 3 weeks (or less in some places) is just
 too rushed. $10K per seat isn't a simple decision for some people like me,
 but I know, you (AD) just don't care.

Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

Martin, I’ve been using Maya since version 1.  I mean, thanks for your input, 
but this is a thread about suggesting your Soft top 5 to the Maya devs for 
their humanize Maya project.  Why don’t you stick to tell the Devs what you 
want and not respond to my personal wishlist with a post trying to convince me 
that I don’t want what I want because I find it insulting.  Ok?

Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Alastair Hearsum


Hello

We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from Autodesk 
development team. Thats good.


What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry 
monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has 
contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them in 
the direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like something 
good to migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard by all the 
main contenders then the chances are better that we'll get a little of 
what we want somewhere.


Alastair

--
Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private 
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error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying 
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in error please kindly return it to the sender and delete this message 
from your system.

Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

Wow ! we need to chill out a little. I don't know what part of my email was
insulting but I apologize.

I though this was an email discussion list where people exchange ideas and
that's what I was trying to do, but anyway

cheers

Martin



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 9:29 PM, sku...@gmail.com wrote:

  Martin, I've been using Maya since version 1.  I mean, thanks for your
 input, but this is a thread about suggesting your Soft top 5 to the Maya
 devs for their humanize Maya project.  Why don't you stick to tell the Devs
 what you want and not respond to my personal wishlist with a post trying to
 convince me that I don't want what I want because I find it insulting.  Ok?

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Chris Vienneau

Hi Perry,

Email is not the best way to express anything. I have spoken to many of you 
live in the past few months and you can interpret words in so many ways. For 
those that want to make this a conspiracy leading back to the acquisition you 
are wrong. Marc Petit did believe in having all the products under one roof. 
Like I said yesterday we spent a lot of money making sure that Softimage got 
plugged into the Autodesk channel and education engines and we put the product 
in the suites to try to get more usage from the big 3dsmax and Maya user base. 
There is all this talk of marketing. Everyone these days makes their buying 
decisions based off their peers from information in forums like this. Marketing 
isn't about press releases and web sites as nobody visits autodesk.com. With 
tens of thousands of kids graduating each year from professional programs each 
year most pick their 3D tool of choice or arsenal by the time they are 18-19 
and they can do 3d, edit, comp, and make web sites. So we tried to get more 
usage for softimage through suites and education and it did not work. All the 
marketing and demos for Autodesk the last few years has been around suites just 
like with Adobe who rarely markets Photoshop or After Effects. 

If you feel like that strategy is the main cause of the continued decline of 
Softimage then that is fair. Avid did not have the money to compete with 
Autodesk and according to Marc Stevens sold it after Marc said there was no 
chance of Soft lasting. The other mystery buyers were other CAD companies that 
wanted to have a product to compete with 3dsmax and Cinema 4D in the massive 
visualization market. Autodesk was the only buyer that wanted to keep Softimage 
alive in entertainment. 

So the clear announcement of change of intent was made this month based off a 
decision only made a few months ago. We gave a two year window to transition 
and for many a fair offer to go to 3dsmax or Maya. Our strategy to get soft 
adoption in the much larger 3dsmax and Maya user base was through suites and 
education and it did not work. We are sorry it did not work. 

I have listened to many of the personal stories of how this affects people. 
Like the story you had with your father I have a story about mine. My father 
ran a pharmaceutical research company and when I was a kid the workers in the 
plant went on strike for higher pay. They picketed in front of the plant and 
when things got more tense someone came to our house in the middle of the night 
and through a big rock right through the window next to my room where me and 
brother would play legos all day. Being six years old you can imagine that was 
some pretty scary shit. But my dad took me aside and told me that you have to 
take responsibility for the actions you take and how they affect people.

We can say sorry but that will not change the decision and it rings hollow 
because it could be a monkey typing on a keyboard. What we can do is listen to 
how this has impacted you and be responsible for helping you get back to a 
place where each of you are back to creating 3D art without thinking about the 
platform you use. 

I have been very happy to meet a lot of you on this forum for the first time 
which sucks but is still a good thing. The calls that I have more than make up 
for being called a liar or an idiot or a callous corporate suit. 

cv/


From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of Perry Harovas 
[perryharo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 9:44 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

I guess what the issue (at least for me) is, is that while you are
correct that Autodesk did talk about moving development to Singapore,
Autodesk did NOT say that the product was
in a state of minimal development. This, along with Chris V.'s
statement led everyone (and how could it not) to think things were
business as usual. Different team, but everything would be fine,
things would be the same, just with  new people. This should not
denigrate the Singapore team, who did great work, especially towards
the end right before EOL announcement.

You all may have intended to keep Softimage alive, but had we known
that the status had changed to one of very little, or minimal
development, we would have known that the status had changed
with regards to what we would be getting in the future and how
Autodesk saw the product in the future.

Look, I fluctuate back and forth as to if Softimage was on the
chopping block when purchased, or not. I feel that the people
involved, especially Marc Petit, really thought it would survive.
And really, it doesn't matter to me as much as the fact that it was
not clear (it was basically hidden) that the status of Softimage
within the company
had changed to one where it would be maintained, or minimally developed.

I will gladly change my mind if you, Maurice,

Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

Ok sure, but in that case please don’t try to convince me that I just lack 
knowledge about the context insensitive Maya hotbox spacebar menu.  When I alt 
Right click an object in Softimage I get context sensitive utilities that work 
on that object and change depending what component is selected, not a giant 
messy list that is just a debate-ably faster way to get to the top menu bar and 
it’s many sub-menus.


When I jump on to Photoshop, or Softimage, and it isn’t my seat, they just work 
as is.  Not true for Maya.  I think that's clear enough, and I think they 
should work to fix that, but hey, what do I know.  Anyways, since we were asked 
and there is some understanding that the devs are listening to this list, 
that's my truncated suggestion list to the Maya devs, and best of luck to them 
all, I’m sure they are buried in various wish-lists and their own internal 
roadmaps, gl.

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread paul

What we can do is listen to how this has impacted you and be responsible 
for helping you get back to a place where each of you are back to creating 
3D art without thinking about the platform you use. 


And what if your Creating 3D art relies on the unique abilities that ICE 
affords you? To be able to control everything programatically down to its 
fundemental component parts?


There seems to be an assumption that skills can just be swapped over to 
Maya, and this is probably true if your work doesn't deeply involve 
inventing tools with ICE.
If you just model, put some bones in and add some blendshapes, animate and 
render, then I'm sure Maya will do fine. What about those of us who evolved 
way past that kind of workflow years ago?


I'm not just thinking about the platform I use.  Its the ONLY platform 
that can actually do what I'm doing unless you include Houdini or Fabric, 
and neither of them are near the speed of iteration of ICE yet.


Please could I request that you get a Maya guy to try making Maya 
equivalents of some ICE tools I could demonstrate.. I think the problem 
would soon become very clear and its not about personal preference. Its 
about being able to do this stuff at all.


Paul

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Andi Farhall

+1

 From: p...@bustykelp.com
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass
 Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 12:55:10 +

 What we can do is listen to how this has impacted you and be responsible 
 for helping you get back to a place where each of you are back to creating 
 3D art without thinking about the platform you use. 

 And what if your Creating 3D art relies on the unique abilities that ICE 
 affords you? To be able to control everything programatically down to its 
 fundemental component parts?

 There seems to be an assumption that skills can just be swapped over to 
 Maya, and this is probably true if your work doesn't deeply involve 
 inventing tools with ICE.
 If you just model, put some bones in and add some blendshapes, animate and 
 render, then I'm sure Maya will do fine. What about those of us who evolved 
 way past that kind of workflow years ago?

 I'm not just thinking about the platform I use.  Its the ONLY platform 
 that can actually do what I'm doing unless you include Houdini or Fabric, 
 and neither of them are near the speed of iteration of ICE yet.

 Please could I request that you get a Maya guy to try making Maya 
 equivalents of some ICE tools I could demonstrate.. I think the problem 
 would soon become very clear and its not about personal preference. Its 
 about being able to do this stuff at all.

 Paul

Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5

I just noticed another one, again it’s the little things.  When splitting edges 
on a poly mesh, in wireframe mode.  In Softimage, I can split edges that are 
not in direct view of the camera, in Maya, even though were in wireframe mode 
and can see through the object, I have to tumble around the object and make 
sure the edge is in view, as if we were working in shaded mode.


The list of little things like this, is insanely comprehensive.  But it’s the 
little things.

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

+ 1

---
Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.


2014-03-26 6:58 GMT-06:00 Andi Farhall hack...@outlook.com:



 +1
 


  From: p...@bustykelp.com

  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass
  Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 12:55:10 +

 
  What we can do is listen to how this has impacted you and be
 responsible
  for helping you get back to a place where each of you are back to
 creating
  3D art without thinking about the platform you use. 
 
  And what if your Creating 3D art relies on the unique abilities that
 ICE
  affords you? To be able to control everything programatically down to
 its
  fundemental component parts?
 
  There seems to be an assumption that skills can just be swapped over to
  Maya, and this is probably true if your work doesn't deeply involve
  inventing tools with ICE.
  If you just model, put some bones in and add some blendshapes, animate
 and
  render, then I'm sure Maya will do fine. What about those of us who
 evolved
  way past that kind of workflow years ago?
 
  I'm not just thinking about the platform I use. Its the ONLY platform
  that can actually do what I'm doing unless you include Houdini or
 Fabric,
  and neither of them are near the speed of iteration of ICE yet.
 
  Please could I request that you get a Maya guy to try making Maya
  equivalents of some ICE tools I could demonstrate.. I think the problem
  would soon become very clear and its not about personal preference. Its
  about being able to do this stuff at all.
 
  Paul

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Ognjen Vukovic

Sidefx have set up a subforum for si users where there is quite a bit of
communication going on between the devs and potential clients, up till now
the its been quite an amazing experience watching bugs get fixed a day
after submission. Also in my opinion Houdini seems to really be an amazing
tool with a lot of flexibility, more so than other packages. Definitely
worth checking out.

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewforumf=51

Cheers.


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Alastair Hearsum
hear...@glassworks.co.ukwrote:

  Hello

 We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from Autodesk
 development team. Thats good.

 What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry
 monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has
 contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them in the
 direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like something good to
 migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard by all the main
 contenders then the chances are better that we'll get a little of what we
 want somewhere.

 Alastair

 --
  Alastair Hearsum
  Head of 3d
 [image: GLASSWORKS]
  33/34 Great Pulteney Street
 London
 W1F 9NP
 +44 (0)20 7434 1182
 glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)
  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.

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]

There is a clear thing Alastair, you want to use ICE then there is only one
option, you have it in Houdini on steroids (VOPs), the parts that are lacking
are being discussed as we speak so have serious look around..

I imagine you have seen the guides I have been producing, if not, have a proper
read… I will carry on as fast as I can but you can see the activity on the SI
Forum inside the Houdini site is pretty much on fire.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y0ti6tyf7o3435u/thsQH1Kf2o

and

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31012start=150sid=e66eb944af1e7074a707e34c56ee92cb

Plus

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31169
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31222
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31210start=50
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31141start=25
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31009start=25

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 26 Mar 2014, at 12:37, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote:

Hello

We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from Autodesk
development team. Thats good.

What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry monitor
what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has contacts in
either of those two organisations than please point them in the direction of
the more sane threads here. We would like something good to migrate to,
clearly, and if our voice can be heard by all the main contenders then the
chances are better that we'll get a little of what we want somewhere.

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: 86729)
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
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Re: Softimage to Maya rendering requests

2014-03-26 Thread Ahmidou Lyazidi

2014-03-22 13:00 GMT-04:00 Jeffrey Dates jda...@kungfukoi.com:
As someone who uses both packages...

You can already make overrides, ( some might argue even easier in Maya.. )
However, the issue is how to manage and quickly visualize the data
---

As I'm also using both, I disagree with this statement.
The only fact that overrides propagate themselves on hierarchy or
layer members change everything on how fast you can work.
Having one placeholder for N objects instead of the opposite (if it scale
well) is an evidence.

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

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Chris Johnson

From my experience with side FX and Houdini their developers and support
are hands down the most responsive in the industry. They fixed bugs, and
some really nasty ones, in short time and released things in nightly
builds. I was on a pretty intense Houdini project for 1 year and went to
nightly builds constantly and for the most part it was always stable.


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:

 As I mentioned in the SI and Houdini thread, I am impressed with SideFX
 and the way they respond to user request.

 In this example a user reports a bug, and there is an actual day after
 fix.


 http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31181

 In terms of the foundry, they are cooking something that will be announced
 in NAB 7th of April.

 http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/nablive/

 With out having too much of an insight I believe it could be some sort of
 Nuke/Modo bridge.
 Anyone know a bit more?



 On 26 March 2014 13:06, Ognjen Vukovic ognj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sidefx have set up a subforum for si users where there is quite a bit of
 communication going on between the devs and potential clients, up till now
 the its been quite an amazing experience watching bugs get fixed a day
 after submission. Also in my opinion Houdini seems to really be an amazing
 tool with a lot of flexibility, more so than other packages. Definitely
 worth checking out.


 http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewforumf=51

 Cheers.


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Alastair Hearsum 
 hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote:

  Hello

 We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from Autodesk
 development team. Thats good.

 What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry
 monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has
 contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them in the
 direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like something good to
 migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard by all the main
 contenders then the chances are better that we'll get a little of what we
 want somewhere.

 Alastair

 --
  Alastair Hearsum
  Head of 3d
 [image: GLASSWORKS]
  33/34 Great Pulteney Street
 London
 W1F 9NP
 +44 (0)20 7434 1182
 glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)
  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.

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Rob Chapman

Hi Brent, thanks for your opinion, its good to hear. I agree with
pretty much everything you say and only wanted to add that 'at the
time of Avid' you guys (the softimage developers) did an an amazing
job of masking the fact that it was no bed of roses from the dev's
perspective.

yes Sumatra was indeed late, but it came and we got XSi , faster
Artist workflows and eventually ICE , at no point under Avid did I get
a sense of there being a drastic lack of development.  maybe under
Autodesk we are just more jaded, but yes  not much point arguing at
this stage how we got to here

best

Rob




On 26 March 2014 12:11, Brent McPherson brent.mcpher...@autodesk.com wrote:
 I guess what the issue (at least for me) is, is that while you are
 correct that Autodesk did talk about moving development to Singapore,
 Autodesk did NOT say that the product was in a state of minimal development.

 Perry,

 At the time Softimage was moved to Singapore the team out there was about the 
 same size as the Montreal team and there was a year of overlap and Montreal 
 devs (including me) went to Singapore to train that team. Hardly what you 
 would call minimal development.

 It is ridiculous to think a company would devote this kind of effort to shut 
 the product down. If Autodesk's intention was to shut Softimage down they 
 could have easily done that on day one.

 In this case I think the explanation you have been given fits perfectly. The 
 market has changed. ME leadership has changed. In response the decision 
 makers have decided to refocus the efforts around existing products that have 
 a much larger market share than Softimage. Too much product overlap is not 
 healthy for any company long term.

 I spent a lot of my career working on Softimage and it was a great experience 
 thanks to my colleague and everyone on this list.  However, I've seen the 
 numbers and I can't really argue with the decision on that basis.

 We can continue to argue how we got to this point but that doesn't seem very 
 productive but I will vouch for the fact it wasn't all a bed of roses under 
 Avid's tenure.
 --
 Brent

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Srecko Micic

For people which work rely heavily on ICE, Houdini is ONLY logical way,
Maya does not have nor will in near future have that.

I switched to Houdini 2 years ago, but process lasted much longer. it is
one of the best app I used. Daily builds are breathe of fresh air after AD.
Even for modeling I use Houdini for 90% of my work (note that I am not
character modeler). It is ultra flexible, great support, similarity to ICE,
for US customer probably slightly expensive compared to AD products but if
you are from EU I think it is much cheaper. not to talk about territory
licensing crap from AD. Developers are doing great job, and now it is
probably best time to push them to do some significant changes on Modeling
and Animation department. It works great an all platforms. You have COP
that could do a lot.

Plus Jordi did great job to help with transfer!


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:

 As I mentioned in the SI and Houdini thread, I am impressed with SideFX
 and the way they respond to user request.

 In this example a user reports a bug, and there is an actual day after
 fix.


 http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31181

 In terms of the foundry, they are cooking something that will be announced
 in NAB 7th of April.

 http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/nablive/

 With out having too much of an insight I believe it could be some sort of
 Nuke/Modo bridge.
 Anyone know a bit more?



 On 26 March 2014 13:06, Ognjen Vukovic ognj...@gmail.com wrote:

 Sidefx have set up a subforum for si users where there is quite a bit of
 communication going on between the devs and potential clients, up till now
 the its been quite an amazing experience watching bugs get fixed a day
 after submission. Also in my opinion Houdini seems to really be an amazing
 tool with a lot of flexibility, more so than other packages. Definitely
 worth checking out.


 http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewforumf=51

 Cheers.


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Alastair Hearsum 
 hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote:

  Hello

 We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from Autodesk
 development team. Thats good.

 What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry
 monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has
 contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them in the
 direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like something good to
 migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard by all the main
 contenders then the chances are better that we'll get a little of what we
 want somewhere.

 Alastair

 --
  Alastair Hearsum
  Head of 3d
 [image: GLASSWORKS]
  33/34 Great Pulteney Street
 London
 W1F 9NP
 +44 (0)20 7434 1182
 glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)
  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.






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

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Alastair Hearsum

thanks Jordi. I have had a look at the forum but not often enough it 
must be said


A

Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)

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.

On 26/03/2014 13:14, Jordi Bares wrote:
There is a clear thing Alastair, you want to use ICE then there is 
only one option, you have it in Houdini on steroids (VOPs), the parts 
that are lacking are being discussed as we speak so have serious look 
around..


I imagine you have seen the guides I have been producing, if not, have 
a proper read… I will carry on as fast as I can but you can see the 
activity on the SI Forum inside the Houdini site is pretty much on fire.



https://www.dropbox.com/sh/y0ti6tyf7o3435u/thsQH1Kf2o


and


http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31012start=150sid=e66eb944af1e7074a707e34c56ee92cb

Plus

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31169
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31222
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31210start=50
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31141start=25
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forumItemid=172page=viewtopict=31009start=25



Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com

On 26 Mar 2014, at 12:37, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk 
mailto:hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote:



Hello

We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from 
Autodesk development team. Thats good.


What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry 
monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has 
contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them 
in the direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like 
something good to migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard 
by all the main contenders then the chances are better that we'll get 
a little of what we want somewhere.


Alastair

--
Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.glassworks.co.uk/
Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at 
glassworks.co.uk http://glassworks.co.uk
(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered 
office 25 Harley Street, London, W1G 9BR. VAT registration number: 
86729)

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.

RE: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

The shelf is more than just a quick shortcut to existing menu commands resident 
on the filebar. While the idea that shelves are to there to play around is 
intriguing, in 16 years I've never had that impression about shelves.

Shelves are an integral part of the Maya workflow, unless you work strictly 
from the hotbox. With the hotbox you can remove everything but a single 
viewport and still have access to almost every command. This is useful when 
modeling but I never found it comfortable for anything else. 

If you don't use the hotbox much or at all, it's going to be difficult to avoid 
shelves if you want to improve your workflow in Maya. Maya, like most 3D apps 
is multi-modular, meaning that in Maya the filebar and the menu commands it 
presents changes context with each Module you are working in such as Polygons, 
Surfaces, Animation, etc. Soft does the same thing except in Soft the filebar 
does not change. Rather in Soft,  the Main Toolbar changes with modular context 
instead. Since Softimage's filebar never changes and provides access to all 
commands all the time, it provides the same level of access as the hotbox, plus 
additional functionality such as construction modes, passes, and search 
abilities. 

Why might you find shelves important to your workflow in Maya? In general, 
while in Maya, and in a particular module, say Polygons, the Maya filebar will 
not present all menu commands available to you. This becomes critical to 
understand when you are modeling polygons with deformers since deformers are 
located in the Animation Module. Therefor you can't access deformers while 
modeling in the Polygons module unless you 
A. Use the Deformation Shelf in the Polygon Module, or 
B. Use the Polygons Shelf in the Animation Module, or 
C. Use the hotbox. 
Your workflow then consists of mixing shelves and general filebar menu commands 
and potentially hotbox commands if you are willing to put up with the hotbox. 
Other examples of combination practices will include polygons and materials, 
surfaces and materials, polygons and subdivisions, and animation and dynamics.

If you are like me and refuse to use the hotbox anymore, because it has grown 
to a ridiculously overbearing capacity of things over the last 16 years, 
shelves are an imperative. You really can't avoid shelf use unless you choose 
to constantly switch modes which in Maya is far less comfortable than using 
shelves and the filebar menus simultaneously. You can use shelves to make 
custom tool groups and store custom commands or scripts for immediate callback. 
You add commands to shelves by executing a filebar command via CTR+SHFT+Command 
and the icon will be added to the currently selected shelf.

As for having to decipher shelf icons not being an issue, I completely disagree 
with this assertion. Some icons such as chamfer vertex or gravity or nonlinear 
bend are easy to decipher. Others such as Attach Surfaces looks like Measure 
Surfaces and can be really difficult to decipher if you've not been using them 
over and over for a couple years. 

As you will quickly find that shelves are an integral part of the Maya 
workflow, and can't easily be ignored, the need to decipher icons will not go 
away. They idea that shelves can just simply be ignored, especially for someone 
trying to learn Maya and develop productive long term practices on this 
software, is debatable.  And while you can turn the shelves off and ignore 
them, you may ultimately find this to be a far more uncomfortable practice than 
committing to the long term effort and continual practice of learning and 
relearning the shelf icons.

After more than a decade of using Maya, I found Soft's interface to be far 
easier to use and while Soft offered shelves, I never had a need or desire to 
use them there because all Module commands were directly accessible from the 
Softimage filebar. I can't say the same about Maya and the hotbox is not a 
comfortable option. This is definitely something on the long list that needs to 
be addressed in Maya. 

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


 -Original Message-
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-
 boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
 Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 4:06 PM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: humanize maya, SOFT top 5
 
 You can turn on the labels for the Maya shelf in the shelf editor (in its 
 Option
 menu)  but the point is, the shelf, or toolbar in general, are quick 
 shortcuts to
 things that are the menu, so having to decipher them is not an issue. The
 shelf is fun and made to play around.  You can tear off a menu to get a quick
 toolbar for one-click access to menu commands.  The only maya thing doesn't
 do correctly in that area is it's not showing you

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

I am very keen on putting some serious time with Modo as a complement to 
Houdini as I believe there are real benefits on the potential future between 
Modo+Nuke+Mari…

Exciting times although we are going to learn two packages now.

:-P

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 26 Mar 2014, at 13:21, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:

 In terms of the foundry, they are cooking something that will be announced in 
 NAB 7th of April.
 
 http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/nablive/
 
 With out having too much of an insight I believe it could be some sort of 
 Nuke/Modo bridge. 
 Anyone know a bit more?

Re: Oculus Rift

2014-03-26 Thread Alok Gandhi

I have pre-ordered OR Dev 2 Kit. They said they will let me know when they
ship. Can't wait to develop for it. It opens up a lot of exciting avenues
for sure.


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Leendert A. Hartog hirazib...@live.nlwrote:

 Paul Doyle schreef op 26-3-2014 13:08:

  Can we not make this thread about the Soft EOL? Just one thread would be
 nice.


 Again: only meant as an example (we can all relate to) :D


 --

 Leendert A. Hartog - Softimage hobbyist
 AKA Hirazi Blue - Administrator  @, NOT the owner of  si-community.com





--

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

Houdini has more than 20 years of development around VEX and VOPs, that feels 
like is going to be tough to catch I am afraid...

jb

On 26 Mar 2014, at 13:40, Srecko Micic srecko.mi...@gmail.com wrote:

 Maya does not have nor will in near future have that.

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

+1

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 26 Mar 2014, at 12:55, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:

 What we can do is listen to how this has impacted you and be responsible for 
 helping you get back to a place where each of you are back to creating 3D art 
 without thinking about the platform you use. 
 
 And what if your Creating 3D art relies on the unique abilities that ICE 
 affords you? To be able to control everything programatically down to its 
 fundemental component parts?
 
 There seems to be an assumption that skills can just be swapped over to Maya, 
 and this is probably true if your work doesn't deeply involve inventing tools 
 with ICE.
 If you just model, put some bones in and add some blendshapes, animate and 
 render, then I'm sure Maya will do fine. What about those of us who evolved 
 way past that kind of workflow years ago?
 
 I'm not just thinking about the platform I use.  Its the ONLY platform that 
 can actually do what I'm doing unless you include Houdini or Fabric, and 
 neither of them are near the speed of iteration of ICE yet.
 
 Please could I request that you get a Maya guy to try making Maya equivalents 
 of some ICE tools I could demonstrate.. I think the problem would soon become 
 very clear and its not about personal preference. Its about being able to do 
 this stuff at all.
 
 Paul

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Sergio Mucino

Jordi, if you have any Modo questions, don't hesitate to come over to The 
Foundry community forums and ask away. You'll get lots of help there, and some 
users are familiar (or quite familiar) with Softimage too. 

Sergio Muciño.
Sent from my iPad.

 On Mar 26, 2014, at 9:46 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 I am very keen on putting some serious time with Modo as a complement to 
 Houdini as I believe there are real benefits on the potential future between 
 Modo+Nuke+Mari…
 
 Exciting times although we are going to learn two packages now.
 
 :-P
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 26 Mar 2014, at 13:21, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 In terms of the foundry, they are cooking something that will be announced 
 in NAB 7th of April.
 
 http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/nablive/
 
 With out having too much of an insight I believe it could be some sort of 
 Nuke/Modo bridge. 
 Anyone know a bit more?

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread John Richard Sanchez

Thanks guys! This is great to know!


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:

 Houdini has more than 20 years of development around VEX and VOPs, that
 feels like is going to be tough to catch I am afraid...

 jb


 On 26 Mar 2014, at 13:40, Srecko Micic srecko.mi...@gmail.com wrote:

 Maya does not have nor will in near future have that.





-- 
www.johnrichardsanchez.com

Everything's being said.

Well, everything's being said.

Thank you Maurice and Chris for taking the time to response all of our
question, doubts, conspiracy theories, etc.

Thanks to the people of Autodesk that came in to bring some light to the
users that are in the need or feel to migrate to MAX/Maya option, and took
flak.

Thanks also everyone else in the list for trying.

At least we tried.

Thank you all for sharing the knowledge, the fights, the struggle and the
laughs.

Special thanks to the members that started in this mayhem an alternative to
do the migration easier, or raised theri voices to demonstrate Autodesk how
fool this decision is.

I apologize for any damage I have caused or inflicted to any member of this
list in any way.  Never was my intention, but passions arose.  This is not
an excuse, but I believe that evene, we all were expecting this at some
point since the Autodesk acquisition, we never were mental nor heart
prepared to face this.

I owe so much to this list, I don't know how to payback all the good things
this community has brought into my personal and professional life.

I hope that Autodesk reconsiders this abrupt decision of not selling more
Softimage seats, and bring back Softimage until there is a viable option
for a Softimage substitute.

I wish you all success in your endeavours, health and a good life.

Cheers.

Sincerely with all my respect

Emilio Hernández

---
Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.

Lab vs ICE

2014-03-26 Thread Max Evgrafov

what about this ?  Maybe is it a worthy replacement for ICE ? did somebody
 use this one?

 http://www.ephere.com/plugins/autodesk/max/lab/

---
Summatr
https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Tim Crowson

Alastair, I don't know if anyone from the Foundry is monitoring this 
list (to be honest I've had a hard time staying on top of it as well 
lately... it's all quite vitriolic now...), but Brad Peebler did reach 
out on the heels of the AD announcements, and has stated that he's 
trying to put together an online event of some kind to clarify what Modo 
is (there's a broad misconception that it's just a modeling app with 
benefits). Haven't heard any news on that front.


Which threads were you suggesting they check out?

-Tim

On 3/26/2014 7:37 AM, Alastair Hearsum wrote:

Hello

We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from 
Autodesk development team. Thats good.


What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry 
monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has 
contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them 
in the direction of the more sane threads here. We would like 
something good to migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard 
by all the main contenders then the chances are better that we'll get 
a little of what we want somewhere.


Alastair

--
Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)

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.


--
Signature

*Tim Crowson
*/Lead CG Artist/

*Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
*2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37214
*Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com

/Confidentiality Notice: This email, including attachments, is 
confidential and should not be used by anyone who is not the original 
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statements made which are clearly the sender's own and not expressly 
made on behalf of Magnetic Dreams, Inc or one of its agents./

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Vincent Fortin

And a big thanks to the devs in Singapore for this final release.


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote:

 Well, everything's being said.

 Thank you Maurice and Chris for taking the time to response all of our
 question, doubts, conspiracy theories, etc.

 Thanks to the people of Autodesk that came in to bring some light to the
 users that are in the need or feel to migrate to MAX/Maya option, and took
 flak.

 Thanks also everyone else in the list for trying.

 At least we tried.

 Thank you all for sharing the knowledge, the fights, the struggle and the
 laughs.

 Special thanks to the members that started in this mayhem an alternative
 to do the migration easier, or raised theri voices to demonstrate Autodesk
 how fool this decision is.

 I apologize for any damage I have caused or inflicted to any member of
 this list in any way.  Never was my intention, but passions arose.  This is
 not an excuse, but I believe that evene, we all were expecting this at some
 point since the Autodesk acquisition, we never were mental nor heart
 prepared to face this.

 I owe so much to this list, I don't know how to payback all the good
 things this community has brought into my personal and professional life.

 I hope that Autodesk reconsiders this abrupt decision of not selling more
 Softimage seats, and bring back Softimage until there is a viable option
 for a Softimage substitute.

 I wish you all success in your endeavours, health and a good life.

 Cheers.

 Sincerely with all my respect

 Emilio Hernández

 ---
 Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]

I will take your offer as I see an amazing combo here at realise. 

Talk soon

Sent from my iPhone

 On 26 Mar 2014, at 14:39, Sergio Mucino sergio.muc...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Jordi, if you have any Modo questions, don't hesitate to come over to The 
 Foundry community forums and ask away. You'll get lots of help there, and 
 some users are familiar (or quite familiar) with Softimage too. 
 
 Sergio Muciño.
 Sent from my iPad.
 
 On Mar 26, 2014, at 9:46 AM, Jordi Bares jordiba...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 I am very keen on putting some serious time with Modo as a complement to 
 Houdini as I believe there are real benefits on the potential future between 
 Modo+Nuke+Mari…
 
 Exciting times although we are going to learn two packages now.
 
 :-P
 
 Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com
 
 On 26 Mar 2014, at 13:21, Cristobal Infante cgc...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 In terms of the foundry, they are cooking something that will be announced 
 in NAB 7th of April.
 
 http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/nablive/
 
 With out having too much of an insight I believe it could be some sort of 
 Nuke/Modo bridge. 
 Anyone know a bit more?

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread olivier jeannel


Are you going somewhere ?

Le 26/03/2014 15:40, Emilio Hernandez a écrit :

Well, everything's being said.

Thank you Maurice and Chris for taking the time to response all of our 
question, doubts, conspiracy theories, etc.


Thanks to the people of Autodesk that came in to bring some light to 
the users that are in the need or feel to migrate to MAX/Maya option, 
and took flak.


Thanks also everyone else in the list for trying.

At least we tried.

Thank you all for sharing the knowledge, the fights, the struggle and 
the laughs.


Special thanks to the members that started in this mayhem an 
alternative to do the migration easier, or raised theri voices to 
demonstrate Autodesk how fool this decision is.


I apologize for any damage I have caused or inflicted to any member of 
this list in any way.  Never was my intention, but passions arose.  
This is not an excuse, but I believe that evene, we all were expecting 
this at some point since the Autodesk acquisition, we never were 
mental nor heart prepared to face this.


I owe so much to this list, I don't know how to payback all the good 
things this community has brought into my personal and professional life.


I hope that Autodesk reconsiders this abrupt decision of not selling 
more Softimage seats, and bring back Softimage until there is a viable 
option for a Softimage substitute.


I wish you all success in your endeavours, health and a good life.

Cheers.

Sincerely with all my respect

Emilio Hernández

---
Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread David Saber


is all hope lost?

Re: Oculus Rift

2014-03-26 Thread Tim Crowson


The future of Oculus Rift is bright.
-Tim


On 3/26/2014 8:47 AM, Alok Gandhi wrote:
I have pre-ordered OR Dev 2 Kit. They said they will let me know when 
they ship. Can't wait to develop for it. It opens up a lot of exciting 
avenues for sure.



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Leendert A. Hartog 
hirazib...@live.nl mailto:hirazib...@live.nl wrote:


Paul Doyle schreef op 26-3-2014 13:08:

Can we not make this thread about the Soft EOL? Just one
thread would be nice.


Again: only meant as an example (we can all relate to) :D


-- 


Leendert A. Hartog -- Softimage hobbyist
AKA Hirazi Blue -- Administrator  @, NOT the owner of
si-community.com http://si-community.com





--


--
Signature

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Alastair Hearsum


Tim

Maybe my kinda teenage-magazine style top 5s threads for a start:

humanize maya, SOFT top 5 (for user interface, workflow stuff)
YOUR TOP 5(for general lovely Softimage 
stuff we'll miss and we feel is essential)
What use is ICE really?(why ice functionality is crucial 
and examples of it in use in all sots of wonderful ways)


The top 5 poll put ICE and user experience at the top of the pile. If 
anyone is interested in attracting the Softimage users as customers 
(although we are being told regularly how insignificant we are 
numerically) then these are good areas to focus on.


It's difficult to keep up with all the threads so I'm not sure what else 
would would be fruitful to look at. Thoughts?


Alastair



Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 86729)

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and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). 
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On 26/03/2014 14:43, Tim Crowson wrote:
Alastair, I don't know if anyone from the Foundry is monitoring this 
list (to be honest I've had a hard time staying on top of it as well 
lately... it's all quite vitriolic now...), but Brad Peebler did reach 
out on the heels of the AD announcements, and has stated that he's 
trying to put together an online event of some kind to clarify what 
Modo is (there's a broad misconception that it's just a modeling app 
with benefits). Haven't heard any news on that front.


Which threads were you suggesting they check out?

-Tim

On 3/26/2014 7:37 AM, Alastair Hearsum wrote:

Hello

We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from 
Autodesk development team. Thats good.


What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry 
monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has 
contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them 
in the direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like 
something good to migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard 
by all the main contenders then the chances are better that we'll get 
a little of what we want somewhere.


Alastair

--
Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 
86729)

Please consider the environment before you print this email.
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, 
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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.


--
Signature

*Tim Crowson
*/Lead CG Artist/

*Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
*2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37214
*Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
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RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Chris Vienneau

I think we can all agree ICE is a unique thing and everyone here is skeptical 
we will be able to recreate what it was inside of Maya through Bifrost or will 
just never see Maya as their main platform. Many here (most notably Jordi) are 
claiming Houdini is the place for those that like the programmatic procedural 
node workflows. The jury is still out whether Modo will hold together as you 
add on the various workflows required to be a complete DCC and they have not 
got traction in the plugin community. 

So no today you do not have an equivalent to what is in ICE/Softimage. We set 
the two year transition window for the two big camps of Soft users. For games 
(biggest camp) there is no little to no ICE usage so the main issues are 
animation tools (mixer), pipeline (metadata transfer, baking, viewport API) and 
porting existing tools. This industry just had its once every five year update 
as the PS4 and Xbox One pipelines came online.

The second camp is the mid sized boutiques specializing in commercial post with 
a sprinkle of film VFX. Most everyone here has an arsenal of 3D software from 
Maya to Houdini to Modo to Arnold to Nuke to PF Track and grow and shrink 
through free lance pools. Some of you are softimage only but there are more 
studios that have more than one toolset than there are that have just one. This 
is where ICE grew the most and I think the heart of the users in this forum. 
Why it did not capture more Houdini users as was the plan or more 3dsmax and 
Maya users did not see the benefit is open to debate too. 

Behind the scenes we have shown the first procedural demos of our version of 
the waving Torus which was the first ICE demo. We want to keep growing from the 
procedural core shipping in Maya 2015. In the next two years and beyond you can 
continue to use Softimage. With Houdini, Modo, Fabric, and Maya all saying that 
they have an answer to the question what will be your next platform at least 
you have a group of people listening. The DS guys were given a coupon for 
Digital Fusion. 

Another analogy is Shake. When Shake was EOLed, Nuke was not ready for prime 
time. Digital Fusion, Toxik, and even After Effects all went after the Shake 
user base and in the end the compositors arguably have a better industry 
standard than Shake in Nuke. 

You have some great threads going here and he who listens will get your 
business. You have a Softimage forum on Houdini and I would push to get one on 
the Foundry's community and repost the threads from here that are starting to 
gel into concrete things people need to do.  

cv/


From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of p...@bustykelp.com 
[p...@bustykelp.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:55 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

What we can do is listen to how this has impacted you and be responsible
for helping you get back to a place where each of you are back to creating
3D art without thinking about the platform you use. 

And what if your Creating 3D art relies on the unique abilities that ICE
affords you? To be able to control everything programatically down to its
fundemental component parts?

There seems to be an assumption that skills can just be swapped over to
Maya, and this is probably true if your work doesn't deeply involve
inventing tools with ICE.
If you just model, put some bones in and add some blendshapes, animate and
render, then I'm sure Maya will do fine. What about those of us who evolved
way past that kind of workflow years ago?

I'm not just thinking about the platform I use.  Its the ONLY platform
that can actually do what I'm doing unless you include Houdini or Fabric,
and neither of them are near the speed of iteration of ICE yet.

Please could I request that you get a Maya guy to try making Maya
equivalents of some ICE tools I could demonstrate.. I think the problem
would soon become very clear and its not about personal preference. Its
about being able to do this stuff at all.

Paulattachment: winmail.dat

RE: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

In regards to Maya, default out of the box, and to my knowledge:

The hotbox and its contents are never context sensitive. The 
Hotbox is activated by holding the space bar down. It presents most commands 
typically available in the filebar menus of all modules of the application.

There is no sense of identity for the HOTBOX-rightMB-click. It performs 
exactly the same function as   left or middle mouse button click while hotbox 
is active. So there is effectively no right-click menu from the hotbox. Yet 
another example of wasted  opportunity.

What is context sensitive in Maya is:

The filebar menus: These are located on the top bar of the 
application and the menus change depending upon what module you are 
in(Polygons, Surfaces, Animation, Dynamics, etc)

Marking menus: This is a form of right click menu available 
from the viewport that is context sensitive to whatever object you are focused 
upon.  Marking menus appear similar to but should not be confused with the 
hotbox.

Right click menus generally: These are typically activated over 
windows other than the viewport and are generally contextual to the window or 
editor for which focus is applied.


Softimage’s Main Toolbar, the sidebar on the left side, is context sensitive to 
whatever module you are in(Model, Animate, Render, ICE, etc). The available 
array of commands change, not necessarily the context of the buttons 
themselves. This action is similar to Maya’s filebar(or menubar if that makes 
more sense).

Softimage’s filebar menu is not context sensitive. To my knowledge it never 
changes.

For Softimage’s part, I never understood why it needed to be Alt-Right-Click 
instead of just Right-Click.

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

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of sku...@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 10:39 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

Correct me if I am dead wrong, but default out of the box Maya’s hotbox, nor 
it’s main menus are context sensitive (depending on what you have selected, 
bone, object, vertice, edge, etc.), nor is it’s right click menu.  Softimage’s 
main menus and sidebar menus are not context sensitive either?, only it’s alt 
right click menu is, the rest is handled by a side-bar with a very well thought 
layout and default hotkeys that make sense, and it’s hotkeys are context 
sensitive behaving how you would expect across multiple areas of the 
application, like ‘f’ for framing an object in viewport is the same as framing 
in an item in the outliner or a node view.

Perhaps NASA has a heavily customized version of Maya?  Anyways interesting 
post, but I’m completely lost, none of that stuff works like you mention it to 
in my experience, but perhaps my various teachers and studies left something 
serious out.

Best regards and it’s not really important the above, I’m just confused now.  
Time to go back to learning Houdini, we’ll see in 2 years when Humanize Maya is 
actually in place.  GL to the Maya devs and Autodesk, please don’t forget about 
Mudbox, of all your applications that's the one you have done the best on so 
far and I hope you keep that up and bring that sort of love to Maya to make it 
great.  Cheers everyone, this might very well be my last Softimage list post.  
Bye all, good luck, and thanks for the years worth of searchable Softimage and 
3D QA’s.  It was amazing while it lasted.

Re: ot: visual scripting

2014-03-26 Thread Vincent Fortin

That frenetic stabbing in the belly  neck heightened my excitement really.
Had I been a game director, I'd have called for some more BLOOD!


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:42 AM, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Francisco,

 Yes, material editor is very familiar if you use Softimage, and you have
 the ability to manipulate lots of values in order to change the material
 during runtime, and so on...very very very helpfull

 Regarding blueprints yes, you can generate/modify geometry ( UE4 Tools
 Demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcxA_xYnHZ8 @7.22 ), but
 regarding the same functionalities as ICE, as it is right now it'll be more
 understanding how to combine functions in order to get the desired result,
 rather then script your own...
 Basically I'll do the same way I use ICE, start small, then add stuff to
 the tree in order to achieve the goal.

 I'm doing some experiments with tension maps, I already have a solution to
 simulate that in UE4 ( not the same way I did in ICE but something similar
 ) but I would love to apply the same concept using Blueprints, but first I
 need to check if I can access easily mesh components attributes.

 Main problem that I see right now is that if you want to access mesh
 properties and change them in realtime I think that is going to have a huge
 impact on performance, while in Softimage ( and any other DCC ) you don't
 need to worry about FPS dropping :)


 2014-03-26 11:56 GMT+01:00 Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com:

 Nicolas,
 exactly what i thought when i saw it, would it be posible to use it for
 procedural modeling or geo deformers for example? i never used udk just
 learning unity, but i' ll begin to put more attention on unreal since this
 blueprint stuff and the cleaner ui. Found that the material editor was very
 similar to softimage workflow too :)
 If you could briefly explain what is possible with blueprint current
 tools compared to ice would be nice!
 thanks,
 F.


 On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Nicolas Esposito 3dv...@gmail.com wrote:

 They improved the good old Kismet A LOT!

 I'm porting some of my stuff from UDK to UE4 and stuff that you
 previously had to script are available through nodes, which is great!

 I'm currently checking how much geometry manipulation is possible
 using Blueprint nodes ( vertex editing, clusters, polys, ala ICE ), but
 right now there aren't so many options...
 Anyway its really fun to use :)


 2014-03-26 4:12 GMT+01:00 Francisco Criado malcriad...@gmail.com:

 Guys have you checked blueprint on unreal engine 4? very interesting
 for realtime!
 thay have cleaned the awfull ui udk used to have.

 F.

Re: Side Effects, Foundry watching this?

2014-03-26 Thread Dan Pejril

I hope they are monitoring (Houdini and Modo). I am very seriously 
considering going the Modo route, but I am a bit apprehensive until I 
can see where 801 will be going and hopefully get some sort of road map 
for Modo's future. I still need to look into Houdini as well. Thanks to 
all for posting the links for information.



On 3/26/2014 10:43 AM, Tim Crowson wrote:
Alastair, I don't know if anyone from the Foundry is monitoring this 
list (to be honest I've had a hard time staying on top of it as well 
lately... it's all quite vitriolic now...), but Brad Peebler did reach 
out on the heels of the AD announcements, and has stated that he's 
trying to put together an online event of some kind to clarify what 
Modo is (there's a broad misconception that it's just a modeling app 
with benefits). Haven't heard any news on that front.


Which threads were you suggesting they check out?

-Tim

On 3/26/2014 7:37 AM, Alastair Hearsum wrote:

Hello

We've made a fair bit of noise and getting some attention from 
Autodesk development team. Thats good.


What also would be good, perhaps, is if Side effects and the Foundry 
monitor what is being said here. I'm sure they do. But if anyone has 
contacts in either of those two organisations than please point them 
in the direction of the more sane threads here.  We would like 
something good to migrate to, clearly, and if our voice can be heard 
by all the main contenders then the chances are better that we'll get 
a little of what we want somewhere.


Alastair

--
Alastair Hearsum
Head of 3d
GLASSWORKS
33/34 Great Pulteney Street
London
W1F 9NP
+44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk http://www.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: 
86729)

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 
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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 
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--
Signature

*Tim Crowson
*/Lead CG Artist/

*Magnetic Dreams, Inc.
*2525 Lebanon Pike, Bldg C, Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37214
*Ph*  615.885.6801 | *Fax*  615.889.4768 | www.magneticdreams.com
tim.crow...@magneticdreams.com

/Confidentiality Notice: This email, including attachments, is 
confidential and should not be used by anyone who is not the original 
intended recipient(s). If you have received this e-mail in error 
please inform the sender and delete it from your mailbox or any other 
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any statements made which are clearly the sender's own and not 
expressly made on behalf of Magnetic Dreams, Inc or one of its agents./




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

Re: Lab vs ICE

2014-03-26 Thread Joe Laffey


On Wed, 26 Mar 2014, Max Evgrafov wrote:


what about this ?  Maybe is it a worthy replacement for ICE ? did somebody
use this one?

http://www.ephere.com/plugins/autodesk/max/lab/



I tried pointing this out shortly after the announcement, but I think 
everyone was too busy bashing Max to see it ;-)


Great plugin.

--
Joe Laffey
The Stable
Visual Effects
http://TheStable.tv/?e34066M/

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread olivier jeannel


Yes :D

Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

is all hope lost?

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Leoung O'Young


In many ways a lot of good things have come out from this sad event.
It forced us to look at other options such as MODO and Houdini.
We were very impressed with demo people at Side Effects gave us on Houdini
After spending 1 week working with MODO one of my associate was very 
impressed with MODO, he is from the Toaster Amiga days,  so we purchased it.
We have a day to decide,  so but will probably upgrade XSI since we have 
so much XSI assets and stay with for awhile.
We will definitely keep an eye on Houdini but right now our budget 
doesn't allow us to have both XSI and Houdini in our pipeline.


The killing of Soft reminds me of a traumatic event in a family which 
tend to bring people within the family closer together.


I want to acknowledged Maurice's help...thanks.

Thanks everyone,
Leoung


On 26/03/2014 10:40 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:

Well, everything's being said.

Thank you Maurice and Chris for taking the time to response all of our 
question, doubts, conspiracy theories, etc.


Thanks to the people of Autodesk that came in to bring some light to 
the users that are in the need or feel to migrate to MAX/Maya option, 
and took flak.


Thanks also everyone else in the list for trying.

At least we tried.

Thank you all for sharing the knowledge, the fights, the struggle and 
the laughs.


Special thanks to the members that started in this mayhem an 
alternative to do the migration easier, or raised theri voices to 
demonstrate Autodesk how fool this decision is.


I apologize for any damage I have caused or inflicted to any member of 
this list in any way.  Never was my intention, but passions arose.  
This is not an excuse, but I believe that evene, we all were expecting 
this at some point since the Autodesk acquisition, we never were 
mental nor heart prepared to face this.


I owe so much to this list, I don't know how to payback all the good 
things this community has brought into my personal and professional life.


I hope that Autodesk reconsiders this abrupt decision of not selling 
more Softimage seats, and bring back Softimage until there is a viable 
option for a Softimage substitute.


I wish you all success in your endeavours, health and a good life.

Cheers.

Sincerely with all my respect

Emilio Hernández

---
Emilio Hernández   VFX  3D animation.

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread David Saber


I see you've recovered from your depression Olivier. What's your trick? :|

On 2014-03-26 16:50, olivier jeannel wrote:

Yes :D

Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

is all hope lost?

Crowd FX 2014 help

2014-03-26 Thread John Richard Sanchez

So I am working on crowd for the first time. I am trying to get one actor
(Angels) to fight another actor (demons). Something like the Foofighters
example. However, the foo fighters example is in the legacy (2013 crowd)
mode so it is tough for me to reconstruct it in the 2014 workflow which I
really like. Is there a scene file out there recreating foo fighters in
2014? Any help on what I would need to get this done would be a big help
Thanks
John

-- 
www.johnrichardsanchez.com

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread olivier jeannel


...cynicism

There is just nothing to wait from those type of people.
They are building their beautiful word no matter if it ruins yours.
They make sentences, write words in a way that is convenient and polite 
for them (beeing polite counts above all). They inocently ask for your 
help (just after stacking the knife in your back) and will find you 
obtuse or not worthy if you refuse (personnaly I'm bleeding and have no 
time for a smile).


Business as usual...

I say, lets hold tight together as long as we could. I /think/ people 
asking for Maya should go elsewhere. They distroyed the Software, let's 
at least try to save the XSI list.



Le 26/03/2014 16:57, David Saber a écrit :
I see you've recovered from your depression Olivier. What's your 
trick? :|


On 2014-03-26 16:50, olivier jeannel wrote:

Yes :D

Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

is all hope lost?

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Leoung O'Young

You never know, they may resurrect Soft within the 2 years...we can only 
hope and dream


On 26/03/2014 12:17 PM, olivier jeannel wrote:

...cynicism

There is just nothing to wait from those type of people.
They are building their beautiful word no matter if it ruins yours.
They make sentences, write words in a way that is convenient and 
polite for them (beeing polite counts above all). They inocently ask 
for your help (just after stacking the knife in your back) and will 
find you obtuse or not worthy if you refuse (personnaly I'm bleeding 
and have no time for a smile).


Business as usual...

I say, lets hold tight together as long as we could. I /think/ people 
asking for Maya should go elsewhere. They distroyed the Software, 
let's at least try to save the XSI list.



Le 26/03/2014 16:57, David Saber a écrit :
I see you've recovered from your depression Olivier. What's your 
trick? :|


On 2014-03-26 16:50, olivier jeannel wrote:

Yes :D

Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

is all hope lost?

RE: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

2014-03-26 Thread Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES]

Correct.

Another way to look at it is that the list of available menus are contextual in 
relation to the active module.

Best.

--
Joey Ponthieux
LaRC Information Technology Enhanced Services (LITES)
Mymic Technical Services
NASA Langley Research Center
__
Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not
represent the opinions of NASA or any other party.

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of sku...@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 12:36 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

Ok now I get what your saying.  Your just talking about the drop-down menu that 
in Maya changes what menus are available in the top menu bar and in Soft, 
changes what menus are available in the side menu bar.  Neither is context 
sensitive based on what you have selected, it’s just providing a different set 
of menus depending on what mode you chose.  In softimage, if you alt+right 
click an object, you get a different menu depending on the object/component 
type, so one menu for what makes sense for faces, and other for edges and 
another for points, etc..  I only use that sparingly, normally for getting to 
things like ‘bevel’ quite quickly after I have my selection ready.  For most 
other things, like welding and splitting edges, there are way more interactive 
options that Soft provides by default.

Cheers, thanks for explaining that, I was very confused Joseph, my bad.

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Paul Griswold

I am still somewhat hopeful that as the months go by, Autodesk will at the
very least reverse direction on completely murdering Softimage and will at
least continue to bundle it with Max and Maya as a particle plugin.  That
would give a much better cushion for the Bifrost team to build their
product and allow us to transition workflows more seamlessly.

-Paul

*“I think it’s just a more reasonable view…. trying to allow customers to
do what they want to do instead of being heavy-handed and forcing customers
to do things that are in their best interest.”  - Carl Bass*



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com wrote:

 this is what was lurking under the hood


 2014-03-26 19:50 GMT+04:00 olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr:

 Yes :D

 Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

 is all hope lost?






 --
 Евграфов Максим.(Summatr)
 https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos
 ---
 Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Chris Marshall

shaperesolutionU


On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to increase the
 resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres and they don't
 hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything else!

 Thanks.

 DAN




-- 

Chris Marshall
Mint Motion Limited
029 20 37 27 57
07730 533 115
www.mintmotion.co.uk

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Andres Stephens

+1



-Draise



From: Paul Griswold
Sent: ‎Wednesday‎, ‎March‎ ‎26‎, ‎2014 ‎11‎:‎52‎ ‎
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com



I am still somewhat hopeful that as the months go by, Autodesk will at the very 
least reverse direction on completely murdering Softimage and will at least 
continue to bundle it with Max and Maya as a particle plugin.  That would 
give a much better cushion for the Bifrost team to build their product and 
allow us to transition workflows more seamlessly.




-Paul




“I think it’s just a more reasonable view…. trying to allow customers to do 
what they want to do instead of being heavy-handed and forcing customers to do 
things that are in their best interest.”  - Carl Bass










On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com wrote:


this is what was lurking under the hood





2014-03-26 19:50 GMT+04:00 olivier jeannel olivier.jean...@noos.fr:


Yes :D

Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

is all hope lost?









-- 
Евграфов Максим.(Summatr)
https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos  
---
Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Eric Thivierge

Uh... they are...  if you keep your subscription current you have 
access to Softimage continually.


On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 12:51:41 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

I am still somewhat hopeful that as the months go by, Autodesk will at
the very least reverse direction on completely murdering Softimage and
will at least continue to bundle it with Max and Maya as a particle
plugin.  That would give a much better cushion for the Bifrost team
to build their product and allow us to transition workflows more
seamlessly.

-Paul

*“I think it’s just a more reasonable view…. trying to allow customers
to do what they want to do instead of being heavy-handed and forcing
customers to do thingsthat are in their best interest.”  - Carl Bass*
*
*


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com
mailto:summ...@gmail.com wrote:

this is what was lurking under the hood


2014-03-26 19:50 GMT+04:00 olivier jeannel
olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr:

Yes :D

Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

is all hope lost?






--
Евграфов Максим.(Summatr)
https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos
---
Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Dan Yargici

Hmmm, not working for me in 2013 SP1

DAN


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Chris Marshall
chrismarshal...@gmail.comwrote:

 shaperesolutionU


 On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to increase
 the resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres and they don't
 hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything else!

 Thanks.

 DAN




 --

 Chris Marshall
 Mint Motion Limited
 029 20 37 27 57
 07730 533 115
 www.mintmotion.co.uk

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Rob Chapman

Has to be an Integer?
On 26 Mar 2014 17:09, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hmmm, not working for me in 2013 SP1

 DAN


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Chris Marshall chrismarshal...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 shaperesolutionU


 On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to increase
 the resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres and they don't
 hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything else!

 Thanks.

 DAN




 --

 Chris Marshall
 Mint Motion Limited
 029 20 37 27 57
 07730 533 115
 www.mintmotion.co.uk

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

The more I read, the more I think you guys never managed to know your users or 
how we use the tools and even who really is your competitor…

Just an example with compositing

- After Effects was windows/mac only!!! no way will get hold of the VFX 
industry.
- Digital Fusion was windows only!!! 
- Toxik was designed with flame in mind, the whole gestural thing and the new 
SQL paradigm proved not what the industry was after, which was lots of cheap 
seats of operators crunching frames like Shake was, like Nuke is.

Nuke was not ready for prime time (I would say it was a bit unfinished around 
the edges) but had the credit of Titanic and the pedigree of a first class VFX 
house behind it… run on linux, was highly customisable (like Maya) and it was 
faster than Shake so felt like a move forward.

I wonder though what you mean by Modo being able to hold together as you add 
the various workflows required to be a complete DCC

thx

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 26 Mar 2014, at 15:21, Chris Vienneau chris.vienn...@autodesk.com wrote:

 I think we can all agree ICE is a unique thing and everyone here is skeptical 
 we will be able to recreate what it was inside of Maya through Bifrost or 
 will just never see Maya as their main platform. Many here (most notably 
 Jordi) are claiming Houdini is the place for those that like the programmatic 
 procedural node workflows. The jury is still out whether Modo will hold 
 together as you add on the various workflows required to be a complete DCC 
 and they have not got traction in the plugin community. 
 
 So no today you do not have an equivalent to what is in ICE/Softimage. We set 
 the two year transition window for the two big camps of Soft users. For games 
 (biggest camp) there is no little to no ICE usage so the main issues are 
 animation tools (mixer), pipeline (metadata transfer, baking, viewport API) 
 and porting existing tools. This industry just had its once every five year 
 update as the PS4 and Xbox One pipelines came online.
 
 The second camp is the mid sized boutiques specializing in commercial post 
 with a sprinkle of film VFX. Most everyone here has an arsenal of 3D software 
 from Maya to Houdini to Modo to Arnold to Nuke to PF Track and grow and 
 shrink through free lance pools. Some of you are softimage only but there are 
 more studios that have more than one toolset than there are that have just 
 one. This is where ICE grew the most and I think the heart of the users in 
 this forum. Why it did not capture more Houdini users as was the plan or more 
 3dsmax and Maya users did not see the benefit is open to debate too. 
 
 Behind the scenes we have shown the first procedural demos of our version of 
 the waving Torus which was the first ICE demo. We want to keep growing from 
 the procedural core shipping in Maya 2015. In the next two years and beyond 
 you can continue to use Softimage. With Houdini, Modo, Fabric, and Maya all 
 saying that they have an answer to the question what will be your next 
 platform at least you have a group of people listening. The DS guys were 
 given a coupon for Digital Fusion. 
 
 Another analogy is Shake. When Shake was EOLed, Nuke was not ready for prime 
 time. Digital Fusion, Toxik, and even After Effects all went after the Shake 
 user base and in the end the compositors arguably have a better industry 
 standard than Shake in Nuke. 
 
 You have some great threads going here and he who listens will get your 
 business. You have a Softimage forum on Houdini and I would push to get one 
 on the Foundry's community and repost the threads from here that are starting 
 to gel into concrete things people need to do.  
 
 cv/
 
 
 From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 [softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] on behalf of p...@bustykelp.com 
 [p...@bustykelp.com]
 Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 8:55 AM
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
 Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass
 
 What we can do is listen to how this has impacted you and be responsible
 for helping you get back to a place where each of you are back to creating
 3D art without thinking about the platform you use. 
 
 And what if your Creating 3D art relies on the unique abilities that ICE
 affords you? To be able to control everything programatically down to its
 fundemental component parts?
 
 There seems to be an assumption that skills can just be swapped over to
 Maya, and this is probably true if your work doesn't deeply involve
 inventing tools with ICE.
 If you just model, put some bones in and add some blendshapes, animate and
 render, then I'm sure Maya will do fine. What about those of us who evolved
 way past that kind of workflow years ago?
 
 I'm not just thinking about the platform I use.  Its the ONLY platform
 that can actually do what I'm doing unless you include Houdini or Fabric,
 and neither of them are near the speed of iteration of ICE yet.
 
 Please could I

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Paul Griswold

So in 2 years if I want to buy an Ultimate Suite as a new license I will
get Softimage included?

If so, I'm slightly less ticked off.

-Paul



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.comwrote:

 Uh... they are...  if you keep your subscription current you have access
 to Softimage continually.


 On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 12:51:41 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

 I am still somewhat hopeful that as the months go by, Autodesk will at
 the very least reverse direction on completely murdering Softimage and
 will at least continue to bundle it with Max and Maya as a particle
 plugin.  That would give a much better cushion for the Bifrost team
 to build their product and allow us to transition workflows more
 seamlessly.

 -Paul

 *“I think it’s just a more reasonable view…. trying to allow customers

 to do what they want to do instead of being heavy-handed and forcing
 customers to do thingsthat are in their best interest.”  - Carl Bass*
 *

 *


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Max Evgrafov summ...@gmail.com
 mailto:summ...@gmail.com wrote:

 this is what was lurking under the hood


 2014-03-26 19:50 GMT+04:00 olivier jeannel
 olivier.jean...@noos.fr mailto:olivier.jean...@noos.fr:


 Yes :D

 Le 26/03/2014 16:15, David Saber a écrit :

 is all hope lost?






 --
 Евграфов Максим.(Summatr)
 https://vimeo.com/user3098735/videos
 ---
 Хорошего Вам настроения !!! :-)

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Chris Marshall

Yes that's right, if you plug an integer into a set data node, it should
work. self.shaperesolutionu



On 26 March 2014 17:16, Rob Chapman tekano@gmail.com wrote:

 Has to be an Integer?
 On 26 Mar 2014 17:09, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hmmm, not working for me in 2013 SP1

 DAN


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Chris Marshall 
 chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

 shaperesolutionU


 On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to increase
 the resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres and they don't
 hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything else!

 Thanks.

 DAN

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Dan Yargici

Thanks guys, I guess it only affects rendering resolution.  I was hoping it
might increase it in the viewport too.

Looks like I'll have to instance a sphere after all.

Cheers.

DAN



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Chris Marshall
chrismarshal...@gmail.comwrote:

 Yes that's right, if you plug an integer into a set data node, it should
 work. self.shaperesolutionu




 On 26 March 2014 17:16, Rob Chapman tekano@gmail.com wrote:

 Has to be an Integer?
 On 26 Mar 2014 17:09, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hmmm, not working for me in 2013 SP1

 DAN


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Chris Marshall 
 chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

 shaperesolutionU


 On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to increase
 the resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres and they 
 don't
 hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything else!

 Thanks.

 DAN

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Chris Marshall

Yes this is only at render time.


On 26 March 2014 17:22, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks guys, I guess it only affects rendering resolution.  I was hoping
 it might increase it in the viewport too.

 Looks like I'll have to instance a sphere after all.

 Cheers.

 DAN



 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Chris Marshall chrismarshal...@gmail.com
  wrote:

 Yes that's right, if you plug an integer into a set data node, it should
 work. self.shaperesolutionu




 On 26 March 2014 17:16, Rob Chapman tekano@gmail.com wrote:

 Has to be an Integer?
 On 26 Mar 2014 17:09, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hmmm, not working for me in 2013 SP1

 DAN


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Chris Marshall 
 chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

 shaperesolutionU


 On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to
 increase the resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres and
 they don't hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display
 resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything else!

 Thanks.

 DAN







-- 

Chris Marshall
Mint Motion Limited
029 20 37 27 57
07730 533 115
www.mintmotion.co.uk

Re: Attribute to increase ICE primitive resolutions?

2014-03-26 Thread Dan Yargici

Doh! I lose my particle colors with instances.  Oh well, they'll have to
stay as they are in my captures.

DAN


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:23 PM, Chris Marshall
chrismarshal...@gmail.comwrote:

 Yes this is only at render time.


 On 26 March 2014 17:22, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks guys, I guess it only affects rendering resolution.  I was hoping
 it might increase it in the viewport too.

 Looks like I'll have to instance a sphere after all.

 Cheers.

 DAN



 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Chris Marshall 
 chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

 Yes that's right, if you plug an integer into a set data node, it should
 work. self.shaperesolutionu




 On 26 March 2014 17:16, Rob Chapman tekano@gmail.com wrote:

 Has to be an Integer?
 On 26 Mar 2014 17:09, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hmmm, not working for me in 2013 SP1

 DAN


 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:54 PM, Chris Marshall 
 chrismarshal...@gmail.com wrote:

 shaperesolutionU


 On 26 March 2014 16:47, Dan Yargici danyarg...@gmail.com wrote:

 Am I right in remembering that there is a hidden attribute to
 increase the resolution of the primitives in ICE?  I am using spheres 
 and
 they don't hold up close to camera so I'd like to increase their display
 resolution.

 I thought it was this.ResolutionU and this.ResolutionU or something
 similar, but my Googling is turning up nothing.

 I know I can just instance some NURBs spheres and that's what I'll
 probably end up doing, this is more of a sanity check than anything 
 else!

 Thanks.

 DAN







 --

 Chris Marshall
 Mint Motion Limited
 029 20 37 27 57
 07730 533 115
 www.mintmotion.co.uk

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Eric Thivierge

This has all been made crystal clear over the last few weeks. No, if 
you keep your subscription current you will be able to. It's a legacy 
subscription benefit. I think it's crazy for people to not keep their 
subscription up to date for at least this next year to be able to get 
Softimage 2015. -- Personal opinion.


Eric T.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 1:18:49 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

So in 2 years if I want to buy an Ultimate Suite as a new license I
will get Softimage included?

If so, I'm slightly less ticked off.

-Paul

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Paul Griswold

Right.  That's how I understood it as well.  My point was, this could have
been slightly less of a PR disaster if they'd not completely murdered
Softimage, but instead set it up as a graceful transition to Bifrost.
 Allow Softimage to continue to be purchased as part of the Suites program
until the point at which Bifrost makes it obvious that ICE is no longer
necessary.

Instead they've set themselves up for a situation where Autodesk has
absolutely no answer to Houdini at all for sale, and a promise of Bifrost
being an amazing new technology.  SideFX and The Foundry aren't going to
sit on their hands while Autodesk builds Bifrost, so IMHO the best business
decision would have been to try to mitigate any losses by keeping Softimage
available to the public while Bifrost matures.

You'd think after what happened with Sumatra versus Maya they'd have
realized it's not a good idea to create a vacuum for too long.

-Paul




On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.comwrote:

 This has all been made crystal clear over the last few weeks. No, if you
 keep your subscription current you will be able to. It's a legacy
 subscription benefit. I think it's crazy for people to not keep their
 subscription up to date for at least this next year to be able to get
 Softimage 2015. -- Personal opinion.

 Eric T.


 On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 1:18:49 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

 So in 2 years if I want to buy an Ultimate Suite as a new license I
 will get Softimage included?

 If so, I'm slightly less ticked off.

 -Paul

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Cristobal Infante

By the way you have until this friday to buy a standalone version of
softimage...


On 26 March 2014 17:37, Paul Griswold 
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com wrote:

 Right.  That's how I understood it as well.  My point was, this could have
 been slightly less of a PR disaster if they'd not completely murdered
 Softimage, but instead set it up as a graceful transition to Bifrost.
  Allow Softimage to continue to be purchased as part of the Suites program
 until the point at which Bifrost makes it obvious that ICE is no longer
 necessary.

 Instead they've set themselves up for a situation where Autodesk has
 absolutely no answer to Houdini at all for sale, and a promise of Bifrost
 being an amazing new technology.  SideFX and The Foundry aren't going to
 sit on their hands while Autodesk builds Bifrost, so IMHO the best business
 decision would have been to try to mitigate any losses by keeping Softimage
 available to the public while Bifrost matures.

 You'd think after what happened with Sumatra versus Maya they'd have
 realized it's not a good idea to create a vacuum for too long.

 -Paul




 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.comwrote:

 This has all been made crystal clear over the last few weeks. No, if you
 keep your subscription current you will be able to. It's a legacy
 subscription benefit. I think it's crazy for people to not keep their
 subscription up to date for at least this next year to be able to get
 Softimage 2015. -- Personal opinion.

 Eric T.


 On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 1:18:49 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

 So in 2 years if I want to buy an Ultimate Suite as a new license I
 will get Softimage included?

 If so, I'm slightly less ticked off.

 -Paul

Re: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Eric Thivierge

Not going to argue over this as it's been gone around in circles for 3 
weeks now. Plenty of posts by Maurice and Chris about why they've done 
it this way (whether you agree or not), why they can't sell it any 
longer. The current user base has their options.


I'm thankful we can have access to Softimage for however long we need 
for the transition. 3-6 years, whatever.


I'm out,
Eric T.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 1:37:21 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

Right.  That's how I understood it as well.  My point was, this could
have been slightly less of a PR disaster if they'd not completely
murdered Softimage, but instead set it up as a graceful transition
to Bifrost.  Allow Softimage to continue to be purchased as part of
the Suites program until the point at which Bifrost makes it obvious
that ICE is no longer necessary.

Instead they've set themselves up for a situation where Autodesk has
absolutely no answer to Houdini at all for sale, and a promise of
Bifrost being an amazing new technology.  SideFX and The Foundry
aren't going to sit on their hands while Autodesk builds Bifrost, so
IMHO the best business decision would have been to try to mitigate any
losses by keeping Softimage available to the public while Bifrost matures.

You'd think after what happened with Sumatra versus Maya they'd have
realized it's not a good idea to create a vacuum for too long.

-Paul

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

Hi Perry,
If you are quoting me, my meaning is that we were maintaining resources not 
investing more and not divesting. I was talking about increasing/decreasing 
resources on the project not about the software itself. Just want to make sure 
that was clear. If you have a team of 10, maintaining resources would keep it 
at current levels. Investing 10% would be increasing it to 11.
Thanks
Maurice

Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134

http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/autodesk-answers-your-questions-demise-softimage-31411069
We go through strategic planning each year, and it was part of that process 
that the decision was made. Softimage wasn't an area we were actively investing 
more resources in, it was something that we had outsourced to Singapore and was 
in a continue-to-maintain mode. But it wasn't something we were thinking of 
end-of-lifing until that strategic planning process.

attachment: winmail.dat

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

BTW I just chose those numbers because they were easy to calculate before I 
start another set of speculation
maurice

Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Maurice Patel
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 2:15 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

Hi Perry,
If you are quoting me, my meaning is that we were maintaining resources not 
investing more and not divesting. I was talking about increasing/decreasing 
resources on the project not about the software itself. Just want to make sure 
that was clear. If you have a team of 10, maintaining resources would keep it 
at current levels. Investing 10% would be increasing it to 11.
Thanks
Maurice

Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134

http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/autodesk-answers-your-questions-demise-softimage-31411069
We go through strategic planning each year, and it was part of that process 
that the decision was made. Softimage wasn't an area we were actively investing 
more resources in, it was something that we had outsourced to Singapore and was 
in a continue-to-maintain mode. But it wasn't something we were thinking of 
end-of-lifing until that strategic planning process.

attachment: winmail.dat

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Perry Harovas

OK, thank you for clearing that up, Maurice.

So you are saying that moving Softimage to the Singapore team was a direct
lateral move, not an increase but also not a decrease, in the team that was
previously on Softimage (apart from being different people, of course)?

So (for argument sake) if you had 10 people when Softimage was in-house,
you had 10 people when it was moved to Singapore?

I just want to make sure I totally understand you, not trying to trap you
or anything.

Thank you,

Perry






On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Maurice Patel
maurice.pa...@autodesk.comwrote:

 Hi Perry,
 If you are quoting me, my meaning is that we were maintaining resources
 not investing more and not divesting. I was talking about
 increasing/decreasing resources on the project not about the software
 itself. Just want to make sure that was clear. If you have a team of 10,
 maintaining resources would keep it at current levels. Investing 10% would
 be increasing it to 11.
 Thanks
 Maurice

 Maurice Patel
 Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134


 http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/autodesk-answers-your-questions-demise-softimage-31411069
 We go through strategic planning each year, and it was part of that
 process that the decision was made. Softimage wasn't an area we were
 actively investing more resources in, it was something that we had
 outsourced to Singapore and was in a continue-to-maintain mode. But it
 wasn't something we were thinking of end-of-lifing until that strategic
 planning process.




-- 





Perry Harovas
Animation and Visual Effects

http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

-25 Years Experience
-Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

2014-03-26 Thread Mirko Jankovic

Also in same numbers, if you had 10 people that are experienced in
Softimage, and you got another 10 people in Singapore, why you haven't
added those 10 for Maya and keep Softimage people focused on their work.
By you mean AD and ofc it is just rhetorical...but even in that case isn;t
replacing 10 years long experineced people with less experineced only short
time transition period training on on software such as complex as 3d app
already
reduction in resources?
10 seniors != 10 juniors



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:25 PM, Perry Harovas perryharo...@gmail.comwrote:

 OK, thank you for clearing that up, Maurice.

 So you are saying that moving Softimage to the Singapore team was a direct
 lateral move, not an increase but also not a decrease, in the team that was
 previously on Softimage (apart from being different people, of course)?

 So (for argument sake) if you had 10 people when Softimage was in-house,
 you had 10 people when it was moved to Singapore?

 I just want to make sure I totally understand you, not trying to trap you
 or anything.

 Thank you,

 Perry






 On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Maurice Patel maurice.pa...@autodesk.com
  wrote:

 Hi Perry,
 If you are quoting me, my meaning is that we were maintaining resources
 not investing more and not divesting. I was talking about
 increasing/decreasing resources on the project not about the software
 itself. Just want to make sure that was clear. If you have a team of 10,
 maintaining resources would keep it at current levels. Investing 10% would
 be increasing it to 11.
 Thanks
 Maurice

 Maurice Patel
 Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134


 http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/autodesk-answers-your-questions-demise-softimage-31411069
 We go through strategic planning each year, and it was part of that
 process that the decision was made. Softimage wasn't an area we were
 actively investing more resources in, it was something that we had
 outsourced to Singapore and was in a continue-to-maintain mode. But it
 wasn't something we were thinking of end-of-lifing until that strategic
 planning process.




 --





 Perry Harovas
 Animation and Visual Effects

 http://www.TheAfterImage.com http://www.theafterimage.com/

 -25 Years Experience
 -Member of the Visual Effects Society (VES)

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

Any such move has short term upfront costs. The hope in making such moves is 
that they translate into longer-term benefits which is what the thinking was at 
the time. I can't go into all the details of what costs what, so my statement 
was a simplification. We make these kinds of moves from time to time. This was 
not the first and won't be the last. Before even the Alias acquisition we moved 
the entire 3ds Max RD team from San Francisco to Montreal. People wondered why 
- it was very costly in  the short term but proved beneficial in the long run 
for many factors not just related to costs. Personally,  I don't actually know 
how many engineers we had before or after and we don't publicly discuss size of 
engineering teams, and even internally we leave that up to RD to figure out, 
because it is often a meaningless discussion without fully understanding what 
the exact experience and capability of each engineer and each team. Both 
increasing and decreasing team size can improve productivity depending on the 
situation. People are people so there is no real formula. If you want to really 
understand the exact details of how an organization like Autodesk functions I 
invite you to come visit us in Montreal. It would be the only real way to begin 
to try to do so. My point was that from an investment perspective the decisions 
being made were not about investing or divesting but about how we could be more 
productive overall with the similar budgets.
maurice

Maurice Patel
Autodesk : Tél:  514 954-7134

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Perry Harovas
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 2:25 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: An Open Letter to Carl Bass

OK, thank you for clearing that up, Maurice.

So you are saying that moving Softimage to the Singapore team was a direct 
lateral move, not an increase but also not a decrease, in the team that was 
previously on Softimage (apart from being different people, of course)?

So (for argument sake) if you had 10 people when Softimage was in-house, you 
had 10 people when it was moved to Singapore?

I just want to make sure I totally understand you, not trying to trap you or 
anything.

Thank you,

Perry





attachment: winmail.dat

Re[2]: Everything's being said.

2014-03-26 Thread Eugen Sares


After all that has been said here, I believe that the urge of AD to
quickly make Bifröst to something ICE-like or better, is overestimated..
Why should they be in any hurry? Because of a few Softies migrating to
Houdini?

The vast majority of ME customers don't even use or need ICE, and also
never bothered looking into the other qualities of Softimage besides
ICE, and so will just happily remain sailing under AD's flag.
I don't think that all of a sudden most users will develop an appetite
for this. You don't miss what you don't know, and we all are also
creatures of habit.

So things will stay as they are in AD land a little longer - as long as
there are ANY improvements, no matter how small or slow, the show will
go on.
These users are the ones that AD feels responsible for, and it makes
business sense, too.

Not that max or Maya users don't create brilliant work! But obviously
they are to a degree happy with their workflows, otherwise Soft would
have had much more admission meanwhile.
The user base that tries to be 'cutting edge' with a small team and a
single application is just a minority.

Probably Bifröst will some day be 'cutting edge', too, but at it's own
slow pace. For AD, there's no pressure or imminent threat, so be
prepared for a probably longer wait than two years.
Convenient situation for AD, in fact. They can play around as long as
they like, with the tempo they choose, and the next generation of 3d
artist will surely reap the benefits one day.


For now, the good thing is that the competition is already taking
advantage of the beginning Softimage diaspora. For them, the number of
users are relevant, unlike for AD.

My 2c
Best regards,
Eugen




-- Originalnachricht --
Von: Paul Griswold pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com
An: Eric Thivierge ethivie...@hybride.com
Cc: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Gesendet: 26.03.2014 18:37:21
Betreff: Re: Everything's being said.


Right.  That's how I understood it as well.  My point was, this could
have been slightly less of a PR disaster if they'd not completely
murdered Softimage, but instead set it up as a graceful transition to
Bifrost.  Allow Softimage to continue to be purchased as part of the
Suites program until the point at which Bifrost makes it obvious that
ICE is no longer necessary.

Instead they've set themselves up for a situation where Autodesk has
absolutely no answer to Houdini at all for sale, and a promise of
Bifrost being an amazing new technology.  SideFX and The Foundry aren't
going to sit on their hands while Autodesk builds Bifrost, so IMHO the
best business decision would have been to try to mitigate any losses by
keeping Softimage available to the public while Bifrost matures.

You'd think after what happened with Sumatra versus Maya they'd have
realized it's not a good idea to create a vacuum for too long.

-Paul




On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Eric Thivierge
ethivie...@hybride.com wrote:

This has all been made crystal clear over the last few weeks. No, if
you keep your subscription current you will be able to. It's a legacy
subscription benefit. I think it's crazy for people to not keep their
subscription up to date for at least this next year to be able to get
Softimage 2015. -- Personal opinion.

Eric T.


On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 1:18:49 PM, Paul Griswold wrote:

So in 2 years if I want to buy an Ultimate Suite as a new license I
will get Softimage included?

If so, I'm slightly less ticked off.

-Paul






---
Diese E-Mail ist frei von Viren und Malware, denn der avast! Antivirus Schutz 
ist aktiv.
http://www.avast.com

Re: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

2014-03-26 Thread Luc-Eric Rousseau

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:40 AM, Martin Yara furik...@gmail.com wrote:
 While I like this MMB repeat function, but I don't see how it could be
 implemented in Maya without having to heavily change its interface.

I think technically MMB could possibly be implemented in Maya's menu
(although perhaps not on OSX), but I'm not 50% sure that this is a
true problem.  In Sofitmage, we structured some menus knowing that you
would be doing MMB on those big buttons to repeat commands burried in
there two levels deep. (More so in Softimage 3D, for example to set
keys, but anyway)  But in Maya, you'll be interacting  with the
software differently, including using marking menus, hotkeys, and
hotbox.

In the XSI viewport, you can MMB to toggle between the two last modes,
for example wireframe and textured, but that's not a 'repeat last
command', it's a special case for that button.

I'm not opposing MMB, but I'm not totally sold on whether this is
essential and not simply a legacy user / muscle memory thing.  Don't
forget also tear off menus as a way to repeat commands quickly.

we did add to Maya the ability to keep a menu open to do check several
checkmarks like in XSI; in Maya in on the CTRL key

RE: An Open Letter to Carl Bass