Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
They probably pull straws at AD every two weeks to see who has to wear that hat for a while... MB Den 31. juli 2013 kl. 04:34 skrev Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: K... that wasn't very long lived. Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com mailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 4:21 AM, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dk wrote: They probably pull straws at AD every two weeks to see who has to wear that hat for a while... it's not that bad.. as far as I know, it's just back to Cory (who took over after chinny left) full time instead of part-time...
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
It might help to defuse things a bit though if things were clearer, as we will tend to assume the worst if uninformed. There is some knee jerk, but from outside the view isn't quite as clear as it is from where you stand Luc-Eric. Is this a reshuffle and Daniel has just been offset elsewhere, or was someone on Soft actually cut off? Former wouldn't be as bad if Cory will be able to be a full time PM this time around (is he on this list? I actually like the guy). Latter might be more discouraging. On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 4:21 AM, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dk wrote: They probably pull straws at AD every two weeks to see who has to wear that hat for a while... it's not that bad.. as far as I know, it's just back to Cory (who took over after chinny left) full time instead of part-time... -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
When Chinny was around no one here were in doubt what was going on at Softimage and who was in charge - he was very vocal and made sure we were in the loop regarding development (as far as was possible outside the company). Nowadays, we don't even know who is in charge, excepth because you tell us - why don't we have Cory introducing himself and explaining on this list what is going on so all the speculation could be put to rest?? Morten Den 1. august 2013 kl. 14:55 skrev Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com: It might help to defuse things a bit though if things were clearer, as we will tend to assume the worst if uninformed. There is some knee jerk, but from outside the view isn't quite as clear as it is from where you stand Luc-Eric. Is this a reshuffle and Daniel has just been offset elsewhere, or was someone on Soft actually cut off? Former wouldn't be as bad if Cory will be able to be a full time PM this time around (is he on this list? I actually like the guy). Latter might be more discouraging. On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 10:38 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 4:21 AM, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dk mailto:x...@colorshopvfx.dk wrote: They probably pull straws at AD every two weeks to see who has to wear that hat for a while... it's not that bad.. as far as I know, it's just back to Cory (who took over after chinny left) full time instead of part-time... -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
This IS ridicules...what a mess!! And yes...this hand full of fixes over the past two years were not worth 1800 Euro. There would be so many things that need an upgrade... But for now there is no alternative to Soft right now. Am 31.07.2013 04:20, schrieb Luc-Eric Rousseau: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote: Nah, maya FX! ;) hey, could you please stop posting stuff like like this? When I switched the maya team I said I joined the Maya FX team. That's the name of the team that handles simluation and nucleus, etc, like saying this other guy's title software developer, Maya Rendering or team leader, Softimage UI. When you saw my title on linked in as project leader - compositing did you really think there was going to be a product called Compositing? dumb.
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
This thread is a gift that keeps on giving. It's now officially got better than Dexter season 2 and is just about near catching up to Breaking Bad. If AD should take anything from it it's probably not so much the hate and the mis-trust (although there is such a thing as getting a hint :) ), it's probably that they're at that point where they really, really need more transparency and clearer comm channels. It takes hundreds of threads and e-mails, public and private, to barely form a very fuzzy picture of what is going on. While small companies and start-ups have to face the problem of client insecurity (as a client can you promise me you will exist in six months?), the large ones would do well to remember they are confusing. Asterix in Rome, Gilliam's Brazil confusing :)
RE: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Ice3 -- Joey __ Opinions stated here-in are strictly those of the author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or any other party. From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Sylvain Lebeau Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 12:20 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COMhttp://www.shedmtl.com/ http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COMhttp://www.shedmtl.com/ On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.commailto:ahmidou@gmail.com Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.commailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.commailto:s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. -- [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg]
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
I remember that MAYA FX was also used to define the whole simulation toolset. Anyway, I'm sorry if I hurt you,It wasn't meant to and It was definitely not directed to you or someone at all. Now to come back to Greg's feeling and about the regular AD bashing and climate on this list since the acquisition, if there is something to blame, it's how AD pushed Softimage in a corner and didn't treat it as equal as it's brother apps. When you have a product that is well installed and another that have a great potential, you generally focus your communication efforts on the latest. Instead it's almost invisible, has been pushed in suites as a companion and reduced to ICE. At some points, Softimage was very popular for commercials where you need work very fast, that could have been something pushed, but today and it has been said many time on the list, people barely even know SI is still here, or even what it is... From the outside, it just look like AD didn't know what to do with his new toy, and still don't. Too bad there never was a step made in that direction(communication and visibility) but words. --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:04 AM, Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com wrote: Nah, maya FX! ;) hey, could you please stop posting stuff like like this? When I switched the maya team I said I joined the Maya FX team. That's the name of the team that handles simluation and nucleus, etc, like saying this other guy's title software developer, Maya Rendering or team leader, Softimage UI. When you saw my title on linked in as project leader - compositing did you really think there was going to be a product called Compositing? dumb.
Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
As I find out more and more about what is going on behind the scenes at at AD in regards to Softimage (plus all the others) the more and more angry I get. And frankly the more I want my support money back, seriously. This has been a huge bait and switch scam I feel like I have been consistently lied to about the future of Soft, there is even a video of a product manager of the week telling me the future of Softimage is _good_ on the Autodesk site. Buyers remorse is one thing, but frankly no one has been honest with us about where all of this was headed, in fact I would say that I was deliberately lied to by the PR machine that is AD. The video of Daniel Tutino talking about the future of softimage is a prime example of AD misleading us. What's sad if you watch the video, he is acting like a really bad liar . ( I have the video downloaded just in case I need it to back up my case against AD.) First off I wish I would have NEVER bought a suite... I did not want a single dollar of mine going to support Maya, but apparently if you jumped on the suite bandwagon your money went toward a bazzilion Maya developers, even if you checked softimage is my main interest in the AD suite surveys. I wanted a Softimage branded suite for that very reason. Now from what I gather soft has less developers than my hand has fingers, and Maya has over a hundred?? WTF are all those developers working on, really? 100 devs working under the bad management of AD guys cant even compete with 15 devs working at an under funded Softimage run by Avid . I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums Do the powers that be at AD still think putting everything into one app makes sense?? There is a reason why niche products do a better job at niche work :) I would be happy with if AD made an attempt at a next gen app, I would give that a shotbut I passed on Maya for a reason. I paid my support so Softimage could be developed furthernot so AD could put a nail in its coffin. Feeling like I just got robbed... is there something we can do as a group to get our voices heard? Anyone know any good lawyers that will work for next years support money ;) -- *Greg Punchatz* *Sr. Creative Director* Janimation 214.823.7760 www.janimation.com http://www.janimation.com
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
... batch move to modo ? I doubt luxologic will lead us to the promised land just yet :( you are right about mudbox On 31 July 2013 00:23, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: As I find out more and more about what is going on behind the scenes at at AD in regards to Softimage (plus all the others) the more and more angry I get. And frankly the more I want my support money back, seriously. This has been a huge bait and switch scam I feel like I have been consistently lied to about the future of Soft, there is even a video of a product manager of the week telling me the future of Softimage is *good * on the Autodesk site. Buyers remorse is one thing, but frankly no one has been honest with us about where all of this was headed, in fact I would say that I was deliberately lied to by the PR machine that is AD. The video of Daniel Tutino talking about the future of softimage is a prime example of AD misleading us. What's sad if you watch the video, he is acting like a really bad liar . ( I have the video downloaded just in case I need it to back up my case against AD.) First off I wish I would have NEVER bought a suite... I did not want a single dollar of mine going to support Maya, but apparently if you jumped on the suite bandwagon your money went toward a bazzilion Maya developers, even if you checked softimage is my main interest in the AD suite surveys. I wanted a Softimage branded suite for that very reason. Now from what I gather soft has less developers than my hand has fingers, and Maya has over a hundred?? WTF are all those developers working on, really? 100 devs working under the bad management of AD guys cant even compete with 15 devs working at an under funded Softimage run by Avid . I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums Do the powers that be at AD still think putting everything into one app makes sense?? There is a reason why niche products do a better job at niche work :) I would be happy with if AD made an attempt at a next gen app, I would give that a shotbut I passed on Maya for a reason. I paid my support so Softimage could be developed furthernot so AD could put a nail in its coffin. Feeling like I just got robbed... is there something we can do as a group to get our voices heard? Anyone know any good lawyers that will work for next years support money ;) -- -- *Greg Punchatz* *Sr. Creative Director* Janimation 214.823.7760 www.janimation.com
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most? Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been about using the same tools and UI in all modules..
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most? Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been about using the same tools and UI in all modules.. --
RE: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Let's review the past: In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me. I would say north of $300 million USD. Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative. In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft - mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers. In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I'm sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. At this point you'd be paying for a name.one which many people mispronounce. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.commailto:g...@janimation.com I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most? Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.commailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.commailto:g...@janimation.com wrote: I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been about using the same tools and UI in all modules.. -- [http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8965/erojamailpleca.jpg]
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:18 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Just wondering... If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... $10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon... I think you over estimate the amount of SI users... Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
I think back then MS mostly invested to have something to leverage NT as a workstation platform. I don't think satellite or offset markets were of any interest, or at least not as much as having a high prestige brand to requalify a major investment and break into an entire market segment that they knew would have grown and led to others (and time proved them right for a while, before NT 3.5.1 they were the cheap-arse consumer mass diffused thing, after NT and despite the win95 blunders they were projected to new heights). Avid defintely went all in for a big DS scare, and the 3D side of things was kind of this thing they didn't quite know how to deal with. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.comwrote: Hmmm but Softimage DS came out when it was already Microsoft as I remember. Eddie was the comp from Softimage and Toonz for 2D cell animation at the moment Microsoft acquired it. Unless of course DS was in development which I don't know, at the moment Microsoft bought it. As many of you I never felt in home with AD as I felt in those good old days. Even with Avid that was trying to do: I don't know what... I stopped paying my suscription since 2013. I was waiting to see the new incredible team that it was said to bring new blood to Softimage. But all I can see is AD adding more corpse parts to the Frankenstein that is Maya. And new Softimage wizkids that as far as I read here, don't know how to properly increment a version number with no backward compatibility. Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. Better tools have been developed by the SI Community by far. Just wondering... If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... $10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon... 2013/7/30 Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com Let’s review the past: ** ** In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me. I would say north of $300 million USD. Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative. ** ** In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft – mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers. ** ** In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. ** ** Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I’m sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. ** ** At this point you’d be paying for a name…..one which many people mispronounce. ** ** ** ** Matt ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Emilio Hernandez *Sent:* Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! ** ** How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? ** ** 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most? Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been about using
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
I don't think we should be too hard on Chris and the rest of the development team in Singapore, I just think they've been dealt a very bad hand. I think it was a mistake letting Softimage development leave Montréal, as all the people that really know the code inside and out are there. I really do hope the new team surprises me, Chris seems to be earnest in his want to create a good product for us. I just hope the people above him empower him to create some great features for us... I would not want to walk in his shoes right now. Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 8:18 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: Hmmm but Softimage DS came out when it was already Microsoft as I remember. Eddie was the comp from Softimage and Toonz for 2D cell animation at the moment Microsoft acquired it. Unless of course DS was in development which I don't know, at the moment Microsoft bought it. As many of you I never felt in home with AD as I felt in those good old days. Even with Avid that was trying to do: I don't know what... I stopped paying my suscription since 2013. I was waiting to see the new incredible team that it was said to bring new blood to Softimage. But all I can see is AD adding more corpse parts to the Frankenstein that is Maya. And new Softimage wizkids that as far as I read here, don't know how to properly increment a version number with no backward compatibility. Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. Better tools have been developed by the SI Community by far. Just wondering... If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... $10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon... 2013/7/30 Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com Let’s review the past: In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me. I would say north of $300 million USD. Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative. In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft – mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers. In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I’m sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. At this point you’d be paying for a name…..one which many people mispronounce. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most? Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been about using the same tools and UI in all modules.. -- --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:40 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com wrote: Chris seems to be earnest in his want to create a good product for us Not to disrespect Chris but he's not a dev. He's in Q.A. AFAIK. He can want to do amazing things but I don't want to hear this stuff from him. I want some direct talk from the person in charge. Who is that again? Can we get an email address / phone number please? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
2013/7/31 Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:42 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote: Who is that again? Can we get an email address / phone number please? To pull a Brad, I remembered Graham posted the name Chris Bradshaw the other day. If we use a bit of logic as to how most AD email addresses go, maybe chris.brads...@autodesk.com will be the correct one. Anyone care to toss something at it and see if it sticks? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com
RE: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Originally known as 'Softimage Digital Studio' and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage's attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment. The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN). The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer. Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid's horrible customer service and old code base. Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later. As for Sumatra.the intention was to share the same core as DS and also integrate 'Twister' (special interactive version of mental ray). However it was later discovered that was not possible if the products were to all exist and be competitive. So, Sumatra was split off onto its own core and somewhat rushed because it was 1998 and very late to market, and chasing the then newly released Maya 1.0. That is partly why some features are not as well integrated as others. For example, why animation edits do not log in the script editor. The other stuff you'll have to ask one of the former developers. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 6:19 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! Hmmm but Softimage DS came out when it was already Microsoft as I remember. Eddie was the comp from Softimage and Toonz for 2D cell animation at the moment Microsoft acquired it. Unless of course DS was in development which I don't know, at the moment Microsoft bought it. As many of you I never felt in home with AD as I felt in those good old days. Even with Avid that was trying to do: I don't know what... I stopped paying my suscription since 2013. I was waiting to see the new incredible team that it was said to bring new blood to Softimage. But all I can see is AD adding more corpse parts to the Frankenstein that is Maya. And new Softimage wizkids that as far as I read here, don't know how to properly increment a version number with no backward compatibility. Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. Better tools have been developed by the SI Community by far. Just wondering... If the people of Greenbay owns its football team... $10 million is not that much to get Softimage out of the dungeon... 2013/7/30 Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.commailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com Let's review the past: In 1994, Microsoft acquired Softimage Co. for an amount which I used to know but currently escapes me. I would say north of $300 million USD. Microsoft bought the company for Softimage Digital Studio to promote their webTV intiative. In 1998, Avid paid roughly $200 million to acquire Softimage from Microsoft - mostly as a defensive move fearing being killed by DS and backlash from their own customers. In 2008, Autodesk paid roughly $37 million to acquire Softimage from Avid, but that only included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I'm sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. At this point you'd be paying for a name.one which many people mispronounce. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Emilio Hernandez Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.commailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.commailto:g...@janimation.com I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
*This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute* Like render engines except MR I guess... Exocortex, Eric Mootz's, etc... I will wait and see... I hope at least this SDK changes will lead us to better and new features. One thing I can say is that at least I've seen more good stuff made with Softimage, like the chimp add, Zambezia, and Johnny Walker's Bruce Lee although this last one was shared in the pipeline with Maya. 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com 2013/7/31 Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. I think he did introduce himself on the list... maybe. At some point. Or it was possibly another list, and another Daniel. I don't know. Don't bash on Chris (Chia) though, the guy has been consistently doing more than a lot of other people in the face of some really rude response. You can argue it might or might not be his job to, but you gain nothing from alienating him (or Luc-Eric, or Graham) from the list. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:42 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote: Who is that again? Can we get an email address / phone number please? To pull a Brad, I remembered Graham posted the name Chris Bradshaw the other day. If we use a bit of logic as to how most AD email addresses go, maybe chris.brads...@autodesk.com will be the correct one. Anyone care to toss something at it and see if it sticks? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Thanks for the update Matt. I bought one DS when it came out on the Intergraph platform and it was rock solid. I feel old... My first Softimage 3D workstation was a TDZ-310 with Dual Pentium Pro at 150Mhz... hahaha. State of the art machine those days. 2013/7/30 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. I think he did introduce himself on the list... maybe. At some point. Or it was possibly another list, and another Daniel. I don't know. Don't bash on Chris (Chia) though, the guy has been consistently doing more than a lot of other people in the face of some really rude response. You can argue it might or might not be his job to, but you gain nothing from alienating him (or Luc-Eric, or Graham) from the list. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:42 PM, Eric Thivierge ethivie...@gmail.comwrote: Who is that again? Can we get an email address / phone number please? To pull a Brad, I remembered Graham posted the name Chris Bradshaw the other day. If we use a bit of logic as to how most AD email addresses go, maybe chris.brads...@autodesk.com will be the correct one. Anyone care to toss something at it and see if it sticks? Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Not sure if directed at me Raf but I did add that first bit about not to disrespect Chris I was pointing out basically what you said. He's being the most vocal when it should be someone else who is giving us most of our information. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:58 PM, Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com wrote: *This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute* Like render engines except MR I guess... Exocortex, Eric Mootz's, etc... I will wait and see... I hope at least this SDK changes will lead us to better and new features. One thing I can say is that at least I've seen more good stuff made with Softimage, like the chimp add, Zambezia, and Johnny Walker's Bruce Lee although this last one was shared in the pipeline with Maya. 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com 2013/7/31 Emilio Hernandez emi...@e-roja.com Needing to compile all the plugins again in order to work with 2014sp2. Something I have never seen before in Softimage. This is untrue, you only have to do this for plugins accessing to ice attribute --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
K... that wasn't very long lived. Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
wow, changed again? *written with my thumbs On Jul 30, 2013, at 7:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com wrote: the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
*K... that wasn't very long lived. * *Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy. * Hahahaha* * 2013/7/30 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com K... that wasn't very long lived. Keeping up with product manager who's who for Soft these days is harder than keeping up with who's who in a Greek Orgy. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:57 PM, Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com wrote: Chris might be a bit too high up. Soft got two new product manager/designer who have been kinda absent. Daniel Tutino replaced Cory, who was sort of temping in after Chinny... more or less, I guess. the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
what a mess :/
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: the Softimage product manager is Cory. Daniel no longer works for Cory Oh for fucks sake! Seriously!?!?! That's it I vote for Chris Chia. Eric Thivierge http://www.ethivierge.com
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Originally known as ‘Softimage Digital Studio’ and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage’s attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment. The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN). The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. ** ** After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer. Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid’s horrible customer service and old code base. Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later. Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet. The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead. I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS. What weird things to just drop here as facts. The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them.
RE: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
They are facts Luc-Eric. Digging up the data is a bit difficult due to the archived nature, but here is a link to show I'm not blowing smoke: Discreet logic vs. Softimage (search for 'softimage' in the text) http://tinyurl.com/munclsx I *think* I have a hard copy at home with the settlement decided at $200M CDN. It was settled about the same time Microsoft acquired Softimage. I once heard Microsoft decided to settle just to be rid of the problem and paid them off. As for the Avid folks, I know at least Mike Stojda left Avid to head up the DS project at Softimage and a few devs did too. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:39 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.commailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com wrote: Originally known as 'Softimage Digital Studio' and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage's attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment. The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN). The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer. Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid's horrible customer service and old code base. Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later. Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet. The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead. I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS. What weird things to just drop here as facts. The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them.
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
i seem to remember what matt has listed, not from matt either, about microsoft wanting to take out the competing OS, irix. On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 7:38 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them.
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
included the 3D half of the company. The DS stuff remained with Avid. Today with reduced market share, downsized development, a core built on near obsolete technology of COM/OLE and dependencies on other technology with strings attached, and no game breaking features released since the last acquisition (but many enhancements to ICE), I would guess you could buy Softimage for under $10 million. But I’m sure Autodesk would ask for a lot more. At this point you’d be paying for a name…..one which many people mispronounce. Matt *From:*softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Emilio Hernandez *Sent:* Tuesday, July 30, 2013 5:35 PM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! How much money will it be needed to buy Softimage from AD? 2013/7/30 Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com mailto:g...@janimation.com I was just reading between the lines... I've read your mails and posts for years, lets just say you have a knack for foreshadowing future happenings by putting things a certain way... Like the time you wrote the post on the Softimage forum, so what if you guys finally had to bite the bullet and switch to Maya what would you miss the most? Only time will tell if I read your tea leaves correctly . Sent from my iPhone On Jul 30, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com mailto:luceri...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Greg Punchatz g...@janimation.com mailto:g...@janimation.com wrote: I am also hugely disappointed in Mudbox... The only thing I ended up using in the whole suite is SOFTIMAGE.. Zbrush and Mari got my personal dollars because they delivered while AD promised. Now Luc Eric is all but saying Mudbox is going into Maya on Softimage forums I never wrote or implied anything of the sort about mudbox. I replied to a statement made that an app like zbrush or mudbox couldn't be built in another app instead of standalone, if it is a platform that's designed well enough and provides good SDK services. there is no need to mindlessly re-create UI, manipulators, opengl viewports, from scratch all the time when all the base is similar. we've all wasted time in apps that have weird navigation or stuff we've used to with manipulators. it's pointless, and Softimage itself has always been about using the same tools and UI in all modules.. -- --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
@Matt: I think Soft was sold to MS for a lot less than 300. Tempted to say less than half that. Mostly I remember MS making a good profit, and I was around and not long after that joined Avid. MS - Avid is the one that scratched close to 300M I think. @Luc-Eric Matt has better memory than you in this case :) REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- SOFTIMAGE and Discreet Logic, Inc. announced today they have settled a dispute over the ownership and distribution rights to the image-processing software FLAME. Under the terms of the settlement, both companies have agreed that Discreet Logic is the owner of FLAME and that Discreet Logic will continue to distribute FLAME. The parties have agreed to keep the terms of the agreement confidential, and no further information will be released. SOFTIMAGE develops, markets and supports a fully integrated family of interactive software tools that enables designers and animators to create high-quality, photo-realistic 2-D and 3-D imagery. In June 1994, SOFTIMAGE became a fully owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. NOTE: Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. SOFTIMAGE is a registered trademark of SOFTIMAGE, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. -0- 10/12/94 /CONTACT: Press Only: Leslie Kesselring or Lisa MacKenzie of Waggener Edstrom, 503-699-0856/ (MSFT) And I would argue the most common interpretation of MS buying Soft wasn't cool rubbing off, that was considered a nice side effect at best, but more wedging into highly scaling/highly performing focused markets in a non-corporate way, and graphics were picked as the venue for that. See NT 3.5.1 That's what I heard most of the time from most of the well informed people who've operated at the necessary altitude to hazard a guess. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.comwrote: Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet. The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead. I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS. What weird things to just drop here as facts. The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
*The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. * This is more the story I know. So they develop with Intergraph the first NT based workstation with Open GL for 3D, featuring Softimage 3D. I bought the TDZ-310 for $21,000 if I can remember well. The Indigo loaded with Softimage was around $35,000 If my memory does not fail me... DS was shipped with Interstorage and in a Studio Z. When Avid bought Softimage the DS system changed to an IBM. And in fact Avid DS never performed as good as the Softimage DS 2.0. But hey, we were talking about buying Softimage from AD... 2013/7/30 Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.comwrote: Originally known as ‘Softimage Digital Studio’ and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage’s attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment. The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN). The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. ** ** After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer. Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid’s horrible customer service and old code base. Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later. Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet. The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead. I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS. What weird things to just drop here as facts. The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Tuesday, 30 July, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. This is more the story I know. So they develop with Intergraph the first NT based workstation with Open GL for 3D, featuring Softimage 3D. I bought the TDZ-310 for $21,000 if I can remember well. The Indigo loaded with Softimage was around $35,000 If my memory does not fail me... DS was shipped with Interstorage and in a Studio Z. When Avid bought Softimage the DS system changed to an IBM. And in fact Avid DS never performed as good as the Softimage DS 2.0. But hey, we were talking about buying Softimage from AD... 2013/7/30 Luc-Eric Rousseau luceri...@gmail.com (mailto:luceri...@gmail.com) On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 9:51 PM, Matt Lind ml...@carbinestudios.com (mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com) wrote: Originally known as ‘Softimage Digital Studio’ and started in the early 1990s for the IRIX platform (1992/1993), it was Softimage’s attempt to merge 2D and 3D into a single seamless end-to-end environment. The drive to develop the product was largely to circumvent the court battle Softimage had with Discreet Logic (and later lost at a cost of $200+ million CDN). The IRIX version required an SGI Onyx to run and was largely smoke and mirrors, but it was enough to convince Microsoft to buy Softimage in 1994 and later convert (rewrite) to work on the Windows NT platform to what is known today as Avid|DS. After acquisition, some Avid developers jumped ship and joined Softimage to help design DS to be an Avid killer. Softimage|DS debuted in spring 1998 at NAB with great interest, largely from customers itching to get away from Avid’s horrible customer service and old code base. Seeing the writing on the wall, Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft less than 3 months later. Personally, I've never heard anything about a court battle between Softimage and Discreet. The only interesting bit is between the two company is that Discreet was founded by the sales director of Softimage and sold Eddie before handing it over to Softimage and going with Flame instead. I'm also not aware of any Avid developer jumping ship and coming to DS. What weird things to just drop here as facts. The more common interpretation of history is that Microsoft bought Softimage because of 3D and film VFX was cool and they were hoping the Hollywood glamour would rub on them. --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?….
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?….
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com (mailto:ahmidou@gmail.com) Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com (mailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com) You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com (mailto:s...@shedmtl.com) wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
...MoBuCad123456d? 2013/7/31 Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED** *V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. -- -- Gustavo E Boehs http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/blog
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
oh yeah 360cloudadvantagepack, almost forgot :D 2013/7/31 Gustavo Eggert Boehs gustav...@gmail.com ...MoBuCad123456d? 2013/7/31 Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED** *V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. -- -- Gustavo E Boehs http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/blog -- Gustavo E Boehs http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/blog
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
A common gang….. am i the only one that think's we need to reset the whole thing? … Softimage had a 2 gigs maximum size for a scene……. it is now 4 gigs…… and we've already hit that mark here…… giga polygon core? .. Is this next gen? p Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Sylvain Lebeau wrote: nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com (mailto:ahmidou@gmail.com) Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com (mailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com) You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com (mailto:s...@shedmtl.com) wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
So let's call it The Sausage 3D. 2013/7/30 Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com A common gang….. am i the only one that think's we need to reset the whole thing? … Softimage had a 2 gigs maximum size for a scene……. it is now 4 gigs…… and we've already hit that mark here…… giga polygon core? .. Is this next gen? p *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED** *V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Sylvain Lebeau wrote: nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED** *V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM http://www.shedmtl.com/ On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. -- --
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
hmmm il like sausages …… with hot mustard!! :-) Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:37 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: So let's call it The Sausage 3D. 2013/7/30 Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com (mailto:s...@shedmtl.com) A common gang….. am i the only one that think's we need to reset the whole thing? … Softimage had a 2 gigs maximum size for a scene……. it is now 4 gigs…… and we've already hit that mark here…… giga polygon core? .. Is this next gen? p Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 (tel:514%20849-1555) F 514 849-5025 (tel:514%20849-5025) WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Sylvain Lebeau wrote: nnn … SoftiMayaMudFBXmax Sylvain Lebeau // SHED V-P/Visual effects supervisor 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8 T 514 849-1555 (tel:514%20849-1555) F 514 849-5025 (tel:514%20849-5025) WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM (http://www.shedmtl.com/) On Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 at 12:06 AM, Emilio Hernandez wrote: Softimaya... 2013/7/30 Ahmidou Lyazidi ahmidou@gmail.com (mailto:ahmidou@gmail.com) Nah, maya FX! ;) --- Ahmidou Lyazidi Director | TD | CG artist http://vimeo.com/ahmidou/videos http://www.cappuccino-films.com 2013/7/31 Raffaele Fragapane raffsxsil...@googlemail.com (mailto:raffsxsil...@googlemail.com) You mean Bifrost? :p On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Sylvain Lebeau s...@shedmtl.com (mailto:s...@shedmtl.com) wrote: fun facts folks….i admit…. how about what's comming up next?…. -- --
RE: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
Have been having this fun little debate off and on with Luc eric for a while now. Mostly on the si community forums. Firstly while we dont always agree I have a tremendous amount of respect for both him , Graham and recently Chris who are really do a great job of trying to hold things together. ( I also add the Singapore team in this as they have been given a hospital pass of note) The problem they are facing boils down to the following. What they have in the code base (even if parts of it have have fairly major updates) is a very old foundation. this means that there is always issues with either how fast you can work with stuff, or even if you can work with stuff, You are in effect always constrained by the lowest common denominator. They just cannot hope to compete with the other industry players who are at the moment out doing them in pretty much every way except hoovering up subscriptions. They just cant hope to keep on buying up little firms doing cool stuff and hope it will keep things going forever. As I posted before I think how they have handled Naiad technically has been right (PR wise was a disater) What I hope they are doing is keeping their new tech acquisitions in a way that can plug into any app. This allows them the freedom to be working on a new one app to rule the all. If they are not doing this with that intent they are well and truely shafted. They need as Sylvain pointed out the radical shift like Apple (did with mac os x) had the balls to do. I personally think they need to go further then just the app and really work on where the app runs as well. Accelerated Driver support for the quadro cards has been abysmal. My ponkey donk games card kicks my quadros ass in pretty much every aspect except cost. Their other main problem is perception. Right now they have a very big problem with people questioning whether ADSK is still valid and worth their subscription fees. For pretty much everyone I personally know and from what I can see quite a few folks on the list has dropped their subscription (or is in the process of for next year). I will also most likely not be renewing our EDU sub next year. I know they are forced to hide behind bureaucratic BS of not releasing roadmaps. However if they dont tell folks exactly what is happening they wont need one as all of their customers would have left. A breakdown of where our subs go for one would be great. While the SI people are some of the most amazing passionate about their software I have had the honor of knowing. More and more of them are getting tired of being treated like mushrooms. From: Sylvain Lebeau [s...@shedmtl.com] Sent: 31 July 2013 04:57 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! cough you remember me with my past rants i am sure. I've tried to calm down... Just bought 5 more Softimage seats today. Growing the user base is the best thing to do to make share holders go in the direction we all want. But we are such a small army alltogheter. We are the inglorious basterds of the 3D industry unfortunatly. But in the film, they kinda win!! :-) wich is not what is going to happen to us... i think. Chris, Luc-Eric, Stefan and your team in singapore. just dont give up! I think you really do a great job at trying to support such a passionate and intimate micro user base. I am still quite happy with the bug fixes list from 2014. Even tough I ranted about the camera sequencer And also i am amazed about the responsiveness for our problem we've had here with accessing the ICE data attributes and the fixes to the SDK leading to SP2. This was fast and i felt at home again. Autodesk, do what apple did when releasing OSX. A major cut. They started on fresh new modern foundations. I am ready to asbsorb the cost of our pipeline tools rewrite if you come with a master app bringing togheter the power of the big 3s. It's the only way out. Merge the Fu** all of your patents togheter in this next gen uber app. It is the only way to keep up against the others. The foundry are comming hardcore and they will integrate Modo with Katana, Mari and Nuke. Also, Side effects are a good bunch of listening passionate fellows too. Thoses guys really strive for something new and refreshing. You cannot sit laid back on maya, xsi and max and hope to make your trimestrial performance in terms of incomes for years to come. You are rellying on too old technologies in my opinion. That's what will not only bring softimage to it's knees, but all of your grandpa 3d apps. Something is really happening out there, and you seem's to only put the meal to the microwave oven. The only thing we all miss, is the real will for innovation, passion and devotion at Autodesk. Something that is very present everywhere around. Best exemple is blender. open sourcefree.. WAKE
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
I think it's worth pointing out that Bifrost wasn't a PR disaster (handling of Naiad post acquisition possibly a bit), one disgruntled max fanboi went off on a rant afyer a few videos for a tech demo were shown hosted in Maya for a technology that's not even dependent on Maya to begin with past using it as a host app. It wasn't supposed to go anywhere, it wasn't supposed to do much, but disgruntled noobs will go to extremes to create a storm in a glass of water (the guy from max underground has been spamming that article that he's updating with links to AD employee comments in several spots on CGS and other websites, trying to fish for hits I guess). You can find a long list of PR disasters, and a long list of issues with AD, their software, and how the two relate. The response to Bifrost though is so completely out of proportion and non-sensical it really boggles the mind. It's like if you showed your clients a test for a separate personal project behind closed doors to lure them in and then found out they wrote an angry dissertation and had it published on Variety with misquotings and interpretations stated as facts the day after. Go for it, have a go and give them feedback. But for now I suggest you ignore the whole bifrost debacle, it's degenerated beyond belief. If I was anybody involved on AD's side in this by now I'd probably be furious, and I doubt they can do much about it since the rep backlash if they asked the website to can the article would be horrible. They tried to stem it by commenting in there, but since they're the bad guys they can't win it, and people are re-interpreting every post again and again. On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Angus Davidson angus.david...@wits.ac.zawrote: Have been having this fun little debate off and on with Luc eric for a while now. Mostly on the si community forums. Firstly while we dont always agree I have a tremendous amount of respect for both him , Graham and recently Chris who are really do a great job of trying to hold things together. ( I also add the Singapore team in this as they have been given a hospital pass of note) The problem they are facing boils down to the following. What they have in the code base (even if parts of it have have fairly major updates) is a very old foundation. this means that there is always issues with either how fast you can work with stuff, or even if you can work with stuff, You are in effect always constrained by the lowest common denominator. They just cannot hope to compete with the other industry players who are at the moment out doing them in pretty much every way except hoovering up subscriptions. They just cant hope to keep on buying up little firms doing cool stuff and hope it will keep things going forever. As I posted before I think how they have handled Naiad technically has been right (PR wise was a disater) What I hope they are doing is keeping their new tech acquisitions in a way that can plug into any app. This allows them the freedom to be working on a new one app to rule the all. If they are not doing this with that intent they are well and truely shafted. They need as Sylvain pointed out the radical shift like Apple (did with mac os x) had the balls to do. I personally think they need to go further then just the app and really work on where the app runs as well. Accelerated Driver support for the quadro cards has been abysmal. My ponkey donk games card kicks my quadros ass in pretty much every aspect except cost. Their other main problem is perception. Right now they have a very big problem with people questioning whether ADSK is still valid and worth their subscription fees. For pretty much everyone I personally know and from what I can see quite a few folks on the list has dropped their subscription (or is in the process of for next year). I will also most likely not be renewing our EDU sub next year. I know they are forced to hide behind bureaucratic BS of not releasing roadmaps. However if they dont tell folks exactly what is happening they wont need one as all of their customers would have left. A breakdown of where our subs go for one would be great. While the SI people are some of the most amazing passionate about their software I have had the honor of knowing. More and more of them are getting tired of being treated like mushrooms. -- *From:* Sylvain Lebeau [s...@shedmtl.com] *Sent:* 31 July 2013 04:57 AM *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com *Subject:* Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back! cough you remember me with my past rants i am sure. I've tried to calm down... Just bought 5 more Softimage seats today. Growing the user base is the best thing to do to make share holders go in the direction we all want. But we are such a small army alltogheter. We are the inglorious basterds of the 3D industry unfortunatly. But in the film, they kinda
Re: Why did I pay support?? Why did I buy a suite ? I want my money back!
For those really wondering Microsoft bought Softimage in 1994 from Daniel Langlois for $130 mil Then Avid bought Softimage in 1998 from Microsoft for $285 mil Finally Autodesk bought Softimage in 2008 from Avid for $35 mil (the 3D part only) With that in mind. Microsoft primary goals where to bring the 3D platform to the windows world, they had a feeling this 3D thing was gonna be big and they wanted their share of the os platform. Also if they made the move smart by creating new toys such as DS that they could actually make a profit. With that said Microsoft never shipped Softimage XSI, AVID did. Goes to prove the point that Microsoft didn't really care about Softimage more than they cared about my above statement. Finally AVID, as many of you stated earlier in this thread and other thread, didn't have a freaking clue about 3D and what to do with it. They cared much more about DS than they cared about anything else. Trust me I was there when we created a suite in DS that was doing basic 3D. Such an interesting time. Of course that never saw the light of day. (thank to whatever gods out there). Autodesk, I believe, don't really care about which is which. They sell Maya more than any other 3D platform because it's where the money comes the most from and where they get the biggest marketing from (think all the making of out there, how many are max or Softimage compare to Maya?) Autodesk is following the simple marketing pattern of any products. Softimage, Max and Maya are simply smarties, mm. Just like those product its supply and demands. And I believe Sylvain is absolutely right, as long as they're will be plenty of people spending their hard earned money (just like you Greg) I don't believe it'll ever be a waste. They'll keep supporting it even if it means to have a team of 15 peoples developing on it (@Greg, I didn't know you had that many fingers on your hands). Eventually even if all three products failed in some weird way because Houdini, Modo and Blender took over. Like many of you claimed in other thread it's only 3% of their profits. At this point guys as many of you know all these three apps have their pros and cons. I know for a fact that Maya is probably the only software out there used as a container for software/TD developing solutions for it. At one of the last company I worked for, I have it for a fact that at least 10 major facilities only use Maya as a Container to write their own tools and most often then none the users barely use the tools offered with Maya. They have a better pyQt options for creating meshes or for animating. Max, well I have to say, I have seen in the past 3 years folks that can use a 3D app like I've never seen anyone do. They were FAST and FURIOUS. Why? because of all those plugins built for the app. Were the results better or worst, nah it's all based on the user who creates the asset or the explosion. To be honest though I still hated my time with Max, but I can say with certainty that I understand why it's still so widely used, especially in the game industry. Softimage, oh dear Softimage 2.66 Creative environment. My first time ever on an IRIX system. That purple and gray modeling module that opened up for the first time on my screen. Wow I still remember that day. Really though, in the end Softimage is between Max and Maya. Although Stronger than Maya by miles. Softimage is still closed compare to Houdini or Maya. See how complexed it used to be to share between apps until Autodesk came into the picture. But they offer the best solutions on so many levels (animation, mixer, passes, ICE, arguably polygonal modeling...) and to this day I still always want to find in other apps the simple deform by curve that Softimage has since almost day one. I remember teaching this class of veterans and this young lady spent 15 min trying to explain to me that they had to write a basic form of curve deform in Maya. I couldn't get it because I couldn't believe Maya (oh the powerful and all mighty Maya) didn't have such a feature. She wanted to know if such incredible feature could be written for Softimage. After figuring out what she was talking about and showing her the tool and it's incredible features she still wanted to know if I could write a curve deform tool in Softimage... My point to all this, each app have their strengths and weaknesses. A Uber app, I don't believe in that, you loose too much by doing so, think about the development cycles (I've lived the dev cycle of an app written from ground up for 3D, it's not pretty), think about how many of us will simply walk next door and start using Modo and Houdini or even just plain blender (great app btw, not trying to sound condescending here). It doesn't make sense in any marketing point of view. The why I believe after 5 years we still haven't heard anything concrete about a Uber app. Ok plenty of rumors, but nothing real or solid. What make sense is history, Max was the first 3D app based on a previous 3D
