a NEW open letter to Autodesk
at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a sea of Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby! a Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77 Margaret St. London W1W 8SY ++44(0) 207 580 0829 blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::mailto:adrian.wyer@fl uid-pictures.com adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com www.fluid-pictures.com blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::http://www.fluid-pict ures.com/ Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales. Company number:5657815 VAT number: 872 6893 71
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
Good stuff 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 14/03/2014 11:52, adrian wyer wrote: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a sea of Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby! a Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77 Margaret St. London W1W 8SY ++44(0) 207 580 0829 adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::mailto:adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com www.fluid-pictures.com
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
really good one. just wondering does it ever gets to anyone that has really any decision power in AD what so ever? On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.ukwrote: Good stuff 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. On 14/03/2014 11:52, adrian wyer wrote: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a seaof Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby! a Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
great stuff. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Mirko Jankovic mirkoj.anima...@gmail.comwrote: really good one. just wondering does it ever gets to anyone that has really any decision power in AD what so ever? On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Alastair Hearsum hear...@glassworks.co.uk wrote: Good stuff 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. On 14/03/2014 11:52, adrian wyer wrote: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a seaof Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites,
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
Love it Adrian. I think it would be great if all open letter writers also posted in the Autodesk Community alongside Alastairs, so they would pile up visually too, for all to see and not least, Autodesk decision makers. I have a sneaky feeling the decision makers do not heed all of the advice or take notice of all info from the AD representatives present here. Maybe forward all open letters to the main CG forums such as fxGuide and others, so they could create new noise on the topic. Morten Den 14. marts 2014 kl. 12:52 skrev adrian wyer adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a sea of Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby! a Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77 Margaret St . London W1W 8SY ++44(0) 207 580 0829 adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::mailto:adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com www.fluid-pictures.com blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::blocked::http://www.fluid-pictures.com/ Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales . Company number:5657815 VAT number: 872 6893 71
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
That's what i was thinking. I don't think everyone at AD is reading this. We need to create noise everywhere; that's the only way we could reach a lot of users. On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 8:04 AM, Morten Bartholdy x...@colorshopvfx.dkwrote: Love it Adrian. I think it would be great if all open letter writers also posted in the Autodesk Community alongside Alastairs, so they would pile up visually too, for all to see and not least, Autodesk decision makers. I have a sneaky feeling the decision makers do not heed all of the advice or take notice of all info from the AD representatives present here. Maybe forward all open letters to the main CG forums such as fxGuide and others, so they could create new noise on the topic. Morten Den 14. marts 2014 kl. 12:52 skrev adrian wyer adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a sea of Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby! a Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77 Margaret St . London W1W 8SY ++44(0) 207 580 0829 adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com www.fluid-pictures.com Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales . Company number:5657815 VAT number: 872 6893 71
Re: a NEW open letter to Autodesk
+1 Cristiano Policarpo BaloOm Animation Studios www.baloom.co --- PoustEx - CG Animated Short Film www.poustex.com On Mar 14, 2014, at 8:52 AM, adrian wyer adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com wrote: at David Saber's suggestion, i'll start a new thread so it doesn't get lost in the noise; Autodesk, you probably don't know me, beyond a yearly subscription payment, so allow me to tell you about myself. I started in the 3D industry in the 1990s, using Softimage 3D at a small games company, before that I'd been training myself on a 'demo' copy of 3DS on Dos. From day one using Softimage it was obvious the pedigree and artist driven interface was light-years ahead of anything else I'd seen. When i moved to the post industry in Soho a few years later, i made sure that, even though i was working in a Lightwave house, they got me a copy of Softimage. Against a backdrop of Lightwave evangelists, i consistently produced work faster, and more elegantly than my peers. (this is purely down to the software, not my abilities) For a few years i was a senior artist at the Hive, i was adrift in a sea of Maya users, but slowly convinced my peers that Softimage (and then XSI, as i was involved in the beta program) was the better package for quick turnaround commercial work. Gaining a regular stream of repeat clients, asking for me by name. Moving on i went to head up the 3D department at MillTV, producing work well above the level of the budget, for television documentaries and drama. I worked on the tests which would convince the BBC to bring Doctor Who back from the dead. My colleague and friend Dave Throssell, who again, you probably don't know, but who was responsible for the success of Mill3D and their many award winning commercials during the 1990s, all produced on Softimage, left the mill with me, and we started Fluid Pictures in 2006. The decision to use XSI as our primary application was a no-brainer, the end-to-end ability of this software, to let an artist hit the ground running, without fighting the interface, or having to be a programmer, allowed us to produce work far in excess of the quality that the shrinking budgets of television should have allowed. There is LITERALLY NO WAY we could have competed in our market, with a small team, using ANY other package. Over the years ICE has become one of the reasons i come to work in the morning! The challenges presented by our clients become a joy to solve when i know i can jump into ICE, and figure out some clever way to shave hours or even days off production time. For us as a company, there really is NO alternative package, nothing does everything that Softimage does, nothing comes close. And when i get stuck, i have the Softimage community. The mailing list has been my online home since 1999, and i count some of its members as dear friends, without whom, again, i would have struggled to compete in the market place. The members are always there with words of encouragement and advice (and no small amount of ribbing!) the atmosphere is one of enlightened, grown up camaraderie. A place where you can ask the simplest, or most complicated of questions, and someone will usually be there to help you out. Finally, i would like to posit a suggestion, that may be too late, but would impress upon you to consider; Softimage, with a little love, and a little investment, coupled with better marketing strategy, could well be your missing effects pipeline. Your Houdini. Is there a way for the developers, and the third party guys, to work together with you, to take Softimage forward, to bridge the gap until Bifrost is mature, and become your fx software? By all means keep it in the suites, concentrate mainly on bug fixes, but please, don't kill our baby! a Adrian Wyer Fluid Pictures 75-77 Margaret St. London W1W 8SY ++44(0) 207 580 0829 adrian.w...@fluid-pictures.com www.fluid-pictures.com Fluid Pictures Limited is registered in England and Wales. Company number:5657815 VAT number: 872 6893 71