Re: let me fan the flames.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Mudbox is selling for crap, and it has -one- advantage over ZBrush in its
texture support (ZBrush just doesn't cut it with the current point limits
coupled with its per-pixol approach and obscure layer system), but that's
so vastly outclassed by Mari now that in the higher end it's disappearing
even for that.

We'll see anyway, but personally I doubt it'll see another Christmas.


On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:10 PM, Szabolcs Matefy wrote:

> Mudbox has lot of advantages against ZBrush, like true texture support,
> PTex support, etc. I'm saying that, though I can't stand Mudbox, I'm pretty
> sure it'll survive even Max. This is AD only tool in that segment.
> Motionbuilder will be incorporated into Maya. Many US game developers are
> using now Maya, even UK developers are migrating to Maya as well, Maya
> receives almost all attention (fuck off Autodesk by the way), and it's
> quite obvious that Maya will be the only 3D program in few years. I can
> imagine that they will drop max too for a favour of a new 3D application,
> that will be cloud based, and you will pay a monthly rate for the modules
> you are using, sculpting, animation and so on
>
>
>
> *From:* softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:
> softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] *On Behalf Of *Raffaele Fragapane
> *Sent:* Thursday, March 06, 2014 2:18 AM
> *To:* softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> *Subject:* Re: let me fan the flames.
>
>
>
> I don't think Max itself can be disposed of that quickly. It's being
> obviously pushed further and further into design lands leaving the
> entertainment field clear for Maya, but I doubt it'll be dispatched of in
> the next year or two, or even three.
>
>
>
> I'll be hugely surprised if Mudbox and MoBu will survive the year though.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Andy Jones  wrote:
>
> Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and
> replace it with one new guy?
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi 
> wrote:
>
> I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for
> a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it
> and let them flee like the dogs they are!
>



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

RE: let me fan the flames.

[Szabolcs Matefy]

Mudbox has lot of advantages against ZBrush, like true texture support, PTex 
support, etc. I'm saying that, though I can't stand Mudbox, I'm pretty sure 
it'll survive even Max. This is AD only tool in that segment. Motionbuilder 
will be incorporated into Maya. Many US game developers are using now Maya, 
even UK developers are migrating to Maya as well, Maya receives almost all 
attention (fuck off Autodesk by the way), and it's quite obvious that Maya will 
be the only 3D program in few years. I can imagine that they will drop max too 
for a favour of a new 3D application, that will be cloud based, and you will 
pay a monthly rate for the modules you are using, sculpting, animation and so 
on

From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Raffaele Fragapane
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2014 2:18 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: let me fan the flames.

I don't think Max itself can be disposed of that quickly. It's being obviously 
pushed further and further into design lands leaving the entertainment field 
clear for Maya, but I doubt it'll be dispatched of in the next year or two, or 
even three.

I'll be hugely surprised if Mudbox and MoBu will survive the year though.

On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Andy Jones 
mailto:andy.jo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and 
replace it with one new guy?

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi 
mailto:alok.gandhi2...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a 
principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.



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

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Jordi Bares]

I may be wrong there… time will tell… let's talk in 4 years.

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 6 Mar 2014, at 01:02, Alok Gandhi  wrote:

> I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a 
> principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Mar 6, 2014, at 0:44, Alan Fregtman  wrote:
> 
>> I guess it's a good thing Max is the lowest voted in my transition poll: 
>> http://strawpoll.me/1257710/r
>> 
>> :p
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Steven Caron  wrote:
>> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i 
>> know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! 
>> autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>> 
>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>> 
>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>> 
>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>> 
>> Anyone want to bet?
>> 
>> 

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Raffaele Fragapane]

I don't think Max itself can be disposed of that quickly. It's being
obviously pushed further and further into design lands leaving the
entertainment field clear for Maya, but I doubt it'll be dispatched of in
the next year or two, or even three.

I'll be hugely surprised if Mudbox and MoBu will survive the year though.


On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Andy Jones  wrote:

> Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and
> replace it with one new guy?
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi wrote:
>
>> I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for
>> a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.
>>
>


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

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Andy Jones]

Maybe they're planning to migrate the rest of their dev team to Maya and
replace it with one new guy?

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:02 PM, Alok Gandhi wrote:

> I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for
> a principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Alok Gandhi]

I don't think Max is going anywhere. The last I heard, AD was looking for a 
principal max engineer. I interviewed fir the same a couple of months ago.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 6, 2014, at 0:44, Alan Fregtman  wrote:
> 
> I guess it's a good thing Max is the lowest voted in my transition poll: 
> http://strawpoll.me/1257710/r
> 
> :p
> 
> 
> 
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Steven Caron  wrote:
>> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i 
>> know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! 
>> autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>> 
>> 
>>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>> 
>>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>> 
>>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>> 
>>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>> 
>>> Anyone want to bet?
> 

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Stefan Kubicek]

You are hitting a nerve there!WARNING - Totally OT:It's a fact that money does never "work", it's always people who do. If people pour their money onto the stock exchange to "make" more money,somebody will have to actually do real work to produce that profit (produce some goods that did not exist before, like knitting a pullover, writing software, or making nice pictures with Softimage).The stock exchange is nothing but a huge money turning machine that reduces the amount of freely available money on the side of the actual productive part of society, and those who already have enough money. Nothing has ever threatened social peace more than stock exchanges are currently doing. The good news is it will all regulate itself one way or the other. One way of regulation could be to re-establish control over stock markets and properly compensate people who do real work. (No company can have 70 billion of cash reserves and pretend to pay their workers adequately, talking of Apple). The other one is waiting for it's collapse and rebuilding society from it's ashes after the dust has settled. I'd rather go for the former, since the latter cost millions of lifes last time (Black Friday 1929, and resulting economic and social breakdown, ending in WW2).The ugly part is that you can't escape and opt out, no matter on what side of the system you operate on. Even if you don't participate in stock trading you are still affected by it through higher taxes (money your government has to spend on saving banks from going bankrupt because they have badly speculated with the money you have already given them, deliberately or not),  reduced quality of living due to environmental pollution (kepping environments clean requires research and changes in production and consumption behaviors, which costs money that is not there), reduction of social services due to lack of money, and lower payment (the money that shareholders are getting is that part of your salery that you never get) - the days where a man could sustain a family of four with a single job are practically over, along with all the effects it has on families where both parents need to work full time, sometimes even in multiple jobs, just to barely make it, with children suffering the most from it.Stock exchanges need to be decoupled from real world econimics. Let the rich play with their own money, not mine for "§%$ sake.Nobody can make money in trading stocks and pretend to do it in good faith, not even for his children, which have to grow up inthe society we are all part of, utimately.With all the venting going on in here it felt like a good opportunity to get this off my chest too :-)And of that revenue, $20,000,000+ went to "key executive compensation" in 2013That is down, 21%, from 2012. If the total income from M&E is only 7% of total income
It's like shutting down the national park to balance the Federal budget.Don't get me wrong... This is not a AD thing exclusively. This is going onin corporate America every day. It is the main reason for separation of
the classes, in the US. The income gap is growing every day.US productivity continues to clime as real median family income remains flat.
It is all driven by greed.On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Paul Griswold  wrote:
Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was all for show IMHO.


Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7% of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?


Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.  


-Paul





ᐧ


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:


Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will end.


"We will continue to support and develop..."
---Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :



If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Jason S]

Very well put..  like trying to reason with a robot locked on it's 
crush/dominate mode program preset by whatever means (to an end) 
necessary. (necessarily mean)


On 03/05/14 17:51, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:
Ethical simply doesn't enter the picture when you interface with a 
publicly traded corp. Whether it's sad or not is a different 
discussion, but never expect ethical from any profit driven organization.
This is not a criticism levelled to any company, it's just an 
important thing to keep in mind when dealing with one that, 
ultimately, targets investor benefits as their main objective.
ZBrush or 3DCoat are ultimately driven by the vision and feelings of 
some key people, Fabric to a large extent can be personable, SideFX 
often is, Some products inside the Foundry are successful and insular 
enough to benefit from the good will of some key people. Autodesk 
simply doesn't work to those parameters, it's not configured to the 
moment any given decision can be overridden by a fluctuation in the 
stock market that's completely unrelated to the division serving you.


The (some) people inside have feelings and ethics, and some rare times 
they might surface in a company policy, software feature or PR move, 
but the general direction of the company itself isn't determined by 
those anomalies.


You can expect some moral standards and genuinely humane feelings 
reflected in those products with teams insular and successful enough 
in some of those companies, and you definitely can in the more mom&pop 
style companies, but don't expect a publicly traded company to be 
successfully affected, provoked, manipulated or coerced into action or 
inaction by any interaction shaped by feelings like if you were 
dealing with another person.




On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Jason S > wrote:


<< There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed >>

Of course what can "legal" often bears very little, to sometimes
NO relation to what can be considered "ethical"



On 03/05/14 17:09, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit
de-facto monopolies in any way other than those emerging
maliciously or aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid
them, of course, but there is nothing illegal to a monopoly
emerging naturally as long as it doesn't get exploited, once in
place, to further itself in an unfair and uncompetitive manner.
If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only
provider of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly
through conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in
example) that's severely punished, and monopoly through
conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic
or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.

AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D,
LW, and various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD
generally doesn't coerce or litigate much through M&E, almost not
at all compared to any other tech industry.

Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have
been stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by
Avid and put on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a
couple entirely too career focused people inside it. AD did
absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying it. They would have
had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts and
concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering
trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a
move to try and sweep the market of competitors, but they did
none of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but
the whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best
left out of it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be
fixed before people contemplate class actions and antitrust
appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than
to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers.



On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold
mailto:pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com>> wrote:

Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing
Softimage was a real business decision.  If M&E account for
only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the
smallest components of that revenue, it's insignificant.
 But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas and
proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming
the fat, etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision,
they could have cut a lot more than just Softimage to make an
impact on the bottom line.  This was all for show IMHO.

Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if
they're 7% of the revenue.  T

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Stephen Davidson]

BTW, the Stock return of AD was 42.35% in 2013 over 2012, so the
stockholders made their money.

It's all about the stockholders.




On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:57 PM, Stephen Davidson wrote:

> And of that revenue, $20,000,000+ went to "key executive 
> compensation"
> in 2013
> That is down, 21%, from 2012. If the total income from M&E is only 7% of
> total income
> It's like shutting down the national park to balance the Federal budget.
>
> Don't get me wrong... This is not a AD thing exclusively. This is going on
> in corporate America every day. It is the main reason for separation of
> the classes, in the US. The income 
> gapis 
> growing every day.
>
> US productivity continues to clime as real median family income remains
> flat.
>
> It is all driven by greed.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Paul Griswold <
> pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
>> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
>> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
>> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
>> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
>> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
>> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
>> all for show IMHO.
>>
>> Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7%
>> of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
>> could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
>> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
>> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>>
>> Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
>> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.
>>
>> -Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ᐧ
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
>>
>>> Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.
>>>
>>> Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will
>>> end.
>>>
>>> "We will continue to support and develop..."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :
>>>
>>> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would
 be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually
 develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and
 killing the Mac version was truly annoying.

 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried
 developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it…

 With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are
 receiving..  (irony)

 arhghh

  Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

 More reasons to stay with softimage
 El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
 escribió:

> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates
> as irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to 
> pick
> it up with that in mind.
>
> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
> escreveu:
>
>> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user
>> base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they
>> axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares wrote:
>>
>>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>>
>>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>>
>>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>>
>>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>>
>>> Anyone want to bet?
>>>
>>>
>
> --
> Gustavo E Boehs
> Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
> http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
>
>

>>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Best Regards,
> *  Stephen P. Davidson*
>
> *(954) 552-7956 <%28954%29%20552-7956>*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com
>
> *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*
>
>
>- Arthur C. Clarke
>
> 
>



-- 

Best Regards,
*  Stephen P. Davidson*

*(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


 - Arthur C. Clarke

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Stephen Davidson]

And of that revenue, $20,000,000+ went to "key executive
compensation"
in 2013
That is down, 21%, from 2012. If the total income from M&E is only 7% of
total income
It's like shutting down the national park to balance the Federal budget.

Don't get me wrong... This is not a AD thing exclusively. This is going on
in corporate America every day. It is the main reason for separation of
the classes, in the US. The income
gapis
growing every day.

US productivity continues to clime as real median family income remains
flat.

It is all driven by greed.




On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Paul Griswold <
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:

> Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
> all for show IMHO.
>
> Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7%
> of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
> could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>
> Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
> ᐧ
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
>
>> Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.
>>
>> Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will
>> end.
>>
>> "We will continue to support and develop..."
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>>
>>
>> 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :
>>
>> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would
>>> be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually
>>> develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and
>>> killing the Mac version was truly annoying.
>>>
>>> 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried
>>> developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it…
>>>
>>> With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are
>>> receiving..  (irony)
>>>
>>> arhghh
>>>
>>>  Jordi Bares
>>> jordiba...@gmail.com
>>>
>>> On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:
>>>
>>> More reasons to stay with softimage
>>> El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
>>> escribió:
>>>
 Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as
 irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it
 up with that in mind.

 Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
 escreveu:

> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user
> base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they
> axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares wrote:
>
>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>
>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>
>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>
>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>
>> Anyone want to bet?
>>
>>

 --
 Gustavo E Boehs
 Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
 http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/


>>>
>>
>


-- 

Best Regards,
*  Stephen P. Davidson*

*(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


 - Arthur C. Clarke

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Raffaele Fragapane]

Ethical simply doesn't enter the picture when you interface with a publicly
traded corp. Whether it's sad or not is a different discussion, but never
expect ethical from any profit driven organization.
This is not a criticism levelled to any company, it's just an important
thing to keep in mind when dealing with one that, ultimately, targets
investor benefits as their main objective.
ZBrush or 3DCoat are ultimately driven by the vision and feelings of some
key people, Fabric to a large extent can be personable, SideFX often is,
Some products inside the Foundry are successful and insular enough to
benefit from the good will of some key people. Autodesk simply doesn't work
to those parameters, it's not configured to the moment any given decision
can be overridden by a fluctuation in the stock market that's completely
unrelated to the division serving you.

The (some) people inside have feelings and ethics, and some rare times they
might surface in a company policy, software feature or PR move, but the
general direction of the company itself isn't determined by those anomalies.

You can expect some moral standards and genuinely humane feelings reflected
in those products with teams insular and successful enough in some of those
companies, and you definitely can in the more mom&pop style companies, but
don't expect a publicly traded company to be successfully affected,
provoked, manipulated or coerced into action or inaction by any interaction
shaped by feelings like if you were dealing with another person.



On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:26 AM, Jason S  wrote:

>  << There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed >>
>
> Of course what can "legal" often bears very little, to sometimes NO
> relation to what can be considered "ethical"
>
>
>
> On 03/05/14 17:09, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:
>
> People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
> Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto
> monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or
> aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there
> is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't
> get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and
> uncompetitive manner.
> If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of
> such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross
> company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished,
> and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing
> monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.
>
>  AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and
> various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce
> or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any other tech
> industry.
>
>  Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been
> stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a
> fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career
> focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying
> it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts
> and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins
> at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and
> sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it.
>
>  Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the
> whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it.
> There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people
> contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly
> unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful
> of lawyers.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold <
> pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:
>
>>  Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
>> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
>> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
>> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
>> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
>> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
>> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
>> all for show IMHO.
>>
>>  Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're
>> 7% of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that
>> they could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
>> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
>> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>>
>>  Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
>> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving 

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Jason S]

<< There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed >>

Of course what can "legal" often bears very little, to sometimes NO 
relation to what can be considered "ethical"



On 03/05/14 17:09, Raffaele Fragapane wrote:

People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto 
monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or 
aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but 
there is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as 
it doesn't get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an 
unfair and uncompetitive manner.
If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider 
of such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through 
conspiracy (cross company agreements on price fixing in example) 
that's severely punished, and monopoly through conspiracy or 
aggressive exploitation of an existing monopolistic or 
quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.


AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and 
various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't 
coerce or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any 
other tech industry.


Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been 
stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put 
on a fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too 
career focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or 
dodgy buying it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive 
take over of sorts and concurrently done something like slashing 
prices or offering trade-ins at a loss against other platforms, 
effectively making a move to try and sweep the market of competitors, 
but they did none of it.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the 
whole monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of 
it. There is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before 
people contemplate class actions and antitrust appeals that are so 
incredibly unlikely to go anywhere other than to brush the pocket 
lining of a handful of lawyers.




On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold 
> wrote:


Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage
was a real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of
ADSK's revenue, and Softimage is one of the smallest components of
that revenue, it's insignificant.  But, executives need to pound
their chests like gorillas and proclaim to the shareholders &
board that they're trimming the fat, etc., etc.  If it was truly a
business decision, they could have cut a lot more than just
Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was all for
show IMHO.

Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if
they're 7% of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual
property that they could essentially hold the industry hostage and
never develop another product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.
 Why develop anything when you can sit back and force people to
pay licensing fees year after year?

Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some
anti-trust claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at
this point.

-Paul




ᐧ


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez
mailto:emi...@e-roja.com>> wrote:

Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a
big mistake.

Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know
how all will end.

"We will continue to support and develop..."



---
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com>>:

If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a
mistake would be Motion Builder… it has great potential if
they decide to actually develop it… it has been in limbo
mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac
version was truly annoying.

3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have
you tried developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going
to sustain it…

With regards with the users… they may offer the same great
deal we are receiving..  (irony)

arhghh

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com 

On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez
mailto:emi...@e-roja.com>> wrote:


More reasons to stay with softimage

El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs"
mailto:gustav...@gmail.com>> escribió:

Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Raffaele Fragapane]

I think it'd be pretty hard to even determine the market size in first
place. Film? Probably so close to totality it wouldn't be funny, but then
Nuke for comp in the same market, ZBrush for sculpting, soon enough Mari
for texturing, until not long ago PRMan for rendering (now a well
challenged position) and so on. So a case could be made that it's simply a
market that routinely coalesces around dominant solutions.

Games? Well, you might get some traction there, but then nobody ever
challenged them.

Design? Far from a monopoly there.

and so on.

MS back then got targeted because they were effectively exploiting a
position of de-facto monopoly (home and home office OS) in a market to
become dominant in another (internet accessibility).
Their "unfair" advantage on the OS front would have allowed them to, at an
immediate loss but a long term gain, to corner another market by wiping
away competitors who had no such advantage but had superior products.

That's the kind of scenario antitrust covers to a T.


On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Paul Griswold <
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:

> I suppose I was looking back and remembering the government going after
> Microsoft for being a monopoly because it bundled IE with Windows.
>  Netscape existed back then, as did Apple, but it didn't stop them from
> going after Microsoft.
>
> I'd be interested to see what percentage of the entire market Autodesk has
> compared to Newtek, SideFX, The Foundry, etc.
>
>
> ᐧ
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Raffaele Fragapane <
> raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
>> Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto
>> monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or
>> aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there
>> is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't
>> get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and
>> uncompetitive manner.
>> If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of
>> such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross
>> company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished,
>> and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing
>> monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.
>>
>> AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and
>> various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce
>> or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any other tech
>> industry.
>>
>> Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been
>> stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a
>> fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career
>> focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying
>> it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts
>> and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins
>> at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and
>> sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it.
>>
>> Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole
>> monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There
>> is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate
>> class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go
>> anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold <
>> pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
>>> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
>>> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
>>> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
>>> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
>>> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
>>> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
>>> all for show IMHO.
>>>
>>> Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7%
>>> of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
>>> could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
>>> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
>>> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>>>
>>> Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
>>> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.
>>>
>>> -Paul
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ᐧ
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
>>>
 Well we all still think that putting S

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Andreas Bystrom]

yes, although that that was a rather different situation, like you said
windows came/comes bundled with IE, had microsoft been selling it/giving it
away as an entirely separate product users would have had more of a chance
of picking alternative browsers, and had that been the case I doubt the
government had gone after them at all.






On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Paul Griswold <
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:

> I suppose I was looking back and remembering the government going after
> Microsoft for being a monopoly because it bundled IE with Windows.
>  Netscape existed back then, as did Apple, but it didn't stop them from
> going after Microsoft.
>
> I'd be interested to see what percentage of the entire market Autodesk has
> compared to Newtek, SideFX, The Foundry, etc.
>
>
> ᐧ
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Raffaele Fragapane <
> raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
>> Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto
>> monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or
>> aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there
>> is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't
>> get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and
>> uncompetitive manner.
>> If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of
>> such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross
>> company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished,
>> and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing
>> monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.
>>
>> AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and
>> various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce
>> or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any other tech
>> industry.
>>
>> Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been
>> stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a
>> fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career
>> focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying
>> it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts
>> and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins
>> at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and
>> sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it.
>>
>> Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole
>> monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There
>> is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate
>> class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go
>> anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold <
>> pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
>>> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
>>> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
>>> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
>>> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
>>> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
>>> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
>>> all for show IMHO.
>>>
>>> Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7%
>>> of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
>>> could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
>>> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
>>> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>>>
>>> Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
>>> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.
>>>
>>> -Paul
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ᐧ
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
>>>
 Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.

 Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all
 will end.

 "We will continue to support and develop..."



 ---
 Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :

 If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would
> be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually
> develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and
> killing the Mac version was truly annoying.
>
> 3DSMax… well… the archit

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Paul Griswold]

I suppose I was looking back and remembering the government going after
Microsoft for being a monopoly because it bundled IE with Windows.
 Netscape existed back then, as did Apple, but it didn't stop them from
going after Microsoft.

I'd be interested to see what percentage of the entire market Autodesk has
compared to Newtek, SideFX, The Foundry, etc.


ᐧ


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Raffaele Fragapane <
raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
> Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto
> monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or
> aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there
> is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't
> get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and
> uncompetitive manner.
> If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of
> such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross
> company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished,
> and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing
> monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.
>
> AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and
> various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce
> or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any other tech
> industry.
>
> Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been
> stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a
> fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career
> focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying
> it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts
> and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins
> at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and
> sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it.
>
> Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole
> monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There
> is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate
> class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go
> anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold <
> pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
>> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
>> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
>> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
>> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
>> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
>> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
>> all for show IMHO.
>>
>> Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7%
>> of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
>> could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
>> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
>> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>>
>> Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
>> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.
>>
>> -Paul
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ᐧ
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
>>
>>> Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.
>>>
>>> Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will
>>> end.
>>>
>>> "We will continue to support and develop..."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :
>>>
>>> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would
 be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually
 develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and
 killing the Mac version was truly annoying.

 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried
 developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it…

 With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are
 receiving..  (irony)

 arhghh

  Jordi Bares
 jordiba...@gmail.com

 On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

 More reasons to stay with softimage
 El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
 escribió:

> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates
> as 

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Raffaele Fragapane]

People often take the whole antitrust thing a bit too far.
Antitrust laws, contrary to popular belief, don't prohibit de-facto
monopolies in any way other than those emerging maliciously or
aggressively. They are intended to try and avoid them, of course, but there
is nothing illegal to a monopoly emerging naturally as long as it doesn't
get exploited, once in place, to further itself in an unfair and
uncompetitive manner.
If you have a monopoly on something because you're the only provider of
such thing that's perfectly legal. It's oligopoly through conspiracy (cross
company agreements on price fixing in example) that's severely punished,
and monopoly through conspiracy or aggressive exploitation of an existing
monopolistic or quasi-monopolistic capacity that are prohibited.

AD is also not considered a monopoly since Houdini, Modo, C4D, LW, and
various other hanger-ons are all available, and AD generally doesn't coerce
or litigate much through M&E, almost not at all compared to any other tech
industry.

Lastly, to those saying the acquisition of Softimage should have been
stalled or blocked by antitrust, Soft had been gutted by Avid and put on a
fire sale and handled very dubiously by a couple entirely too career
focused people inside it. AD did absolutely nothing illegal or dodgy buying
it. They would have had had they performed an aggressive take over of sorts
and concurrently done something like slashing prices or offering trade-ins
at a loss against other platforms, effectively making a move to try and
sweep the market of competitors, but they did none of it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of current or past events, but the whole
monopoly and antitrust discussions are honestly best left out of it. There
is so much more that is wrong and could be fixed before people contemplate
class actions and antitrust appeals that are so incredibly unlikely to go
anywhere other than to brush the pocket lining of a handful of lawyers.



On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38 AM, Paul Griswold <
pgrisw...@fusiondigitalproductions.com> wrote:

> Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
> real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
> Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
> insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
> and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
> etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
> more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
> all for show IMHO.
>
> Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7%
> of the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
> could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
> product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
> sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?
>
> Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust
> claims.  Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.
>
> -Paul
>
>
>
>
> ᐧ
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez wrote:
>
>> Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.
>>
>> Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will
>> end.
>>
>> "We will continue to support and develop..."
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>>
>>
>> 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :
>>
>> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would
>>> be Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually
>>> develop it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and
>>> killing the Mac version was truly annoying.
>>>
>>> 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried
>>> developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it…
>>>
>>> With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are
>>> receiving..  (irony)
>>>
>>> arhghh
>>>
>>>  Jordi Bares
>>> jordiba...@gmail.com
>>>
>>> On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:
>>>
>>> More reasons to stay with softimage
>>> El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
>>> escribió:
>>>
 Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as
 irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it
 up with that in mind.

 Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
 escreveu:

> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user
> base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they
> axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares wrote:
>
>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>
>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wi

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Paul Griswold]

Well, as I posted over on CGTalk, I don't think killing Softimage was a
real business decision.  If M&E account for only 7% of ADSK's revenue, and
Softimage is one of the smallest components of that revenue, it's
insignificant.  But, executives need to pound their chests like gorillas
and proclaim to the shareholders & board that they're trimming the fat,
etc., etc.  If it was truly a business decision, they could have cut a lot
more than just Softimage to make an impact on the bottom line.  This was
all for show IMHO.

Realistically, they could cancel all of their M&E products if they're 7% of
the revenue.  They own enough patents & intellectual property that they
could essentially hold the industry hostage and never develop another
product.  Again Joe Alter comes to mind.  Why develop anything when you can
sit back and force people to pay licensing fees year after year?

Hopefully enough noise is made to start stirring up some anti-trust claims.
 Autodesk is clearly behaving as a monopoly at this point.

-Paul




ᐧ


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

> Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.
>
> Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will
> end.
>
> "We will continue to support and develop..."
>
>
>
> ---
> Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.
>
>
> 2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :
>
> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be
>> Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop
>> it… it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the
>> Mac version was truly annoying.
>>
>> 3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried
>> developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it…
>>
>> With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are
>> receiving..  (irony)
>>
>> arhghh
>>
>>  Jordi Bares
>> jordiba...@gmail.com
>>
>> On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:
>>
>> More reasons to stay with softimage
>> El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
>> escribió:
>>
>>> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as
>>> irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it
>>> up with that in mind.
>>>
>>> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
>>> escreveu:
>>>
 i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user
 base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they
 axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...


 On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares wrote:

> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>
> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>
> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>
> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>
> Anyone want to bet?
>
>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Gustavo E Boehs
>>> Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
>>> http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
>>>
>>>
>>
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Emilio Hernandez]

Well we all still think that putting Softimage to rest is a big mistake.

Motion Builder also has not major improvements.  So we know how all will
end.

"We will continue to support and develop..."



---
Emilio Hernández   VFX & 3D animation.


2014-03-05 15:02 GMT-06:00 Jordi Bares :

> If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be
> Motion Builder... it has great potential if they decide to actually develop
> it... it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the
> Mac version was truly annoying.
>
> 3DSMax... well... the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried
> developing for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it...
>
> With regards with the users... they may offer the same great deal we are
> receiving..  (irony)
>
> arhghh
>
> Jordi Bares
> jordiba...@gmail.com
>
> On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:
>
> More reasons to stay with softimage
> El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
> escribió:
>
>> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as
>> irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it
>> up with that in mind.
>>
>> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
>> escreveu:
>>
>>> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user
>>> base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they
>>> axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares wrote:
>>>
 The writing is on the wall. This is my take.

 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.

 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.

 3 - 3DMax goes next.

 Anyone want to bet?


>>
>> --
>> Gustavo E Boehs
>> Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
>> http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
>>
>>
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Jordi Bares]

If they kill any of those the only one I think would be a mistake would be 
Motion Builder… it has great potential if they decide to actually develop it… 
it has been in limbo mode like Softimage for years now and killing the Mac 
version was truly annoying.

3DSMax… well… the architecture is so old and messy (have you tried developing 
for Max?) I wonder how are they going to sustain it… 

With regards with the users… they may offer the same great deal we are 
receiving..  (irony)

arhghh

Jordi Bares
jordiba...@gmail.com

On 5 Mar 2014, at 19:45, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

> More reasons to stay with softimage
> 
> El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs"  escribió:
> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as 
> irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it 
> up with that in mind.
> 
> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron  escreveu:
> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i 
> know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed max?! 
> autodesk might have to consider extra security...
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
> 
> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
> 
> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
> 
> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
> 
> Anyone want to bet?
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Gustavo E Boehs
> Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina | 
> http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
> 

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Emilio Hernandez]

More reasons to stay with softimage
El mar 5, 2014 1:42 PM, "Gustavo Eggert Boehs" 
escribió:

> Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as
> irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it
> up with that in mind.
>
> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
> escreveu:
>
>> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base.
>> i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed
>> max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares wrote:
>>
>>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>>
>>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>>
>>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>>
>>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>>
>>> Anyone want to bet?
>>>
>>>
>
> --
> Gustavo E Boehs
> Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
> http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/
>
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Steven Caron]

aren't they based in montreal? ;P


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:14 AM, Simon van de Lagemaat <
si...@theembassyvfx.com> wrote:

>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Steven Caron  wrote:
>
>> autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>
>
> Well if they ever travel to Montreal they'll need to hire Blackwater ops
> and drive around in armored vehicles like it's Fallujah.
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Gustavo Eggert Boehs]

Yes, but what they might do (are doing imho) is just keeping updates as
irrelevant as possible for animation, not to encourage new users to pick it
up with that in mind.

Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014, Steven Caron 
escreveu:

> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base.
> i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed
> max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares 
> 
> > wrote:
>
>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>
>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>
>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>
>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>
>> Anyone want to bet?
>>
>>

-- 
Gustavo E Boehs
Dpto. de Expressão Gráfica | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina |
http://www.gustavoeb.com.br/

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Andy Jones]

I sort of agree about the Max userbase, but they will lose Max market share
at an ever increasing rate due to all the rumors having dramatically more
credibility now.  If you're a Max user, would you hedge your bets on them
not killing it, or would you learn something else?  And if you're a company
and everyone seems to be moving away from Max, would you invest in it?

They would have to make a really grand gesture to establish faith that it's
moving forward, and having watched the grand gesture for Maya, I'm not sure
they're capable of it being grand enough.

Also, a lot of Max's staying power has been due to FX.  With an influx of
Houdini talent, and lost trust form 3rd party devs as well, it'll be an
uphill battle keeping their position in FX in place.



On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Rares Halmagean wrote:

>  The market place will force AD to consolidate it's resources on one
> package, or significantly modify existing apps, or it fails regardless of
> user base. The competition is only getting stiffer and it can't hold onto
> multiple packages in their current state. That's my thought anyway.
>
>
> On 3/5/2014 1:10 PM, Steven Caron wrote:
>
> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base.
> i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed
> max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>
>>  The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>
>>  1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>
>>  2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>
>>  3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>
>>  Anyone want to bet?
>>
>>
> --
>
>
> *Rares Halmagean ___ *visual development
> and 3d character & content creation.
> *rarebrush.com* 
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Rares Halmagean]

The market place will force AD to consolidate it's resources on one 
package, or significantly modify existing apps, or it fails regardless 
of user base. The competition is only getting stiffer and it can't hold 
onto multiple packages in their current state. That's my thought anyway.



On 3/5/2014 1:10 PM, Steven Caron wrote:
i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user 
base. i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if 
they axed max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...



On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares > wrote:


The writing is on the wall. This is my take.

1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.

2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.

3 - 3DMax goes next.

Anyone want to bet?



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

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Alan Fregtman]

I guess it's a good thing Max is the lowest voted in my transition poll:
http://strawpoll.me/1257710/r

:p



On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Steven Caron  wrote:

> i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base.
> i know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed
> max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>
>> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>>
>> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>>
>> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>>
>> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>>
>> Anyone want to bet?
>>
>>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Simon van de Lagemaat]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Steven Caron  wrote:

> autodesk might have to consider extra security...


Well if they ever travel to Montreal they'll need to hire Blackwater ops
and drive around in armored vehicles like it's Fallujah.

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Steven Caron]

i agree with the first two, just 3dsmax has too much installed user base. i
know we are mad and we are making a stink about it... but if they axed
max?! autodesk might have to consider extra security...


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 11:06 AM, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> The writing is on the wall. This is my take.
>
> 1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.
>
> 2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.
>
> 3 - 3DMax goes next.
>
> Anyone want to bet?
>
>

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Jordi Bares]

The writing is on the wall. This is my take.

1 - Mudbox is next as Zbrush has truly wiped the market.

2 - Morion Builder next as they implement some tech in maya.

3 - 3DMax goes next.

Anyone want to bet?

Sent from my iPhone

> On 5 Mar 2014, at 17:12, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:
> 
> 3dMax is next.  Users are complaining about the lame upgrade at 2015

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Stephen Davidson]

I have already seen a post that says Max will no longer get development.
http://www.reddit.com/r/vfx/comments/z8o09/autodesk_is_no_longer_going_to_develop_3dsmax_and/


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Emilio Hernandez  wrote:

> 3dMax is next.  Users are complaining about the lame upgrade at 2015
>



-- 

Best Regards,
*  Stephen P. Davidson*

*(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


 - Arthur C. Clarke

Re: let me fan the flames....

[Emilio Hernandez]

3dMax is next.  Users are complaining about the lame upgrade at 2015

let me fan the flames....

[Stephen Davidson]

Ok, so the choice to stick with AD is Softimage/3DMax or Softimage/Maya
AD says they have no plans to kill either 3DMax or Maya...
feeling luckypunk?



-- 

Best Regards,
*  Stephen P. Davidson*

*(954) 552-7956*sdavid...@3danimationmagic.com

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic*


 - Arthur C. Clarke