My little story with 3d apps.. I, as many of my colleagues, started with 3D Studio R4 (the DOS version, with VESA drivers, etc). Then came Max 1.0. I was a hardcore Max user for 4 years, then I met Lightwave, and I fell in love with its simple and efficient modeling tools, and the quality of render. I switched to Lightwave when they introduced UV, in version 6. Then I was hardcore LW user for another 4 years. Meanwhile I had to work with Maya too, and the chaos of the interface and the chaos of the information it poured onto me in the shape of Hypergraph, Hypershade, DAG nodes, etc. frightened me. Then, in 2003 came Softimage to me, when I have seen Valve's video on making of Half Life2, and I knew, this is the program I was looking for. And since then, I am a hardcore SI user, I became instructor, I'm writing scripts, etc., I turned many maxians and mayans to faithful softimagers, but seeing almost 0 development in Softimage since Autodesk bought it, made me consider few things. Like what is the possibility that I'll find a job as a Softimage user in the future (close to zero, everybody seem to use Maya and max)? And it's really funny to read that someone would use Softimage even if its dead, but in reality, it works not like this. If I want to get a job, I have to have a confident, and solid knowledge of other packages. I have a fair experience with all major programs, even modo, but if I want to get a job, I have to have a working, up-to-date knowledge in Maya and max (max is written intentionally with small letters :) ). I think that kind of patriotism doesn't help you but hurt. I don't like Maya too much, and I hate max (stinky pile of crap IMO), but if I want to survive, I'll embrace at least maya...You know what? When I was talking to a studio, and they asked me about how experienced I am in Maya or Max, I told them, that I am fine with them, but I could work double or triple faster with Softimage. And I was shocked when they told me, they are using only Autodesk products...I told them, that Softimage is AD for a couple of years now, and they told me that they never heard about it. Our interview was ended, and I got a polite mail, that they need a character artist with decent Maya or Max experience, since they are committed Autodesk users...oh man...
So anyway, I love Softimage, it's way better than the other programs in certain way, but I must admit, that the development seems to be close to zero. Look, game pipeline in XSI sucks, no artist friendly hair solution, viewport sucks, etc. I know that "I had no fancy viewport in the last 20 years, so I can live without it for another 20" guys will come, but face the truth. Development is NEEDED. Without development there is no survival. Maya will catch up Softimage in couple of years, having the old Softimage team moved to Maya. And it will survive... So, I'll dedicate my free time to be an expert in Maya, and then if I'm in somewhere, I can spread the Word....:) From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Mirko Jankovic Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 7:52 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Re: rumor, Soft dead within the next year Hey Ben, It is really a bit hard to pinpoint.. I was using Maya since version 2.0 then moved to SI when v6 arrived. After that used Maya from time to time but always run back to SI. Workflow just feels more logical for me. While in Maya everything seemed to be on glass legs and pull one bad cord everything just falls apart while in SI it is much more non linear and in most of the cases you can ogo back and fix or change things without fear of breaking everything apart. Scene explorer in SI is fantastic, perfect overview and control over everything inside whole scene and down to the level of each object... As said really hard to pin point, best description is as always: With Maya you workaround, with Softimage you work. Feels like a glove to me. Sorry that probably doesn't help too much but... In short I was working as freelance in Maya for years and struggling with bunch of parts of production, once I moved into SI those problems an d bottlenecks were solved completely. So after half yer of work with SI I was faster and did more then after 7 years with Maya. And back then as single guy freelancer you know how much that means. But again would really have to open up both Maya and SI side by side, go through same project and write down differences that are really pain. Hmm actually that is good idea only if I had time.. Once I had idea of comparative tutorials.. do same thing in both software, showing strengths and weakness of both and also would give option to someone used in one software to see how to do same thing in another.. like transferring weights from 1 character to another... etc.. Never actually moved much with that idea.. never enough time I'm afraid :( On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 7:27 AM, Angus Davidson <angus.david...@wits.ac.za<mailto:angus.david...@wits.ac.za>> wrote: A non nonsense guide to installing pYQT would be great. So many great tools are never used because people cant get past trying to get the install to work. ________________________________ From: Alan Fregtman [alan.fregt...@gmail.com<mailto:alan.fregt...@gmail.com>] Sent: 03 January 2014 07:33 AM To: XSI Mailing List Subject: Re: rumor, Soft dead within the next year Rest assured your words are being heard, at the very least by me. Miquel Campos and I at TD Survival<https://vimeo.com/tdsurvival/videos> had a quiet period over the holidays but we're looking forward to get back to producing new useful and entertaining educational material in this shiny new year. :) We want to make a difference and expose more people to the wonders in Soft, Python and the like. We also welcome suggestions, ideas or any other feedback at our Facebook page by the same name. Cheers, -- Alan On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 7:46 PM, Jon Hunt <jonathan.m.h...@gmail.com<mailto:jonathan.m.h...@gmail.com>> wrote: A serious but silly question perhaps, how do you long term soft users cope when jumping into maya with the mouse button combinations being wrong! I know I have tweaked my wacom settings to ease the pain but......and then just as you get used to it you go back to soft and its all wrong again! On a different note, whilst tutorials on the net have significantly improved and I have seen a lot of great work being done (by many people on here infact). Have any of you talented folk considered bringing the fight and attract new users in the form of subscription tutorials. Digital Tutors is good but is lacking when you see what is available on the Maya training, Soft just aint as appealing if you want to self learn or as a student subscribe to progress outside the classroom. One would choose Maya over soft if they were browsing the training kits... Lynda.com no presence of Softimage at all where as - Maya, Cinema, Max, Mudbox, Zbrush and Modo all get regular new courses. Some of this training kits provide pretty weak assets an examples. With training I mean using more updated techniques and not just solely ICE training. Good solid rounded FUN training including characters, texturing - showing all these frkin amazing workflows that Soft has! I know Autodesk don't make much money out of education licensing but I think there is value in attracting new users (not necessarily new to 3D). Not forgetting completely new users. I think its easy to forget sometimes how long we have been doing this for and how little new users know. Just some thoughts.... Jon On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 12:10 AM, <pete...@skynet.be<mailto:pete...@skynet.be>> wrote: > Maybe we should just setup a crowdfunding project and buy SI back from AD > ourselves ;-) but buy what exactly? and to do what with it? we want this software to live on and thrive - just getting it out of the hands of ADSK is not going to make that happen. In the hands of ADSK it's on life support - enough not to die but not enough to regain it's vitality. Money (lots of it) will still need to be pumped into it's development. So how much years of life does it have left really? If we take SI3D as a reference - wiki says it was first released in 1988, and last release in 2002 - so that's 14 years. XSI was released in 2000 - and we are now beginning of 2014. (happy 2014 y'all) Can we really hope for anyone to heavily invest in it's future at this point in its lifecycle? Imagine 1000 entities -companies, individuals- could be found to each couch up 10.000$ - that's 10M$. This sounds like wishful thinking to me, yet Softimage was sold to AD for 35M$ I don't think crowd-funding will make enough money to buy "it" - less so provide a stream of funds for an extended period. For that it needs to get back in shape and be properly commercialized. A new owner would have to be willing and able to really push the software - which would be against ADSKs interests. And where Avid and Adsk didn't succeed commercially, why would that change with a new owner? Granted, I can hardly imagine anyone doing a worse job than they have - perhaps Adobe or Apple could do worse yet? Perhaps the way out would be a joint venture - where ADSK remains owner for 49 or 51% and another, interested party tries to give it a kickstart? From: Toonafish<mailto:ron...@toonafish.nl> Sent: Friday, January 03, 2014 12:03 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> Subject: Re: rumor, Soft dead within the next year Maybe we should just setup a crowdfunding project and buy SI back from AD ourselves ;-) -Ronald On 1/2/2014 23:49, Manuel Huertas Marchena wrote: "I'm just thinking what if Avid or MS buy back SI if AD really abandon SI." mm...I don't think autodesk wants to sell a product just for someone else to revamp it and sell it as a concurrent to 3ds and maya... if they were ever to abandon soft, they might just keep it to themselves... ________________________________ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2014 11:42:58 +1300 Subject: Re: rumor, Soft dead within the next year From: danielki...@gmail.com<mailto:danielki...@gmail.com> To: w...@fiftyeight.com<mailto:w...@fiftyeight.com>; softimage@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> I'm just thinking what if Avid or MS buy back SI if AD really abandon SI. I like SI when Avid and MS had it... Old good memory. Daniel ------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel Kim Animation Director & Professional 3D Generalist http://www.danielkim3d.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 11:34 AM, w...@fiftyeight.com<mailto:w...@fiftyeight.com> <w...@fiftyeight.com<mailto:w...@fiftyeight.com>> wrote: So when softimage is "dead"(I hate this thread) what do you think?All softimage-user/Companys will switch then to another Software immediately? I think the will stay for 2-4years and then switch to another Applikation. And AD will get no money Hahh haha, i think AD has no change to bury SI,maybe they will Sell it, and this means :rebirth !!! happy New year! And please cloth this thread . Sorry fort my englisch Walt -- Ronald van Vemden ----------------------------------------------- 3D Graphics & Animation Cyberfish Laboratories | www.cyberfish.nl<http://www.cyberfish.nl> Toonafish | www.toonafish.nl<http://www.toonafish.nl> tel. +31(0)20 5289291<tel:%2B31%280%2920%205289291> fax +31(0)20 5289292<tel:%2B31%280%2920%205289292> email: ron...@toonafish.nl<mailto:ron...@toonafish.nl> This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.
