I think a united Softimage community could be kingmaker. I nominate Fabric Engine as King.
Here's some facts as I see them: Some of us will continue to use Softimage for the next few years, others of us will unhappily be forced to use Maya. The realities of production, studios, and freelancers will dictate this. Softimage gave us ICE. ICE has made us smart, because ICE is a ladder. ICE is a magical place where the slightest bit of linear algebra is immediately useful. If you can add two vectors together you can make useful things in ICE. And if you learn a little more, it's a little more useful. And in so doing, ICE has elevated many us from people who use 3D applications to people who create our own tools in 3D applications. Our community is not totally unique in this matter, but I think our community is remarkable in its knowledge of the core math of CG. That combined with our formidable production experience, self-sufficiency, and early-adopter fearlessness is unique. It makes us mighty. I think Fabric engine is the way out. That's because Fabric Engine is also a ladder. For the moment, nothing changes. We may continue to use Softimage, or we may be forced to use Maya, depending on each of our circumstance, but the important thing is getting behind Fabric and trying to get as many of our tools as possible into it. There's no giant painful leap that's needed, we can start small without breaking existing workflows. As a bonus, if we open up our tools as much as possible, this will go exponentially faster. Softimage will remain frozen in time and Maya will continue to crumble under the weight of its terrible design, and all the while Fabric Engine will be eating. Here's how I see this playing out. 1. First Fabric Engine replaces what we used to do in ICE. There's a lot of work to do to make this a reality, but this one seems like a no-brainer to me. 2. The next lowest hanging fruit is rigging. Fabric Engine creations eat the deformers used in rigging, and then become the rigs themselves. 3. Once the native rigging in these programs is eaten, Fabric Engine also eats animation as a natural progression. The animators must go where the rigs are, and will be happiest where the rigs play back the fastest. 4. Lighting and rendering is a tough one, but it won't take very much to be better than Maya here. Being competent at scene assembly and having a pass system that isn't obviously terrible is enough. 5. We unceremoniously kick the desiccated husk of Maya into a storm drain. Honestly if we do nothing, I think this might happen anyway. But I think together can make it go much faster. 1. Embrace open source and put as many of our tools as we can out there. 2. Keep making stuff- this is natural for us, as we have, after all, all become toolmakers. No giant painful leap is needed. We liberate ourselves, and empower developers who have passion and care about the right things. This is the only road I see that leads somewhere that I actually want to be. -Jonah
