Hi Felix, well I put this post on purpose in this thread. It's targeted primarily at FabricEngine because I have the impression that regarding their business model they are settled (they have a venture capitalist in their back according to their website) but I suppose not so tight as other companies (The Foundry being a part of Carlyle Group for example).
On the other hand I wanted to give Maurice Patel (in all modesty) an idea about some options in the unlikely event that Autodesk would sell the M&E division in the future (which imho I think is not so unlikely at all for the stated reasons). But you are right a separate thread would be better. I leave this to the others if someone wants to contribute since I have everything said what I wanted to say. Cheers, Stephan. > He Stephan and all. Thanks for your words. But let's try to keep > this thread constructive and on topic. Which is about what to do > next, and if there is interest in a combined effort to create a > scene assembly tool based on fabric (or something else) > specifically. There are more than enough threads to vent your > feelings about this messed up situation already. > 2014-03-05 5:48 GMT+01:00 Alex Arce <aa.li...@gmail.com>: > Wow Stephan, > Thanks for sharing. I remember in some of my early days with > Softimage CE (starting 21 years ago), Spans+Partners work on some of > the early Softimage reels inspiring me to explore more. It makes me > happy to be reminded of this so many years later, even at such a > depressing moment it Softimage history. > Thanks again, > Alex > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 11:10 PM, Stephan Hempel <elh...@gmail.com> wrote: > after laying around the whole night and couldn't sleep here are my 2 cents on > the whole situation. > When you look at the history of Softimage it's quite obvious that > developing a software for this industry is quite a challenge. I > think there is reason why Daniel Langlois sold Softimage to > Microsoft, because he couldn't stand the developing costs for a > complete rewrite anymore. And when you see how long it took until > XSI and later Moondust got on the market you may have glimpse what > it means to develop a piece Software with this kind of sophistication. > I can only hope that FabricEngine and all the others develop a > better business model then the traditional one with investors > outside of the industry who are not bound to the company they are > invested in and can sell their investment at anytime to anywhom. I > think the only solution are strong bounds into the 3D industry itself. > I want to show you an example. In the Germany there is a company > called DATEV. They do a very unsexy thing: tax accounting software. > But the interesting part is that this company has been built by its > customers and is owned by its customers in form of a cooperative > society. The company exists since 1966 which gives you an idea about > the stability and longevity of such the business model. > More info about you find here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datev > As manufacturing 3D software is obviously not a highly profitable > business (or why else Softimage got sold from the founder via > Microsoft throught AVID to Autodesk, Maya from Wavefront through > Alias to Autodesk, 3dsmax from Kinetix through discreet* to Autodesk) > I can only strongly recommend to stay away from financal investors > and the stock market and try to finance the development through the 3D > industry itself. > By the way if you look at Autodesk's latest business figures then > you get the impression that big troubles can arise. Last years > revenue dropped significantly especially when you compare it to the > performance of the competition in the engineering sector. > Engineering is 93% of their business by the way. M&E only > contributes 7% to their revenue and is decreasing. > Related to that I don't think that cloud based services which is > supposedly the next big thing is wanted by such a conservative > industry like the engineering industry is. And believe me or not > they are conservative. I have some clients in this field. When this > cloud based thing goes down the drain it is likely that Autodesk > gets in big trouble and will therefore concentrate on its core > business and will as consequence sell its stepchild M&E to whomever > may have an interest in it (hopefully not a financial investor). > Well I have no glass ball in front of me but I think the 3D > industry should be prepared for such a situation since Autodesk has > a dominant market position and apparently no one seems to care. > It's a shame their will be no other software with a > middle-click-this-button-to-repeat-the-last-command functionality > anymore because Autodesk owns the patent on this and many other > innovative concepts which made Softimage unique and stand out. So I > think I will stay with "my second love" until I go the "Kim Aldis route". > Just my 2 cents. Sorry for the rambling speech. > I am still very thankful that I got in touch with Softimage at > Spans und Partner 8 years ago after messing around with 3dsmax and > Maya. Thanks to the developers and the community for supporting such > a great product over the last 28 years. > Cheers, > Stephan. > +1 > Sent from my iPhone > On Mar 5, 2014, at 5:11, Jeffrey Dates <jda...@kungfukoi.com> wrote: > This. > Everything Andy said. > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 4:52 PM, Andy Jones <andy.jo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Many studios having the same problems at the same time is a HUGE > opportunity if we leverage it properly. > I completely agree about the collaboration that will be necessary > from users. However, for studios' part, I know a lot of places are > interested in Fabric already, even if they haven't actually bought > licenses yet. So if part of the incentive was some kind of > agreement for the FE guys to help nurture a scene assembly tool to > life quickly, it might help tip the scale for whatever cost/benefit > analysis places are doing. The devs working on Fabric are truly > some of the best in the world (and from what I understand, a big > part of the reason AD bought Softimage to begin with). They are a > big part of the equation for what will happen in the future, even if > they don't end up wanting to build a scene assembler as a supported > "product" in itself (or who knows -- maybe they will?). > It would be great to get a little (or big?) list of studios that > are interested in this sort of project (or other ones) and possibly > have some kind of summit with the FE guys about what it would take > to fast-track FE into certain critical areas of production, assuming > a certain number of licenses were purchased. No commitments at this > point -- just a list of interested parties who might be curious > enough to be part of the conversation, pending whatever other > conversations need to be had with superiors. I.e., it's understood > that nobody is speaking for their companies at this point. Just > indicating that they think their company *might* be interested. > I'll start: > Psyop > Massmarket > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Felix Geremus > <felixgere...@googlemail.com> wrote: > You are probably right. But these times are a little bit different > and maybe that's exactly the one chance inside all this mess. We're > all sitting in the same boat at the same time. I know a lot of > studios who entirely rely on Softimage for lighting. All of these > will have to spend time and thus money to move on to another > pipeline during the next two years anyway. So why not invest at > least parts of this time into the same thing? Individuals are great, > and the community should absolutely try. But it's so hard to put > something like this together in your spare time. A few studios > supporting and profiting from this effort would accelerate the whole > process immensely. And about showing potential: wasn't Stage, and > all the other fabric applications build for exactly this reason? To > show the potential of such a project? > 2014-03-04 21:55 GMT+01:00 Steven Caron <car...@gmail.com>: > it is a bit harder for visual effects vendors/studios, in an > already difficult market, spending money on software development > (not their core business) is a hard sell. seeing a product or > product in development on the other hand drums up interest which > leads to real investment and collaboration. they need to see if > their ideas are aligned with others on the project. don't take my > comment as discouragement, it is just how i see it... for now it > will be on individuals to come together on a project which shows > potential. i hope we, the remaining softimage community, can do that > together. again, not discouragement to any studio which wants to > partner to make something happen... > steven > On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Felix Geremus > <felixgere...@googlemail.com> wrote: > So now that Softimage will be gone, isn't there room or even need > for collaboration here? Before everybody tries to build something > themselves, shouldn't people try to bundle forces? And I'm not only > talking about individuals here. I'm talking about small to medium > size companies who couldn't afford to build something like this alone. > -- > Mit freundlichen Grüssen > Stephan Hempel > mailto:hempli...@web.de
