1. full functionality available to a non-scripting, non-technical artist
(some people are calling this the "out-of-the-box" or "pipeline-in-a-box"
quality)
2. ICE, which extends this notion to a granular level
3. workflow smoothness -- relatively few clicks, multi-ppg mode,
middle-mouse repeat, etc.
4. operator stack, especially reordering
5. this one is hard to describe -- it's mostly in contrast to Maya's
inability to do a lot of things that seem feasible at first glance -- I
guess it's due primarily to the operator stack and ordering; essentially
it's the robustness of combinations of operators and tools in Softimage.
Working lately with some very talented Maya artists, there have been a LOT
of conversations that start with me asking "can you do X?" and end with
"no, there's no way to do that," "yes, but I'd have to start over with that
built-in to the rig first," "yes, there's a script for that but I have to
modify it," or "yes, but when I apply it, it breaks Y." This just happens
a lot less in Soft.
