Hi, While I think you brought a number of fair points,
I don't think people sticking to soft is mostly about fanaticism or
"religous" frevor.
I too worked on Shake, and apprehending nuke was no problem.
A better analogy for me would be moving from node based visual
programming to scripting,
on a somewhat less forgiving base when "pushing the envelope".
(not just concerning ICE but somehow everything, )
From what I gather while being as impartial as I can,
if the end result is indeed a 25%-50% overall change in productivity for
5-7+ years,
(based on much (non-selective) feedback from smaller shops/projects to date)
while I'm sure many could deal with that, and that some might do better
and others worse,
it can definitely still ring as being quite something.
And just going along with it while saying ;
"oh well.. that's just how it is.. might as well make the best of it!"
to me almost feels as if we were talking about purely consequential
natural disaster recovery,
and I personally have a hard time just swallowing that.
On 03/13/14 22:59, Meng-Yang Lu wrote:
Hi Sylvain,
I was just agreeing about Raff's eloquent emphasis on how experience
is not directly linked to what software you use. Lack of foresight on
a project can erode all the advantages gained by slick tools.
The truth is that our industry is constantly changing with new
innovations and it has always been my philosophy that we either adapt
to the tools given to us and make the best of them, or gain the skills
to develop new tools. This will continue as long as we have an
industry, and we should by all means embrace it.
I started using Maya since 3.0 and XSI in 4.0.1. And though I'm a
huge fan of Softimage, it's contextual intelligence, and it's
passionate community, I never really felt comfortable putting all my
eggs in one basket. Today, I leverage Maya for nCloth and animation,
XSI for the generalist tasks of modeling and ass-saving ability, and
Houdini for FX. XSI was always my secret weapon though. We switch
context all the time in 3D. Your viewport tools compared to your
graph editor and then to ICE are all completely different. And then
we probably go home and put in a couple hours of gaming, another
interface to deal with. 3D to me it just like that. I'm constantly
changing interfaces and workflows anyway. And I think of Maya,
Softimage, and Houdini in that way.
When it comes to managing projects, it's incredibly beneficial for a
lead to grasp a broad understanding of not only the process, but the
workflows and advantages that each package brings to the table. Here
at the Mill LA, it's not unusual for us to mix Maya and Houdini. Most
of the time, the pitches are done by one guy in Softimage, but I have
to go in and figure out a way to replicate that process in Maya our
Houdini because of talent availability and the need to scale. And you
know what, our end product benefits from leveraging the best out of
our tools and our people.
The reality is that Softimage will be around for 2 more years. A lot
can change. I remember when Shake was bought out and my favorite
compositor of all time went away. Ask me to give up Nuke now for
Shake. No way!! It took some time and the pains were real. But
today, I'm a lot more efficient with Nuke than I ever was with Shake.
And I hope one day, I'll be more proficient in another 3D app than I
am with what I have now.
Change is what makes our industry the exciting fun one that inspired
us to join in this crazy party. I don't worry about the tools of the
future because as long as you guys are still in the game, I believe we
will find a way like we have been doing all those years the past.
It's gonna take more than one silly company and one horrible
decisions to put me out the pasture. And you guys with your wealth of
talent and experience should feel the same.
Sorry for being an absolute child on the internet.
-Lu
