Hi Jason, Right now, many people need to make measured decisions on how to conduct their business effectively in the short term, with plans to transition in the long term. I'm extremely upset that the weapon of choice that my friends used to make 98% Human is going to go away. And I know people have carved out whole careers using Softimage. If I had to solo a job with a quick turnaround like many freelancers, I would run with Softimage knowing the preproduction work could eventually be converted to final renders. Undoubtedly, it's a harsh blow to hear it's EOL.
But you still have access to it now and it's still an amazing piece of kit. So that's not going anywhere. So take this as a little prod to go exploring other offerings and expanding your capabilities. If visual programming is your thing, take a look a Houdini. I think it's second to none regarding a visual programming environment. Plus, SideFX is a completely different experience than Autodesk and would love to hear your feedback. We went from an all-Maya studio here in LA to Maya/Houdini. And truth be told, it was the Houdini work that helped spurred on our growth here in LA. Had we adamantly stuck with Maya for everything, I'm not sure where we'd be today. We have to stop placing these mental blocks that prevents us from learning new things and enabling us to take on new challenges. What we quickly forget is what did you guys do prior to ICE? And what happened when it showed up in 2008? Everyone took a bit of time and learned it and some got very good at it. Why is looking at other offers any different? I'm not saying "Oh well, might as well make the best of it." What I am saying is stay active in seeking out new solutions. And we need to take this a step further. What does the DCC of the future look like? Beautifully fast real-time viewports where I can hit play and frames get saved to disk? Real-time smoke and fluid sims where I don't have to guess and hope my values are good enough? Animation tools that are intuitive and don't require an army of TDs to wrangle? The CG community could really use the experience from Softimage and lead the way towards a better DCC. Just have to find a platform that won't get yanked out from under people this time. -Lu
