Thank you for letting me know, Chris.
> On Mar 16, 2014, at 1:24 PM, Chris Vienneau <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Just to let everyone know Carl got the letter and is asking questions and > will write back when he gets into the office on Monday. > > > > cv/ > > ________________________________ > From: [email protected] > [[email protected]] on behalf of Leoung O'Young > [[email protected]] > Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2014 5:13 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Open Letter to Carl Bass > > Thanks for taking the time out to write this. > Leoung > > On 15/03/2014 5:08 PM, Arvid Björn wrote: > Powerful stuff Perry. If there's one thing this debacle has proved, it's that > this community is really is as strong and passionate as I've always perceived > it to be. > > > On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 4:13 PM, Perry Harovas > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > Dear Mr. Bass > > My name is Perry Harovas. > > You don't know me, but I am a 10 year Softimage user. > 10 years is actually a small amount of time when compared to my > peers who having been using Softimage for up to 20 years. > > I am writing to you because I cannot be silent on this. > > I have been in this business for 25 years. I started out using Lightwave in > Video Toaster V1 on an Amiga computer. > I then moved on to Alias PowerAnimator and took the new abilities of that > software (over Lightwave) into > feature films out of a small studio in (of all places) Newark, NJ. > > I was an Alpha tester of Maya, before it was even announced publicly. > I put up with no docs, breaking code, a renderer that was written only months > earlier and barely worked, changing workflows, etc. > I learned everything I could about the software, and eventually co-authored > the first book about Maya, "Mastering Maya Complete 2". > > I was the loudest, most exuberant fan of Maya on the face of the planet. I > couldn't get enough. I worked myself into bouts of sleeplessness > in an effort to know more about this seemingly magical application that would > allow me to create anything I could dream of. > > Except, in reality, the word 'dream' is appropriate, because as I took on > larger projects and tried to do more work with it, I found one of the largest > obstacles > with Maya was (and is) that it needs a support team behind it to code tools > into either working together, or sometimes, working at all. > > A good example of this is when I was directing two 30 minute CG children's > shows with me and my small crew of 4 other people. > We had 6 months to create 60 minutes of animation, including building the > characters, rigging them, animating them, texturing, lighting, etc. > An insane task given the budget, crew size and amount of animation. But we > plunged head on into doing it. > > Then, after many, many minutes of animation had been done, we found that our > characters were coming > into our scenes with no animation except their mouth lip sync. Where had all > the animation we did gone? > > Our one technical guy on staff looked into it and happened to find that the > animation curves were still there, > but had detached themselves from the character rig (his skeleton, if you > will). > Fortunately, he was able to code up a way to automatically reconnect the > animation curves to the rig, saving months of work. > > We then realized we were not going to be the only people to have this issue. > We spoke with Support, and they acknowledged this was a known issue. > We even offered to give them our script to help others who were having > similar issues. They refused to let us help. > We then started experiencing render problems, referencing issues, and a list > of other things > so long that I can't remember it now. > > Needless to say, it was frustrating, it prevented the quality from being > consistent, and endangered our whole company. > > We soldiered on, finishing the two shows on schedule, barely, and vowing to > NEVER use Maya again. > We eventually decided on Softimage|XSI. Sure it was rough re-learning a new > application, but it was rewarding in that it worked, didn't fail us, > and didn't need a dedicated team to produce work that was better than what we > could produce in Maya. This was astonishing to me! > Thoughts of "Why did we not do this earlier?" ran through my head. The power > in one application seemed to be nearly limitless. > > Limitless, that is, until I started Alpha testing Moondust, which eventually > became ICE. > This was an area I knew nothing about, coding, and suddenly I was doing > things that I could not believe. > I created a way to have fur just appear on the silhouette of my cartoon dog, > in literally 20 minutes of "fiddling around" with ICE. > > Even with the lack of documentation at that point, with the alpha, and then > beta, status of the software, it was the most powerful tool I had ever used. > > Bar none. No doubt, No hyperbole. > > I could not believe what I could now do, just ME, not a team of people. > Imagine what a team of people could do? > Well, there is no need to imagine, we have many examples to point to from > just the last few years: > > -'The Lego Movie' > -The Mill's '98% Human' ad > -The Embassy's 'Science Project' commercial > -'Iron Man' > -'Pacific Rim' > -'Now You See Me' > -Subaru 'Car Parts' ad > > These are just off the top of my head. > > This software, the one your company just retired (also known as EOL, or End > Of Life) is Softimage. > You remember Softimage, don't you? You bought it from Avid in 2008. I > wouldn't blame you for not remembering, > it never showed up on your home page, it was barely promoted, and it was > something that you had to hunt for in Siggraph demos. > > Softimage, the software that gave rise to dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' (in a > previous, less powerful, incarnation of the software). > Softimage, the software that gave the world 'Terminator 2'', 'Death Becomes > Her', 'Babe, 'Casper', 'Jumanji', 'Mars Attacks' and just too many others to > list. > Softimage, the software that invented Inverse Kinematics. > Softimage, the software that Animal Logic used to create the number one movie > in America at the time Autodesk made this announcement. > > Of course, I could go on. But I am sure you get the point. > > This is the software that your company just killed. > That really is the only word for it, KILLED. > Killed, because it is now seen by many as obsolete even though, as you > hopefully know, it is the newest of the 3 DCC apps your company owns and far > from obsolete. > It is now perceived that way because of this action. > > I have been in visual effects and animation production my entire career, and > a few years ago I also started teaching. > In 2007, I moved myself and my family from the East Coast of the USA to > Illinois. > While there, I helped start a new college in Chicago called 'Flashpoint, The > Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences', > which was renamed to 'Tribeca | Flashpoint Academy' when Robert De Niro's > Tribeca, > purchased 50% of the school. I was the Chair of the Visual Effects and > Animation Department. > I wrote the entire curriculum in my department. The software world was 100% > open to me, I could use anything I felt would be appropriate. > > I chose to use Softimage, not Maya, as the main application to teach the > students. > I took on what I called an agnostic approach to teaching 3D software, in that > students would learn the best tool for the job, > and hopefully not be as software biased as my generation was/is. The reason > for this, as I told them, was because you never know when > your software will just vanish, the company will kill it, or go out of > business. > > Wow, I wish I wasn't right about that one... > > Knowing how to use many applications, how to be aware of what was going on > behind the > curtain of the software, was (and is) far more important and helped prevent > being unable to work due to not > having skills in one application, especially if that application was > discontinued. > > Well, now because of the actions that your company took on March 4, 2014, > that has happened, and I am in exactly that position. > I can continue to use Softimage for a couple of years, but as you no doubt > understand, > the stigma associated with using EOL Software (never mind teaching it) is too > great to bear. > The driver support would quickly become a problem, the renderer support would > be an major issue, and before too long, > it will become impossible to use Softimage in production. > > So your company has now given me, all of us Softimage users, a choice. We can > use 3DS Max or we can use Maya. > Well, I chose not to learn 3DS Max as it relied too heavily on plugins, and > Maya, well, you now know how that played itself out for me... > > I will make a choice, but it will be to not use Autodesk products anymore. > I am choosing to learn an entirely new 3D DCC application, and I can assure > you it will not be an Autodesk product. > I could easily go back to using Maya, especially with my history with the > software. I choose not to. > > See? A choice. > > Even if I thought Maya was a great base of code on which to build the future > DCC application that will rule the world (and I certainly do not), > I wouldn't use Maya based upon principal alone. Maya is not a great base to > build upon, because as you are well aware, it is more than 17 years old and > wasn't written when multi-core processors were even a dream in the labs of > chip makers. It is really like tearing down the 5 story building, in favor of > making > a 10 story building on the foundation of a 17 year old house that has been > patched together with one new idea after another. The foundation is showing > its age, > the wood is starting to rot, and yet the plan is to build on top of this > base. That is what I believe you are doing with your company's plans to build > upon Maya. > > A company that does this to their loyal customers, in my opinion, is a > company that does not have the best interests of those customers at heart. > A company that does, what your company did in less than 6 years (killing a > product) is a company that should not have made the purchase of > that product in the first place. > > Was it not obvious, when Autodesk evaluated the purchase of Softimage, that > having three DCC apps was not a good financial decision? > Was it not obvious that this fairly small market segment could not sustain > development on these three apps? > > If it wasn't obvious, then perhaps there is more wrong with Autodesk than > anyone realized. > Unless, there was another reason to buy Softimage, but that would be pure > speculation... > > So, what now? > > I now teach at another well respected institution, and continue to work in > the industry very actively. > Will I still teach Maya? Yes. It is part of the curriculum, and will help > these students get jobs in the industry. > > However, I will be teaching another product as well, again, to prevent what > has happened to me and my peers from happening > to these students that are just starting out on this career path. > > Mr. Bass, I have seen interviews with you. I believe you are a kind person. > You certainly seem to be in love with this business. > I hate the decisions that your company made, that you approved, but I don't > personally hold any hatred for you. > > I just wanted you to know that there are many, many artists out there that > just want to continue to use the application that we chose to use. > We had a choice, and Softimage was what we chose to use. Taking away that > option, your company has now asked us to chose software > that we could have chosen before, and did not. This isn't a choice, this is > a hijacking. > > I cannot speak for others, but, as you may now know, the overall sentiment of > Softimage users is to chose NOT to use Autodesk products anymore. > I can only believe this wasn't what Autodesk, or you, wanted. We are a very > passionate bunch, who now are passionately opposed to using Autodesk > products. Again, I can't speak for all of us, but the forums on your > competitions' websites are filled with users looking to switch. > > The most asked question on these forums seems to be something like: "How do I > do this thing I used to do in Softimage, in your app?" > > That should tell you something Mr Bass. The users of Softimage just want to > keep using Softimage, its workflow, its amazing tools, and not be burdened by > the archaic workflow > of your other two DCC apps. They want to do amazing work. They want to be > able to feed their families and to keep their employees. > > They are so hungry for this, they are looking for this workflow in the > welcoming arms of your competitors. > The amount of money this may end up costing Autodesk in the not too distant > future will most likely dwarf the amount of money it would have taken to just > keep Softimage going. > > I didn't go to business school, but even I can see this isn't a great way to > run a business. > > So, after this long email (that I actually edited believe it or not). where > do I stand? > > Well, I want to ask you to reconsider your company's decision. > This cannot be an easy matter, and I am sure I don't know all the legal and > financial problems this may create. > But in a naive, passionate, and yes, tearful, way, I want to ask you: > > Please bring back Softimage. > > Please keep this software we all love going. > Please just keep it alive in the most basic way. > Keep fixing bugs, keep updating the support for graphics drivers, keep > updating the SDK to allow the large > community of developers to continue to enhance it. > > Please do this for us, the people who put their faith, their financial > dependence, in the software > that your company owns. > > Thank you for your time. > > Sincerely, > > Perry Harovas > > > > > > > > > <winmail.dat>
