Just giving this a little bump so Chris V. doesn't forget. Hopefully
Andy's subsequent questions also get some answers...
Thanks,
Eric T.
On 3/16/2014 6:42 PM, Eric Thivierge wrote:
Hey Chris,
A few questions:
1. How do you respond to the people who have been long time die hard
Softimage users who have also been exposed to other DCC's, maya
specifically, who have little to no faith in AD being innovative or
responsive to their user base as history has shown. I can give you a
specific example. Skin painting. How many years has it been that it
has been in its current form, and your user base asking for it's
interaction model and tool set cleaned up and extended. Yet here we
are just prior to the 2015 release and it's gotten no attention. It's
been years people have been asking for this. Yet nothing from AD. Same
with the blend shape tools. No attention. Take a look at the various
threads on this list and 3D Pro where Maya veterans say that the use
of 3rd Party tools is a must! We need a developer that actually
listens and turns around results quickly. Not taking 5+ years to not
even address it.
2. What is a generalist UI?
3. So the first release of a tool built with your node graph will be
released in Bifrost. How long do we have to wait until the node graph
is accessible? (Granted I know you can't tell us, it just has to be
asked). It's known that with Maya releases and new features that the
first version is never production ready. You could say that for most
new features in all software, but when we think about it, if we
hypothetically say the node graph is another year off, that first
release won't be usable and so that puts us to the next year's
release, 2017. At that time most studios will need to have had to
transitioned off of Softimage and onto another platform, such as Maya.
So at that point we have more or less zero time to get acquainted with
the new system and integrate it into the pipeline and build tools
around it. That's all with the wishful thinking everything goes to plan.
4. Let's not kid ourselves. AD is a company who for the majority of
their major new features lately, acquires technology and integrates
it. NEX is the most recent to come to mind. In a larger scale sort of
way that is exactly what you did with Softimage. Bought it for the
devs and are now trying to integrate the technology. How is this
supposed to bring confidence to users who need to use Maya? It's just
a bunch of plug-ins that were bought and slapped together. There
doesn't seem to be a unified workflow thought out of how these all
need to play together and thus gives you a very fragmented workflow.
Not to mention, what happens when there is a year where you don't
acquire a software? Does Maya not get a new feature that release?
5. Lastly, who are these other key people who remained at AD that
worked on ICE? It may give us reassurance to know what good hands
we've been left in. (Not really expecting an answer here because it'd
be dangerous for AD to list their employees, but it's more the point
that we don't know who these other key people are and thus, have no
reason to be confident in them.)
Thanks,
--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com
On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 5:16 PM, Chris Vienneau
<chris.vienn...@autodesk.com <mailto:chris.vienn...@autodesk.com>> wrote:
Fair enough. I have had this conversation with a few people face
to face and it is obviously easier than a mailing list. Thanks for
the thought as it is consistent with what other people have said.
cv/
