Yes Exactly, that was my point. I'm totally understanding where Bifrost is coming from and I'm glad this is now becoming clear. This is what we need to understand, what the differences are going forward, what the long term direction is etc. What we can do and what we can't do, compared to ICE today. But by it's very nature, Bifrost will never be ICE. All the more reason it keep Softimage going for the mid-term, not 2 years.
On 21 March 2014 16:53, Adrian Graham <adrian.gra...@autodesk.com> wrote: > Ah, but may I respectfully point out that this was one of the problems > with ICE, in that its complete and total integration into Softimage makes > it difficult to engineer and manage, from a software and, unfortunately, a > marketing point of view. > > Most modern software libraries are platform-agnostic, and this is what > we're aiming for with Bifrost. The problem with ICE is that you had to use > Softimage in order to gain access to it. Nothing against Softimage, just > that you're limiting ICE's exposure to the industry at large. > > Would a renderer be more or less popular if it only worked with Maya, and > not with Max or Houdini? No, it should be available on all applications, on > all OSs if you want it to be successful. > > Adrian > > From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto: > softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Chris Marshall > Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 6:52 AM > To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com > Subject: Re: ICE - When will we have todays functionality in Maya? > > I think we can see there's some reason to look into Bifrost, but I also > have a nagging feeling it's simply never going to achieve the same level of > functionality as ICE, for the very reason ICE is essentially being shut > down. ICE does what it does and is so much more than a particle system, > because it is built into the very core of Softimage. To attempt to make > Bifrost 'future proof' they are deliberately *not* building it into the > core of Maya, thus allowing for the potential for it to be standalone and / > or plugged into other software / platforms at a later date. But by > approaching it in this way, it'll only ever be a bolt on, that surely can > never achieve that level of flexibility that we have with ICE at the heart > of Softimage. It feels that the very thing that makes ICE such an amazing > tool is actually causing it's downfall, and is the reason Bifrost can never > replace it. And that totally sucks! > >
