Virtual PCs work for now, and so does keeping archives of files around for
the interim. One problem you may run into is expiration date of your
licenses. I ran into this problem with my older XSI licenses. While
Softimage called them 'permanent' licenses, they're actually 10-13 year time
bombs. They're called permanent because Softimage assumed nobody would need
to exhume data that far into the future as a newer release of the software
would be available for that purpose. That's great until there are no more
new releases.
In due time everybody will hit the same problem - what to do when you can no
longer maintain the ecosystem? That's where I'm at now and why I'm writing
an exporter. In my particular case commercial formats such as .fbx. .obj,
.xsi won't suffice because they don't support the necessary features. I
have scenes which are facades with a shader applied to make the illusion of
3d on a 2d surface. .fbx doesn't support shaders, so converting those
scenes will get the polygons to convert, but not the shaders - what good is
that? Even if the shaders were rewritten for the target application, .fbx
does not contain the necessary information to make the connection. Many
formats are designed for editing, not archiving. They're also proprietary
in nature making it a risky medium to store data long term. Anybody have
the specs to the .fbx file format? thought so. File formats have shelf
lives too. I think it's best to keep data in it's original format until you
have a specific destination. Each time you migrate data it loses some of
it's integrity.
I'm not going to support my content indefinitely, but I am going to design a
format which can properly archive it with enough information to reconstruct
it in another application if a feature isn't directly supported/available.
I can do that with Softimage|3D content because it's doesn't support complex
data such a render passes, ICE trees, render trees, and so on. XSI is
another beast and will be much more difficult to support in that regard.
Matt
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Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 11:57:20 +0100
From: Tim Leydecker <bauero...@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: How do you guys make sure XSI files and Softimage 7.5+ files
will open in 2016?
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Just to be clear, I don?t want to portray Adsk as evil, I am bitching
about the
extra hurdles involved in finding the service packs to a specific release?s
version and making sure all files neccessary are downloaded and named
properly.
In my personal case, I can pretty savely assume Softimage 2010, 2012,
2014 version jumps,
so that?s not so bad actually. It?s a bit more difficult for 3rd party
renderer versions and
the 32bit>64bit jump for plugins like the sRGB nodes from Harry Bardak
in some legacy
projects. Anything 64bit I am also positive will most likely be fine,
like Sven suggests
(one also learns a bit about project structuring, my old stuff has more
final_v003.var2 files than now...)
In terms of general backup strategy, I also got bitten once, losing a
drive when swapping
machines and then having to rebuild that data from iterative backups on
other drives.
Not nice, tedious actually. I can recommend "Beyond Compare", that
worked great for me
in putting together a working version of a project and even completely
restructuring my
files into project specific folder structures, weeding out duplicates
and reducing the chance
of missing files by collecting things into one master folder branched
into apps, files, etc.
I do have to check if my dongle is still working, thought. A virtual
machine is a very good tip.
There?s a change I have a full backup of a working system drive
available. I used "Drive Snapshot"
in the past but haven?t touched those backup files in years. To be
honest, there?s not too much
stuff I would be proud in showing off, maybe some snippets from my
thesis would be worth
being polished and put on display, after more than 10 years... but I
doubt it...
For the last couple of years, I will mostly have *.obj and *.fbx files
plus *.psd map files
as well as *.ztl and *.mud files, that stuff is pretty save to open with
newer versions atm.
Thanks for your thoughts,
it?s a bit spooky to realize 10 years ago now also looks like 10 years
ago...
Cheers,
tim
Am 23.12.2014 um 10:36 schrieb Rob Wuijster:
Just to add some thoughts on this...
I started building virtual pc's for this 'occasion' some years ago,
just to be on the safe side.
I still have a Win95/98/NT/2000/XP virtual disk lying around with some
'critial' software installed, just to be able to open up that one
program from years ago.
Or to run some other stuff that's impossible in the newer version of
Windows now.
At some point I had to convert my virtual pc 'disks' to a new virtual
pc program, but that was less hassle than doing all Matt described. ;-)
I think we're all in the same situation at the moment. I also have a
boat load of assets, created over the years going back to Softimage 3.0.
All neatly packaged in a separate project as scenes or models. All
shaded and textured, ready to go. The more 'beefy' assets are now
models linked to a Arnold .ass file for quick handling and rendering.
At some point we sadly have to leave Softimage behind, so what to do
with all these assets? Depending on what's next, there's probably a
slow conversion to this new 3D application. Or conversion to .obj or
.fbx for longer, more app agnostic storage.
For me, having the virtuals pc's/software lying around is the easiest
solution at the moment. How this all will play out in the next years
is another story ;-)
cheers, and happy holidays to all!
Rob
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