ah DS discontinued by Avid and XSI discontinued by AD. and what’s there to fill that particular void?
they shared architecture and interface to a degree, and both had some very interesting forward thinking (visionary?) concepts at their origin. I remember opening a softimage 3D asset in the DS timeline, and changing the texture placement on it, and having it re-render, right there in the editing timeline, with mental ray - 15 years ago. It wasn’t all that useful, but it hinted of some very exciting future links between 3D and editing/comp. But then Avid drove a wedge between DS and XSI, pushing DS into a very awkward position in the Avid portfolio, and XSI into a kind of no mans land – like an unwanted child they ended up with, not knowing what to do with. Somehow, that child managed to survive Avid and even start to show promise, then got sold off to AD, and even survived that and prospered. A while. I guess the industry as a whole didn’t need that integrated Digital Studio, and few really used DS and XSI in tandem - but I feel we are all the poorer without it. Sure, there’s some interesting convergence happening between 3D and comp these days – but how I miss that particular Softimage spin on it. From: Stephen Blair Sent: Friday, August 28, 2015 9:58 PM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: Friday Flashback #238 SOFTIMAGE|DS: Originality distinguishes art from craft http://wp.me/powV4-3dT
