On 04/18/16 18:55,
Steven Caron wrote:
Their decision axe Softimage seemed irrational to us
because we are emotional but if you reduce it to
numbers, it made sense.
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(right...)
It is a truth I
don't like to admit but it is a fact that Maya and Max
user numbers are just higher,
so of course you axe Softimage and consolidate the dev
teams. |
Of course!
Soft userbase wasn't humongous (entirely relatively speaking
which is I think is my point)
in it's rather niche segment perhaps like Houdini proportions
relative to Maya, or even Maya is relative to 3DS.
But you can't purge something like Houdini (or Softimage) from
existance, on the premise that it's market was smaller, and
not leave a huuge gaping hole, in what a main package (in it's
niche segment) may have provided in terms of advantages, which
despite "softimagization" of other products including tweak
tools, shader trees, ... to this day remains not just a bit
unique in it's main qualities. (not just concerning ICE)
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Others have touched on it,
here and on the Arnold mailing lists... This case
is different because they don't have 3 competing
renderers now, they have at most two (ART in Max).
Softimage wasn't a plugin for 7 different
softwares, it wasn't 'agnostic' in the same way
Arnold is. Since the Softimage purchase and axing,
AD has bought Shotgun.
This is an example of AD staying out of way and
more value being brought to the product
(additional access to RV). These are reasons why I
think this case is going to be different.
I am cautiously optimistic
though, in 2 years or so we will see for certain.
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Indeed shotgun is one (of quite few out of -many-) packages that
wasn't seriously compromised post acquisition, which is probably
why shotgun is pasted all over Arnold press release, and I too
wouldnt be surprised if it was one of those few, yet many would
argue that shotgun barely (significantly) changed since it was
purchased, and moslty relies on the fact that it's quite
complete as it is (perhaps not unlike SI).
But there remains a good chance (if not a probability) that
efforts on Arnold would be mostly be around what the parent
company is after, or what the buzzword of the day may be at a
given time, in this case "cloud", and for the rest to be slowly
moved to the back simply by not touching it, and thus becoming
like the next MentalRay.
In either case it could then be considered as "just" another
casualty.
On 04/18/16 18:55, Steven Caron wrote:
I tried to touch on this with the last sentence in
my reply. Their decision axe Softimage seemed irrational to us
because we are emotional but if you reduce it to numbers, it
made sense. It is a truth I don't like to admit but it is a fact
that Maya and Max user numbers are just higher, so of course you
axe Softimage and consolidate the dev teams.
Others have touched on it, here and on the Arnold mailing
lists... This case is different because they don't have 3
competing renderers now, they have at most two (ART in Max).
Softimage wasn't a plugin for 7 different softwares, it wasn't
'agnostic' in the same way Arnold is. Since the Softimage
purchase and axing, AD has bought Shotgun. This is an example
of AD staying out of way and more value being brought to the
product (additional access to RV). These are reasons why I
think this case is going to be different.
I am cautiously optimistic though, in 2 years or so we will
see for certain.
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