I agree it wasn't "totally off-topic" (although it would easily have warranted its own thread). But myara's reaction was "understandable" as you yourself explicitly stated "I'm totally off-topic here" at the beginning of your post. myara, however, did try to help, so I'd say there is no actual harm done here... It's true, however, we all should relax a little...


PS - And no, this isn't a reprimand, this is yet another attempt to clear the air...

Back on topic...

Finaly got a chance to test out 2013. Quick impressions:

modeling:
- Cap hole is much, MUCH faster.
---> not a very good benchmark but found iamVFX's test with torus 80 000 polys = 50sec on 2012SAP; same torus in 2013 takes ONE sec to cap. Good job there.
- Slice between polys seems improved as well but i just cant believe this is what they think a modeling tool should look like.

HQV:
- The interaction is much better than i expected, but the conversion process is slow as hell.
- Its actually useful for light/shadow adjustments.

other:
- Retime tool is alright, but i haven't found a way to make keys respect frame snapping. They just get interpolated so you end up with keys inbetween the frames and have to fix them afterwards (not a huge chore, just right click and execute "move keys to nearest frame" but there should be an option to do this automatically).
- About mixer track color: if you make it possible to set them dark, why not make text appear in inverted color? Not a big deal, just dont get the logic behind this...
- Lots of annoying bugs got fixed, thats good.


Had a chance to look into new maya as well:
- Node editor is a joke. At least it has a [tab] node creation menu (cant forgive softimage devs for ignoring such an obvious feature). Other than that, its far from being user friendly or even useful at this point.
- nHair is very nice, though. Solver is fast, collisions and self collisions seem all accurate and stable. Obviously, you'd need some time to figure it all out but it seems sound.
- ...and found this in the prefs:



Its just mocking you right now, but hopefully its a base for a future softimage interaction model... Or maybe not. Time will tell.

Ahahahha, that's like a slap in the face.

I'm not aware of any 2013-specific issues related to creating keyboard shortcuts for scripts.
How To video here: http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/creating-keyboard-shortcuts-for-scripts/
You can remove the button after and the command script remains.

A self-installing custom command is the other option.

The Node Editor in Maya is still in its early stages, its got some way to go before it matches the Hypershade/Hypergraph, but it could get there. I find it ok to use, but at present I use it more of a replacement for Maya's Connection Editor.

Regarding the Interaction Mode pref, it will only show Maya only, because you're not using a Suite. If you had installed a Suite, there would also be a 'Suites mode'. Hence the reason for adding a 3ds Max mode to Softimage. A Maya/Max user, when using a Suite can now use that respective softwares 'mode' across all the products in the Suite. I agree though, it would be good to also see a Softimage mode in there as well.

Makes sense...

Actually, it doesn't. Since you guys now offer an Ultimate Suite, which contains all these packages, a reasonable thing would be to offer a choice. Instead, you have only maya mode in all 3 so basically one group of users is well accommodated...

Yeah, i should stop expecting reason from AD.


(sorry, this is not directed at you)

Not quite, there is a Max interaction mode as well. Max users can use that interaction mode for the Suite - except Maya. Maya doesn't have a Max user mode at the moment.
I agree though, its not entirely perfect, but its way easier then it used to be.

Just tried 2013 quickly last night , HQV... does not support animated textures? really?