"Autodesk and third party development"???

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redmotion
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"Autodesk and third party development"???

Post by redmotion » 09 Dec 2010, 23:31

I just saw this thread over on CGTalk:-

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread. ... 9&t=941063

From the "mouth" of cebas developer who posted an announcement for FinalRender 3.5SE

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.ph ... ostcount=4
Originally Posted by Bullit
Seems nice, any thinking of expanding it to other applications like Softimage?

Yeah XSI is a sad story for us we started 3 years ago and had a pretty good implementation but then Autodesk stepped in and now we are at a stop.
If it was 3 years ago, it was before the acquisition. Which means Autodesk did something to block a competitor getting third party support from a third-party product.
Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, are laws that promote or maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct
Seeing as people can still be tried for murder 20 years after the crime. Shouldn't Autodesk answer a few "anti-trust" questions about this activity? I doubt this was the only such case of "persuasion" or is that "coercion" meted out to other third party vendors.

Anyway, I wonder if the block still remains?

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3DTutorial
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Re: Autodesk blocked development of third party XSI plugins

Post by 3DTutorial » 10 Dec 2010, 00:15

I'm sorry, but I have to say that I think the OP is jumping to a lot of conclusions, where does the developer ever say that they were "blocked"? The answer is of course nowhere. They could have stopped development for a lot of reasons, perhaps they need to liaise with new people at Autodesk and communications broke down...perhaps they felt the the user base was too small and wasn't worth their time and effort based on possible ROI... many, many things could have happened. You know, just because that's what the developer says doesn't necessarily make it factual, I think the OP is jumping to some pretty far fetched conclusions.

To me, it sounds like a big load of BS.

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J
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Maximus
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Re: Autodesk blocked development of third party XSI plugins

Post by Maximus » 10 Dec 2010, 00:36

i asked them time ago about final render for softimage and i got the same answer, seems like AD didnt want to help them port it.
can be bullshit or not, but it is kinda weird to me since they first admit they would like to port into SI, so well something is really wrong here.

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Re: Autodesk blocked development of third party XSI plugins

Post by 3DTutorial » 10 Dec 2010, 00:47

Maximus wrote:i asked them time ago about final render for softimage and i got the same answer, seems like AD didnt want to help them port it.
can be bullshit or not, but it is kinda weird to me since they first admit they would like to port into SI, so well something is really wrong here.

Once again, pretty vague answer.

You know, what do they mean by "didn't want to help them port it?" Did they expect Autodesk to assign someone on staff to do the help do the integration? What level of support where they expecting? Many questions, but few answers.

I've have had many dealings with the Softimage development team over the years and it has been made clear to me that they ALWAYS want to help 3rd part developers. With this in mind, hearing this story seems to fly directly in the face of everything that I've always heard directly. I've also had more than my share of dealings with Autodesk and again, I've found them to be more than helpful...so I'm more than a little skeptical.

It seems that other people are able to develop and integrate render engines into Softimage.... what about 3Delight? What about Arnold? How are those guys doing it?

So again, I can't put too much faith in what the developer is saying. Honestly, seems like in 3 years they could have come up with something...if the will to do so was really there.

In any case, none of us actually know what when on behind closed doors, so what I am saying could be BS as well, we have no way of actually knowing but to say that Autodesk "blocked" development without firm proof to me seems wrong.

At the end of the day they didn't deliver... that is all that really matters.

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Joe
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redmotion
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Re: Autodesk blocked development of third party XSI plugins

Post by redmotion » 10 Dec 2010, 01:31

Joe,

My conclusion was that he said: "Autodesk stepped in and now we are at a stop". And that was 3 years ago. BEFORE the acquisition. So in plain and simple terms: A competitor stepped in and a 3rd party plugin being made for a competitor (Softimage) was stopped.

Now the conclusion I jumped to was basically that it was an aggressive commercial act (I mean its common knowledge than corporate competitors sometimes seek to sabotage each other so its not that unlikely - feeling particularly "tabloid" this evening, I guess...). I agree it could have been more complicated than that (and less malign) and its likely we'll never know. Perhaps FR uses some pieces of code that are Autodesk patented (maybe cebas used the Max Source code or other elements that AD wasn't happy sharing with its competitors.)

Maybe this guy wrote this to sort of say "oh yeah, we were developing that but we had to stop when it was almost finished" when in fact they'd barely started. Which would explain why 2 years down the line as Final Render for Autodesk Softimage never appeared.

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3DTutorial
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Re: Autodesk blocked development of third party XSI plugins

Post by 3DTutorial » 10 Dec 2010, 01:38

redmotion wrote:Joe,

My conclusion was that he said: "Autodesk stepped in and now we are at a stop". And that was 3 years ago. BEFORE the acquisition. So in plain and simple terms: A competitor stepped in and a 3rd party plugin being made for a competitor (Softimage) was stopped.

Now the conclusion I jumped to was basically that it was an aggressive commercial act (I mean its common knowledge than corporate competitors sometimes seek to sabotage each other so its not that unlikely - feeling particularly "tabloid" this evening, I guess...). I agree it could have been more complicated than that (and less malign) and its likely we'll never know. Perhaps FR uses some pieces of code that are Autodesk patented (maybe cebas used the Max Source code or other elements that AD wasn't happy sharing with its competitors.)

Maybe this guy wrote this to sort of say "oh yeah, we were developing that but we had to stop when it was almost finished" when in fact they'd barely started. Which would explain why 2 years down the line as Final Render for Autodesk Softimage never appeared.

Ok, I understand what you are saying... but I don't come to the same conclusion based on what was said. Anyway, it doesn't really matter, the project is DOA and there are other solutions available.

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Joe
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luceric
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Re: Autodesk blocked development of third party XSI plugins

Post by luceric » 10 Dec 2010, 04:12

Coincidently they quit around the time Softimage released ICE, an alternative to Cebas Thinking Particles...

Halfdan talk to them at various times to help them along, certainly nothing on the Avid or Autodesk side happened to prevent it.

Softimage is not a super obvious market to go after for a renderer; the size of opportunity is unclear. We provide free SDK help, but we do not pay or do the work for third party plug-in.

I think this thread should be deleted or renamed because the title has the effect of spreading a lie

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Hirazi Blue
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"Autodesk and third party development"???

Post by Hirazi Blue » 10 Dec 2010, 10:20

luceric wrote:I think this thread should be deleted or renamed because the title has the effect of spreading a lie
I've edited the thread title hopefully defusing it.
If that's not enough, please let me know. (I just woke up... (-| )
;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

luceric
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Re: "Autodesk and third party development"???

Post by luceric » 11 Dec 2010, 01:56

FYI
Hey, don't make stories up.... Autodesk does not block or prevent us on doing anything.
From http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.ph ... stcount=13

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: "Autodesk and third party development"???

Post by Hirazi Blue » 11 Dec 2010, 12:57

@luceric - Your quote seems to be truncating the original text, changing the meaning a little bit also. :D
But it's good that this seems to have been resolved and we can close this "case".

edit: I'm having some trouble with my English... rebooting now... ;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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Re: "Autodesk and third party development"???

Post by redmotion » 11 Dec 2010, 15:22

Seems like Edwin should have chosen his words a bit more carefully (and I should stop jumping to conclusions!)

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