Guys, im sick of Autodesk dictating really bad decisions on us, it affects our livelihoods, our favourite softwares and also our sanity.

was really inspired by the 3dmax users managing to make Autodesk do a u-turn just by the power of its 'social voice' on one of its more nefarious policies concerning suites and segregation of users for maximum profit. well they got a concession of items not a change of policy but the grievances of many users were certainly heard !

right now im looking to overturn one of AD's very first decisions concerning Softimage. give back softimage.net - a centralised resource for all ICE compounds, Render trees, examples tutorials, scripts, videos etc. maybe Im crazy to think we might get it back, but I did have a bit of a rant and have threatened to do our own if they don't, so please, if you have to visit just one more time to the dreadful 'Area' add your support to the poll and let them know how you feel, then, with any luck and considerable pressure from the users, they may take some action.

http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-softimage/ice---interactive-creative-environment/bring-back-softimagenet/

ideally we want exactly the same functionality that existed , but lets see how the poll turns out. I dont believe that Im the only one that shares the viewpoint and others have mentioned that because there is no central place for all shared softimage stuff - (bless rray.de , its the closest) its killing XSI slowly and as Autodesk clearly don't give a hoot - or its intention - its up to the community to replace it. no offence to all the blogs and excellant Softimage users out there that already have started thier own little islands - myself included - and even this forum! there is still room for us talking crap here, but Softimage REALLY needs one central place for shared stuff like materials and ICE compounds. when was the last time anyone made a rendertree material compound and shared it?

it was when we had Softimage.net

isn't that a picture of softimage.com rather than the community forum where the compounds were located?

btw Cory Mogk is the product manager of Softimage these days

yes, I could not find a picture of the compounds section on softimage.net. wish I could! if anyone has any to share... and thanks, will be in touch with mr Mogk pretty soon no doubt!. also, aside from this, Softimage creatives is aiming for for a more comprehensive set of questions and trying to expand to ask many more users for the next part of the survey, then hopefully we can approach Cory with a good representation of requests for Softimage and its future.

Totally agree. But I think making our own would be a better solution.

Autodesk adopted the most gifted child, and sent them to remedial school.

I don't trust them to do anything wise.

The Area is a poor substitute for the old community.softimage.com site, it’s true. The download section of the Area however isn’t as unusable as some make it out to be. The main problem it seems to suffer from is that hardly anyone uploads new stuff over there.
For their part they already tried “so hard” (and failed IMHO) by creating their Softimage product hub
Whenever I (have to) approach the Area download section, I always do so with some pregenerated bookmarks: ICE ccompounds, Plugins, Scripts and Shaders (And yes, I even found a ”rtcompound” there)
But it’s easy to see, the download section itself is hardly unusable. There mainly seems to be a lack of users posting new content there, something that will be hard to counteract, even if AD were to change their website "for us". The fact that you have to login to download obviously doesn’t help either, but I would classify that a minor problem. This isn’t meant to say the Area is an ideal solution for the sharing of content, but it is to say, we hardly have tried so far to make the best of it IMHO. And hoping for Autodesk itself to seriously improve the Area or any of its parts seems slightly unrealistic.
(Not that that's bad, BTW, I personally do a lot of unrealistic things...)

I was on the Beta for Softimage when they made ICE, and also Softimage.net it was not an afterthought , or slapped together independently it was considerably tweaked and developed by the Beta folk. I would go so far to say that it was part of the ICE experience. There was a pool of massive talent on the list then and with input from Softimage developers, Technical Directors and Softimage Artists the Softimage.net was sculpted and born. careful consideration was given to how it was navigated, structured and information presented. I want this to happen again, and yes I do believe we will have to do it for ourselves because Autodesk so plainly suck at it. Its important to get all the criteria right and if we have some concession from them maybe something will happen sooner rather than later.

I found that joker's comment on Area funny, but also very true. There are budget plans, there are protocols to approve them, there are probably quite strict rules on how every man-hour at AD is spent... Seeing how they are in some kind of structural change right now - undoubtedly planned years in advance - i would say the goal is to make M&E more cost-effective, not spend time/resources bringing back something only a fraction of their customers will use. Its all about the big happy family, dont ever forget that.


Sorry for the pessimism, but you know you'll be turning stone into gold sooner than they give in to this request.

Whilst I can't speak certain teams and people about what's possible, I honestly can't see this 'u-turn' happening. Not when we already have the AREA. Also why pull resource away from the AREA to build an entirely new site that's separate. Max and Maya don't have one, but If they did then I would agree that it merits action.

People happily pour scorn on the AREA, but I honestly don't believe it's as bad as what people make out. It's not without its problems as I will openly admit, but these are problems that can be addressed and fixed. The problem is everyone wants the fixes literally right now, as I'm typing. Which simply isn't feasible, stuff takes time. And whilst many will say the AREA hasn't changed or improved, I would contest that because there has been improvements. They're just not big and obvious as the overall design of the site hasn't changed a great deal. But there's still more work to be done

I think the product landing 'hub' on the AREA is actually alright. It's clean and simple, easy to read and understand, and I would hardly call it a failure. Replacment for the old community site, then sure its failed, but then its not actually trying to replace that. It's more of a landing page or entry point for everything else on the AREA.

As for doing something on your own, it kinda already exists. What's wrong with this very site?

This is the community website Tekano is referring too

Well, I admit, failure might be too harsh a word, but not everything seems very well "thought-through". If you go to the download page of Product Hub for Softimage, for instance, and click a "View All" button there, you'd hope to get to the View All of the Softimage section not the general View All without any filters... Small things, but small annoying things nevertheless.