Softimage 2010 announced

[Hirazi Blue]

Softimage still had some tricks up their sleeve:
Autodesk Softimage 2010

FaceRobot toolset integrated into Softimage 2010?

The pdf-brochure can be downloaded from here

official press release

Face Robot toolset is not supported on Linux platform

There will be no upgrades available for versions prior to Softimage 7.5

[Hirazi Blue]

After rereading my announcement in the post above, I guess I must add some clarification on the use of the smilie concerning Face Robot. While it sounds great to have FR incorporated in Softimage 2010 I seriously doubt, if the "normal" user will benefit greatly from it as it was always intended for studio work with large amounts of heads to animate, using mocap-files...
Quoting Luc-Eric Rousseau (Softimage Team Leader) from XSIBase:

Face Robot is a rig creator that is mostly optimized for being used in a mocap workflow, but it's possible to use it to animate short sequences by hand.

It will be interesting to see what "it's possible to use it to to animate short sequences by hand" will mean in "real life".
Speed improvements and bug fixes seem to be the major issue this release. No "client-side" ICE enhancement like the fabled ICE Kinematics. No ICE Fluids, but hey, I found out the hard way already that was just a silly rumor ...
The Scintilla-integration is hailed as a new feature, after they made a mess of it back in version 7. As a user of "ScriptEd" I wonder if they will have found time to fix the "Custom Display Host"-bug introduced in 7.5.
And the no upgrades from other versions than 7.5 seems a bit harsh, to say the least.
Feature-wise (as in: new features) it doesn't seem like a very rich release. The true value of Face Robot (technology introduced in 2006) in non-studio workflows remains to be seen, however.

Just my 2 cents as a user, not in any official capacity as a Moderator of this board...

And as a PS: the fact that they stress the fact that one can export ICE- and FR-data easily for further use in Maya might just be seen as a bad sign for the future. Or is this just my paranoid mind playing tricks on me?

And another thing: how come the Linux version is still more expensive than the Windows version, while it sports less features (as the FR tools are not included)?

To whet your appetite, to find out more about Face Robot and decide for yourself: the official Face Robot WIKI

[redmotion]

I see the FR addition as a good thing. While I doubt I'll have much use for it personally, it is more a suck it and see gamble on behalf of Autodesk. I think it could enable more XSI seats to appear in "other app" facilities. Perhaps we'll even see face robot specialist jobs in the future. Perhaps if the pipeline between maya and xsi genuinely works games and fx studios will grab FR up and use it for all facial animation.

Then again maybe its too late for FR. FR should have been sub $3000 dollars when it first appeared, if not less than SI itself or part of advanced. They could have made some real inways, if they'd done that in the first place. Surely most shops have their own facial rigs systems by now anyway. Maybe FR is better? I don't know.

Performance and bug fix is always good. SI is, afterall ,actually an app for facilities, not 3d noobs and hobbyists (a detail I choose to ignore. The FXshops will always come before the fanboys.)

Upgrade thing is harsh but people should have realised the app just changed hands and used the subscription and upgrade offers (which were reasonable) to protect themselves. (I did and my credit card's still wincing - but I'm glad I did).

[druitre]

I was financially in no position to upgrade to 7.5 when it came out, nor did the new features strike me as 'must have'.
This 2010 upgrade is the same, featurewise: I'm a one man studio and XSI can handle my face-rigging stuff well enough as it is.

The no-upgrade thing makes me very sad. Seems as if AD just put softimage out of the reach of one-man studios such as mine. If I'd known this at the time, I doubt if I would have bought into 6.5.

[Maximus]

Softimage 2010 Bullet Feature List:

Performance for productions
• Loading and saving
• Selecting
• Deleting (and the faster Shift+Delete)
• Undoing and redoing
• Freezing
• Using referenced models
• Duplicating
• Removing animation
• Using the function curve editor
• Hiding and unhiding
• Opening property editors of many objects
• Switching between transform tools
• Changing marked parameters

F-Curve Editor Performance
• Selecting curves, keys, and tangents has been dramatically improved.
• Drawing of Tangents
• Better Memory Management
• Smooth, Fit and Resample with many curves now performs better.
• Open/Close

Complexity Management
• Quick Filter Box is useful for quickly finding objects in the scene by name
• Scene Search View can find scene elements by name, type, selection, keywords or custom filters
• Scene Debugger to check e.xecution time and memory consumption

Face Robot
• The complete Face Robot toolset has been integrated into Softimage 2010

ICE
• ICE Custom Node Creation in C++, Geometry Accessors, Multi-Phase e.xecution, Local Attributes
• ICE Tree View Improvements
• Performance Profiling shows which nodes are taking the longest to e.xecute
• New attribute BlobStrength that controls how strongly the surfaces of blobs are pulled toward each other
• The StrandDeform attribute changes: Instances can be deformed in Y along the length of the strands
• New IsPassiveRigidBody attribute allows you to make ICE particles in a rigid body simulation into obstacles
• Rotational Motion Blur for Particle Instances
• Point Index to Location
• Wind Force more physically accurate

Modeling
• Turn Edge (Turn Polygon Internal Edges)
• User Normal editing (Tweak Normals)
• New Lattice amplitude controls

Animation
• Autokey Camera
• Hide objects on Playback for faster performance
• Shaded bones and Nulls
• F-Curves: automatic spline slope behavior from versions previous to v7.0
• New Approximate Envelope Operator for fast interaction and playback
• New Autodesk® Motion Builder® Template Rig

Display
• You can now hide manipulators per viewport

Layers:
• New Layer Groups

Texturing
• The new XSI Normal Map 3 shader replaces XSI Normal Map 2.
• There is an option to specify unbiased normals.
• The Advanced tab lets you repeat and alternate the normal map across a surface.
• RenderMap View to scene camera now uses the perspective
• Ambient Occlusion and Bent Normal Maps for RenderMap and Ultimapper
• Support for DDS Output Format
• Texture Editor can now Auto display the image clip associated with the UVs currently selected.

mental ray
• Softimage 2010 integrates mental ray version 3_7_55_19.

Render Tree
• Render Tree View improvements
• Nested Shader Property Editors

Materials
• Material Manager Favorites and User Tabs
• Export Used Image Clips Only option in the export browser.
• New Material Manager Preferences

Scripting
• New Scintilla Features for Text-Based Editors includes syntax highlighting, folding, shared text editing preferences, standard search tools and standard and alternative key mappings for copy, cut, paste, etc.

SDK
• Changes to Custom ICE Nodes Support
• New Events: I/O of Custom Files, when a Ref-Model loads and animation playback
• New View Attributes Available
• Which Clips Are Exported With Material Library options
• No Limitation On How Many Custom Menus You Can Register
• New Access for COLLADA in the Crosswalk SDK
• New Searchable Scripts Database

Crosswalk 4.0
• Supports 3ds Max 2008, 3ds Max 2009, and 3ds Max 2010.
• Supports Maya v8.5, Maya 2008, Maya 2009, and Maya 2010.
• Crosswalk for FBX now uses FBX 2010.0.
• New Classes
• New Functions
• New Enums
• New Enum Values

[owei]

hi..!
So, you can see, that there were many changes "under the hood" rather than bringing in the "big new feature".
That´s ok. Bug fixes and optimizing performance issues are always welcome. Never the less, I dislike the update-politics AD demonstrates here very clearly. If you have not upgraded/bought 7.5 you will be knocked out and you will have to buy your SI once more..NEW. That was not clear for me, when certain emails arrived with the promotion offers...well, we will see.

[Rork]

yes,

A temporary Siggraph promotion upgrade deal or something would have been nice. A lot of people will feel left out, I know I do.....

I never liked the way AD is treating it's customers on upgrades and maintenance, and with this i's not going to change any time soon.
It's just bad management that never would happen in the 'real world'.

"Sorry sir, but you cannot trade in your current car for the new model, as your model is two versions old, and you didn't buy the new one every time the model was upgraded"
rob

[Diurno]

"Sorry sir, but you cannot trade in your current car for the new model, as your model is two versions old, and you didn't buy the new one every time the model was upgraded"
rob

"but if you want.... you can try the new one for 30 days

[Rork]

I'm already trying the beta's for a while

[Werner]

I'm already trying the beta's for a while

and...is it worth the upgrade?

[Rork]

That all depends on what features from the list you're willing to shell out for

As it seems now people on maintenance are probably benefiting the most. All pre-7.5 users have to shell out big to get more stability and performance. For small studios and freelancer that's not so good

rob

[Hirazi Blue]

This might interest some of you:
Valerie Demers, apparently the product manager for Softimage, posted this on CGTalk (and it has been quoted on the Mailing List as well):

Softimage 7.01 (or earlier) customers who want to upgrade to Softimage 2010 should contact their resellers. Pricing and promotions vary from region to region. For instance, in some regions you can still take advantage of the upgrade promotion that has been in place since February. There are plans to have a previous version upgrade pricing in place for when Softimage 2010 ships in September, until then you should really speak to your reseller.

Quoted from CGTalk

[Rork]

Yes,

I found that snippet of info on the mailing list as well. Funny thing is I contacted my reseller this morning about all this. He has to return the phone call though. I'm curious how this turns out.

rob

[owei]

...it seems that AD will think this "step" over once more. That´s what I heard from my reseller. There seems to be a huge number of 7.01 users out there, who didn´t grade up on 7.5 or paid the "subscription". We will see ;)

[Rork]

It's basically very simple.

Or they get angry (longtime) customers by denying a smooth crossover/upgrade to AD, and some of them will move over to non AD software,
Or they keep the pitchfork mobs at a distance and offer an extended grace period for people to upgrade.

After that, if you didn't upgrade, you're basically out of luck...
But AD's upgrade policy is close to something I don't want to say out loud.

rob

[mypeople]

I like how when i heard 2010 was announced i tried going to softimage.com...which is now gone...i hate autodesk so gd much...and on autodesks site under products softimage isn't even THERE and they have a poorly poorly put together page showing the new features, no new videos like softimage's site always had. autodesk ruins everything they get their hands on. i wish so much i was rich and could buy xsi back and go back to how good we had it when softimage was running things. i hate autodesk SO much, i love xsi, its the best 3d app ever, hate hate hate autodesk. btw, the 2010 update isn't anything big like it was last year, they could have done pie menus, new interface, loads more things and this is really nothing special.