Autodesk retires Softimage

[nuverian]

Like Rez said. AD thinks that SI users will eventually go to Maya or Max, because to AD minds they think "Hey we rule this industry, we are gods".
They are so fucking stupid that I bet their HQ is a sanitarium.

You know, the last years I was thinking "hey I should try Maya, it may be cool and have some nice features too".
But you know what? Now I will not, because I feel kind of silly forced by AD to do it, plus I dont trust AD even more than I already didnt.
So no thanks, I'd rather go to C4D if at all.

[julius]

If either of those have a non autodesk acquisition guarantee and I'd jump on a lot easier

Blender have it !

[forton]

The more I think of it, here's my opinion...

I started to use softimage a little more than 3 years ago, it has become the tool with best workflow I could imagine (except for mental ray but there's arnold to the rescue).
I love the procedural workflow of ice, every solution to a challenge has been solved with some kind of ice tree, some complex or some even simple trees like 3 nodes (the classic get pointpos -> turbulize or whatever -> set pointpos).
The way I do and think things is procedural and non destructive now.

I hope there soon will be some budget for houdini.

I've worked in lightwave, messiah, max, maya and even blender for some jobs.
Maya was nice for CA, lightwave had fprime and sasquatch which was amazing for the time but that's not good enough anymore.

Sorry blender, lightwave or c4d fans, if you have been a serious softimage user this is a huge step back, it's like using photoshop for compositing.

Cheers, Wim

[Caveman]

First bought it with the promise of further development, then sold it as Maya's best buddy and now killing it. Make up your minds already, you ret@rd$. Who's sitting behind those desks?
Are you insane?

Or did you @$$h0le$ actually buy the programmers behind XSI for Maya's development?

They need to be kicked really bad in those regions that hurt most.

For the past few days I am so very angry at these @$$h0le$, that I wish I could be the HULK and smash the fu@&*@$ out of their HQ and rescue the XSI codes from there filthy hands.

B@$t@&D$.

Made a person who's never sworn before swear.

[nuverian]

I came here as everyday and read "Autodesk retires Softimage". An immediate thought came to my mind today though...
Autodesk should retire itself

[Caveman]

I hope they shut down entirely. Curse you.

[TheRazorsEdge]

Killing SI is such a stupid waste, it's beyond description.
Not to mention all the destruction they are causing across the whole industry.
Gotta stop here to not get into a pretty violent rant .....

Anyways, not sure if it has been mentioned in this thread, but isn't SI's core advanced enough so that we could get away with talented programmers creating new scripts and plugins to further "develop" SI and extend functionality that way for a good amount of time? I know its not a permanent fix, but looking at how the dev of Max and Maya is going and how archaic ie Maya's architecture probably really is, I'm guessing SI could still be ahead in a few years.

Personally, I'm definitely not thinking about abandoning ship. SI is way too good and useful for that and I'll continue using it until something better comes around. Just because other things may be newer, don't mean they're better.

I think it's up to us, the SI user community and not AD, whether or not this superior software actually really dies.


Cheers!


PS: Here's some advice for people considering to take up AD'S offer to switch to either Max or Maya. If you're "only" doing CA as part of a pipleline, go with Maya. If you want to be able to quickly put out a finished product without getting chronic migraine and stomach ulcers, go with Max. Max/Softimage is a great combo for putting out finished animation product and vfx-work and in that respect I'd say Si will continue to complement Max very nicely for a long time.

[xowgax]

Anyone remember the snipe Autodesk took at Blender during Siggraph Vancouver?

Make up your damned minds, Autodesk.

[Batatalion]

migrate to Maya or Max ....

uhnn ...

Modo here I go.

can't trust autodesk.

[azurecgi]

Surely you can only 'transition' to something else if it has the same, similar or better capabilities/features!

That rules out Max or Maya then!

They should replace the word 'transition' with 'downgrade'

[Bullit]

Batatalion why don't you remain in Softimage and change to Modo when it gets better?

[thorsnuts]

I know Softimage is irreplaceable... but does Maya not compare in any way? How is it possible being it's the industry standard? I honestly don't get, how bad can it be?

I'm thinking of switching to Maya, because I know it's not going anywhere at this point. We can use Soft for the next few years for sure... but the technology will eventually pass us by and essentially show in our work.

Will Maya not get ICE integrated into it eventually.. or Face Robot?

Softimage is just easy to use... It's an artist's tool. You think of something and do it. Not think of a way to get the software to do what you want it to do. you know what I mean? Is Maya not like that..?

What is the closet thing to Softimage right now? I would hate to go on to another software that gives me no value in the field. What big studios are using Modo as there main software or Light wave.. C4D, Houdini...

thank you Softimage
R.I.P

[azurecgi]

I suppose we should wait and see what version 1 of Bifrost can offer before completely ignoring Maya. I'm just not that hopeful

Haven't Autodesk normally posted up a few 'sneak peeks' of upcoming versions by now? Strange we've seen nothing yet!

[origin]

I suppose we should wait and see what version 1 of Bifrost can offer before completely ignoring Maya. I'm just not that hopeful

Haven't Autodesk normally posted up a few 'sneak peeks' of upcoming versions by now? Strange we've seen nothing yet!

If you're interested in flip fluids there is already houdini and realflow (if money is not an issue)

[Bullit]

I'm thinking of switching to Maya, because I know it's not going anywhere at this point. We can use Soft for the next few years for sure... but the technology will eventually pass us by and essentially show in our work.

Certainly, but if you don't need to go to a Maya studio now, it is better to change to Maya or other application later when they are improved.

[nDman]

Auto-desk's bullshits about their decision:
http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/rip-soft ... s-31411033

They really serious about this?!! This not an answer. It's a slap in the face.