Autodesk announces Open Source Softimage

[bb3d]

Autodesk announces Open Source Softimage

Friday, April 1, 2016 6:52 pm EST

Public Company Information:
NASDAQ: ADSK

SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK) today announced an aggressive open source initiative, starting with the well known Autodesk Softimage 3D animation suite.

"After retiring Softimage two years ago, we now have to admit, that it was a big mistake", said Dyler Turden, chief of strike and lightning detonation at Autodesk. "We never understood the power and potential of Softimage and now have to realise, that this next-gen software cannot be replaced by ripping off some of its features and simply putting those into an ancient and inefficient juggernaut app. And we ignored the fact, that independent studios and individuals were moving away from our products, more and more utilizing open source alternatives."

Autodesk plans to release the core of Softimage's source code (excluding third-party products like Mental Ray, Nvidia PhysX and Shave and a Haircut) under a non-restrictive CC0 license, allowing developers from the community to contribute innovative ideas and to bring Softimage to the next level.

"As we progress through our business model transition, we continue to take a comprehensive look at our company to see where we can be more dominant and monopolistic. After gaining leadership in the CG content creation market, it's a logical step to strive for leadership in the open source business too" said Carl Boss, Autodesk President and CEO.

About Autodesk
Autodesk helps people to slim down their bank accounts, killing innovation and progress. Everyone—from design professionals, engineers and architects to digital artists, students and hobbyists—should avoid Autodesk software to unlock their creativity and solve important challenges. For more information visit autodesk.com/aprilfools or follow @autodesksuxx.

[tarkovsky]

[rray]

cruel one

[Draise]

looooooooooooool. My mates in the trueSpace forum did the exact same thing with Microsoft!!! So cruel...

[Bullit]

Bad bad 3 Devil...

[FXDude]

Although it was already hard to believe before even reading,

I actually gave it the benefit of the doubt inclusively up to

"After retiring Softimage two years ago, we now have to admit, that it was a big mistake"

Before next bit mentioning the author's title as "chief of strike and lightning" lol


Otherwise a good part of me continues to believe that "bringing it to the next level" isn't and hasn't been dependent on internal Dev, or having it open sourced.

And unlike the likelihood of an admission or apology (in a million years), apart those that went-on using it, there would be some chance for other shops to realize that wheel re-inventions on top of cluttered mess doesn't quite make-up for the decimation of original exceptionally (or rather uniquely) well engineered & lubricated wheels with ball bearings allover (decimated while rolling).

Which could further be amplified by the seemingly only increasing level of Maya bugginess or potpourri-ness of things stitched together (or mash-ed together after bifrost) , or perhaps after a series of (post rental-only) disappointing releases (which I wouldn't wish for), but who knows.

[xsi_fanatic]

Lol ! I should have known !

Funny enough, this happened to me not long ago.

[Daniel Brassard]

Good April Fool

Got me for a second.

[Rork]

Can we kick this guy from the forum? No.... really????

Nice one... but cruel.... Sooo.... cruel...

[Hirazi Blue]

Definitely "too soon"...

[Mathaeus]

By the way my this year favorite is Modo Engine. Blender people had Maya-goes-opensource-(but-you-need-to-compile-it-yourself) - if I'm correct it was a bit earlier than this one.
Houdinies are using ours. From what I heard, they started to work on their own, but they are still not sure is it a job for SOP, Point Wrangle, Python or something purely based on HDK, so it won't be compiled for this 1 April. Maybe next year.

[pezetko]

If it would be more formal and polite it could be much better joke.

Actually releasing Softimage or even 3Ds max as open source under right license would effectively kill Blender.
But it's too soon for this step from AD site as Blender is no threat for them yet.

[Rork]

If you're willing to work around some issues, you can set up a studio almost completely based on open source and/or 'free(ish)' software nowadays.

For 2D you can go with GIMP and/or Krita
For 3D you go with Blender
For comping there's Natron and/or Fusion8
And for the stuff you cannot live without, there's often the 'freelancer or small company' packages now for reduced prices. e.g. Allegorithmic Painter.

Customers mostly don't care what you're using, they're just interested in the end result.

It's the question if you're willing to put in the extra time to 'workaround' some issues because of working with other apps, instead of paying AD en Adobe for their monthly rentals.
In the end, what will give you more peace of mind? ;)

It would be interesting though to see what would happen if the larger post/movie companies actively start using and adding to Blender. This could make an interesting case.
Looking at the money spend on licensing, how much work could be done with that to 'massage' Blender into your own pipeline? ;)
But that's something for a separate thread I guess.

rob

[bb3d]

Ok guys, I would like to clarify a few things to explain my motivation for this "joke"... In fact I was hesitating before clicking the submit button, because I knew that my sense of black humor wouldn't be shared by anybody and that some people would probably hate me for it.

But it wasn't just meant as a joke, it was also the attempt to implant an idea into some people's heads with a little bit of hope, that this idea could become reality some day. Ironically, by killing Softimage, Autodesk themselves enforced and accelerated the trend to use Blender and other OSS. If Softimage would still be developed, I wouldn't feel any need to look somewhere else. Like Pezetko said, currently Autodesk doesn't recognize Blender as a serious competitor, but that could change in the future and releasing Softimage as OSS would at least pull former Softimage users back from Blender. However, nobody can predict how the software market will move on in the future, so just let's wait and keep dreaming about a better tomorrow...

[Draise]

I thoroughly enjoyed it. And good reason behind it.

This one another forum friend of mine actually had good timing with other events - double hopes up:

TrueSpace code is now open source:

At Build 2016, Microsoft announced new opportunities for developers: Microsoft TrueSpace, a 3D development application for multi-users puproses is released as part of the Skype Developer Platform to open Skype to 3D environments. Its source code is avalable in the SDP... read more»

[Mathaeus]

Regarding Blender, with a bit of 'hate to say', it seems my 'killing' process already started. Used Blender compositor for some home floating point comps, but replaced it with free Fusion 7. For a long time used Blender as an additional UV editor, but then become Modo, with good chance to replace both by Maya LT, this year. For home rendering experiments don't know anything more versatile than Houdini mantra or exactly, what Houdini is able to send to Mantra. In short, actually stopped with ambitious usage of B since 2004 and XSI foundation, but in last few years, not even occasional usage. Except passing obj files from SI to remove normals, and such. Simply, replacements are a way stronger, and affordable, for home use. How I'll find the time for B after all, beside Fabric, Houdini Indie and what else not.
Anyway, noticed more people using it for overnight renders, it seems B successfully jumped in path tracing wagon, with Cycles. But, all that in let's call it 3d terraforming field, some designer in printing studio runs Blender instead C4d for product shot render, on their Mac - far away from usual routes of 'long range cruisers', like Maya or Houdini.
Also with another 'hate to say', in past, saw a somehow sad signs on Blender forums, for example with Blender Lagoa style addon, or Corrective shape addon, when people didn't know from where the 'inspiration' is coming, even SI was very alive in these times. Don't believe that SI destiny or AD decisions (for now) plays the significant role in anything related Blender, unfortunately (or not).
By the way black humor is Ok for me.