Softimage 2011.5 With LAGOA!!

[Hirazi Blue]

The Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk SoftImage 2011 will be available for download on Subscription Center on or after October 7, 2010.

source

Again with the "on or after", but at least we don't have to look for it for seven more days (at least), so that's probably a good thing...

FYI - I removed my earlier post as this information seemed slightly more important...

[rray]

That page doesn't mention Lagoa anymore At least not explicitly

[gman]

Looks like a possible legal battle may have started between a few of the companies someone has created similar products with. Does anyone have any more info?

[rray]

Well I don't want to start a rumor here, I don't know if it was ever mentioned explicitly on that page.

[Rez007]

Well I don't want to start a rumor here, I don't know if it was ever mentioned explicitly on that page.

True, but very interesting nonetheless.

[Rez007]

One more idea: Any chance that Autodesk can actually send out an automated email that lets their users know when things are released? I get tons of emails letting me know about my subscription running out, but if I wouldn't check the forums, I would have virtually no idea that anything at all was being released.

[Hirazi Blue]

You could subscribe to the following Softimage Announcements RSS feed...
http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/motd/rss_en.xml
It's not really the same as a nice email, but it might help... ;)

[Rez007]

Thanks for letting me know about that. I guess my point was, a nice direct message from Autodesk is a lot more professional from a company of their stature, and should be in place. They have all of my contact info, while they decide to never use it unless it is for getting me to resubscribe, is beyond me. I get very nice mailings from Luxology (Modo) every month giving me the latest information about their product(s) and all I ever did was give them my info for a trial run - now that is keeping a current/future customer well informed.

[luceric]

We verified, and mails are indeed sent to clients some time after new subscriptions releases are available. This is not done immediately worldwide for network management reasons (hundreds of thousands of clients x gigabytes downloads). People gradually learn that the new release is available over the course of a couple of weeks. It's normal that some people know first announce it before you receive the official mail, it depends on which source you get the info from.

[Rez007]

Thanks for looking into that and it makes sense. I guess I keep forgetting that Autodesk does more than just Softimage, Max and Maya - but also a whole ton of other software. On a second note, I noticed that the Suites are also not available yet - I assume that this might be tied into why Softimage was delayed?

[owei]

Hi!

Found this very interesting. No comment, though:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc ... d=15500444

cheers,
oliver

[Hirazi Blue]

Aaargh, now everybody seems to be happily pointing to the webpage I linked to earlier (over at the Area, at CGTalk among others) because Lagoa is absent from the list of new features. That’s not why I quoted that post! Now everybody might be starting to think it was me who wanted to start this rumour to begin with, WHICH I DIDN’T .
Let it be known that I do like a good “conspiracy theory” once in a while, but personally I think this whole idea, that Lagoa wouldn’t be included in Softimage 2011.5 only because of its absence from one single webpage, doesn't seem very plausible.

The most probable explanation for the absence of Lagoa from that list IMHO is the one Stephen Blair gives here

I suspect that page was written awhile ago, probably before the agreements with Lagao were in place.

The fact that I didn’t find this page until yesterday doesn’t mean it has been posted yesterday!

The most probable explanation for the delay is some kind of last-minute "showstopper" bug, something of the magnitude of the “MOTOR expired" hotfix of good old XSI 6.5, perhaps.
Less probable, but a nice way to look at it, would be that Autodesk decided the best way to highlight this new Softimage release was to offset its release date ever so slightly from the many other SAP’s that were actually released on the 29th of September, thus ensuring a special moment in the spotlights.

edit: I sincerely do hope that I'm not wrong, though...

[gman]

I'm going with your view Hirazi Blue, it sounds the most possible.

[owei]

Sorry for being redundant...thought, this was "new" info...
Well, we will see.

[Bellsey]

I think the thing to take away here, is not to over analyse all this. In pretty much every case, be it Softimage related or not, the explanation and reason is always very simple and nothing complex at all. No one intends on missing a planned ship date, but sometimes things unexpected can happen.
Unfortunately in many cases, we can't give the background reasons and in this particular situation, I myself can't offer any update because I don't know the full reason myself. But I'm not sweating it and I expect the guys will ship the Advantage Pack as soon as they can. Also note the Premuim Suite also isn't avaliable yet either.

Changing the subject slightly, someone mentioned in an earlier post about Iray and unit measure. Well these are good features, but we prioritise what goes on based on many factors, one of which is customer feedback. We certainly don't pick features out of a hat. Iray is certainly an exciting technology, but personally I don't think it would really benefit Softimage (or Maya) customers right now, in this release. Max and Max design however, well thats a whole different story and also industry. Also we have to ensure that customers can actually work with and use the technology, its no good to anyone to crowbar a feature in with bad and buggy implementation.

Overall though, I'm very happy with the Advantage Pack releases across the board and I think there's some good additions to the software. Mudbox alone has some awesome stuff in there.

[Hirazi Blue]

This page, explicitely dated September 30th, 2010, however, seemingly,
cannot be explained away by Stephen Blairs aforementioned argument:
digitalcontentproducer/briefing room



IMPORTANT edit: see the post two below this one by Bellsey