Continuing with my car analogy.

It's not like Toyota hides the RAV4 in the back room of it's dealerships just because the Camry is the best selling car in America. They serve different functions and they're both good quality cars. They market them equally, but to different types of people.

To this day I do not understand the mentality of a corporation who appears to think the best way to increase sales is to hide a particular product away and make it difficult for customers to find it. OR, to rely almost entirely on your customers to promote it themselves.

If anything, I would think they'd want to put MORE marketing into selling Softimage based on it's strengths. It does a lot of stuff Maya and Max doesn't do, so it might open some doors to sales they otherwise might not get.... IF PEOPLE COULD ACTUALLY FIND IT on the AD website, or would see some sort of marketing in Magazines, etc.

Sorry, I know this has been covered over and over. I think all the people behind Soft are awesome. I think AD is a bunch of bean-counting suits that don't care if they're selling 3D animation software or hamburgers - it's just profit and loss... nothing more.

-Paul

You know, this really is the case. I have the only Softimage license where I work, and most coworkers had barely even heard of Softimage, some didn't know it at all. I was asked whether you could work "somewhat reasonably" with the application. But everyone I've shown it to (mostly overall workflow and non-particle ICE setups) has been impressed, even floored.

I'd say this is a clear indication that people just don't know its capabilities. Even the ones who've heard of it think it's nothing more than a weaker/smaller Max or Maya (since nobody uses it, it's got to be much worse than the big two).

@Chris_TC its the lesser of two evils

If you flip it around and appreciate that the ENTIRE userbase of Softimage is less than only the NEW USERS per year of Maya, then if you were AD, out of the 2 camps, which are you more likely to NOT want to piss off? Remember, usual corporate strategy of crisis management is to always pick the strategy which pisses the least amount of people off. If ICE or unique features of Softimage catch the attention of the majority of Maya users then its bye bye Softimage as the Borg tends to destroy as it assimilates. right now , to me, and I know it sounds crazy, but it seems we are better off the Maya radar to survive in this rat race as a decent, but Niche, 3rd.

ROFLOL

If I was AD, I would keep doing what they are doing in order to keep my clients and grow and not lose any market to the competition.

But, in the background, I would be working on the next best thing, MAX/MAYA/Softimage is just a transition plan .... If the amount of theads indicate what need to be overhaul in MAX, MAYA or SI, then I would know what to do next!

You will be assimilated!!! Exterminate! Exterminate!
(The Dalek)

Oh yeah, destination is XBR

Anyway, we are where we are, obviously some significant changes on SI strategy will not happen anytime soon. Good thing is that this is overall gr8 app already. Enjoy while you can

If there was some recognition on their (Autodesk) part that they were in fact working on a next generation platform I would be less worried about the future of Softimage (deep down I know Softimage is expendable to Autodesk, and they would rather convert Soft users to Max or Maya). It seems that sooner or later these packages need to be scraped for something new, otherwise, eventually when Modo matures it would look more attractive.

I wouldn't be surprised if Autodesk was NOT working on a next-gen product which combines the strengths of all big three. Development and research does not yield instant money, so I really doubt they have anything in the making, even though they have all the technology needed.

I totally agree with you.

Glad you liked it Daniel , but it was most definitely more Star Trek than Doctor Who reference. but its not the first time this reference has been made to AD has it?

And as the analogy goes its not too far off the mark. Autodesk has lots of different products, ours is a small spaceship next to a vast Cube that I can only assume at the length & breadth of all of these softwares it owns, but some are unique to their respective markets, some overlap. It looks like AD has a strategy to purchase a lot of other Software code/IP and repackage them, some 'Survive' as individual entities like MAX, MAYA & SOFTIMAGE others are incorporated as plugin/features to its current set of programs and lets not be naive here, others in the past have been 'shelved' as discontinued or given away for free bonus features.

For purely selfish reasons, I want SI to remain as its own entity , and not be incorporated as a plugin, and even though it often looks like it is in the process of being turned into one, from the reassurances from SI dev and team it seems its looking that it can remain Softimage , for a few years at least.

I dont think AD will do an UBER app of the best of all 3. Project X is the closest to this and its just Max only isnt it? I think some more independent clever sods will invent new tools and techniques and this will be the basis of the next generation of the tools we use.

Sure there is a next gen platform, it's called Maya.. and they're pouring millions of dollar of R&D in it.. They're componentizing it, revamping it, gradually replace parts of it with the new (they already re-wrote the UI in QT two years ago, for example), taking the best ideas from the other apps, etc. It's going to take a few years to see all the bits of the transformation coming together. There is no need scrap everything and start new, especially when the platform already give you a lot of what you need