Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

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csaez
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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by csaez » 14 Aug 2012, 12:23

t4d wrote:so the Current Softimage autorigger is Better then CAT ?
( I have played with Cat in Max and I would personally say I WISH CAT was in softimage.. the IP is own by all the same company ?? )
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origin
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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by origin » 14 Aug 2012, 13:49

CAT was/is bugged, I needed to redo my rigs( and skinning) in middle of two projects because of instant crash/corrupted scene bugs.
But overall it's very nice tool for people without any rigging experience like me :]

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by Mathaeus » 14 Aug 2012, 13:57

t4d wrote:
Hirazi Blue wrote:
t4d wrote: CAT was purchased for XSI softimage yet ... seems all AD customers got was a free plugin for MAX ?
AFAIK & IIRC CAT was never acquired by Softimage for inclusion of the plugin into XSI. CAT was very much a Max plugin. Again, AFAIK & IIRC, CAT was mainly acquired as a means to employ Phil Taylor, who apparently came to play an important role in the development of ICE (Kinematics?).
so the Current Softimage autorigger is Better then CAT ?
( I have played with Cat in Max and I would personally say I WISH CAT was in softimage.. the IP is own by all the same company ?? )
well that's old story, in 3d Studio Max there is no that much of ready-made stuff for developers (except when it comes to renderers), but also there is no that much of limits. So only feasible way seems to be literally "great" plugin, together with in-compatibility with anything else. Early CAT was some kind of champion in "his own way", it had it's own system of bones, solvers, even animation editors. That is, somewhere around 2005, for exporting to games, it was generally easier (even for one man band) to do any special animation task in Softimage, then export it back to Max standard bones.
Once Softimage bought CAT, people (in Max community) believed it was only to kill it. Today, CAT is a third separate system (standard bones and Biped are first two). A bit better integrated, but I don't think it's developed anymore. Looks like a sedative, enough for Max people only to believe that they have something.
Of course it's better than XSI auto rigger from 2003 or like, but compared to GEAR or Anzovin's products for Maya (or whatever is Maya fashion for this autumn), I don't think so.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by 3DTutorial » 14 Aug 2012, 14:21

I was a very early CAT adopter. In the early days it provided a welcome alternative to Max's biped. That said, it has always had a LOT of problems, a lot. To this day it still has heaps of issues. Autodesk has tried to sort some of these problems out, yet many problems still remain and I seriously doubt they will ever be resolved. My general feeling is that it is way more trouble that it is worth given its problems and the fact that it is a closed system. Far better alternatives exist nowadays IMHO.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by luceric » 14 Aug 2012, 14:30

CAT is a bunch of Maxscripts and not portable to anything else. It's a lot more than an auto rigger, btw. Phil would have eventually done a next gen character component thing in ICE had we not been acquired and ICE-for-character would have continued. But in autodesk the feeling has been that we shouldn't be working on different, incompatible character tech in different apps, and that are not taking into account game runtime. Although we didnt get it at the time, it makes sense, so many devs went on to work on Skyline, which is a standalone character runtime inspired by ICE that DCCs will be able to use later. If we had remained at Avid, it's possible we would have some kind of CAT on ICE by now in XSI, but it's also likely, given what we know now, that our stuidio clients would never have used it.
CAT is still being developed by Phil's brother, btw.
Last edited by luceric on 14 Aug 2012, 17:14, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by bottleofram » 14 Aug 2012, 15:43

luceric wrote:CAT is a bunch of Maxscripts and not portable to anything else. It's a lot more than an auto rigger, btw. Phil would have eventually done a next gen character component thing in ICE had we not been acquired and ICE-for-character would have continued. But in autodesk the feeling has been that we shouldn't be working on different, incompatible character tech in different apps, and that are not taking into account game runtime. Although we didnt get it at the time, it makes sense, so many debs went on to work on Skyline, which is a character runtime inspired by ICE that DCCs will be able to use later. If we had remained at Avid, it's possible we would have some kind of CAT on ICE by now in XSI, but it's also likely, given what we know now, that our stuidio clients would never have it.
CAT is still being developed by Phil's brother, btw.
So Skyline is no more?

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by Bellsey » 14 Aug 2012, 16:04

bottleofram wrote:
luceric wrote:CAT is a bunch of Maxscripts and not portable to anything else. It's a lot more than an auto rigger, btw. Phil would have eventually done a next gen character component thing in ICE had we not been acquired and ICE-for-character would have continued. But in autodesk the feeling has been that we shouldn't be working on different, incompatible character tech in different apps, and that are not taking into account game runtime. Although we didnt get it at the time, it makes sense, so many debs went on to work on Skyline, which is a character runtime inspired by ICE that DCCs will be able to use later. If we had remained at Avid, it's possible we would have some kind of CAT on ICE by now in XSI, but it's also likely, given what we know now, that our stuidio clients would never have it.
CAT is still being developed by Phil's brother, btw.
So Skyline is no more?
Skyline has only been ever presented as an R&D project (though apparently Autodesk don't do any R&D, lol ;) ) which is continually evolving. Whether it will appear in the future as an actual product, is still under development.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by bottleofram » 14 Aug 2012, 16:45

Bellsey wrote:Skyline has only been ever presented as an R&D project (though apparently Autodesk don't do any R&D, lol ;) ) which is continually evolving. Whether it will appear in the future as an actual product, is still under development.
I know how Skyline was presented, but that bit about how "studio clients would never have it" got me intrigued.


In any case, heres a quote of mine from 6 months ago, a response to Skyline presentation at GDC, being proven both right and wrong:
bottleofram wrote:Cant shake the feeling that this is what ICE could have been, and maybe it would have been, if only it was made to execute on Autodesk M-- Autodesk Platform, but i guess we will never know.

I know it sounds ridicules... that's until you remember Byungchul Kang's and hchs's work on AI and crowds, Paul Smith's little zombie sim, dwigfor's exploration of ice kinematics, Kai Wolter's joystick drivers etc. etc.

Little bits and peaces of a bigger picture i always felt like it might be the future of ICE. Obviously i know a lot less about project skyline (and game technology in general) than i'd need in order to make sure it would even make sense for ICE to expand in that direction, but i just cant help it - my AD paranoia grew strong and powerful... :ymdaydream:
Funny how it all pans out.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by luceric » 14 Aug 2012, 17:00

bottleofram wrote: So Skyline is no more?
Bellsey wrote:Skyline has only been ever presented as an R&D project (though apparently Autodesk don't do any R&D, lol ;) ) which is continually evolving. Whether it will appear in the future as an actual product, is still under development.
I know how Skyline was presented, but that bit about how "studio clients would never have it" got me intrigued.
What? No. what I meant is that if we had built a whole new character system on ICE in Softimage, the studios would probably not have used it because it would only work in Softimage and that's not where the industry is going.

Skyline tech makes more sense, because the character system is designed as a stand alone run-time not tied to an application's architecture. Just like HumanIK. It runs in game engine and elsewhere. It's definitely still in development.

I hope that's clearer..

Apparently I wrote "have it" instead of "have used it", but that phrase is not about skyline
Last edited by luceric on 14 Aug 2012, 17:39, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by bottleofram » 14 Aug 2012, 17:35

luceric wrote:I hope that's clearer..

Apparently I wrote "have it" instead of "have used it", but that phrase has nothing to do with skyline?
Yeah, i misunderstood you. All clear now.

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by Tekano » 14 Aug 2012, 18:01

luceric wrote: ..would only work in Softimage and that's not where the industry is going.
like Autode$k has been demonstrating its understanding of the industry so well lately. lol good news for SideFX and Nextlimit I say
FXguide wrote:Of course, only time will tell how Autodesk productizes the great value of this team. For now they are not talking, and in our humble opinion once again doing themselves no favors as the blogosphere rips into another round of Autodesk bashing and name calling
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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by rray » 14 Aug 2012, 18:34

Just something that occured to me while reading this thread..
luceric wrote: [..] Phil would have eventually done a next gen character component thing in ICE had we not been acquired and ICE-for-character would have continued. But in autodesk the feeling has been that we shouldn't be working on different, incompatible character tech in different apps, and that are not taking into account game runtime. [..]
I think this is the perfect example why a monopoly is a bad thing for innovation
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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by Tekano » 14 Aug 2012, 18:41

Exactly!

Max, Maya & Softimage ALL have different incompatible *everything* in each app. Autodesk arbitarily decides where to insert what it pleases with this ridiculous excuse.

oh wait - theres a viewcube, thats consistent.
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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by rray » 14 Aug 2012, 19:11

What's a bit sad about it is that DCC is a segment that desperately needs innovations, condsidering the stone age ergonomics that some workflows have.

Actually, I think Autodesk realizes this.. maybe they should hire some people that know about computer graphic AND marketing rules who could turn this
http://labs.autodesk.com/
into something bigger and more open without the fear of breaking any rules. I think there is a lot more wiggle room.
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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by ActionArt » 14 Aug 2012, 21:46

Tekano wrote:Max, Maya & Softimage ALL have different incompatible *everything* in each app. Autodesk arbitarily decides where to insert what it pleases with this ridiculous excuse.

oh wait - theres a viewcube, thats consistent.
Maybe we're going to get Naiad fully integrated and working beautifully in Max, Maya and Softimage, and they'd be fully compatible and consistent across all three platforms...all ready for the 2014 release.

Now that's dreaming in technicolor... :D


There was a link posted on the list of some Naiad tests. Looks incredible.

https://vimeo.com/channels/naiad/47483305

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Re: Looks like Autodesk bought Naiad

Post by Hirazi Blue » 14 Aug 2012, 22:17

ActionArt wrote: Maybe we're going to get Naiad fully integrated and working beautifully in Max, Maya and Softimage, and they'd be fully compatible and consistent across all three platforms...all ready for the 2014 release.

Now that's dreaming in technicolor... :D
That's not what I'd call dreaming, that's what I'd call mocking the AD devs... :))
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