Well the Orbolt store is what Softimage/Avid/Autodesk should have done.

See this guy Clovis Gay, he have been coming from 3Dsmax using maxscript to Softimage using ICE and now in Vimeo tries to achieve same effects in both. He often gets better results in ICE http://vimeo.com/47210845 .
He probably could do even more if he had a store to monetize what he is doing.

Yes, monetize ICE compounds, that's what I'm talking about! We need our own store like Houdini now have. So you could connect some nodes and sell it.

How would compound store work though? Wouldn't one person be able to share them somewhere else on the net and they'll be free-for-all just like that?

But AD arent exactly strangers to the idea of communities and download centers... Which is your point, i guess. They couldn't be bothered to provide anything at all when it comes to softimage.*


*AREA need not be mentioned

It is your choice if you want to sell or just offer them, probably most people will do both. Either way would be an attraction place and Autodesk/Softimage would have all the database data to exploit. Know what is more downloaded etc. Everyone is going to do apps market and ICE is an apps/fx tool maker.

Houdini is great. A very fully featured and complex program with some really smart solutions for solving problems and moving data around your scene. It's great for complex and simple solutions alike and does some things Softimage can only dream of (I'm looking at you volumetrics!). Having said that for a typical generalist production job with a tight deadline (OK not 2012 movie or something) and for maybe 80% of effects Softimage + ICE kicks ass! Developing most effects and tools in ICE is so much faster and easier than messing with VEX/DOPS/SOPS/CHOPS/whatever. Sure, maybe not if you're 10 years fluent with Houdini...

Also, I don't understand the idea of "switching" software. Each has their own strengths and you should use the right one for the job. Why limit your options by reducing your toolset?

Mostly because many of us here are freelancers, and for us it is almost impossible to have (pay) all of them.

houdini is not a tool for (generalist) freelancer unless you're a heavy duty td

In that case Houdini's still pretty damn expensive. Don't forget the annual upgrade plan and double the price if you don't want a node-locked license.