Softimage EOL articles

[Jho]

I work in a game company, and we just switched to Softimage (from Lightwave) something like a year ago. We knew coming in that Sofimage was on shaky ground but we figured that SI2013 pretty much had everything we needed for our animation and rigging purposes. So Softimage retiring didn't have much effect on us (at least for now).

I'm mostly disappointed that there aren't going to be any updates on things like Face Robot. It's really great, but it's clearly not finished. Though as we bought Softimage, FaceRobot was already being overlooked. When was it last updated, 2 years ago?
So nothing really changed for us when they killed Softimage. Just the hope that they might update things in some future version, which they didn't seem to be doing anyways.
We are probably not going back to Lightwave any time soon. Modo would be a logical choice as that's what all our modellers are using, but it lacks some very essential features like animation layers. We'll see.

[grendizer]

Let's face it, our user base is too small.
If Autodesk would decide to end 3ds Max, there would be a revolution in its user base, and the noise would have stayed on the front page of the CG printed press and websites for months or even years, with multiple regular articles.
Softimage... few people use it, but most of users love it. We tried to make noise but the vast majority of 3d artists do not care because they never used it so they don't know how good it is, they don't understand the end of Soft is a big loss.
I'm disgusted by this injustice... but that's just the way it is.

[MauricioPC]

Let's face it, our user base is too small.
If Autodesk would decide to end 3ds Max, there would be a revolution in its user base, and the noise would have stayed on the front page of the CG printed press and websites for months or even years, with multiple regular articles.
Softimage... few people use it, but most of users love it. We tried to make noise but the vast majority of 3d artists do not care because they never used it so they don't know how good it is, they don't understand the end of Soft is a big loss.
I'm disgusted by this injustice... but that's just the way it is.

You are correct. But that's a shame ... LightWave userbase is small, but the company is still working trying to bring LW back. I may not like LW that much, but I applaud their persistence.

For me the logical part is 3ds Max (because it was the first software I learn), but what can we users do is protest with our wallets. So I'm still trying C4D, Modo and even LW and trying to figure out what to do. But it's a shame. If they bundled Softimage with the others, I would buy Max or Maya and just use Softimage.

The thing that irritates me the most is that they are preventing the users of continuing using Softimage. I say this for people who haven't bought Softimage, like students or people who work at studios with Softimage but don't own a personal copy.

[McNistor]

OK, you need to stop using "juicy", the word to be used regarding the articles in question is "spicy".

Joking aside, the silence is as someone said probably a reflection of the last years' (if not all XSI's lifetime) popularity of this piece of s/w.
It's sad indeed and a textbook example of the fact that being the best or close to it is not enough and often irrelevant to being the most successful.

[Hirazi Blue]

Joking aside, the silence is as someone said probably a reflection of the last years' (if not all XSI's lifetime) popularity of this piece of s/w.

But let's not forget: we as user base couldn't be bothered to generate the necessary uproar to make others care...
The lack of "EOL articles" is "our doing", so to speak...

[McNistor]

Yeah, probably ours too, but why didn't XSI became more popular along the yrs can't be attributed to the user-base, at least not entirely.
My money is on the ex marketing team's incompetence (in hindsight) for not aggressively pushing it to the large masses and probably only flirting with the big studios. Needless to say I'm might be wrong about this but if not, then that's probably the coffin itself, forget about the nails.
luceric, please don't bring the Foundation argument into discussion again, because that's a failed one and we can discuss why is that.

p.s. love your signature

[Hirazi Blue]

Yeah, probably ours too, but why didn't XSI became more popular along the yrs can't be attributed to the user-base, at least not entirely.

You're absolutely right, when talking about the lack of popularity. I was only commenting on the lack of uproar "after the fact".
Maybe the user base was a bit too forgiving over the years, taking every new insult as a much needed feature...
(By which I do not want to imply, the user base is in any way responsible for the lack in popularity/sales, BTW)
;)

[SamHowell]

Yeah, probably ours too, but why didn't XSI became more popular along the yrs can't be attributed to the user-base, at least not entirely.

You're absolutely right, when talking about the lack of popularity. I was only commenting on the lack of uproar "after the fact".
Maybe the user base was a bit too forgiving over the years, taking every new insult as a much needed feature...
(By which I do not want to imply, the user base is in any way responsible for the lack in popularity/sales, BTW)
;)

Or maybe, deep down inside we all knew what was coming. Nobody wanted to admit to themselves or others. That's why Softimage went out with a whimper rather than a bang.

[McNistor]

ah, "after the fact". You're right.
I'm wondering however what importance it would have had other than making us feel warm inside, because short of the entire CG community going ape and an angry mob storming Adsk headquarters , I don't think they've would've retracted their decision.
But yeah, we're preaching to the choir for a while now, which I'm not saying is something bad, quite the contrary - could help relieve some frustration.

[Hirazi Blue]

Well, I never expected anyone to storm AD HQ and it was quite obvious the retirement decision was final, but we still could have let ourselves be heard a bit better IMHO,, not in protest, but as a fitting eulogy (for lack of a better word).

[McNistor]

True that, hence this thread about me looking for this kind of articles.
The discussion re-surfaced some frustrations so I did go off track a bit focusing on the pragmatical side of XSI's EOL, so guilty as charged in this regard.

[luceric]

yikes! please don't blame Softimage user base of apathy or not doing enough, that is not the case.

there are a couple of articles out there, like a proper eulogy on fxguide.com, about Softimage's demise. But not as much as we ex-employees anticipated. I believe this is because the world has changed and there isn't much interest in PC software in general anymore. In the late 90s, there were millions invested in DCCs, 3d magazines, web sites, a whole industry around CG, that's all fallen off a cliff. Nowadays people has their eyes on mobile and other things.

[McNistor]

You got it wrong about blaming and whatnot, but the subject started to be boring to me personally, so I will no longer comment on that.

On the other hand, does "the mobile" work with magic snowflakes or how can you say there isn't much interest in PC software? Some of this mobile s/w has to also look good not only function properly and that's done via PC. Also, never in history has the cinematographic industry seen so much CGI in almost any movie some of which are totally unreleated to sci-fi/fantastic. I think there's literally zero movie with a decent budget that doesn't make use of CGI.

I think you're confusing the recent crisis with lots of studios going down and that's more to do with the general economic state of things rather than interest towards s/w or CGI.

[luceric]

Are you guys reading my post through some kind of word randomization script or something? When XSI launched there were a dozen of big CG news web sites, magazines, and before that both Softimage and Discreet were publicly traded companies. Softimage, which had been acquired for 130 mil$ by Microsoft, was on the local news here, and we even got a honouring Canadian stamp. Not only has all the news/magazine industry collapsed, and the interest of the general population, the industry investment in PC software has collapsed as well. If you weren't in this industry 10-15 years ago, you don't know how different it was compared to today. A shutdown of Softimage 15 years ago would probably have gotten a discussion in parliament and evening news coverage. And it wasn't because the user base was larger, because it wasn't. It was because it was cool, futuristic stuff. This is not where people are looking now. Today the shutdown is just an event local to those users. So.. few articles out there. But maybe those weren't the kind of "articles" you meant, after all.

[McNistor]

Are you guys reading my post through some kind of word randomization script or something? When XSI launched there were a dozen of big CG news web sites, magazines, and before that both Softimage and Discreet were publicly traded companies. Softimage, which had been acquired for 130 mil$ by Microsoft, was on the local news here, and we even got a honouring Canadian stamp. Not only has all the news/magazine industry collapsed, and the interest of the general population, the industry investment in PC software has collapsed as well. If you weren't in this industry 10-15 years ago, you don't know how different it was compared to today. A shutdown of Softimage 15 years ago would probably have gotten a discussion in parliament and evening news coverage. And it wasn't because the user base was larger, because it wasn't. It was because it was cool, futuristic stuff. This is not where people are looking now. Today the shutdown is just an event local to those users. So.. few articles out there. But maybe those weren't the kind of "articles" you meant, after all.

OK, not sure why you're referring to me as "guys" (don't worry I won't feel singled out ), but I understand what you're trying to say now.

You're right about the waves Softimage would have made if this happened 15 yrs ago and the only reason such an event would be news coverage would be because it was big money around these pieces of s/w and were indeed innovations at that time. But you're building a straw man here with "this is not where people are looking now" as if then, this is where people were looking at and even if what you're saying is true - people were looking in this direction - it's exactly that: people looking. Today, lots of people are involved into s/w not only looking in awe from a safe distance.

I can see that Autodesk's lancet fluke has hit you hard with their mobile obsession. They think they'll soon have the masses creating CGI / prototyping engines and bridges on their phones/tablets and since everyone has one or at least thinking about getting one they're getting dollar sign eyes. I hope they invest a lot into this.

[FXDude]

Let's face it, our user base is too small.
If Autodesk would decide to end 3ds Max, there would be a revolution in its user base, and the noise would have stayed on the front page of the CG printed press and websites for months or even years, with multiple regular articles.
Softimage... few people use it, but most of users love it.

Maybe but I think we all too easily overlook how size can be all relative.

3DLight chose to work with SI, Arnold chose to work with SI, and Redshift chose to work with SI, (as well as a bunch world class shops, and/or small shops doing (exceptionally) world class work) all for some reason, at least partly related to it's ability to handle crowds of godzillas at a time (with a bunch of people doing different things at the same time) while remaining always manageable and responsive (while minding some optimisations), or it's general ability to handle complexity in a friendly way .. or whatever advantage we already know about.. , but not *ever* because of it's very wide user base.
(while Maya exactly mostly because it's userbase)

It's as if we've been (or are) using some specialized internal custom software, common to a bunch of shops that know how it can (out-)perform, or so easily make otherwise difficult things possible in such an efficient workable way, like a production crunching workhorse.

So despite being 'small', SI definitely remains lets say 'important', being (remaining) a reference on so many levels, enough to make former employees go into denial knowing of & trying to minimize it's true (relative) inner size ;), like having had a part in the making of a galaxy in a marble.