What if Softimage died?

[jaqu]

.....I believe the third party developers for XSI will evaporate within two years, because the user base is evaporating, including the big japan studios who are in the process of switching to Maya for the next gen consoles. .....

Well that sure is a sad news, even the Japanese power users are abandoning the ships.
From what I know that NexGENen CONSOLE PS4 supports DX11 real-time tessellation and
Maya 2014 just happen to have a viewport2.0 that support DX11 real-time tessellation.

I believe theses feature are brought out from customers one or two years ago ,and which just accidentally,accelerate the death of Softimage.

even Softimage support the DX11 Uber Shader like maya, in feature . I don't think the lost users well be back.

[Bullit]

And another rant by luceric...maybe you can direct that energy building a Softimage interface for Maya....

Japanese game studios don't need 3rd party tools from motozoid, exocortex, vray or arnold. It's The Mill, Polynoid, Blur, Schechut?, Glassworks etc... Softimage has never been so well in commercial work like today, and its flexibility due to ICE will ensure it will be there until something better will appear.

[Eugen]

Thanks for the open words, appreciated.
Sorry that Softimage developers themselves do not have the balls to tell us the truth - that Softimage became the fifth wheel around here.

You can almost see the responsible faces twisting with conflict of how to get rid of that bothersome Softimage, but with converting the userbase to Maya and not driving them out of the door.

Anyway, Maya is still not as cool as you would like it to be, and probably never will be, either.

It's not really important, but the rendering API sdk were worked on at Avid, but eventually finished and shipped in Autodesk. This sdk fantasy is bit a waste of time, imho. the facts are that Maya and Max are already great SDK platform and you can build all the tools you need in there.

If you'd like to develop for AD products, these days you would probably go for Creation Splice.
Would have to learn KL and Python though anyway... bit much on the agenda.

You could have built your NURBS tools in Maya 15 years ago.

Didn't code at that time... nor did I have to, because I used 3ds Max, and 1000 plugin-devs did the job.
But Max became ... Max as you know it these days. Expensive, old-schoolish bloatware.
Tried Maya when it came out, but couldn't make any real sense of that program. Still get this sinking feeling when I think about having to lift a job with it...

You could potentially change the UI of maya to be like XSI if that's what you wanted.

Does not sound like a simple job, correct me if I'm wrong. Are there any Softimage-"themes" to download? I'm just a freelancer, not Weta Digital.

Talking about Maya's UI look-and-feel... it's not just icons and layout (which are horrible), but things like supra-keys, all the middle-mouse-button goodies, tools pivot, etc. etc. etc. spare me the list.
You KNEW yourself how far ahead Sofimage used to be UI-wise back in the days, you wrote parts of the damn thing, and evangelized it not too long ago.
Are you kicking your teammate's asses hard enough to improve that, or doing it yourself already?

I believe the third party developers for XSI will evaporate within two years, because the user base is evaporating, including the big japan studios who are in the process of switching to Maya for the next gen consoles.

Sad news.

There are quite a few places that have one or two seats of XSI, but are they still on subscription, do they want to spend money on upgrades, and buying plugins - you'd have to ask the third parties. I've heard horror stories of third parties making plug-ins for XSI and then being really angry that they ended up having lots of mentions and demo download but no sales. In any case you may or may not agree with any of this, but if a team was sent to work on the XSI SDK, then lets say there are great enhancements in two years, is there anyone in two years that will want to start to develop for these new APIs no really knowing how many users will actually have this version of XSI - I don't think so.

These core problems are known for long. AD did not tackle them since they own it, that's 5 years... very far-sighted.

How come that the most artist friendly and nifty 3D software on the planet became such a hot potato?
Still, miraculously, it's better than ever, and people do brilliant things with it.

[luceric]

Considering that m&e is really a side line for autodesk, if it shut down wholesale not one institutional investor would bleat. I'm sure Bass could spin it as... "We're going back to fundamentals, cad. M&E it's not autodesk's core business. Whereas for the Foundry and SideFX it IS their core business.

Yeah, telling people Autodesk could shut dowm M&E is pretty much just the exact case when the expression "fear mongering" fits perfectly. Because the facts are that The Carlyle Group can shut down The Foundry any moment as well. The Carlyle group's core business is NOT M&E either, surprise.

The common wisdom in the industry is that The Foundry made all the big sales to the studios already, and a few of these studios have shut down. They've also screwed themselves by selling site license, so they don't make money if the studios grows. So their big growth is behind them, and their investors are there for the growth. SideFX is more fragile than Softimage was at Avid, as far as I know, with revenues below 6 mil$ a year. So when a studio like Digital Domain shuts down a studio, taking down a million of revenue, it sends them in a tail spin. There is simply no certainty anywhere, if you want to be paranoid. And I'm not saying you need to believe any of these companies will crumble, just that you can't say future is less certain at Autodesk.

With the vfx world in turmoil and the studios shutting down, The Foundry and SideFX are the most affected, because they are not diversified enough. They are entirely dependent on that big vfx revenue.

[Eugen]

The Foundry and SideFX are the most affected, because they are not diversified enough. They are entirely dependent on that big vfx revenue.

You are implicating AD's willingness to cross-finance the M&E department in hard times.
Softimage, too?

[angus_davidson]

The common wisdom in the industry is that The Foundry made all the big sales to the studios already, and a few of these studios have shut down. They've also screwed themselves by selling site license, so they don't make money if the studios grows. So their big growth is behind them, and their investors are there for the growth. SideFX is more fragile than Softimage was at Avid, as far as I know, with revenues below 6 mil$ a year. So when a studio like Digital Domain shuts down a studio, taking down a million of revenue, it sends them in a tail spin. There is simply no certainty anywhere, if you want to be paranoid.

With the vfx world in turmoil and the studios shutting down, The Foundry and SideFX are the most affected, because they are not diversified enough. They are entirely dependent on that big vfx revenue.

However what you haven't said is that both place are actively going after the smaller studios and independents and they are both in the process of actively changing their edu policies so that they can grow their user bases. I do agree though that with the vfx industry in a big state of flux that nothing is assured.

Autodesk has a big advantage because its into so many industries but it also has a big disadvantage in that it cant show any of its future plans. Right now you have a lot of future planning going on because of the uncertainty and companies that are open with their roadplan , and have continuous decent updates are going to be doing better. I went to the recent Modo roadshow and the pricing is now very good and the product is now a complete end to end solution not just a model and texturing solution. Also where as before the non Autodesk roadshows were not very well attended this one was overflowing.

Things are going to be changing fairly significantly in the next few years because of money being very tight and expectations being very high.

[luceric]

And another rant by luceric...maybe you can direct that energy building a Softimage interface for Maya....

Japanese game studios don't need 3rd party tools from motozoid, exocortex, vray or arnold. It's The Mill, Polynoid, Blur, Schechut?, Glassworks etc... Softimage has never been so well in commercial work like today, and its flexibility due to ICE will ensure it will be there until something better will appear.

I'm thinking that you tally all of these, you'll probably end up with 300 Softimage seats, which is not a very big market. Softimage is quite visible in adversting, thanks to the community. That's a good thing, and it will continue to be used. I'm just not seeing third party developers attracted to a future XSI SDK platform in a couple of years down the road.. just look at the very existence of this thread. As I wrote, if there were new SDK APIs, a third party using them would have to sell to the people who have that future release in production, and then you'd only sell, probably, to only a fraction of them.

[mirkoj]

pushing SI into something specific and specialized while it is right now THE BEST all round tool for freelancers and small studios would be completely retarded.. no pun intended but cmon...
on the other hand from AD everything done for SI is pure retarded really...
anyone HQV? piece of useless crap... what is % of ppl EVER used that after trying it once?
Better time would be spend upgrading Facerobot details.
The point is, making SI specialized in something would be killing what it is best in - being the BEST all around tool out there.
So wouldn't it be smart for every release push different area of it instead of focusing on one?
2015 - viewport, yes we need it and you know it. that is what we are looking at all the time
2016 - work on modeling tools
2017 - work on <enter name of feature>
That would make at least some progress strengthening one part at the time.

Working ion features that are there just to be sent to Maya... SI users don't give a crap about Maya!

You got the point...

Biggest pushes made in SI lately are from 3rd party, Arnold being made for SI huge boost, redshift OMG, not to even go into Exocortex, GEAR, Mootz... even alembic support is added by 3d party...
Give money to those guys and pay licence to add those tools in SI.. that would be biggest upgrade in years...

[Bullit]

No that is not the the Autodesk problem. Autodesk problem are too many generals - with a high rate of change which for me hints of unhappy people, a bad work place and a lot of waste- and too few soldiers.

The impossibility to show eventual future stuff is just a crap excuse. Besides Autodesk shows future plans often. They can show up anything, it is just to need to present it as technology demonstrator or call it a project name different than any product line, even if they it show inside Softimage or anything else, Bifrost wasn't shown inside Maya? . Look at Adobe, they also show a lot of future stuff.

which is not a very big market.

It is not very big, but that depends what people think it is their acceptable profitable level. Lot's of software that don't give a lot of profit continue to exist and being improved with loyal costumers.

In 3D look at Houdini. Look at Zbrush that only make paid releases from time to time.
You seem to think that success can only be measured by being mainstream with half a million of users.

As I wrote, if there were new SDK APIs, a third party using them would have to sell to the people who have that future release in production, and then you'd only sell, probably, to only a fraction of them.

SDK doesn't matter only for external developers. Matters in first place for TD's and what they can do with software and how easy is to integrate in a pipeline. And from that they can eventually sell some tools.

[Lord Futzi Voldemort]

And another rant by luceric...maybe you can direct that energy building a Softimage interface for Maya....

Japanese game studios don't need 3rd party tools from motozoid, exocortex, vray or arnold. It's The Mill, Polynoid, Blur, Schechut?, Glassworks etc... Softimage has never been so well in commercial work like today, and its flexibility due to ICE will ensure it will be there until something better will appear.

I'm thinking that you tally all of these, you'll probably end up with 300 Softimage seats, which is not a very big market. Softimage is quite visible in adversting, thanks to the community. That's a good thing, and it will continue to be used. I'm just not seeing third party developers attracted to a future XSI SDK platform in a couple of years down the road.. just look at the very existence of this thread. As I wrote, if there were new SDK APIs, a third party using them would have to sell to the people who have that future release in production, and then you'd only sell, probably, to only a fraction of them.

No-one said 3rd parties have to develop exclusively for SI. But thinking of Chaosgroup for example, it would be a major setback if they stopped developing Vray for SI because they don't see any future for SI. On the other hand knowing that it will be around for some time would at least prevent that.

[Eugen]

if there were new SDK APIs, a third party using them would have to sell to the people who have that future release in production, and then you'd only sell, probably, to only a fraction of them.

Creation Splice - will work and sell from this version on (or maybe even older ones), and it will work even better if the SDK becomes more open.
Most plugin do not fully rely on SDK features that are yet to come, anyway.


Also, many people refuse from upgrading Softimage because they don't see anything coming their way, but if there's a useful new feature or plugin that opens up new opportunities, they might consider to.

Simple: if there's noticable progress, people will throw in money more happily than if it's only superficial or irrelevant stuff. Don't blame the users for reduced sales when they don't get the features they like!
Softimage is dead only then AD chooses so, because the users won't abandon it for no good reason. Learning investment... being convinced of the workflow...

So it's totally up to you. Stop asking us silly questions, but make improvements that count. If you do not want to continue it, tell us now and let's get over with it.
I find that "maybe say" tone embarrassing.


ChaosGroup - another good example. They took the risk and invested into Softimage, and they worry about it, I heard them say in Siegen.
You could easily give those people a perspective by showing real dedication, otherwise you risk them stopping development.
Again, totally up to you.

[Tekano]

I'm thinking that you tally all of these, you'll probably end up with 300 Softimage seats, which is not a very big market. Softimage is quite visible in adversting, thanks to the community. That's a good thing, and it will continue to be used. I'm just not seeing third party developers attracted to a future XSI SDK platform in a couple of years down the road.. just look at the very existence of this thread. As I wrote, if there were new SDK APIs, a third party using them would have to sell to the people who have that future release in production, and then you'd only sell, probably, to only a fraction of them.

yes, I can agree with these figures (for Soho, london only) but you are still speculating that 'a few years down the road' Maya is going to be significantly better than Softimage currently is - with or without the new developers on board - in areas like ui workflow, speed of prototyping effects, TD dev with particles, strands & ICE and the currently existing set of 3rd party addons and render engines.. with more on the way. not to mention Creation Engine & Splice which what seems to me like a serious kick in the nuts for potential speed improvements in areas where Softimage is currently lacking.

I dont see this happening really. Ive been having to poke around in Maya lately - (to transfer stuff from Soft) and speaking to some fellow Maya colleagues and seeing the state Maya currently is in and the track record of Autodesk so far... this is where im calling bullsh t

proof, as they say my friend, is in the pudding!

[Letterbox]

Clearly and conveniently forgetting it's EXACTLY why Avid sold off Softimage in the first place. It was know by all that Avid's CEO was going to return the company to core values to bolster shareholder and Wall st confidence, it did that by asset stripping. Which is EXACTLY what I said, autodesk could do too.

If autodesk dump M&E, Autodesk corporate decide, not M&E staff. Didn't you get that memo ;)

But if you want really really want fear-mongering you only need read the comment that starts....

I believe the third party developers for XSI will evaporate within two years, because the user base is evaporating ... process of switching to Maya.

A belief ... is NOT a fact.

Or is your sole job to come on here and sell Maya any way you can - fear-mongering included...

It sure is starting to look like that, so is it just that, fear-mongering, put the boot in, time of the month again ;)

[Eugen]

Just to get this detail straight:

You could have built your NURBS tools in Maya 15 years ago.

The exact tools I'm after already exist in Maya and Max since 15 years, as they should have in Softimage. I'm writing them because I like to use SI, not Max nor Maya.

[Nizar]

Clearly and conveniently forgetting it's EXACTLY why Avid sold off Softimage in the first place. It was know by all that Avid's CEO was going to return the company to core values to bolster shareholder and Wall st confidence, it did that by asset stripping. Which is EXACTLY what I said, autodesk could do too.

If autodesk dump M&E, Autodesk corporate decide, not M&E staff. Didn't you get that memo ;)

But if you want really really want fear-mongering you only need read the comment that starts....

I believe the third party developers for XSI will evaporate within two years, because the user base is evaporating ... process of switching to Maya.

A belief ... is NOT a fact.

Or is your sole job to come on here and sell Maya any way you can - fear-mongering included...

It sure is starting to look like that, so is it just that, fear-mongering, put the boot in, time of the month again ;)

Hirazi@ really, we need a "I like" button

[luceric]

yes, I can agree with these figures (for Soho, london only) but you are still speculating that 'a few years down the road' Maya is going to be significantly better than Softimage currently is - with or without the new developers on board - in areas like ui workflow, speed of prototyping effects, TD dev with particles, strands & ICE and the currently existing set of 3rd party addons and render engines.. with more on the way. not to mention Creation Engine & Splice which what seems to me like a serious kick in the nuts for potential speed improvements in areas where Softimage is currently lacking.

Oh, I think you're saying that people will continue to use ICE for fx for many years. Right, that's absolutely true. No reason to stop using it. I'm gotten myself in a bizarre side-track again, in this one wondering about whether there would be many developers and upgraders left in a couple of years to see the result of a SDK/softimage platform push speculated earlier. (keep in mind there is no time machine, so a copy of softimage 2013 isn't going to be get the new APIs.) I was thinking Eugene was talking about "opening up software" generally, not just doing some ice.