SI 2013 sightings

[McNistor]

more than likely Maya is the perfered product to work on of the 3, he did mention there was a lot of R&D money being invested in Maya. Also, working in the Maya deptartment probably gets you more employment security.

I agree. What I don't understand though is why did he tell us that Maya's the "nextgen" product of the big three. To piss us off or he was joking/trolling with us or worse, does he really believe that? I can't tell... text doesn't convey tone/intonation very well. I'll have to wait till he gets back here on this forum and of course hope that he'll take a few moments to clarify me.
So hey luceric, you don't have to explain to me/us anything, I'm just asking... no hard feelings should you choose to ignore this request.

edit: I failed to see page 12 and that luceric is around, but my request still remains
And thanks for your above clarifications.

[luceric]

You're one bitter spider I'm moving on because I'm very interested in VFX and working with big film studio clients, like ILM, digital domain, etc. The freelancer market that Softimage has been doing well in was also quite a lot of fun, however, but 3DSMax is more where that's happening in terms of numbers, and I've considered that as well.

Maya is a film studio hub/tool, almost like an internal production app. There is a lot of activity going in it, and lot of more stuff for is going to be built on it in the future - even the game middleware UI is running on it. However, it's more of a truck or tank than a sport car you can really fall in love with. It's like the Visual Studio IDE or EMACS; you use it because you want to get to something that's hosted inside it. It shouldn't have been this way, I know it wasn't Maya creator's intent, but the unix design legacy and success in film kind of led it down that road. Max is where ADSK is putting their interface usability efforts to address the designer and freelancer market.

[McNistor]

Alright, thanks for your fast reply.
Maya - film/vfx, 3dsMax- designer/freelancer, Softimage - ?

[ActionArt]

We've been hiring and training a whole new set of developers for Softimage these last two years to replace the ranks. It brings new blood and new ideas. They will no doubt reconsider things us old ones have stopped considering. New people is a good thing, for example our main ICE guy had been hired only 4 years ago. We've always had success with new talents.

Well, that's good to hear. It didn't work out well for the last system I used (LW) but sounds like things are much more promising here. We can hope...

[EricTRocks]

They have been getting new people in to the dev team for many years now.... hasn't hurt in any releases I've seen since I've been using XSI.

[bottleofram]

Meh - to me this sounds just like another one leaving the sinking ship

Must have tripped and fell into a maya team.


C'mon, a harmless joke to lighten the mood a little bit.


@Luc-Eric: Best of luck, of course. Not sure what your contribution will be to maya project but they will definitely benefit a huge deal from having someone who worked on xsi's interface (among many other things, im sure) and made it as user friendly as is.

Btw, i too im interested to hear about what is softimage being tailored for at this point. I mean, talking about max and maya is easy - we know where they stand. Tell us where you see Softimage in this grand scheme of things.

[Daniel Brassard]

LucEric,

Good luck in the new team and challenges. Thank you for your help and support of Softimage over the years. Don't forget us and maybe help the Maya team to see the light a bit, afterall it's all a big familly!

Cheers!

Dan

[McNistor]

LucEric,

Good luck in the new team and challenges. Thank you for your help and support of Softimage over the years. Don't forget us and maybe help the Maya team to see the light a bit, afterall it's all a big familly!

Cheers!

Dan

Seconded.
And if we're at it, send your replacement here, we have a lot of stuff to talk about

All jokes aside I'm starting to think nobody at AD knows or believes that XSI is the best among "the three". Or they don't care, dev. money goes to the app that brings the most. It's pretty sad...

[Hirazi Blue]

One thing I find hillarious is how the community knows and talk about Jenifer, the Avid marketing girl, when she has had in fact nothing to do with making the product and knows little of 3D. The lesson is that the people you hear about in the community are not necessarily the people who do the most important things and make the product you love.

You're obviously right, we do not necessarily know the people who "do the most important things and make the product you love". Jason "Chinny" Brynford-Jones seems "quite" important, but he - rightfully so? - seems to shy away from the forums and only makes occassional appearances on the Mailing List, as far as I can tell.
I think Jennifer Goldfinch is special to some of the older Softimage crowd, because she had a distinct presence on the forums & as a PR-person had a very specific take on things. Sometimes the perspective from Autodesk PR is sorely missed in some discussions IMHO.
This all leaves one question unanswered, as I see it: who will replace you? And will he have a forum presence like you or not? I am hoping he will have, as it makes for livelier discussions...
;)

Moderator notice: I moved delpiero10's next post to this thread as I thought it was more appropriate...
Sorry for the misunderstanding.. - HB

[EricTRocks]

Both Chinny and jen stay away from the forums and mailing list as the user base has not listened to what they say as truth and sincerity. Reminds me of recent threads where even though graham was being honest and as informative as he could, certain people were unsatisfied with his answers and instead of asking who they should contact for better answers, they blasted him and made our seem he was hiding something.

I wouldn't doubt that the wining that has been so prevalent lately along with being disrespectful comments when people on the dev and marketing side even bother to show up on forums to be helpful, is driving away their interaction. I know I would not want to be involved with a community where there was an onslaught of immature comments and disbelief of the truth I was telling.

If recent threads are any indication of what a dev would expect to see in our community I would not doubt if we see less and less interaction from the Softimage team. I'm hoping this is not the case.

[Hirazi Blue]

That seems a bit harsh. Not untrue, but harsh. I think most Autodeskians who visit the forums already know there will be "mixed" responses, especially around release time. That's sort of the "nature" of forums like this. Sometimes things do turn ugly, but generally "we" are not ripping "them" apart or treat them disrespectfully habitually (only incidentally, "in the heat of the moment").
;)

[EricTRocks]

Yeah I agree it's (almost forgot the apostrophe!) harsh. Though the treatment of some is a bit harsh too. I know it isn't everyone, but it only takes a few people with those attitudes to make someone not want to participate.

I'm not saying people can't be critical of what is happening, but just be respectful and if you don't like the answers ask who else you can talk to, in order to get your answers. General way I would approach it is, if you wouldn't say certain things and treat someone a certain way in person, your posts should be the same. This industry is small and you just might end up interacting with the people on the forums in person.

Getting back on track, Luc-Eric has done some great work and been a good part of the community over the years. All the best and hopefully you're working on things to bring the worlds of all the 3D apps at AD closer together. Please drop by any time.

I think 2013 is a solid release and has made some very excellent improvements. Can't emphasize enough how awesome the GATOR on selected points is!

[gfxman]

If people live "softimage development" beacause the user base is pissed by "a not a very good release" (and no, that's not unrespectfull at all, it's just an opinion) then, be it. People shouldn't be hypocrite just to not piss the developer, that, instead, should learn from critics, to improve their work.
The presentation was bad,just bad. They must know it, and we told them. I told them.
To me, and a lot of other peopole, the features list is disappointing. The mental ray improvement list, is "little" and far away from what max and maya got.
That's my opinion, and i have the right to tell what i think, as far as the admin in this forum allow me to.

You're opinion is, that this is a good release. I'm ok with that.

The answers we got, they were polite (true) and honest (mmm)
But they were empty in content: with no real understanding of the mistakes they made, neither any will to improove the situation (i'm talking about the presentation and video).
I got just "we don't have people to do that" "it's the way we always did it". And that's all.
This are polite answers, but not satisfying one.
They were almost execuses, and not usefull at all.

[McNistor]

Yeah I agree it's (almost forgot the apostrophe!) harsh. Though the treatment of some is a bit harsh too. I know it isn't everyone, but it only takes a few people with those attitudes to make someone not want to participate.

Yeah, I'm one of those people who apparently have the mighty power to make someone not want to participate.
So much power in the hands of an immature, mmm, I'm loving it...

[EricTRocks]

a) I didn't say anyone left the dev team because of user interactions. I said don't be surprised if they don't post and interact in the community because of it.

b) yes you're entitled to your opinion. However, if its your opinion and you wish others to have their own, then why must you post your opinion repeatedly in a forum when others disagree? It seems as though you're looking for justification of your opinion or trying to convince others to think the same way.

c) you may have not liked the answers and you can think that they weren't satisfying as well. However, if you are accusing someone of lying or not being honest with you (especially like a very swell chap that Graham is) when they have nothing to gain from doing so, then you're being disrespectful. I've met Graham and it's ridiculous to think that he would do so. Seriously. Again if you didn't like his answers (that he had to repeat to you excessively) then you should have asked who you could directed your questions to in order to pursue a more satisfying answer.

d) In regards to the quality of the presentation, you have your opinions, I have mine, the AD team has theirs. They say they don't have the people to do the more extravagant presentations. Who are you to say this is not so? You don't work at AD or know more than anyone who does.

I think I've said all I can say on this so I won't continue past this post on the topic.

[gfxman]

b) yes you're entitled to your opinion. However, if its your opinion and you wish others to have their own, then why must you post your opinion repeatedly in a forum when others disagree? It seems as though you're looking for justification of your opinion or trying to convince others to think the same way.

That's YOU, doing that! You continuosly sayng people were wrong about their bad opinion on this release, witch is indeed very good. You're trying all the time to put our negative views on shame, saying their not respectfull, or take away the developers from the community and bla bla.
That's YOU, not me.

c) you may have not liked the answers and you can think that they weren't satisfying as well. However, if you are accusing someone of lying or not being honest with you (especially like a very swell chap that Graham is) when they have nothing to gain from doing so, then you're being disrespectful. I've met Graham and it's ridiculous to think that he would do so. Seriously. Again if you didn't like his answers (that he had to repeat to you excessively) then you should have asked who you could directed your questions to in order to pursue a more satisfying answer.

I'm not accusing anyone, you should think more about what you say. You're accunsing peolple of not being respectfull. Who are you, the owner of the netiquet ed education? You should respect the people's opinion, not continuosly bashing them, as you are doing with me, from the first day i said my negative opinion about this release and the bad presentation they gave.

d) In regards to the quality of the presentation, you have your opinions, I have mine, the AD team has theirs. They say they don't have the people to do the more extravagant presentations. Who are you to say this is not so? You don't work at AD or know more than anyone who does.

I don't know what's the problem with you admitting that this year presentation was very bad, quite everyone think the same. And it doesnt' take a genius to see how bad it was, compared to modo, or even max and maya one. Yry continue to convince youreself about "this opinion". If they don't have the people, they should start now to find someone. Should'be so hard for a giga company. I think they just don't care at all.

I think I've said all I can say on this so I won't continue past this post on the topic.

You should stop accusing people, as you do every time someone critics softimage 2013, this it the third time you made that, and you're also a moderator here?